Easter Date Calculator

Western (Catholic and most Protestant) churches use the Gregorian calendar and the Meeus/Jones/Butcher computus to find Easter Sunday — the first Sunday after the ecclesiastical full moon on or after March 21. March 21 is a fixed calendar date in the rule, not necessarily the astronomical equinox.

Eastern Orthodox churches compute Easter from the Julian calendar and then convert to Gregorian civil dates. That is why Orthodox Easter often falls on a different Sunday — sometimes the same as Western Easter, sometimes one week or more apart in a given year.

Enter the default year 2026 and Western Easter falls on 2026-04-05. Orthodox Easter that year is 2026-04-12 — one week later on the Gregorian calendar. The summary line shows how many weeks apart the two dates are.

The same run lists related Western feasts from the same computus: Ash Wednesday 2026-02-18 (46 days before Easter), Palm Sunday 2026-03-29, Good Friday 2026-04-03, and Pentecost 2026-05-24 (49 days after Easter). Local parishes may publish slightly different liturgical calendars for movable feasts tied to Easter.

This is pure calendar math — rare local diocesan adjustments, provincial variations, or historical calendar reforms before 1583 are not applied. Valid years run from 1583 through 4099 under the Gregorian computus used here.

Planning school breaks, choir schedules, or travel around Holy Week starts with the Western column if your parish follows Gregorian Easter. Compare the Orthodox column when coordinating with Eastern Christian communities or ecumenical events.

For a live countdown to the next Western Easter from today, use the days-until-Easter calculator. For Advent planning before Christmas, see the Advent start calculator — a separate movable season on the Western liturgical calendar. Ash Wednesday opens Lent; Good Friday and Easter Sunday anchor Holy Week; Pentecost closes the Easter season seven weeks later — choirs and schools often need all five dates when booking around spring break.