It's Orthodox Easter Friday today and you might be wondering about the discrepancy between east and west.
The Christian Easter is tied in with the Jewish Pesach or Passover.
The Passover itself is complicated and ties in with the Metonic cycle of years, which involve the Golden Numbers 3, 6, 8, 11, 14, 17, and 19.
From this come calculations for the Jewish calendar year which - the Hebrew Pesach is determined in the Old Testament to begin on the 15th day of the Jewish month of Nissan.
Originally, this meant, from observation of the moon, that Passover was celebrated on the first full moon after the vernal equinox. Christians, therefore, celebrated Pascha according to the same calculation-that is, on the first Sunday after the first full moon following the vernal equinox.
Almost from the very beginning of the existence of the Christian Church, the issue presented variations. Although the New Testament relates these events to the Jewish Passover, the details of this relationship are not clear.
On the one hand, the tradition of the synoptic gospels identifies the Lord's last supper as a passover meal, placing the death of the Lord on the day after Passover. On the other hand, the tradition of the Gospel of St. John situates the death of the Lord at the very hour the paschal lambs were sacrificed on the day of Passover itself.
In practice, one group were celebrating it on any day of the week [wherever the Jewish mid-Nisan fell] and the other was putting it on the Sunday after Passover.
The First Ecumenical Council convened at Nicaea in 325 took up the issue. It determined that Pascha should be celebrated on the Sunday which follows the first full moon after the vernal equinox-the actual beginning of spring.
There was a strong feeling in some quarters that the Christian tradition should not tie in with the Jewish calendar.
Also, there was the question of determining the calendar. In the East, the 19-year cycle was eventually adopted, whereas in the West an 84-year cycle. The use of two different paschal cycles inevitably gave way to differences between the Eastern and Western Churches regarding the observance of Pascha.
A further cause for these differences was the adoption by the Western Church of the Gregorian Calendar in the 16th century. This took place in order to adjust the discrepancy by then observed between the paschal cycle approach to calculating Pascha and the available astronomical data.
Therefore, in practical terms, the invariable date of the vernal equinox is taken by the Orthodox church to be April 3 in our current calendar (but March 21 on the Julian Calendar).
To this blogger, except that it is celebrated vaguely round the spring equinox, it hardly matters, as long as it is celebrated. Personally I like the two Easters plus the rabbits and eggs but I also like the kulich and all that tradition, as well as the midnight vigil.
It all seems to give a nice balance of gravitas and fun. After all, the Resurrection is joyful by definition, not gloomy.
You just reminded me to post the rest of my Easter crosses.
ReplyDeleteIndictions were also used in the early western church for dating purposes. It's an interesting post but you've left much unsaid and made some errors. The eastern and western cycles do coincide at frequencies that I once spent some time calculating but cannot now remember, and the date of the vernal equinox is not invariable. I'm probably mistaken, memory being what it is, but I believe it varies approximately once every fourteen years or so. The solstices vary more frequently I think.
ReplyDeleteIf you're interested in Easter controversies have a look at the Synod of Whitby (AD 664 if I recall aright).
I'm not a God botherer so it's all stuff and bloody nonsense to me but of interest to the historian.