Orthodox Calendar 2027 in France: Christmas and Easter

We took the Orthodox dates for 2027 from the churches’ own calendars, then went through our directory of churches to count how many Orthodox parishes each region of France has and for how many of them we know the service times. Parishes post their feast-day schedules close to the feast, so a month before, ask in the Vibe South of France chat who is going to which service.

The 2027 dates

Old- and new-calendar parishes keep Christmas and Theophany on different days, while Easter, Lent, the Ascension and Pentecost fall on the same days for both.

Checked on 28 October 2026; Forgiveness Sunday, Lazarus Saturday, Holy Week and the Apostles’ Fast were added on 5 November 2026 from the same two calendars. The movable feasts for the old calendar come from the table of the American Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Diocese, and for the new calendar from the calendar of the Orthodox Church in America: both give Easter on 2 May, the Ascension on 10 June and Pentecost on 20 June. The old-calendar table says outright that the main difference between the two calendars is the length of the Apostles’ Fast. Christmas and Theophany on the old calendar come from the January 2026 schedule of the Holy Trinity Cathedral of the Diocese of Chersonese in Paris (Christmas on 7 January, Theophany on 19 January), and on the new calendar from the Orthodox Church in America.

Why Orthodox Christians have two Christmases

Everyone celebrates Christmas on 25 December and Theophany on 6 January. The difference is which calendar those dates are counted in. The Julian calendar now runs 13 days behind the civil one, so for old-calendar parishes 25 December lands on our 7 January, and 6 January on the 19th. New-calendar parishes keep 25 December and 6 January by the civil calendar, together with French Christmas.

Easter is simpler: in 2027 every Orthodox parish in France celebrates it on 2 May, and Lent, the Ascension and Pentecost are counted from it in the same way.

In the directory we state a parish’s calendar only where a source says so. In the South, that gives:

• Old calendar: the Kazan parish in Marseille (Diocese of Chersonese), the Church of Saint Michael the Archangel in Cannes, the Church of Saint Nicholas in Toulouse and the Church of the Resurrection in Toulon.
• New calendar: the parish in the Chapelle Saint-Roch in Antibes and the parish of Notre-Dame-du-Prompt-Secours near Montauban; the Greek parish of the Holy Archangels and Saint Anne in Aix-en-Provence keeps the feasts on the Gregorian calendar.

For the other southern parishes the sources say nothing. Only the parish of Saint Helena and the Holy Cross in Montpellier, without naming its calendar, has already published Christmas services: its calendar lists for 24 December 2026 a vigil at 20:00 and a liturgy at 10:30. Don’t guess from the name of the church: ask the parish itself or our chat.

The 2027 dates and French public holidays

France’s church public holidays (Easter Monday, Ascension Day, Whit Monday) are counted from Western Easter, and in 2027 almost no Orthodox feast coincides with them. The list of days is on service-public.gouv.fr; the page was last checked on 1 January 2026.

• Christmas. 7 January 2027 is a working Thursday, 19 January a working Tuesday. Neither is on the official list. Only new-calendar Christmas matches a French holiday: Noël, 25 December.
• Easter. Western Easter in 2027 is on 28 March, and the Lundi de Pâques holiday on 29 March, five weeks before the Orthodox one. Holy Saturday, 1 May, coincides with Labour Day and falls on a Saturday anyway, so it brings no extra day off.
• Ascension and Pentecost. The French Ascension (6 May) and Lundi de Pentecôte (17 May) are the Western ones. The Orthodox Ascension on 10 June and the Monday after Pentecost, 21 June, are ordinary working days.

One more detail from the same page: apart from 1 May, a public holiday is a day off only if a collective agreement or the employer says so. So for a weekday service, ask for time off well in advance.

Where to go: Orthodox parishes by region

Our directory currently lists 230 Orthodox churches, chapels and monasteries: Russian-tradition, Romanian, Greek, Serbian, Bulgarian and others. Armenian churches and Greek Catholic communities are not part of this count. We know the regular service times, meaning the hour of the Saturday or Sunday service from the parish or diocese page, for 74 of them (data checked in October 2026).

The other regions have fewer Orthodox churches in the directory: Brittany 11, Pays de la Loire 12, Bourgogne-Franche-Comté 9, Normandy 7, Hauts-de-France 6, Centre-Val de Loire 6, Corsica 2. All the addresses are in the directory table.

You won’t find 2027 feast-day service times here: each parish publishes its feast schedule closer to the date. Regular services are in the directory of churches and in the “For our people” section of each city guide.

What to expect: how the services went in January 2026

The Holy Trinity Cathedral of the Diocese of Chersonese in Paris (1 quai Jacques Chirac) posts its schedule month by month, and the December 2025 sheet already took in Christmas. In January 2026 it looked like this:

• 6 January, Christmas Eve: the Royal Hours and the liturgy at 7:30, Great Compline and Matins at 17:00, the night Christmas liturgy at 22:00.
• 7 January, Christmas: liturgy at 10:00, Great Vespers at 17:00.
• 18 January, Theophany Eve: two liturgies, at 7:30 and at 10:00, both with the Great Blessing of the Waters.
• 19 January, Theophany: liturgy at 9:00 with the Great Blessing of the Waters, Great Vespers at 17:00.

That was last year, not a promise for 2027: 7 January 2027 is a Thursday, and the times may shift. We have not yet seen a schedule for January 2027.

Regular Sunday services in the South

As of October 2026, if you want a liturgy every Sunday:

• Nice: Saint Nicholas Cathedral, All-Night Vigil on Saturday at 17:00, liturgy on Sunday at 10:00.
• Marseille: the Kazan parish, liturgy at 10:00; the parish of Saint Hermogenes at 10:30; the Church of Saint George on rue Clapier at 10:00 (every Sunday in October 2026).
• Toulon: the Church of the Resurrection, liturgy at 10:00 (going by the April-June 2026 schedule).

Services are less frequent in Toulouse (liturgy at 10:00 on the 2nd and 4th Sundays) and in Montpellier (liturgy at 10:30 on three Sundays a month, in French). Details, transport and the other cities are on the page about churches in France.

Theophany by the sea: how we did it

There is no ice hole in the South of France, but there is the Mediterranean. On Monday 19 January 2026 our community held an Epiphany sea swim at Carnon beach, in the commune of Mauguio near Montpellier, by the Feu de la jetée Est lighthouse. The announcement went up in the chat on 11 January, and we met at 14:00. The forecast promised +10 °C and cloud, and the sea was rough that day.

Plenty of people lost their nerve in the end, but those who came went into the water. By the lighthouse you go in down a ladder, and the first metres over the cold seabed are the hardest, so the advice in the chat about a wetsuit was no joke. Afterwards we warmed up with tea and biscuits right on the beach, and coming just to cheer, with a blanket and a thermos, counted too. Some who wanted to come couldn’t: it was a working day.

In 2027, 19 January falls on a Tuesday. Outings like this start in our chat about a week before the date: all it takes is one person writing “who’s with us?”.

Community: who to go to the service with

The Vibe South of France chat has 700+ members. Before Christmas and Easter you can ask there when and where the service is in your town and who is going. And if your parish has already posted its feast schedule, or it is missing from the directory, send it to the chat: we will add it once we have checked it.

Join the chat: Vibe South of France on Telegram.

Related pages

• Churches in France by city: addresses and services
• South of France directory for our people
• Christmas and New Year in France 2026: markets, days off, on-duty pharmacies
• Epiphany sea swim at Carnon beach, 19 January 2026
• Our community: how the meetups work
• Montpellier: life and relocation
• Nice guide for Russian speakers
• Marseille guide for Russian speakers
• Toulouse guide for Russian speakers
• Toulon guide for Russian speakers
• Paris guide for Russian speakers
• Lyon guide for Russian speakers