A great feast of the Lord

Pascha, the Resurrection of Christ

Also called Orthodox Easter

Pascha is the Resurrection of Christ, the Feast of Feasts. Christ has conquered death, the victory the Church confesses in the letters IC XC NIKA, “Jesus Christ conquers.” The women who came to the tomb with spices were the first to hear that Christ is risen, and Mary Magdalene was the first to see the risen Lord. The icon of the feast shows Christ raising Adam and Eve by the hand from the tombs of Hades.

The dates

Kept on: Pascha (Easter Sunday)
Next: 2 May 2027

The New Calendar (the Greek, Antiochian, Romanian and Bulgarian churches, the OCA and most converts) keeps fixed feasts on the church date; the Old Calendar (the Russian, Serbian and Georgian churches, Jerusalem and Mount Athos) keeps them 13 days later. Pascha and the feasts that follow it are kept on the same day by both.

How the day is kept

Great Lent leads to Pascha. On the eve of Lent, Forgiveness Sunday, families ask one another's forgiveness, and through the fast the faithful take up the three tools the fathers give: prayer, fasting and almsgiving.

Orthodox Christians greet one another with the Paschal words “Christ is risen!” and answer “Truly He is risen!”

The week of Pascha, Bright Week, is kept as one single day of the Resurrection, and the Royal Doors of the church stay open all week.

On Radonitsa, nine days after Pascha, Slavic families go to the graves of those they love and greet them with the Paschal words. It is a day of remembrance in Paschal joy rather than mourning, and the names of the departed are read at the graves.