Easter Sunday 2023, 2024 and onwardsNext Holiday : Easter Monday » Show
Christians in UK celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ on Easter Sunday, also known as Pasch or Resurrection Day. The date of Easter Sunday is not fixed, it varies between March 22 and April 25. The first Sunday after the first full moon occurring on or after the March equinox marks the date for Easter Sunday in Canada.
As well as being one of the most significant observances in the Christian calendar, Easter brings an eagerly-awaited long weekend for many in the UK. Its date, and those of the accompanying bank holidays, are therefore always worth keeping in the diary. However, it’s possible to get caught out because its position in the calendar changes each year – here’s when Easter falls in 2023, and how its date is calculated. Easter Sunday falls on 9 April in 2023, just over a week earlier than this year, when it’s on 17 April. Unlike in 2022, when Easter is arriving towards the end of the school holidays, next year’s celebrations should come about midway through the break. It means that Good Friday will be on Friday 7 April, marking a bank holiday across the UK. Easter Monday will then be on Monday 10 April, which will complete a four-day weekend for people in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. It’s not actually a nationwide bank holiday in Scotland, although various councils do claim it as one, such as Edinburgh, Falkirk and Dundee.  Why does the date of Easter change every year?The date of Easter changes each year because it is based on the lunar cycle. Easter Sunday always falls on the Sunday after the first full moon following the Spring equinox in March. We now use the solar, Gregorian calendar rather than a lunar one, which means the full moon occurs on different dates each year, and therefore so does Easter. Dr Greg Brown, astronomer at the Royal Observatory Greenwich, said Easter is based on a combination of the seven-day week and the cycle of the phases of the Moon. “The March equinox is the date when the sun crosses from the southern hemisphere of the sky to the northern hemisphere marking the beginning of spring. “The day and night of the equinox are of approximately equal length. As neither the calendar year (365 days) nor the cycle of the phases of the Moon (29.5 days) divide evenly by the seven-day week, the date of Easter Sunday can move irregularly by up to a month, from between late March and late April.” More from NewsHow was the Easter date decided?The decision on how and when Easter should fall each year was made by the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD, the first major church council. As the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus happened after Passover, some early Christians decided to celebrate it then – on the 14th of the month of Nisan (from the Assyrian and Hebrew calendars). This correlates with March or April in the Gregorian calendar (named after Pope Gregory XIII), which is what we use today. Other early Christians preferred to celebrate on a Sunday because it is thought Jesus’s tomb was found on this day, according to Brent Landau, a lecturer in religious studies at the University of Texas. The Council of Nicaea was asked to resolve this. It decided Easter should be after the first full moon following the March equinox. Why do different churches celebrate Easter on different dates?It’s down to using different calendars. Eastern Churches (Greek and Slavic) and Oriental Churches (Syrian, Armenian, Coptic Egyptian and Ethiopian) continued using the Julian Calendar, named after Julius Caesar, even after Europe adopted the Gregorian Calendar in 1582. “This is why even now Easter is calculated differently by the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox Churches to the Catholic and other western Churches,” said theology and religion Professor Emma Loosely, from the University of Exeter. “Easter is only ever celebrated by all Christians on the relatively rare occasions when the two calendars align,” she added. Easter last took place on the same day last year for both Christian Churches in 2017, but this will not happen again until 2034. What are Easter dates 2023 in UK?Interested in learning about the various UK public holidays in 2023?
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UK Public Holidays 2023: England & Wales.. What date will Easter Sunday be in 2023?Easter Sunday is on 9th April 2023!
This full moon is also known as the 'pink moon', better known in the Jewish calendar as the start of Pesach or Passover.
Is there a jubilee bank holiday in 2023?Platinum Jubilee bank holiday – June 2, 2023.
Is there a bank holiday in April 2023?Find out when the UK has bank holidays in 2022.
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