I am including that title in the petition update’s title to end roughly 99% of the UK population’s general ignorance about a phenomenon many UK residents routinely experience annually during the summer! Ending the UK’s general ignorance of this has unexpectedly become a quinary aim of the petition despite not being Easter-related!
We have matched the signature count of the May 2024 petition titled “Observance and Formal Recognition of Christian Orthodox Holidays” which explicitly shames the United States for failing its Orthodox residents in its title text on its main page.
The lack of recognition for Orthodox holidays is nothing new and petitions about this very issue are ongoing, as evidence I have provided a direct link to a May 2026 petition about Orthodox holidays created by a ninth grade student in NYC showing that this issue is an ongoing, systemic problem which needs to be fixed in the “Shameful Seven” nations!
https://www.change.org/p/orthodox-students-deserve-orthodox-holidays?source_location=search – this petition about the lack of recognition for Orthodox holidays with this exact quote:
“In researching why Orthodox Christmas and Christmas Eve is not a school holiday, I have learned that schools require a minimum amount of days and they view Orthodox student's as a minority so it’s not valued enough to be a school holiday.”
As an analogy of Western-centric treating Orthodox holidays as if they don’t exist, it’s like talking about our grandparents as if great-aunts don’t exist. Although a morbid analogy, when we talk about or grandparents passing away, what we are REALLY referring to are our “biological” grandparents dying – losing all four grandparents does not necessarily mean the true loss of a generation, as it is perfectly possible to have one (or more) living great aunts who are effectively “Orthodox grandparents” after all four biological grandparents have passed away! I am using this analogy because we generally talk about losing our grandparents as if their siblings don’t exist, much like how Western society treats Orthodox holidays as if they don’t exist.
As another analogy, with the FIFA World Cup coming up, we talk about it as if the women’s World Cup doesn’t exist – that’s how Orthodox holidays are treated in the UK and the other Shameful Six!
Our next big milestone will be 400 signatures, which I hope to reach by the summer solstice on 21st June as a tribute to Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief.
Here is my personal comment on the Reddit post itself from August 2025 after my discovery of Orthodox Easter:
“Since my last post, I have since discovered that Orthodox Easter (using the Julian calendar which is 13 days behind the widely used Gregorian calendar) currently ranges between April 4th to May 8th. April 4th corresponds to March 22nd in the Julian calendar and most of us Redditors have already unknowingly experienced Orthodox Easter on ITS earliest possible date, April 4th!
This happened in 2010 (fifteen years ago) and 95 years earlier in 1915. I imagine there are a lot of people who were born before 1915 and died after 2010 so those people got to experience Orthodox Easter on ITS earliest possible date TWICE!!
As for the latest possible Orthodox Easter date (May 8th) many of you will probably have already experienced that one too! This happened in the year 1983 and will happen in 2078 - the odds of myself experiencing that one are not too great, as I'd have to live to at least my mid-80s for that!”
Here is my comment in the Reddit post about the plan to celebrate Easter on March 22nd 2026:
“Who says noone alive will not see Easter on March 22nd
I will be observing it on this date in 2026!
Ha ha!
We as a family will mark Easter on Sunday March 22nd in 2026, for precisely this reason. Or you can choose which date to celebrate Easter!”
I have provided a direct link to the petition from the Reddit post!
We have hit some important signature milestones on some very important dates indeed, our latest campaign update journey is as follows, May 2026 has been a very successful month as we amassed over 110 signatures throughout the month:
- · February 27 – Launched the petition on my phone on a car ride to RHS Wisley Gardens and reached 5 signatures later that same day
- · March 22 – Celebrated my “personal” Easter Sunday with roughly 92 signatures
- · March 25 – Surpassed 100 signatures on the earliest date many living generations will see without petitions or campaigns
- · April 1 – Reached 125 signatures
- · April 5 – Posted a petition update at midnight and held an “Alice date” protest!
- · April 7 – Hit 150 signatures
- · April 13 – Surpassed 200 signatures on Orthodox Easter Monday
- · April 18 – Reached 225 signatures and watched Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief in celebration
- · April 25 – Reached a “quarter thousand” 250 signatures on the latest possible Gregorian date for Western Easter
- · May 1st – Celebrated the end of “Awful April” with a big party and subsequently surpassed 260 signatures
- · May 9 – Surpassed 300 signatures
- · May 19 – Surpassed 325 signatures
- · May 22 – Crossed 333 (a third of a thousand) signatures
- · May 25 – Surpassed 345 signatures on “Reddit Day”
- · May 28 – Hit the all-important milestone of 366 signatures theoretically representing one signature for every possible birthday
- · May 31st – Crossed 370 signatures
- · June 3rd - Hit 379 signatures, officially surpassing the signature count of the US-based “Observance and Formal Recognition of Christian Orthodox Holidays” petition.
Despite the high financial cost having now chipped in over £2K to promote this petition, it has been absolutely worth is because witnessing a Gregorian March 22nd Easter is impossible without a global campaign to fix the date for a one-off occasion and it has also allowed me to announce to the world that a Gregorian March 22nd Easter celebration really did take place in 2026!
Our next big milestone will of course be 400 signatures, then 485 signatures to match the signature count of another Orthodox-led US petition titled “Include Orthodox Christmas and Easter as school holidays”.
I now have over 100 more signatures than this petition about the US election system which I created way back in July 2024, feel free to sign!
As well as functioning as a petition, the platform has also been a way to share my life story and to educate the neurotypical public about how fixations can affect neurodivergent individuals. I am urging neurodivergent individuals to sign this petition and for them to learn more about their own condition from my perspective!
I will explicitly write that seeing the Orthodox Easter date (April 12th) advertised in shops WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN a personal trigger as it hits “extreme dates” more frequently. Seeing the April 5 date in shops was a jarring reminder that without a successful campaign, I would never see Easter on March 22nd.
Will send you all an update once we hit the 400 mark (which will also be my 40th update). Keep signing, sharing, swimming in high-ceilinged deep end pools and enjoy the long summer evenings!