Section IV.8 - A Common Date for Easter

Resolution IV.8

A Common Date for Easter

This Conference:

1. welcomes the work of the WCC on a common date for Easter, recognising that in the year 2001, according to calculations by both the Eastern and Western Churches, the date of the Easter/Pascha observance will coincide; and
2. recommends:
   1. that the following procedures for achieving a commonly recognised date for the annual celebration of Easter, as the day of resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, should be agreed upon by all Christian Churches:
      1. maintain the Nicene norms (that Easter fall on the Sunday following the first vernal new moon);
      2. calculate the date of the vernal equinox from the data provided by the most accurate scientific and astronomical methods;
      3. use as the basis of reckoning the meridian of Jerusalem, the place of Christ's death and resurrection.
   2. that each province of the Anglican Communion be invited to endorse the above resolutions and to report its endorsement to the Secretary of the Anglican Consultative Council by the Feast of the Nativity, AD 2000 and that these responses be reported to the WCC.