| And why is Easter Day different in the West from in | | | | church continues to calculate its festivals by the Julian |
| the East? | | | | calendar. |
| In 325 AD, the Council of Nicaea decided that Easter | | | | In 2008 the Jewish Passover is April 20 (sundown 19 |
| Day would be the Sunday which follows the first full | | | | April) to April 27, 2008 (at sundown) (Jewish Year: |
| moon after the (Northern Hemisphere) Spring | | | | 5768). Easter for Western churches is March 23, |
| equinox. If the full moon falls on a Sunday, then | | | | 2008 (ie. well before Jewish Passover). For Eastern |
| those bishops said that Easter Day would be on the | | | | churches, however, it is more than a month later - on |
| following Sunday. They also set the Spring equinox to | | | | April 27, 2008. |
| be 21 March. | | | | Easter Day can occur anywhere between March 22 |
| By the sixth century people had created complicated | | | | and April 25. It only occurs as early as this year, |
| mathematical formulas to calculate the date of | | | | 2008, about once a century. It only occurs on March |
| Easter. There were cycles of 19 years in the East, | | | | 22 about once every two centuries (the last time |
| and 84 years in the West. Easter calculations were | | | | this happened was 1818 - the next time, if the |
| now no longer based on a real astronomical full moon. | | | | current calculation continues, will be 2285). In 1913 |
| Easter Day began to be established on an | | | | Easter was on the same date as this year, but Lent |
| "ecclesiastical moon," calculated by these tables. | | | | started February 5 (this year it started February 6), |
| The Gregorian Calendar | | | | because 2008 year is a leap year, adding February 29 |
| And Easter Day, as celebrated in the East and in the | | | | within Lent. |
| West, began to drift apart. There was another | | | | Easter in the future? |
| problem. People were using the "Julian Calendar". But | | | | There has been a suggestion that Easter Day be |
| this was losing its connection to the actual solar year. | | | | fixed on the Sunday after the second Saturday in |
| The Julian Calendar had every year divisible by four | | | | April. This would remove any connection with the |
| as a leap year. The Julian year, however, is a little bit | | | | lunar cycle. The Second Vatican Council of the Roman |
| too long. By the sixteenth century the Julian Calendar | | | | Catholic Church in the 1960s agreed to a fixed date |
| was 10 days off the solar reality. And so in 1582 | | | | for Easter if a consensus could be reached among |
| Pope Gregory declared that the day after October | | | | Christian churches. |
| 4th would be October 15th. From now on, he ruled, | | | | There was an ecumenical meeting in Aleppo, Syria in |
| only centuries divisible by 400 would be a leap year. | | | | 1997. This concluded that the present differences in |
| This is called the Gregorian calendar. Most countries | | | | the calendars and lunar tables (paschal cycles) have |
| now use this. In this system 1900 was not a leap | | | | no different fundamental theological outlook. The |
| year (as it would have been just dividing by four as | | | | suggestion there was to replace both Eastern and |
| the Julian calendar did). 2000 was a leap year. | | | | Western calculations with the most advanced and |
| England, because it had rejected the authority of the | | | | most astronomically accurate calculations of the |
| pope, did not change to the Gregorian calendar until | | | | Spring equinox and of the full moon following, using |
| 1752. When it did there were riots demanding the | | | | the meridian of Jerusalem as the point of measure. |
| giving back of the (by then) 12 days lost! | | | | There has, however, been no further development |
| Furthermore, even today, the Eastern part of the | | | | to unify Easter Day in this way after that meeting. |