Even if you know what Easter is all about, including the origin of the Easter bunny, you might not know when it is. After all, while Christmas reliably falls on Dec. 25 every year, Easter hops around, so to speak. Yes, it’s always on a Sunday, but sometimes that Sunday is in March and it’s freezing. Sometimes it’s in late April, and everyone can get decked out in their holiday best without bundling up under a bulky winter coat.
In 2024, Easter falls on March 31. But depending on the year, it can occur on any Sunday between March 22 and April 25. Along with knowing the restaurants and stores that will be open on
Easter this year, look ahead with the dates for Easter over the next seven years:
- April 20, 2025
- April 5, 2026
- March 28, 2027
- April 16, 2028
- April 1, 2029
- April 21, 2030
- April 13, 2031
What is the rarest date for Easter?
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, which looked at Easter dates between 1600 and 2099, the rarest date for Easter is March 24. Within those nearly 500 years, the holiday occurs only twice on that date. And here’s another interesting fact about this year’s March holiday: The last time Easter landed on March 24 was in 1940—and that won’t happen again until 2391.
What are the most common Easter dates?
The most common dates for Easter are March 31 and April 16. Easter has landed, or will land, on each of those dates 22 times during that 500-year period.
Why is Easter always on a Sunday?
One thing about Easter never changes: the fact that it’s on a Sunday. That’s because the holiday is structured around Jesus’s death and resurrection. According to Christian dogma, Jesus died on what we now call Good Friday and rose from the dead a couple of days later, on Sunday, before ascending into heaven.
But which Sunday? That’s where things get tricky, and it’s why we’re always left wondering, What day is Easter this year? All these events happened around 2,000 years ago, and we don’t have an exact date. We do, however, have a general time frame, and that is the Jewish feast of Passover.
Why does Easter change every year?
The date of Passover changes every year, due to the lunar cycle on which the Jewish calendar is based, and Easter is linked to that holiday to some degree. But it’s more complicated than that. The Christian calendar is actually tied to the solar calendar, and the timing of the major holidays has to do with the seasons and with light, explains Natalia Imperatori-Lee, PhD, professor of religious studies at Manhattan College. This, she says, is why Christmas occurs “right around the winter solstice, after the longest night, when ‘the Light of the World’ arrives, get it?”
Yep, you read that right: It’s not because Jesus’s birthday was actually on Dec. 25.
Now, back to our spring holiday. Easter’s exact date may seem arbitrary, but it’s always on the Sunday after the first full moon (also known as the Paschal Full Moon) that occurs after the spring equinox. This means that Easter can fall anywhere between March 22 and April 25.
“Why the full moon? Maximum light! The resurrection is about maximum light, symbolically, of course,” explains Imperatori-Lee. “So that Sunday, shortly after the equinox [which has 12 hours of light and 12 of darkness], plus the fullness of the moon [lots of light], means maximum light, the perfect day for the holiest feast in the Christian year.”
The decision as to when to celebrate Easter, and whether it should coincide with Passover, was a topic hashed out between bishops at the Council of Nicea in 325 AD. A more standardized calendar, the Gregorian one, was established in the 16th century under Pope Gregory XIII, and that’s the internationally accepted civic calendar that most of the world follows today. Orthodox Christians, however, still follow the Julian calendar, the previous one created by Julius Caesar in 46 BC, meaning that for them, Easter falls between April 4 and May 8.
What happens when the full moon and the spring equinox occur on the same day?
By general rule, if the full moon happens on the same day as the spring equinox, Easter is observed on the first Sunday after. But take note: It’s the ecclesiastical dates of the full moon and the spring equinox that are used to calculate Easter (not the astronomical dates). Ecclesiastical dates are used by the Christian church and may differ from the astronomical dates.
For example, in 2019, when the full moon and the astronomical spring equinox occurred on the same day—Wednesday, March 20—Easter was held on Sunday, April 21 instead of Sunday, March 24. Why? Because the Church always observes the spring equinox on March 21, so in their case, the full moon did not occur on or after the equinox. The next full moon, on April 19, was then used to determined Easter’s date.
What is the Golden Number, and how do you calculate it?
The Golden Number is used to determine Easter’s date. Since the dates of the full moon repeat every 19 years (this is known as the Metonic cycle), you can use the full moon dates and the Golden Number to answer: What day is Easter? Here’s how:
1. Add 1 to any given year and divide it by 19. (Instead of 2024, we would say 2025.)
2. Divide the year by 19. (Calculate the answer to the nearest whole number.)
3. The remainder is the Golden Number. (If there is no remainder, the Golden Number will automatically be 19).
The Golden Number for 2024 is 11, meaning that 2024 is the 11th year of the Metonic cycle, where the full moon occurs on March 25. The Sunday after, March 31, is Easter!
Does the timing of Easter have anything to do with the pagan springtime holidays?
No. But like many other Christian celebrations, this one has likely co-opted some pagan springtime traditions over the years. Eggs may have represented fertility and birth, and they “may have become part of the Easter celebration in a nod to the religious significance of Easter—i.e., Jesus’s resurrection or rebirth,” History.com notes.
While bunnies may also have been associated with procreation, historians believe this tradition likely came from German immigrants who settled in Pennsylvania in the 1700s and “transported their tradition of an egg-laying hare called ‘Osterhase’ or ‘Oschter Haws.’ Their children made nests in which this creature could lay its colored eggs,” according to History.com. Eventually, the egg-laying bunny morphed into one that simply brought treats to children on Easter.
By -Dawn Yanek
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