Comments on: When is Easter Day?

By: Bosco Peters

Bosco Peters — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 19:26:41 +0000

Thanks Timothy ["Mockingbird"] for this helpful contribution to this thread.

By: Mockingbird

Mockingbird — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 14:36:21 +0000

Quartodecimanism was not the issue at Nicea. By the time Nicea met, the quartodeciman controversy was long in the past. The question at Nicea was between two schools of Sunday observance: “Jewish calendarists” who wanted to continue the old custom of consulting Jewish neighbors for when their week of Unleavened Bread would fall, and set Easter to the Sunday in that week; and “Independent calendarists” who wanted to do their own computation, independently of any Jewish calendars, of when the week of Unleavened Bread should fall, and set Easter to the Sunday in that week.

The discrepancy between the eastern and western churches’ Easters is not due only to the 13-day difference in their solar calendars. Their is a 4-to-5 day difference in their lunar calendars as well. Today, Tuesday March 23rd 2010, is the 7th day of the 4th lunar month of 2010 in the Gregorian lunar calendar. In the Julian lunar calendar today is the 3rd day of the moon of April. The Julian moon is 4 days younger than the Gregorian moon.

The eastern churches’ “Zonaras proviso” in fact does not exist except in the minds of canon lawyers. The arithmetic of the Julian lunar calendar is the same now as what stabilized in the 4th-6th centuries. The reason Julian Easter is always later than Passover is simply that the Julian calendar is so inaccurate. The Julian lunar tables are 3-to-5 days behind the astronomical facts, while the Rabbinic and Gregorian lunar calendars follow the lunar phases fairly well. The first day of Unleavened Bread falls when the moon is 15 days old by the Hebrew calendar, when the Julian calendar’s moon is only around 11 days old. Since the age of the moon must be at least 15 days on Easter (by whichever lunar calendar it is computed), Julian Easter will never coincide with Rabbinic matzoth as long as both the Hebrew and Julian calendars continue in the present states.

By: Joel

Joel — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 14:59:52 +0000

(in response to your last section – a fixed date for Easter)

I like that Easter is a movable feast. It reminds us that God is quite involved in time, but that he can (and will) break into time quite unexpectedly.

I have heard talk (thought, not officially) of re-examining the date of the equinox scientifically since we have better technology to do so. I have heard of this as a solution to the East/West dating problem.

By: Bosco Peters

Bosco Peters — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 18:32:58 +0000

Doug, I do not want to distract from your main point and acknowledge this darker underbelly you highlight, but some readers may be struggling to follow: as I understand it, Western Easter can be before Passover, Eastern Easter, following the Nicene calculation can be calculated to be prior to Passover, but then it transfers to after Passover – this “extra rule” is a later development and I’m sorry I cannot date it. Nor am I sure of how this “later Easter” is then derived – does one just keep moving forward Sundays, or does one do a new calculation with the next “full moon”?

By: Doug Morrison-Cleary

Doug Morrison-Cleary — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 15:29:46 +0000

The irony of CT’s misconception, a common one, I believe, amongst Orthodox Christians, is that the Nicaean Council’s decision was entirely based on moving AWAY from a dependence on Jewish calculations and rituals. Contra the Quartodecimans, Pascha would depend on sun and moon and not on the Jews. And there was some definite prejudice involved–with OUR Pascha always occurring after THEIR Pesach! This is the darker underbelly of our Easter calculations…

By: Bosco Peters

Bosco Peters — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 18:31:01 +0000

I normally do not allow anonymous comments through moderation but think this one is worth allowing through in order to clarify a misconception. Your theory would be interesting if it were true, but it is not. In 1012 Passover is on April 7 and Greek Easter is on April 15, on 2013 Passover is on March 26 and Greek Easter is on May 5.

By: CT

CT — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 15:39:05 +0000

Being Greek Orthodox, I think our way of reckoning Easter is vastly simpler: The first Sunday following Jewish Passover. Never understood why the Western Church insists on an arcane formula.

By: Bosco Peters

Bosco Peters — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 07:33:12 +0000

No truth whatsoever, Vincent (would I lie to you ) Last year there were 16 Sundays after Christmas to Easter Day, this year 14, next year 18.

By: Vincent Murphy

Vincent Murphy — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 07:04:08 +0000

Now this is what I always thought was the basis… despite being confidently told that Easter is calculated to be a fixed number of Sundays after Christmas Day. Is there any truth or whisper thereof in this Sundays after Christmas theory?

By: Bosco Peters

Bosco Peters — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 23:29:32 +0000

We, in the Southern Hemisphere, would still need to use a meridian line as our point of measure. I’m struggling to find a Southern Hemisphere city to use as a base-line. Dodoma in Tanzania is closest, but only about 6 degrees South of the Equator – only just scraping into the Southern Hemisphere. Nairobe in Kenya would be next, but hardly scrapes into the Southern Hemisphere at all! Blantyre in Malawi is a good candidate. Maputo in Mozambique is well into the Southern Hemisphere, as is Manzini in Swaziland. Durban in South Africa is nearly as far South as Jerusalem is North. I’m all for being invited to an all-expenses-paid conference on a warm, sunny Pacific Island to discuss “using the most advanced astronomically accurate calculations of the equinox and the full moon following, using the meridian of Durban as the point of measure.” See you there, Mark

By: Mark

Mark — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 23:00:33 +0000

Is the inclusion of “…using the meridian of Jerusalem as the point of measure…” for scriptural or practical reasons, I wonder. Should people in New Zealand, for example, time our Easter “day” according to the Jerusalem time zone? Or should the southern hemisphere time Easter based on the first full moon after the southern spring equinox? Hmmm.

By: Jo Rand

Jo Rand — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 22:30:51 +0000

Is it also the case that the lunar calendar would naturally be more significant to those living nearer to the equator? Since their day length would not vary so much throughout the year, the passing of time would be better measured by lunar phases. Whereas for those further north or south the summer light and winter darkness is far more obvious and important.

I like the fact that Easter moves – it reminds us that there are other ways of measuring time, a Jewish history we sometimes neglect, with significance we can easily miss. Maybe it also reminds the secular world that they cannot package everything neatly into a box with the chocolate eggs…