Happy Easter! :)

Actually, I wanted to make an Easter update on my blog on the day, when it was celebrated by the huge majority of Christians around the world, but it was impossible, because I decided to spend my Easter holidays in Ukraine :) But at least I have an opportunity to tell you that I celebrate Easter today :)

I know it may be a bit confusing, but I'll try to explain it :) Orthodox and Eastern Catholic churches still use the Julian calendar. In Catholic and Protestant countries, this calendar was replaced by the more correct Gregorian calendar introduced by the Pope Gregory XIII in 1582. The reason for this change was that Julian calendar gains a day every 134 years, which means that now the difference between the 2 calendars is 13 days (and it's going to be 14 days after 2100). The Julian calendar was used in Russia until 1917 and that's why we learn about the October Revolution, even though it was in November :) But the old calendar is still used by church and that's why we celebrate all the holidays with fixed dates 13 days later (for example, Christmas is on 7th of January and I can always take an additional day off then - sometimes it's good to belong to a minority) ;)

The situation with Easter is a bit more complicated, because it has to be on Sunday. That's why you can't just add 13 days to the date of Catholic/Protestant Easter to get the date of Orthodox Easter. The way of counting it is quite complicated and I don't want to bore you, so I'll just tell you that in 30% cases we celebrate Easter on the same day as West Christians, in 45% cases (like this year) it's one week later, in 5% cases it's 4 weeks later and in 20% cases it's even 5 weeks later. 2 or 3 weeks difference is impossible.

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This year I've received just one Easter card (in Poland sending Easter card is just as popular as sending Christmas cards, but probably in other countries it's not) and it's a nice official from Hungary :)

I want to wish Happy and Blessed Easter to everyone, who celebrates it today! :) I hope that those of you, who celebrated Easter one week ago also enjoyed their holidays and spent them in a nice atmosphere :)

Христос Воскрес!
Христос Воскресе!
Хрыстос Уваскрэс!
Честит Велигден!
Wesołych Świąt Wielkiej Nocy!