Easter, Annual Festival Commemorating The Resurrection of Jesus Christ

Easter, annual festival commemorating the resurrection of Jesus Christ,
and the principal feast of the Christian year. It is celebrated on a Sunday

on varying dates between March 22 and April 25 and is therefore called a
movable feast. The dates of several other ecclesiastical festivals,
extending over a period between Septuagesima Sunday (the ninth
Sunday before Easter) and the first Sunday of Advent, are fixed in relation
to the date of Easter.
Connected with the observance of Easter are the 40-day penitential
season of Lent, beginning on Ash Wednesday and concluding at midnight
on Holy Saturday, the day before Easter Sunday; Holy Week,
commencing on Palm Sunday, including Good Friday, the day of the
crucifixion, and terminating with Holy Saturday; and the Octave of Easter,
extending from Easter Sunday through the following Sunday. During the
Octave of Easter in early Christian times, the newly baptized wore white
garments, white being the liturgical colour of Easter and signifying light,
purity, and joy.
Pre-Christian Tradition
Easter, a Christian festival, embodies many pre-Christian traditions. The
origin of its name is unknown. Scholars, however, accepting the derivation
proposed by the 8th-century English scholar St Bede, believe it probably
comes from “ostre”, the Anglo-Saxon name of a Teutonic goddess of
spring and fertility, to whom was dedicated a month corresponding to
April. Her festival was celebrated on the day of the vernal equinox;
traditions associated with the festival survive in the Easter rabbit, a symbol
of fertility, and in coloured Easter eggs, originally painted with bright
colours to represent the sunlight of spring, and used in Easter-egg-rolling
contests or given as gifts.
Such festivals, and the stories and legends that explain their origin, were
common in ancient religions. A Greek legend tells of the return of
Persephone, daughter of Demeter, goddess of the earth, from the
underworld to the light of day; her return symbolized to the ancient Greeks
the resurrection of life in the spring after the desolation of winter. Many
ancient peoples shared similar legends. The Phrygians believed that their
omnipotent deity went to sleep at the time of the winter solstice, and they
performed ceremonies with music and dancing at the spring equinox to
awaken him. The Christian festival of Easter probably embodies a number
of converging traditions; most scholars emphasize the original relation of
Easter to the Jewish festival of Passover, or Pesach, from which is
derived “Pasch”, another name for Easter. The early Christians, many of
whom were of Jewish origin, were brought up in the Hebrew tradition and
regarded Easter as a new feature of the Passover festival, a
commemoration of the advent of the Messiah as foretold by the prophets.
The Dating of Easter
According to the New Testament, Christ was crucified on the eve of
Passover and shortly afterwards rose from the dead. In consequence, the
Easter festival commemorated Christ’s resurrection. In time, a serious
difference of opinion arose among Christians over the date of the Easter
festival. Those of Jewish origin celebrated the resurrection immediately
following the Passover festival, which, according to their Babylonian lunar
calendar, fell on the evening of the full moon (the 14th day in the month of
Nisan, the first month of the year); by their reckoning, Easter, from year to
year, fell on different days of the week.
Christians of Gentile 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.
An important historical result of the difference in reckoning the date of
Easter was that the 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 Graeco-Roman civilization,
celebrated Easter on a Sunday.
Rulings of the Council of Nicaea on the Date of Easter
Constantine I, Roman emperor, 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; and that 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 centre 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.
The principal astronomical problem involved was the discrepancy, called
the epact, between the solar year and the lunar year. The chief calendric
problem was a gradually increasing discrepancy between the true
astronomical year and the Julian calendar then in use.
Later Dating Methods
Ways of fixing the date of the feast tried by the Church proved
unsatisfactory, and Easter was celebrated on different dates in different
parts of the world. In 387, for example, the dates of Easter in France and
Egypt were 35 days apart. About 465, the Church adopted a system of
calculation proposed by the astronomer Victorinus, who had been
commissioned by Pope Hilarius to reform the calendar and fix the date of
Easter. Elements of his method are still in use. Refusal of the British and
Celtic Christian churches to adopt the proposed changes led to a bitter
dispute between them and Rome in the 7th century.
Reform of the Julian calendar in 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII, through
adoption of the Gregorian calendar, eliminated much of the difficulty in
fixing the date of Easter and in arranging the ecclesiastical year; since
1752, when the Gregorian calendar was also adopted in Britain and
Ireland, Easter has been celebrated on the same day in the Western part
of the Christian world. The Eastern churches, however, which did not
adopt the Gregorian calendar, commemorate Easter on a Sunday either
preceding or following the date observed in the West. Occasionally the
dates coincide, for example, in 1865 and then in 1963.
Because the Easter holiday affects a varied number of secular affairs in
many countries, it has long been urged as a matter of convenience that
the movable dates of the festival be either narrowed in range or replaced
by a fixed date in the manner of Christmas. In 1923 the problem was
referred to the Holy See, which has found no canonical objection to the
proposed reform. In 1928 the British parliament enacted a measure
allowing the Church of England to commemorate Easter on the first
Sunday after the second Saturday in April. Despite these steps towards
reform, Easter continues to be a movable feast. 1
1"Easter," Microsoft® Encarta® 98 Encyclopedia. © 1993-1997 Microsoft

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Easter, Annual Festival Commemorating The Resurrection of Jesus Christ

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Easter, annual festival commemorating the resurrection of Jesus Christ,

and the principal feast of the Christian year. It is celebrated on a Sunday

1"Easter," Microsoft® Encarta® 98 Encyclopedia. © 1993-1997 Microsoft

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