Pascha 2016, Kennewick WA

by Otony, Wednesday, May 04, 2016, 22:29 (3063 days ago) @ Creeker

May 1st, last Sunday was Pascha (Easter) because we use the Julian calendar rather than the Gregorian.

There are 13 days difference between the two calendars, plus Passover is figured by the lunar phase, so it all gets pretty complicated. Try this site for a more educated explanation: http://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/julian-gregorian-switch.html

Not all Orthodox churches are Old Calendar, some are New Calendar. And oddly enough, a segment of Russian Orthodoxy, the OCA, is New Calendar EXCEPT for figuring Pascha when they temporarily switch to Old Calendar. Before you ask, it beats the heck out of me!

So we are just rolling with an uninterrupted schedule of services that are well over a thousand years old. The "skipped days" when most of the world transitioned to the Gregorian calendar would have thrown that schedule off. BTW, it took about 300 years for the transition to become relatively universal.

Clear as mud, right?

Otony