Most Americans who celebrate Easter assume everyone celebrates on the same Sunday. The date is familiar, the traditions broadly recognizable — baskets, eggs, a church service, a family meal. What far fewer Americans know is that for the roughly 300 million Orthodox Christians in the world, Easter falls on an entirely different Sunday, sometimes weeks later, calculated by a different calendar and a different set of ecclesiastical rules. In 2026, Western Easter falls on April 5

Today is Floriile , Flowers' Sunday, and the weather in Bran decided to celebrate, too. The sun is out, the air has finally conceded to spring, and the people around me seem to be doing exactly what the holiday asks: visiting outside, turning toward the light, paying attention to the flowers. As an immigrant, I am continually thrilled by the rhythm of the unexpected holidays here. I did not know that the Orthodox calendar would hand me a holiday whose entire orientation is to

When I asked a local in Brașov to explain the difference between Catholicism and Orthodoxy, he didn’t quote scripture or mention rituals. He smiled and said simply, “We didn’t have crusades, the Inquisition, or witch trials.” It was such an abrupt answer that I have remembered it ever since. I had expected something about the pope, perhaps, or icons, saints, liturgy, or the theological dispute over the filioque. Instead, he answered a question about religion with history. Mor