Western Easter
Sunday, April 8, 2012
Gregorian computus. Golden number 18, epact 6, Paschal full moon April 7.
Easter 2012
Easter 2012: Sunday, April 8
In 2012 Western Easter, reckoned in the Gregorian calendar, falls on Sunday, April 8, 2012. Orthodox Easter (Pascha), reckoned in the Julian calendar, falls on Sunday, April 15, 2012, one week later.
Orthodox Easter
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Julian computus: April 2 in the Julian calendar, plus 13 days to reach the Gregorian calendar.
In 2012 the two Easters are 7 days apart: Orthodox Easter is one week after Western Easter. They last fell on the same day in 2011 (April 24). They next fall on the same day in 2014 (April 20).
Western · Apr 8
Orthodox · Apr 15
MarchAprilMayThe moving feasts of 2012
Western feasts, 2012
| Feast | Date | From Easter |
|---|---|---|
| Shrove Tuesday | Tuesday, February 21, 2012 | −47 days |
| Ash Wednesday | Wednesday, February 22, 2012 | −46 days |
| Palm Sunday | Sunday, April 1, 2012 | −7 days |
| Maundy Thursday | Thursday, April 5, 2012 | −3 days |
| Good Friday | Friday, April 6, 2012 | −2 days |
| Holy Saturday | Saturday, April 7, 2012 | −1 day |
| Easter Sunday | Sunday, April 8, 2012 | Easter Sunday |
| Easter Monday | Monday, April 9, 2012 | +1 day |
| Ascension Day | Thursday, May 17, 2012 | +39 days |
| Pentecost | Sunday, May 27, 2012 | +49 days |
Orthodox feasts, 2012
| Feast | Date | From Easter |
|---|---|---|
| Clean Monday | Monday, February 27, 2012 | −48 days |
| Palm Sunday | Sunday, April 8, 2012 | −7 days |
| Great and Holy Friday | Friday, April 13, 2012 | −2 days |
| Pascha (Easter Sunday) | Sunday, April 15, 2012 | Easter Sunday |
| Ascension | Thursday, May 24, 2012 | +39 days |
| Pentecost | Sunday, June 3, 2012 | +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 2012?
April 8 is date 18 of the 35 that Western Easter can take, March 22 to April 25: 17 days after the earliest possible date and 17 days before the latest. Of the 201 Easters from 1900 to 2100, 91 fall on an earlier date than this one and 105 fall on a later date. 4 other years in that span share the date: 1917, 1928, 2007, 2091. Before 2012, Western Easter last fell on April 8 in 2007; after 2012 it next does in 2091.
In the 2010s Western Easter ran from March 27 (2016) to April 24 (2011); 2012’s April 8 is the sixth-earliest of the ten. Across the twenty-first century (2001–2100) Western Easter falls on April 8 in 3 years, and the Western and Orthodox Easters share a Sunday in 31 years.
Orthodox Easter on April 15 is April 2 in the Julian calendar; 13 days carry it to the Gregorian calendar in 2012. From 1900 to 2100 Orthodox Easter falls on an earlier Gregorian date in 57 years and on a later one in 136 years; it falls on the same date in 1906, 1917, 1928, 1990, 2001, 2085, 2096.
The earliest and latest Easters from 1900 to 2100, with how often each date occurs, are on their own page.
The arithmetic for 2012
18Golden number: the year’s place in the 19-year cycle of the moon, (2012 mod 19) + 1.
6Gregorian epact: the age of the reckoned moon at the start of the year.
April 7Paschal full moon of the Gregorian reckoning, a Saturday. Easter is the Sunday after it.
April 11Paschal full moon of the Julian reckoning in Gregorian dates (Julian March 29), a Wednesday.
The two algorithms, worked for 2012
- Western: the Anonymous Gregorian algorithm
a=17 b=20 c=12 d=5 e=0 f=1 g=6 h=17 i=3 k=0 l=0 m=0h + l − 7m + 114 = 131, and 131 ÷ 31 = 4 remainder 7: month 4, day 7 + 1. April 8- Orthodox: Meeus’s Julian algorithm
a=0 b=3 c=17 d=8 e=3d + e + 114 = 125, and 125 ÷ 31 = 4 remainder 1: Julian April 2. Plus 13 days: April 15
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.