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Correction of the Date of Easter in Response to Pope Francis’ Appeal for a “Date of Unity”: an Analysis of C.F. Gauss’s Algorithm Using Astronomical Data from NASA Horizons (1900-3000)
Abstract
During the vespers at the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls, which concluded the Week of Prayers for Christian Unity, the Pope called for the establishment of a common date for the celebration of Easter among all Christians. He emphasized that the Catholic Church is open to adopting a date that would gain universal acceptance, referring to it as the “date of unity.” This article represents a concrete response to the papal appeal by: a) analyzing the Nicaean rule for determining the date of Easter (in the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea); b) examining various methods for calculating the date of Easter; c) comparing traditional Easter dates computed using Gauss’s algorithm (with the modifications proposed by Jones, Butcher, and Meeus) with dates derived from the latest ephemerides provided by NASA Horizons for the period 1900-3000; d) analyzing the errors (72 dates) and issues (87 dates) detected in Gauss’s algorithm (as modified by Jones, Butcher, and Meeus) during computations, and proposing a correction.
Keywords:
Council of Nicaea, full moon, ephemerides, astronomical computations, calendar harmonizationDetails
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.