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Lansing's Advice Column

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Dear IMO,

I'm a bit confused about Easter this year. It seems earlier than I ever remember it. Just how do they calculate the date for Easter?

Sincerely,
Katie

Dear Katie,

If you are celebrating Easter according to the Gregorian Calendar than your Easter is very early, March 23, but if you are celebrating Pascha (the Eastern Orthodox term for the feast) according to the Julian Calendar than the date is April 27. It's rather complicated, and this could turn into a full seminar on Church History. For the sake of brevity, permit me to condense 2,000 years of history into a few paragraphs.

The formula for determining the date of Easter, Christ's Resurrection, has been an on-going phenomenon since the early days of the church. Before the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD, individual churches celebrated Easter according to their local tradition or custom. For example, there were some Christian communities, especially those in Asia Minor, who celebrated the actual date of the first Easter, which happened on the 14th Day in the Jewish month of Nisan. If you were part of this group, then your Easter did not always fall on a Sunday, but on the day of the week that coincided with 14 Nisan. Meanwhile, other Christians would celebrate the Sunday immediately following the date of 14 Nisan. In some cities, there would be two Easters, and as you guessed, real theological confusion.

When the Emperor Constantine the Great convened the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD, the clergy in attendance decided on a formula for determining the date of Easter: Easter would be the Sunday which follows the first full moon after the vernal equinox. If the full moon happened to fall on Sunday, Easter would be celebrated the following Sunday. Furthermore, it fixed the vernal equinox to be 21 March. These dates were decided upon using the Julian calendar, which had some problems of its own. Several years later, another factor was added to the equation by the Eastern Orthodox Church: Easter could not precede or coincide with Passover. If this happened, then Easter would be the following Sunday.

By the sixth century complex mathematical methods had been devised, involving paschal cycles of 19 years in the East, and 84 years in the West. Hence Easter calculations are based not on the astronomical full moon but an "ecclesiastical moon," based on these created tables.

In the year 1582, the Roman Catholic Church adopted the Gregorian calendar which corrected the inaccuracies of the Julian calendar. Naturally, the Eastern Orthodox Church refused to adopt the Gregorian calendar and continued using the Julian calendar.

This year, the Churches celebrate Easter/Pascha nearly six weeks apart based on the Nicaea formula, the inherent differences in calendars, and the fact that Passover is April 20 this year. Oh vey! No matter when you celebrate, enjoy.

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