Twelve Christian World Communions have issued a message to mark the shared date of Easter in 2025 by all Christians, in conjunction with the 1700th anniversary of the First Ecumenical Council at Nicaea.

The message seeks to bear witness to the Resurrection of Christ and has been signed by General Secretaries and ecumenical representatives of twelve Christian World Communions. It calls for Christians to work for the unity of the Church, praying for “the Holy Spirit to move our Communions to live and walk together, in obedience to the call of Jesus that all his disciples may be one.” It also offers words of hope “at this time of great political instability in the world, when so many live with fear, suffering, persecution, famine, and other forms of instability and vulnerability.” All Christians are called together to proclaim the good news of “repentance and forgiveness of sins … to all nations” (Luke 24:47-48).
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A “Faith and Order Update,” presenting some of the main areas of the work of the World Council of Churches (WCC) Commission on Faith and Order, has been published as the WCC looks towards the  Sixth World Conference on Faith and Order later in 2025, and in the year that marks the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea.

“As the unity of the church is the main goal of our work within Faith and Order, this update offers information about the current work of our study groups on ecclesiology, moral discernment, and theological anthropology and on understanding the churches in and for the world,” writes moderator of the WCC Commission on Faith and Order Rev. Prof. Dr Stephanie Dietrich in her greeting. “I wish you many interesting insights while reading.”
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On 20 May 2025, the Christian world will commemorate the 1700th anniversary of the opening of the Council of Nicaea, which took place in Asia Minor in the year 325. This was the first ecumenical council in history, and it produced the creed that, completed by the First Council of Constantinople in 381, has become the distinctive expression of the Church’s faith in Jesus Christ. This anniversary occurs within the Jubilee Year, which is centered on the theme “Christ our Hope,” and it coincides with the common celebration of Easter by Christians of both East and West. As Pope Francis has emphasized, in this historic moment—marked by the tragedy of war along with countless anxieties and uncertainties—what is essential, most beautiful, most attractive, and also most necessary for Christians is precisely the faith in Jesus Christ proclaimed at Nicaea. Indeed, the proclamation of this faith is “the fundamental task of the Church” (Address to Participants in the Plenary Assembly of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, 26 January 2024).
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The feast of the resurrection lies at the heart of the Christian faith. But finding a common date for that celebration has always been complex. Eastern and Western churches have used different calendars to calculate the date of Easter since the 16th century, and only rarely do they coincide. Fresh impetus to explore the hope of a common date for Easter comes in 2025, when all Christians will celebrate Easter on a common day. 2025 also marks the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea, which addressed the need for a common celebration of the resurrection.

This publication contains four contributions from different church traditions on the search for a way to celebrate Easter on a common date every year that were presented at a webinar organized by the Commission on Faith and Order on “Easter 2025: Celebrating Together to Strengthen Unity.”
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His All-Holiness the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew has noted that the Easter celebrations in 2025 “will not merely be a fortuitous occurrence, but rather the beginning of a unified date for its observance by both Eastern and Western Christianity.”

The Ecumenical Patriarch said that this aspiration is particularly significant in light of the upcoming 1700th anniversary in 2025, marking the convening of the First Ecumenical Synod in Nicaea.
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Have you ever greeted a neighbour with a “Happy Easter,” only to learn that they are still in the season of Lent and won’t be celebrating the Feast for another couple of weeks? In areas where Christians of different denominations live closely together, especially Eastern and Western churches, the search for a common date to celebrate Christ’s resurrection has become an urgent concern. As St. Paul makes clear (1 Corinthians 15:12-14), belief in the resurrection is a fundamental aspect of the apostolic faith. By celebrating this event on different days, Christians compromise their credibility and effectiveness in bringing the Gospel to an increasingly secular world.
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Pope Francis said Wednesday that the full restoration of communion among all Christians is “an urgent priority in today’s world.”

In a letter to the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople, the pope expressed gratitude that Catholic and Orthodox Christians are seeking “to achieve full communion that will enable us one day, in God’s time, to gather together at the same eucharistic table.”
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Meeting the U.S.-born patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East, Pope Francis expressed his hope that Christians of the East and West could finally agree on a common date for celebrating Easter.

“Let us have the courage to put an end to this division that at times makes us laugh” with the ridiculous possibility that Christians could ask each other, “When does your Christ rise again?” the pope told Catholicos Awa III, the patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East.
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“If there is no resurrection of the dead, neither is Christ risen! But if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty, your faith also empty “(1 Cor 15:13 ff). With these words, the apostle Paul affirms with absolute clarity that the Christian faith stands or falls with the paschal mystery. The early Church condensed this fundamental conviction in the formula: “Take away the resurrection and you will immediately destroy Christianity.” Given the central importance of the paschal mystery in the Christian faith, it is understandable that Christians wish to celebrate it on a common date.
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By Nicholas Jesson On April 24th next year, we will celebrate Easter together in the Eastern and Western calendars. This happens occasionally, and it can always be a moment of great ecumenical opportunity. However, it also reflects one of the deepest divisions in the Body of Christ. Easter, as the celebration of the passion, death,
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Orthodox-Catholic Dialogue Lays Out a Vision of Unity in Unprecedented Document

Representatives of the Orthodox and Catholic Churches have issued two new documents outlining immediate steps they can take to overcome their thousand-year separation.
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Celebrating Easter/Pascha Together
The North American Orthodox-Catholic Theological Consultation
Georgetown University, Washington, DC
October 1, 2010

The center of our faith, the center on which all Christians agree, is the kerygma that Jesus is Risen, Jesus is Lord:

Having beheld the Resurrection of Christ, let us worship the Holy Lord Jesus, the only Sinless One. We venerate Your Cross, O Christ and we praise and glorify Your Holy Resurrection. You are our God. We know no other than You, and we call upon Your Name. Come, all faithful, let us venerate the holy Resurrection of Christ for behold, through the Cross, joy has come to all the world. (Matins of the Resurrection)

Despite this agreement Catholics and Orthodox in fact celebrate Easter on different days, fracturing the proclamation of this Good News of the Resurrection.
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The hope that all Christians will be able to celebrate Easter on the same day in the future was reaffirmed by an international ecumenical seminar organized by the Institute of Ecumenical Studies at the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv, 15 May.

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Lebanon-based Armenian Orthodox leader Aram I has at a Vatican meeting with Pope Benedict XVI proposed that the world’s churches set a common date for Easter, when Christians celebrate the resurrection of Jesus.
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In an Easter message to member churches, World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia expresses his hope that “Christians throughout the world will join in prayer and celebration” as they celebrate Easter on the same date this year, an occurrence he considers a “real gift and blessing”.
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