![]() Want to enjoy the beautiful Moon year-round? Check out our Moon Wall Calendar here! → See more information about April’s full Pink Moon. In 2023, April’s full Moon (April 5-6) will be nearest to Easter (April 9). Sometimes, it’s the full Moon that occurs in March and sometimes it’s the full Moon that occurs in April. ![]() The full Moon nearest to Easter can change. → Learn more about how to calculate the date of Easter. ![]() According to this general guideline, this makes April’s full Moon the Paschal Full Moon and therefore Easter will be observed on the first Sunday after April 6: Sunday, April 9! How Late Can Easter Be?įor the western Christian churches and others that use the Gregorian calendar for their calculations, Easter can occur as early as March 22 and as late as April 25.įor the Eastern Orthodox churches and others that use the Julian calendar for their calculations, the observance can occur between April 4 and May 8 in the Gregorian calendar. Eastern Time (or Wednesday, April 5, for more westerly time zones). The first full Moon to occur after that equinox date is April’s full Pink Moon, which reaches peak illumination on Thursday, April 6, at 12:37 A.M. Using the astronomical dates for 2023, the vernal equinox in the Northern Hemisphere occurs on Monday, March 20. But in many cases, it coincides with the astronomical full Moon on or after the actual March equinox. Technically, the Paschal Full Moon occurs on the 14th day of the lunar month that occurs on or after March 21 according to ecclesiastical calculations using the Metonic cycle. Thus, Easter was celebrated on Sunday, April 21, 2019.įun Fact: “Paschal” stems from Pascha, the Greek and Latin word for Passover. This means that the ecclesiastical date of the equinox will always be March 21, even if the astronomical date is March 19 or 20.ĭue to these rules, in 2019, the ecclesiastical full Moon occurred before the ecclesiastical Vernal Equinox, which meant that Easter would not be observed until after the next full Moon (the Paschal Full Moon) in mid-April. 325, a full Moon calendar was created that did not take into account all the factors of lunar motion that we know about today. The Christian Church still follows this calendar, which means that the date of the ecclesiastical full Moon may be one or two days off from the date of the astronomical full Moon.Īdditionally, the astronomical date of the equinox changes over time, but the Church has fixed the event in their calendar to March 21. They were defined long ago in order to aid in the calculation of Easter’s date, which means that they may differ from the astronomical dates of these events. The ecclesiastical dates of the full Moon and the March equinox are those used by the Christian Church. ![]() Similarly, the full Moon occurs when the Moon reaches peak illumination by the Sun. For example, the equinox occurs at the exact moment when the Sun crosses Earth’s equator, when day and night are approximately equal.
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