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"Our Lord has written the promise of the resurrection, not in books alone, but in every leaf in spring-time." -- Martin Luther
[To Christians celebrating on the Orthodox calendar, Happy Easter -- Χριστος Ανεστη! Health permitting, I'll be headed to Mom's house later today for Easter dinner. And yes, I realize I quoted one of the fathers of Protestantism on an Orthodox holiday.]
(no subject)
Whilst the date of Christmas is largely based in paganism and there is no biblical instruction to remember it as there is for the sacrifice made by Christ and the date of his birth is wildly uncertain; the date of his death seems to be a lot more precise, the last supper was a passover meal which would have been on the eve of the first full moon after the spring equinox, a floating date in itself, but at any one year the date can be determined precisely.
(no subject)
I know it's something to do with the full moon after 21 March or something and the difference between (21 March)Gregorian and (21 March)Julian accounts for the difference while the fact that the relevant full moon can occur at different points within that span accounts for why the two Easters are not always the same distance apart.
And yes, it's directly (and explicitly, not coincidentally) tied to Passover.
Okay, now to ask Wikipedia for the bits I couldn't remember...
ISTR there having been some argument over whether the date also had to be shifted to prevent Easter from happening before Passover, but I can't find the reference (and as you can see, Western Easter was before Passover this year).
I did find another explanation (http://catholicism.about.com/od/holydaysandholidays/f/Calculate_Date.htm) which may or may not be easier to follow:
BTW, while (AFAIK) all Orthodox churches celebrate Easter on the Julian calendar, some also celebrate Christmas on the Julian calendar (so there are 'old calendar' and 'new calendar' Orthodox churches). I wrote about (http://dglenn.livejournal.com/854780.html) how celebrating both Christmases makes Christmas last nearly a month instead of just twelve days, a while ago. :-)
(no subject)
Passover is tied to the the lunar calendar and the date of the full moon and the vernal equinox because the moon was needed to illuminate the doorposts and later to give light to the Jews as they fled Egypt. It was not tied to a date in any man-made calendar as such. (Although, IIRC in the Jewish calendar it was Nisan 15, making the last supper Nisan 14 and the blood of the lamb used on the doorposts the blood shed in preparing the last meal eaten before Passover took place).
Easter and Passover should be coincident.
(no subject)
Another complicating factor is that at the time of the Council of Nicaea, the system by which intercalary months are put into the Jewish calendar was not widely understood -- at least not by the Catholic community -- and so trying to figure out when to place a feast synchronized to Passover required reverse-engineering the scheme by which Passover's dates in the Julian calendar can occur. And as there are several rules that aren't obvious if you don't know how the calendar works, it's remarkable the work came out as close to agreeing as it did.
(no subject)