Western Easter
Sunday, April 20, 2003
Gregorian computus. Golden number 9, epact 27, Paschal full moon April 16.
Easter 2003
Easter 2003: Sunday, April 20
In 2003 Western Easter, reckoned in the Gregorian calendar, falls on Sunday, April 20, 2003. Orthodox Easter (Pascha), reckoned in the Julian calendar, falls on Sunday, April 27, 2003, one week later.
Orthodox Easter
Sunday, April 27, 2003
Julian computus: April 14 in the Julian calendar, plus 13 days to reach the Gregorian calendar.
In 2003 the two Easters are 7 days apart: Orthodox Easter is one week after Western Easter. They last fell on the same day in 2001 (April 15). They next fall on the same day in 2004 (April 11).
Western · Apr 20
Orthodox · Apr 27
MarchAprilMayThe moving feasts of 2003
Western feasts, 2003
| Feast | Date | From Easter |
|---|---|---|
| Shrove Tuesday | Tuesday, March 4, 2003 | −47 days |
| Ash Wednesday | Wednesday, March 5, 2003 | −46 days |
| Palm Sunday | Sunday, April 13, 2003 | −7 days |
| Maundy Thursday | Thursday, April 17, 2003 | −3 days |
| Good Friday | Friday, April 18, 2003 | −2 days |
| Holy Saturday | Saturday, April 19, 2003 | −1 day |
| Easter Sunday | Sunday, April 20, 2003 | Easter Sunday |
| Easter Monday | Monday, April 21, 2003 | +1 day |
| Ascension Day | Thursday, May 29, 2003 | +39 days |
| Pentecost | Sunday, June 8, 2003 | +49 days |
Orthodox feasts, 2003
| Feast | Date | From Easter |
|---|---|---|
| Clean Monday | Monday, March 10, 2003 | −48 days |
| Palm Sunday | Sunday, April 20, 2003 | −7 days |
| Great and Holy Friday | Friday, April 25, 2003 | −2 days |
| Pascha (Easter Sunday) | Sunday, April 27, 2003 | Easter Sunday |
| Ascension | Thursday, June 5, 2003 | +39 days |
| Pentecost | Sunday, June 15, 2003 | +49 days |
Each date is Easter Sunday plus or minus a fixed number of days; the offsets and their sources are on the about page. Observance varies by church and by country. Whether a feast is a day off work is a matter of each country’s law: Holidays lists each country’s public holidays, off the open Nager.Date database.
How early is Easter in 2003?
April 20 is date 30 of the 35 that Western Easter can take, March 22 to April 25: 29 days after the earliest possible date and 5 days before the latest. Of the 201 Easters from 1900 to 2100, 173 fall on an earlier date than this one and 20 fall on a later date. 7 other years in that span share the date: 1919, 1924, 1930, 2014, 2025, 2087, 2098. Before 2003, Western Easter last fell on April 20 in 1930; after 2003 it next does in 2014.
In the 2000s Western Easter ran from March 23 (2008) to April 23 (2000); 2003’s April 20 is the ninth-earliest of the ten. Across the twenty-first century (2001–2100) Western Easter falls on April 20 in 5 years, and the Western and Orthodox Easters share a Sunday in 31 years.
Orthodox Easter on April 27 is April 14 in the Julian calendar; 13 days carry it to the Gregorian calendar in 2003. From 1900 to 2100 Orthodox Easter falls on an earlier Gregorian date in 137 years and on a later one in 55 years; it falls on the same date in 1902, 1913, 1924, 1997, 2008, 2087, 2092, 2098.
The earliest and latest Easters from 1900 to 2100, with how often each date occurs, are on their own page.
The arithmetic for 2003
9Golden number: the year’s place in the 19-year cycle of the moon, (2003 mod 19) + 1.
27Gregorian epact: the age of the reckoned moon at the start of the year.
April 16Paschal full moon of the Gregorian reckoning, a Wednesday. Easter is the Sunday after it.
April 20Paschal full moon of the Julian reckoning in Gregorian dates (Julian April 7), a Sunday.
The two algorithms, worked for 2003
- Western: the Anonymous Gregorian algorithm
a=8 b=20 c=3 d=5 e=0 f=1 g=6 h=26 i=0 k=3 l=3 m=0h + l − 7m + 114 = 143, and 143 ÷ 31 = 4 remainder 19: month 4, day 19 + 1. April 20- Orthodox: Meeus’s Julian algorithm
a=3 b=1 c=8 d=17 e=6d + e + 114 = 137, and 137 ÷ 31 = 4 remainder 13: Julian April 14. Plus 13 days: April 27
How the date of Easter is calculated explains each letter. The dates on this page agree with the US Census Bureau table (Western), the 5ko.free.fr tables (Western and Orthodox), each read September 28, 2026.