www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Single Date for Pascha... What Would Protestants Do?

I was doing some skimming of the the link that Anna posted in the <Melkite Interventions During Vatican I> thread when I came across the recommendation for establishing a common date for Pascha for the Orthodox and Catholic Churches.

My, I guess rhetorical question at this point is, should this agreement happen and that date not be based on the current Gregorian calculation, how would the Protestant denominations react? I would think that for most Protestants in this country to follow suit would both directly and de facto give deference to the "Catholic Church." Although they do follow the "Catholic" calculation anyway. Just don't know how well that would sit with some of the more evangelical and "non-denominational" groups. Do the Mormons "celebrate" Easter? Would they change their observance date. Oh, but even worse, the poor merchants selling their chocolate Easter bunnies and other Easter wares, what would they do? When would the networks rerun "The Ten Commandments" or "The Greatest Story Ever Told."

Sorry for the musings, just thinking out loud.

my guess is that they would follow suit.it is a good question, though I suspect that a few would stay with the present state of things. happy news: everyone is celebrating Pascha the same date this year: 8 April.
Much Love,
Jonn

Quite honestly--do you think this would ever happen? I doubt it. The Orthodox will never change their reckoning for Pascha and we will never change ours for Easter, so it'll be status quo.

Also quite honestly, I think that if we did change our Easter reckoning to be the Orthodox reckoning, there would be a huge uproar from ecumenists, "How could we do this to our separated (read:protestant) brethren?!?!"

I don't know... I think a common date is doable. Maybe not in 5 or 10 years, but down the road, eventually.

On the surface, my preference would be to follow the dates for "Orthodox" Easter and "Western" Christmas. Actually, my modest proposal would be to have Christmas observed on the 4th Sunday of December, making Dec. 22 the earliest date it could fall on and December 28 the latest. In turn this would affect the Feast of the Annunication.

I honestly think that moving to the "revised" Julian calendar for the Catholic Church is good and the best way to show the Orthdox that we're serious about reconciliation. That and removing the filioque from the Creed.

Honestly, tampering with the date of Christmas is not a good idea. It's now become a secular holiday as well as a religious one, celebrated all over the world. I don't think that it would ever fly.

Yeah, but "Orthodox 'Thanksgiving'" is much colder!

I agree with Jonn. I think most would follow the established Latin date regardless, whatever that would become.

That could be a new braclet. What would protestants do? WWPD