Western Easter
Sunday, April 5, 2015
Gregorian computus. Golden number 2, epact 10, Paschal full moon April 3.
Easter 2015
Easter 2015: Sunday, April 5
In 2015 Western Easter, reckoned in the Gregorian calendar, falls on Sunday, April 5, 2015. Orthodox Easter (Pascha), reckoned in the Julian calendar, falls on Sunday, April 12, 2015, one week later.
Orthodox Easter
Sunday, April 12, 2015
Julian computus: March 30 in the Julian calendar, plus 13 days to reach the Gregorian calendar.
In 2015 the two Easters are 7 days apart: Orthodox Easter is one week after Western Easter. They last fell on the same day in 2014 (April 20). They next fall on the same day in 2017 (April 16).
Western · Apr 5
Orthodox · Apr 12
MarchAprilMayThe moving feasts of 2015
Western feasts, 2015
| Feast | Date | From Easter |
|---|---|---|
| Shrove Tuesday | Tuesday, February 17, 2015 | −47 days |
| Ash Wednesday | Wednesday, February 18, 2015 | −46 days |
| Palm Sunday | Sunday, March 29, 2015 | −7 days |
| Maundy Thursday | Thursday, April 2, 2015 | −3 days |
| Good Friday | Friday, April 3, 2015 | −2 days |
| Holy Saturday | Saturday, April 4, 2015 | −1 day |
| Easter Sunday | Sunday, April 5, 2015 | Easter Sunday |
| Easter Monday | Monday, April 6, 2015 | +1 day |
| Ascension Day | Thursday, May 14, 2015 | +39 days |
| Pentecost | Sunday, May 24, 2015 | +49 days |
Orthodox feasts, 2015
| Feast | Date | From Easter |
|---|---|---|
| Clean Monday | Monday, February 23, 2015 | −48 days |
| Palm Sunday | Sunday, April 5, 2015 | −7 days |
| Great and Holy Friday | Friday, April 10, 2015 | −2 days |
| Pascha (Easter Sunday) | Sunday, April 12, 2015 | Easter Sunday |
| Ascension | Thursday, May 21, 2015 | +39 days |
| Pentecost | Sunday, May 31, 2015 | +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 2015?
April 5 is date 15 of the 35 that Western Easter can take, March 22 to April 25: 14 days after the earliest possible date and 20 days before the latest. Of the 201 Easters from 1900 to 2100, 71 fall on an earlier date than this one and 123 fall on a later date. 6 other years in that span share the date: 1931, 1942, 1953, 2026, 2037, 2048. Before 2015, Western Easter last fell on April 5 in 1953; after 2015 it next does in 2026.
In the 2010s Western Easter ran from March 27 (2016) to April 24 (2011); 2015’s April 5 is the fifth-earliest of the ten. Across the twenty-first century (2001–2100) Western Easter falls on April 5 in 4 years, and the Western and Orthodox Easters share a Sunday in 31 years.
Orthodox Easter on April 12 is March 30 in the Julian calendar; 13 days carry it to the Gregorian calendar in 2015. From 1900 to 2100 Orthodox Easter falls on an earlier Gregorian date in 37 years and on a later one in 159 years; it falls on the same date in 1931, 1936, 2026, 2099.
The earliest and latest Easters from 1900 to 2100, with how often each date occurs, are on their own page.
The arithmetic for 2015
2Golden number: the year’s place in the 19-year cycle of the moon, (2015 mod 19) + 1.
10Gregorian epact: the age of the reckoned moon at the start of the year.
April 3Paschal full moon of the Gregorian reckoning, a Friday. Easter is the Sunday after it.
April 7Paschal full moon of the Julian reckoning in Gregorian dates (Julian March 25), a Tuesday.
The two algorithms, worked for 2015
- Western: the Anonymous Gregorian algorithm
a=1 b=20 c=15 d=5 e=0 f=1 g=6 h=13 i=3 k=3 l=1 m=0h + l − 7m + 114 = 128, and 128 ÷ 31 = 4 remainder 4: month 4, day 4 + 1. April 5- Orthodox: Meeus’s Julian algorithm
a=3 b=6 c=1 d=4 e=4d + e + 114 = 122, and 122 ÷ 31 = 3 remainder 29: Julian March 30. Plus 13 days: April 12
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.