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When U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May’s staff took to social media to wish citizens a happy St. George’s Day, religious illiteracy reared its head.
The usual date for St. George’s Day is April 23. But with that date occurring during Easter Week, celebrations of the nation’s patron saint switched to April 29. St. George’s Day, according to the Church of England, is a movable feast.
“When St. George’s Day or St. Mark’s Day falls between Palm Sunday and the second Sunday of Easter inclusive, it is transferred to the Monday after the second Sunday of Easter,” the Church of England’s calendar says.
Easter takes precedence over other feast days, said church historian Diarmaid MacCulloch. The custom is more than 1,000 years, he said, and “Downing Street is obviously illiterate about the church.”
John Martin
Matthew Townsend is a Halifax-based freelance journalist and volunteer advocate for survivors of sexual misconduct in Anglican settings. He served as editor of the Anglican Journal from 2019 to 2021 and communications missioner for the Anglican Diocese of Quebec from 2019 to 2022. He and his wife recently entered catechism class in the Orthodox Church in America.
