Key points
- This year, Orthodox Easter will be observed on the same day as the Western one: Sunday, 20 April.
- The shared date is relatively rare as the churches use different calendars.
- Orthodox Easter is observed across diverse communities in Australia, whose celebrations combine religious elements with family activities.
*This feature was originally produced in 2021 with contributions from Radica Bojkovska (SBS Macedonian), Sylva Mezher (SBS Arabic), Kassahun Negewo (SBS Amharic), Beyene Weldegiorgis (SBS Tigrinya), Svetlana Printcev and Sofija Petrovic.
Easter, the holiday when members of the Christian faith recognise the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, is usually observed on different dates by the two major Christian denominations.
In Australia, Easter is celebrated over a four-day long weekend, as Good Friday, Easter Sunday and Easter Monday are all national public holidays, according to the Western Easter dates.
This year, however, those who follow Christian Orthodox faiths will celebrate Easter on the same date.
Who celebrates Orthodox Easter in Australia?
When the clock hits midnight on Saturday, Greek Orthodox Australians in churches and homes will exclaim in pairs Christos anesti [Christ has risen] and Alithos anesti [he has indeed risen].
In Australia, members of the Macedonian community will use the same greeting — Христос Воскресе, Навистина Воскресе — and if you happen to have neighbours of Romanian heritage ascribing to the faith you will hear them saying Hristos a înviat - Adevărat a înviat.
These are just a few examples of common traditions across Australia’s ethnic groups celebrating Orthodox Easter, which include members of the Russian, Eritrean, Armenian, Serbian, Bulgarian, Ukrainian and Ethiopian communities.
The Epitaphio (the symbolic funeral bier of Christ) during a Good Friday at Greek Orthodox Church of St. Athanasios at Rookwood Cemetery, Sydney, April, 2015 Source: AAP
Similarities greater than differences among Orthodox Christian denominations
There are some differences, though, in religious observance.
For Coptic and Ethiopian Orthodox Christians, for instance, fasting lasts 55 days ahead of Easter instead of the 40-day Lent period in other denominations.
However, Eritrean and Ethiopian Orthodox Christians in Australia will celebrate in very similar ways, with both churches belonging to the so-called ‘Oriental’ group of Orthodox churches, differentiated from the ‘Eastern Orthodox’ in theological matters and traditions.
Group of priests celebrating Orthodox Easter in Lalibela, Wollo, Ethiopia 2013/05/03. Source: Getty
Upon returning to their homes after Saturday night’s mass, they will break the fast by eating a round stiff porridge dish (ga'at) usually with a hole in the middle for dipping sauce, made of butter and hot pepper.
Not all Orthodox Churches are 'Eastern Orthodox'. The 'Oriental Orthodox Churches' have theological differences and include the Ethiopian and Coptic Source: Debre Selam Medanialem Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church Melbourne/Facebook
Ethiopian Orthodox Christians still upholding the tradition, attend the full Saturday night mass lasting until 3am.
An early morning breakfast will replenish their energy levels upon returning home to sleep and wake up to continue with Easter Sunday celebrations.
Copts will follow a largely similar festive schedule.
Inside St Mark's Coptic Orthodox Church in Sydney. Source: SBS
After mass, family and close friends come together to have a feast in the early hours of Easter Sunday.
Maamoul, the buttery date filled Middle Eastern cookies, are a must-eat dessert on many Coptic family Easter feast tables. Source: Getty Images
This is not the case for Greek Orthodox Christians who tend to place an equal emphasis — if not greater — on the luscious Easter Sunday lunch, famously including lamb on the spit.
At Saturday's night mass the holy light is shared with the Orthodox faithful at midnight. Source: SBS Greek/Argyro Vourdoumpa
Have you ever wondered what the dyeing of red eggs is all about?
For the faithful of the Russian, Macedonian and Greek communities of Australia, the boiled red colour egg is one of the most striking visual cues for Easter. It symbolises the blood of Christ.
The first egg is customarily dyed on Holy Thursday before sunrise, then placed near an icon at home and kept all year for good health.
What follows is the egg tapping on Easter Sunday, in religious terms symbolic of new life and representative of the tomb cracking open when Christ was resurrected.
An Orthodox nun arranges fresh painted red eggs in a basket at Pasarea monastery, 20km from Bucharest, Romania. Source: DANIEL MIHAILESCU/AFP via Getty Images
Members of Australia’s Russian Orthodox community enthusiastically uphold the traditions of Holy Thursday, aka ‘Clean Thursday’.
Irina Derevich, a culinary specialist from Sydney, has been baking Easter cakes for more than 30 years, using traditional recipes.
Culinary specialist Irina Derevich. Source: Irina Derevich (@irinadee_sydney)
“People clean their homes, paint eggs, cook the special Paskha meal (cottage cheese), bake kulich (Easter bread).”
The Easter cake and painted eggs will be brought to churches on Saturday for a special blessing by the priest.
Why two Easters? The mathematical challenge for ‘Eastern’ and ‘Western’ Christianity
Following the Catholic Church and Protestantism, .
While Eastern Orthodox and Western (as Roman Catholicism was known) Christianity initially shared the same faith, the two traditions began to separate, with the defining split widely accepted to be .
But the two Easter dates are not attributed to their differences in .
Reverend Father Athanasios Giatsios from St Catherine’s Greek Orthodox Church, in Mascot, is a graduate of Sydney’s St Andrew's Greek Orthodox Theological College.
He said the difference between the two Easter dates is “a question that we, as Orthodox priests, are asked pretty much every year”.
Father Giatsios explains that a common agreement for determining the Easter date was reached between the Orthodox and the Catholic Church at the in 325 AD, the first meeting bringing together representatives from all over Christendom, to address divisive issues.
“The formula for the calculation is quite simple. We celebrate Easter on the first Sunday after the first moon occurring on or after the vernal equinox.”
Julian versus Gregorian calendars
The Orthodox Church uses the Julian calendar for the Easter date calculation, which is a few days behind the Gregorian calendar used by Catholic and Protestant churches.
Still, there are years that the northern hemisphere’s spring equinox brings the two ‘in sync’ for Easter.
Greek astronomer Ipparchus had observed that Equinoxes (when the sun is 'on' the equator as it 'travels' around the Earth) happen a tad earlier each year. Source: Hermann Göll, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
According to some calculations, after the year 2700, this shared celebration will never coincide again.
This is not the place for an . Suffice to say that while the Gregorian calendar was established in the 16th century to better align months with the Earth’s journey around the sun, .
Its deviation is by no means huge. It would take until the year 4909 to manifest in an extra day.
So, in that future scenario, the Easter date would still divert from the current calculation route even if the Gregorian calendar was used by all Christian churches.
Serbian Orthodox Church of Saint Elijah the Prophet in Coober Pedy, Australia. The underground church was constructed in 1993 and carved into sandstone. Source: Getty Images
“In the Orthodox Church, we have had attempts to resolve this on our side as well,” Father Giatsios said, referring to Synods convened over the years with the intention to “find a decision that will benefit all Christian churches around the world".
The ‘luxury of having two Easters’
“On a practical level, it's very inconvenient for us, Orthodox Christians, to be celebrating Easter at such a great distance between, as people say, the ‘Australian Easter’," Father Giatsios said.
“But I think on a religious or spiritual level this will not deter our faithful from coming to church and celebrating.”
For families combining both traditions, he said, celebrating “can be a positive as well, where they can participate in both cultures and other events".
Source: Getty Images/Sneksy
His mother converted to the Greek Orthodox faith after meeting her Greek Cypriot husband in Australia, combining her Slovenian and Austrian heritage with Serbian family influences.
Christou describes the “mixer” effect on the Easter family table as “delicious”, giving the example of “a strudel sitting next to baklava”.
Christou doesn’t recall feeling like he missed out as a child due to the lack of public holidays during Orthodox Easter.
“If anything, we had the luxury of kind of having two Easters within a short period of time,” he said.
"As the family grew, with in-laws and partners of the Christou siblings, Catholic and Orthodox Easter have blended in annual celebrations.
I think that's the benefit of living in a multicultural family, allowing the space for each to celebrate in their own way … Ultimately, it's a shared love of spending time together at such an important time of the year.
