When Is Easter 2018 - All The Dates You Need To Know About

When is Easter 2018 - all the dates you need to know about

It's always good to know when the bank holiday four day weekend will be

NewsDavid Bentley14:26, 22 Jan 2018Updated 17:19, 29 Jan 2018Easter

Easter is one celebration which moves around on the calendar so there's always an uncertainty as to when it will fall.

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The date is important not only for Easter's religious celebrations but because it helps determine Lent and also when Mother's Day (the fourth Sunday of Lent) will take place.

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Also, it's always good to know when the bank holiday four day weekend will be.

‌READ MORE: When do Glasgow schools go back? Make sure you take a note of these dates in your diary

So when is Easter in 2018?

For 2018, Good Friday will fall on Friday, March 30.

The next day (March 31) is correctly known as Holy Saturday. Although it's commonly referred to as Easter Saturday.

Easter Sunday or Easter Day - the main day of the Christian festival, marking the day Jesus rose from the dead - is on Sunday, April 1 (yes, the same as April Fool's Day).

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And then Easter Monday is on April 2.

So Easter 2018 comes a whole two weeks before the 2017 dates.

Good Friday and Easter Monday are both public holidays in the UK.

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Why does the date of Easter change every year?

Although known today mostly as a time for eating chocolate eggs, Easter is a Christian celebration of the Resurrection of Jesus as described in the Bible.

The Gospels - accounts of the life, death and Resurrection of Jesus that are included in the Bible - place the date of the Crucifixion as Friday, April 3, although mention of an eclipse occurring on that day has created further debate.

The year of the Crucifixion has been worked out to be 33 AD by comparing with references to high priest Caiaphas, governor Pontius Pilate and emperor Tiberius Caesar, who all lived around the same time as Jesus.

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So, if we know Jesus died on April 3, why is the date of Easter different every year?

It’s because the last week in the life of Jesus - a period known as the Passion - includes a series of connected events that must fall in the right place on the calendar.

These include the Last Supper (on what’s now known as Maundy Thursday) and the Crucifixion (on what we call Good Friday). That was followed two days later by the Resurrection, when Jesus rose from the dead (on Easter Sunday).

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