Councillors in a small Yorkshire town have criticised plans by senior Church leaders to agree a common date for Easter after centuries of disagreement. The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev Justin Welby and Pope Francis have both backed efforts to find a unified date. The town of Whitby hosted a synod in AD 664 at which it was decided that the Kingdom of Northumbria would follow the Roman tradition for the date of Easter rather than the Celtic one. Although heavily influenced by Irish missionaries, chiefly St Aidan, the Northumbrians chose to conform with Rome. Kent, the first Anglo-Saxon kingdom to turn Christian, had been converted by Roman missionaries. Councillor Joe Plant told the Whitby Gazette: “The procedure has been in place for centuries – why change it? It would be disrespectful to Whitby.” He added: “The abbey and the synod of 664 are synonymous with Whitby and we have many pilgrims to the town as a result. There have been no problems with Easter being a movable feast. It is possible to work out the date for decades ahead through the Church of England’s Book of Common Prayer. If it isn’t broken, why go about trying to change it?” Heather Coughlan, the town’s mayor, told the paper: “Whitby jealously guards its history and heritage of which the synod and [the explorer] Captain James Cook are a major part. I don’t think it necessary to interfere with something which has worked well for 1,400 years and I’m sure the people of Whitby will take the same view. It sounds more like a suggestion from an office manager than the Church.”