The Antiochian Archdiocese uses the New Calendar (also called the Revised Julian Calendar) for most feasts, but calculates Pascha according to the Old Calendar. This means we celebrate Christmas on December 25th on the civil calendar, but our Easter doesn’t line up with the Western churches.
Let me explain what this looks like in practice. When December rolls around and your Baptist coworkers are putting up their trees, you’re doing the same thing at the same time. Christmas is Christmas, December 25th. Same with Theophany on January 6th, the Annunciation on March 25th, and the Dormition of the Theotokos on August 15th. These fixed feasts happen when your regular calendar says they happen.
But Pascha is different.
We calculate Easter using the older Julian method, which means it usually falls one to five weeks after Western Easter. Sometimes they coincide, but most years they don’t. This past year, if you attended an Easter service at First Baptist and then came to St. Michael’s the next week, you’d have found us still in Lent. That’s not unusual.
Why the split system? In 1923, an Inter-Orthodox Congress met in Constantinople and recommended adopting the Revised Julian Calendar for fixed feasts. The idea was practical, reduce the growing gap between church life and civil life. By that point the Old Calendar was thirteen days behind. The Patriarchate of Antioch adopted this approach, and when our Archdiocese was established in North America, we followed suit.
But Pascha stayed on the old calculation. This wasn’t arbitrary. The date of Pascha determines the entire movable cycle of the church year, Great Lent starts seven weeks before, Ascension comes forty days after, Pentecost fifty days after. The Apostles’ Fast begins the Monday after Pentecost. All of this shifts each year based on when Pascha falls. Keeping Pascha on the traditional calculation preserved unity with the rest of the Orthodox world, since even churches on different calendars for fixed feasts still celebrate Pascha together.
Does this matter for you as an inquirer? A bit. If you’re used to planning your year around a Western Easter, you’ll need to adjust. Your family might have their Easter dinner in March while you’re still fasting. Or you might be celebrating Pascha in May while they’ve moved on. This can feel awkward at first, especially here in Southeast Texas where your extended family probably expects you at the Easter potluck at Aunt Linda’s church.
But there’s something good in this awkwardness. It makes clear that you’ve entered something ancient and different. You’re not just switching denominations, you’re joining a church that measures time differently, that’s kept its own rhythm for two thousand years. When your neighbors ask why you’re celebrating Easter “late,” you get to explain that we’re not late. We’re exactly on time according to the calendar the Church has always used for this feast.
The fasts follow the same pattern. The Nativity Fast runs from November 15th to December 24th according to the New Calendar. The Dormition Fast is August 1st through 14th. But Great Lent moves with Pascha, so it starts on a different date each year depending on that older calculation.
At St. Michael’s, you’ll see this reflected in our parish calendar. We’re closed for Christmas on December 25th like everyone else. But we’re also closed for Pascha on a date that might seem random to your coworkers. It’s not random to us.
