Western Easter
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Gregorian computus. Golden number 15, epact 3, Paschal full moon April 10.
Easter 2009
Easter 2009: Sunday, April 12
In 2009 Western Easter, reckoned in the Gregorian calendar, falls on Sunday, April 12, 2009. Orthodox Easter (Pascha), reckoned in the Julian calendar, falls on Sunday, April 19, 2009, one week later.
Orthodox Easter
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Julian computus: April 6 in the Julian calendar, plus 13 days to reach the Gregorian calendar.
In 2009 the two Easters are 7 days apart: Orthodox Easter is one week after Western Easter. They last fell on the same day in 2007 (April 8). They next fall on the same day in 2010 (April 4).
Western · Apr 12
Orthodox · Apr 19
MarchAprilMayThe moving feasts of 2009
Western feasts, 2009
| Feast | Date | From Easter |
|---|---|---|
| Shrove Tuesday | Tuesday, February 24, 2009 | −47 days |
| Ash Wednesday | Wednesday, February 25, 2009 | −46 days |
| Palm Sunday | Sunday, April 5, 2009 | −7 days |
| Maundy Thursday | Thursday, April 9, 2009 | −3 days |
| Good Friday | Friday, April 10, 2009 | −2 days |
| Holy Saturday | Saturday, April 11, 2009 | −1 day |
| Easter Sunday | Sunday, April 12, 2009 | Easter Sunday |
| Easter Monday | Monday, April 13, 2009 | +1 day |
| Ascension Day | Thursday, May 21, 2009 | +39 days |
| Pentecost | Sunday, May 31, 2009 | +49 days |
Orthodox feasts, 2009
| Feast | Date | From Easter |
|---|---|---|
| Clean Monday | Monday, March 2, 2009 | −48 days |
| Palm Sunday | Sunday, April 12, 2009 | −7 days |
| Great and Holy Friday | Friday, April 17, 2009 | −2 days |
| Pascha (Easter Sunday) | Sunday, April 19, 2009 | Easter Sunday |
| Ascension | Thursday, May 28, 2009 | +39 days |
| Pentecost | Sunday, June 7, 2009 | +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 2009?
April 12 is date 22 of the 35 that Western Easter can take, March 22 to April 25: 21 days after the earliest possible date and 13 days before the latest. Of the 201 Easters from 1900 to 2100, 117 fall on an earlier date than this one and 75 fall on a later date. 8 other years in that span share the date: 1903, 1914, 1925, 1936, 1998, 2020, 2093, 2099. Before 2009, Western Easter last fell on April 12 in 1998; after 2009 it next does in 2020.
In the 2000s Western Easter ran from March 23 (2008) to April 23 (2000); 2009’s April 12 is the sixth-earliest of the ten. Across the twenty-first century (2001–2100) Western Easter falls on April 12 in 4 years, and the Western and Orthodox Easters share a Sunday in 31 years.
Orthodox Easter on April 19 is April 6 in the Julian calendar; 13 days carry it to the Gregorian calendar in 2009. From 1900 to 2100 Orthodox Easter falls on an earlier Gregorian date in 82 years and on a later one in 109 years; it falls on the same date in 1903, 1914, 1925, 1987, 1998, 2020, 2071, 2082, 2093.
The earliest and latest Easters from 1900 to 2100, with how often each date occurs, are on their own page.
The arithmetic for 2009
15Golden number: the year’s place in the 19-year cycle of the moon, (2009 mod 19) + 1.
3Gregorian epact: the age of the reckoned moon at the start of the year.
April 10Paschal full moon of the Gregorian reckoning, a Friday. Easter is the Sunday after it.
April 14Paschal full moon of the Julian reckoning in Gregorian dates (Julian April 1), a Tuesday.
The two algorithms, worked for 2009
- Western: the Anonymous Gregorian algorithm
a=14 b=20 c=9 d=5 e=0 f=1 g=6 h=20 i=2 k=1 l=1 m=0h + l − 7m + 114 = 135, and 135 ÷ 31 = 4 remainder 11: month 4, day 11 + 1. April 12- Orthodox: Meeus’s Julian algorithm
a=1 b=0 c=14 d=11 e=4d + e + 114 = 129, and 129 ÷ 31 = 4 remainder 5: Julian April 6. Plus 13 days: April 19
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.