400 PEOPLE KNOW I CELEBRATED EASTER ON MARCH 22 2026!
This is my 41st campaign update and we have (finally) officially hit 400 signatures after a very frustrating stall!
Despite the high financial cost to keep running this campaign and to keep it visible, the money has certainly been worth it because the rarity of the Gregorian March 22nd official Easter date is a SERIOUS ISSUE that needs to be changed, which is wholeheartedly why this petition exists as it really isn’t fair that one branch of Christianity can easily see their full range of Easter dates while another branch are denied this for their whole lives!
This petition update was already pre-written on my designated Word Document which I use for all my updates and has been ready since last week! I HAVE BEEN DYING TO POST THIS UPDATE!
We have struggled to reach this milestone and in recent days have struggled to gain new signatures frustratingly being stuck on 396 signatures over the weekend of 13th-14th June and had to post an unscheduled update to my existing supporters on Tuesday 16th June announcing our campaign growth had stalled on 398 signatures, but we have moved past that stall and have safely cleared the milestone - 485 signatures next.
We have (at last) got to 400 signatures now means that this campaign is now no longer invisible. Although I am the one running the campaign, I am only doing half the work as I AM URGING all my existing UK-based supporters who have signed this petition and have subscribed to my change.org update emails to email their local MPs IMMEDIATELY about the rarity of the March 22nd Gregorian Easter date, to also add “supporter comments” to this petition, and to make politicians aware of this campaign!
Even though we have less than 100,000 signatures and change.org is a private platform where petitions don’t automatically trigger a debate upon reaching that number of signatures – petitions clearly don’t need that number of signatures for supporters to email MPs!
The reason I have opened up about my previous neurodivergent fixations is to educate the (ignorant) neurotypical public about autism and to share my lived experience as a neurodivergent expert by experience (EbE) with neurotypical people and other neurodivergent individuals. I have provided detailed updates about past fixations so that the general public can understand that neurodivergent people are not “weird”, that their brains are just different and that certain fixations can be debilitating (like when I saw “Easter on the wrong date” in shops). For me, I really did “see” a magical land inside window ACs, I really did expect a car moving at 12mph to make an “L” sound and I really did “see” a high ceilinged room in the deep end of a swimming pool.
This is the direct tertiary goal of the petition, as like the Orthodox community is marginalised, we live in a neurotypical world and many people haven’t a clue about how to properly accommodate the needs of neurodivergent individuals (i.e. providing reasonable adjustments at job interviews and offering trials as an alternative to an interview) with many undiagnosed neurodivergent people at work struggling in their everyday lives and having mental breakdowns because they are undiagnosed (one of my fellow friends at my local autism club was undiagnosed and struggled at work with having to take months off because of autistic burnout). I myself was diagnosed with Pervasive Developmental Disorder – Not Otherwise Specified in 1998 (a “boring year”) aged 5 and a half.
The five official goals of the campaign are as follows:
1. Officially urge churches, government officials and religious leaders to fix Easter to March 22nd for a one-off occasion in either 2043, 2054 or 2065 (the title of the campaign) BEFORE WE DIE OF OLD AGE!
2. Bring to light the “complete and utter” unfair lack of official recognition for Orthodox/Coptic holidays in seven populous English-speaking countries.
3. Educate the neurotypical public about autism and how debilitating certain fixations can affect neurodivergent individuals.
4. Sharing my personal story and proving that a Gregorian March 22nd Easter celebration really took place in 2026.
5. Ending the UK adult population’s general ignorance about astronomical twilight lasting all night near the summer solstice (despite not being Easter-related), this has become the quinary aim of this petition because this lack of knowledge directly resembles the lack of recognition for Orthodox holidays (I was completely ignorant of both the summer twilight phenomenon until March 2013 and Orthodox Easter until August 2025 due to this lack of knowledge)!
A brand new category, semi-problem and semi-disaster years:
Semi-problem and semi-disaster years are those with a four-week gap between Western and Orthodox Easter. 1997 was the most recent “semi-disaster year”, that year Orthodox Easter Monday fell the week before the UK’s fixed Early May bank holiday and only narrowly escapes the “true disaster year” status compared to 2008 because in 2008 retailers had that extra week to clear out Easter treats. The most recent semi-problem year was 2021, which featured a four week gap but Orthodox Easter Monday happened to land on the Early May bank holiday.
My “problem year”, “inconvenient year” and “disaster year” as well as my newly defined “semi-problem” and “semi-disaster” year definitions are very UK-centric, so 2027 counts as a “disaster year” in the US and other six “shameful” countries as they don’t have the same bank holidays as us here in the UK.
Because of the lack of recognition, the timing of Western Easter directly affects the UK’s Orthodox community even if Orthodox Easter Monday physically falls on the same date as another year, for example in both 2003 and 2008, Orthodox Easter Monday fell on April 28th, yet 2003 was only an “inconvenient year” because the Western holiday occurred only a week before that, whereas 2008 featured the five-week gap causing the “disaster year” catastrophe.
Below is my brand new UK-centric definition of inconvenient, problem, disaster, semi-problem and semi-disaster years for the Orthodox community:
Inconvenient year – any year with a one-week gap between the two Easter dates (i.e. 2019, 2022 and 2023), there is no bank holiday for Orthodox Easter Monday, but retailers have not completely cleared out seasonal stock.
Problem year – any year with a five-week gap between the two Easter dates (i.e. 2027), which narrowly escapes “disaster status” because Orthodox Easter Monday by accident falls on the UK’s Early May bank holiday.
Semi-problem year - any year with a four-week gap between the two Easter dates (i.e. 2021), which narrowly escapes “semi-disaster status” because Orthodox Easter Monday accidentally falls on the UK’s Early May bank holiday.
Semi-disaster year - any year with a four-week gap between the two Easter dates (i.e. 1970 and 1997), without an aligning bank holiday on Orthodox Easter Monday, it only escapes true “disaster status” because it lacks that extra week for retailers to fully clear out Easter stock. Semi-disaster years can occur during “boring years” like 1997 and 1970.
True disaster year – these are the worst years for Orthodox Christians in the UK, they feature the maximum five-week gap AND no aligning bank holiday for Orthodox Easter Monday, the most recent year this catastrophic was 2008 and the next will be 2035 if UK bank holiday changes are not implemented by then.
The UK does not need to implement a new bank holiday for Orthodox Easter Monday as it can use its existing Early May bank holiday as its designated bank holiday. Much like Orthodox holidays are treated in the West, change.org’s signature target system unfairly automatically notifies me that 500 signatures is the next major milestone as if the 400 signature milestone doesn’t exist - the way change.org defines its “next milestones” needs to change!
General:
Ahead of the Brexit referendum 10 year anniversary on June 23rd , I will reveal that I voted ‘Remain’ in the European Union membership referendum in 2016, which was NOT a boring year because Western Easter fell on its sixth-earliest possible Gregorian date that year (March 27).
If the UK “grew up” officially recognised Orthodox Easter like Albania, the calendar difference wouldn’t matter at all! 1940 was a true “disaster year” that really lived up to its name, there was a 5-week gap that year and Orthodox Easter Monday fell the week before the UK’s fixed Early May bank holiday, it was a disaster by both my “disaster year” definition and by wartime!
With 400 supporters, I reckon there is now a chance we have ticked every blood type and one of my supporters has AB- blood! I don’t know my own blood type but I first learned about blood types after watching Dr Who’s Christmas special in 2005 (NOT a boring year) and my mother telling me she has A+ blood after they tried to kill everyone with that blood type in the episode, my father’s type is O+ so I believe am most likely A+ (or O+).
That Dr Who Christmas special inevitably caused an autistic fixation on blood types during my early secondary school years and the 1960s movie “Fantastic Voyage” (which I watched during the “boring year” of 2001) completely frightened me as an eight-year-old child when they are inside the human body with the very loud heartbeat and caused a phobia of heartbeats and heart monitors in hospitals - even as an adult I could never watch that movie again!
Signature timeline of the petition (milestones in hundreds only):
· February 27th – Petition officially launched
· March 25th – Hit 100 signatures, our first major milestone on the earliest Easter date many living generations will see without petitions/campaigns
· April 13th – Hit 200 signatures on Orthodox Easter Monday
· May 9th – Passed 300 signatures on the latest possible date for Orthodox Easter Monday
· June 18th - Struggled (but managed) to officially hit 400 signatures after a very frustrating stall in the campaign’s growth and being stuck on 396 signatures on the weekend of 13-14th June and an unscheduled update announcing the frustrating situation on Tuesday 16th June being stuck on 398.
· Sometime in August – Hope to hit 500 signatures (without stalling)
My next intermediate goal will be 485 signatures to match the total signature count of the Orthodox petition titled “Include Orthodox Christmas and Easter as school holidays”, before reaching the mammoth 500 signatures barrier and I also unknowingly overtook another petition I only discovered a few days ago titled “Recognise the Oriental and Eastern Orthodox Christmas and provide academic days off” with 305 signatures. I hope to reach 500 signatures by “Awful August” my second-least favourite month of 2026 (after my April ordeal) and my least favourite month of the year generally.
Using J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series as an analogy, most “muggles” in the fictional series are completely unaware and have no idea that Hogwarts and the Wizarding World exists - although this is a fantasy series, this perfectly mirrors just how blindsided the Orthodox community really is in Western countries like the UK, with many people casually walking and driving past these physical buildings (Orthodox churches) without taking any notice of them. The Orthodox community (along with other faiths) is embedded into our Western community and should be respected for its distinct traditions for Christmas and Easter, not swept under the carpet and completely ignored.
With the current football World Cup, England are complaining they have not won a major tournament in 60 years - actually they won both the Women's Euros twice within the last five years (2022 and 2025), its the same cultural blindspot as to how Orthodox holidays are treated!
A completely unrelated petition for you to sign which has similarly suffered a frustrating stall:
https://www.change.org/p/accelerate-research-and-funding-for-alzheimer-s-cure-using-crispr-technology - I have provided a direct link to an unrelated petition created by an Australian resident about Alzheimer’s Disease research with a very similar number of signatures to this one.
I have added Anthony Albanese (the Australian PM) as a decision maker to get more signatures due to the current lack of signatures from Australia! I am deliberately targeting him as a decision maker (UK supporters) to get more signatures from over there!
Although completely unrelated to our cause (fixing the date of Easter to March 22), this one as multiple updates like my own and has seen three month stall in its campaign growth and having struggled to reach 400 signatures, I completely understand how the campaigner feels – also, the campaigner runs multiple change.org petitions, just like myself.
I came across this petition after researching why campaign growth can sometimes stall and urge you (all my existing 400+ supporters) to sign the Alzheimers petition listed above as you are supporting not only my cause but the Australian campaigner’s cause, too!
Ending message:
Despite reaching 400 signatures, my closest family members have no idea this petition exists!
The Reddit post should now be titled: No one alive today has seen or will ever see Easter occur on March 22nd on the Gregorian calendar WITHOUT PETITIONS/CAMPAIGNS!