THE DATE OF EASTER IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH (FINAL)

Past disputes over the date of Easter

The "past" dispute over the date of Easter still goes on in the 21st century. With an emphasis on Christian unity prevailing now in the world, churches are looking anew at theological issues that have divided them. The need to find a common date for the celebration of Easter has taken on urgency. The churches do not present a united Christian front when they are still divided on this basic issue has that gone on now for centuries. The problem needs serious attention.

The need for a common date for Easter/Pascha has shown itself clearly from the earliest Christian times. Renewed discussion has taken place on this issue in churches that are East and West. It is also important in the secular world of celebrating a legal holiday.

The wider Christian world focused on the question of Easter's date in a 1920 encyclical of the ecumenical patriarchate of Constantinople. It was later focused on in a 1923 Pan-Orthodox congress. The decision to revise their calendar led to several serious schisms within the Orthodox churches.

At this same time secular circles, especially in Western Europe, were discussing having a fixed day for Easter to help commercial planning and public activities. Proposals for a new fixed calendar were being looked at seriously for utilitarian reasons.

After World War II international secular initiatives received little if any support. The churches did not want to change to any calendar that would break the cycle of the seven-day week. But many churches continued to express the need for a unified date whether movable or fixed.

The Constitution of the Sacred Liturgy of the Second Vatican Council (1963) gave renewed importance in the Roman Catholic Church to discussion of the proposed date of the celebration of Easter.

The World Council of Churches has looked at the subject a number of times since 1965.

The Middle East Council of Churches has been quite active in recent years in seeking a common day. There are many Christians living closely together in a non-Christian society. A discussion/focus group on "Christian Spirituality in Our Times" (lasi, Romania, May 1994) established that a new initiative was desired for the common day for the celebration of Easter.

An agreement about this subject awaits further ecumenical developments. It is agreed that this agreement must include the feelings of Christians worldwide.

How long have the "discussions" and ecumenical groups been trying to find one unified day to celebrate Easter? Easter observance began in the first century it is said. The first real evidence for Easter's observation, however, comes from the second century.

The second century church had no unified date for the holy day. Many Christians wanted to continue to also celebrate Passover which is on the fourteenth of Nissan, the first month of the Jewish calendar. By the end of the second century, some early Christians celebrated Easter on the same day as Passover no matter what day of the week it fell on. Others celebrated it on the first Sunday after Passover. The date was set as the first Sunday after Passover by the Council of Nicea in 325 CE. However, if Passover fell on a Sunday, Easter was delayed a week. It was, therefore, observed on a day between the 15th and 21st day of the Nisan.

Finally, Easter was set to be celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after the date of the vernal (spring) equinox, March 21st. But this selected date did not make all Christians happy to have a date at last. It was only in the 6th century that, based on the studies of Alexandrian astronomers and scholars, the calculation gained universal acceptance.