Easter

G

The Easter Service

The many religious rituals of Lent and Holy Week culminate in the observance of Easter Sunday. Since this is the most important and joyous feast day of the year, the services are appropriately elaborate. They are accompanied by the richest possible displays of vestments, ritual accessories, and flowers, including the traditional Easter lilies. In many places, sunrise services are held outdoors.

In the Roman Catholic Church the most solemn Easter service is the vigil observed on the night of Holy Saturday. The vigil includes the blessing of the new fire, the procession of the paschal candle, scripture reading, and often baptisms. It is ended by a mass, in which the sacrifice of Christ is reenacted.

V

The Dating of Easter

According to the New Testament, Christ was crucified on the eve of Passover and shortly afterward rose from the dead. In consequence, the Easter festival commemorated Christ’s resurrection. In time, a serious difference over the date of the Easter festival arose among Christians. Those of Jewish origin celebrated the resurrection immediately following the Passover festival. By their reckoning, Easter fell on different days of the week from year to year.

Christians of non-Jewish origin, however, wished to commemorate the resurrection on the first day of the week, Sunday. By their method, Easter occurred on the same day of the week, but from year to year it fell on different dates.

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Christian churches in the East, which were closer to the birthplace of the new religion and in which old traditions were strong, observed Easter according to the date of the Passover festival. The churches of the West, descendants of Greco-Roman civilization, celebrated Easter on a Sunday.

A

Rulings of the Council of Nicaea

Roman emperor Constantine the Great convoked the Council of Nicaea in 325. The council unanimously ruled that the Easter festival should be celebrated throughout the Christian world on the first Sunday after the full moon following the vernal equinox. If the full moon should occur on a Sunday and thereby coincide with the Passover festival, Easter should be commemorated on the Sunday following. Coincidence of the feasts of Easter and Passover was thus avoided.

The Council of Nicaea also decided that the calendar date of Easter was to be calculated at Alexandria, then the principal astronomical center of the world. The accurate determination of the date, however, proved an impossible task in view of the limited knowledge of the 4th-century world. As a result Easter was celebrated on different dates in different parts of the world.

B

The Gregorian Calendar

Adoption of the Gregorian calendar in 1582 eliminated much of the difficulty in fixing the date of Easter. Since 1752, when the Gregorian calendar was also adopted in Great Britain and Ireland, Easter has been celebrated on the same day in the Western part of the Christian world. The Eastern churches did not adopt the Gregorian calendar and continue to determine the date of Easter using the Julian calendar. Several efforts were made during the 20th century to narrow the range of dates for Easter or establish a fixed date for the feast. However, Easter continues to be a so-called movable feast.

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