Ecclesiasticus I: Introducing Eastern Orthodoxy
Ecclesiasticus II: Orthodox Icons, Saints, Feasts and Prayer
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Many people ask why Easter under the Orthodox
Church is often celebrated on a different date to that of the Western
Churches, Catholic and Protestant. The question is justified, for we live
in a situation in which the majority of Christendom celebrates Easter
under the Western tradition.
The precise determination of the date of Easter has preoccupied
Christians throughout the history of the Church and has been a divisive
factor which continues to the present day to be a source of controversy
between the Eastern and Western Churches.
Those Christians who originally converted from Judaism celebrated
Easter in accordance with the Jewish calendar, on the same day that the
feast of the Passover, 'Pascha', was celebrated, that day being the 14th
of the lunar month of Nisan, regardless of the day of the week upon which
it fell. The Churches of Asia Minor followed this practice whilst the
other Churches both in the East and in the West, always celebrated Easter
on the Sunday following this date.
The Christians of Asia Minor held that this date was that of the
crucifixion of Christ, whilst the Christians of the other Eastern and
Western Churches believed it to be the date of the Last Supper, held on
the day preceding the crucifixion and being a Passover meal. The Gospel,
of Saint John asserts the former and the Synoptic Gospels assert the latter,
a discrepancy for which an explanation has been attempted by pointing
out that the Synoptic Gospels followed Jewish practice in considering
the 14th of Nisan to have begun on the previous evening and
hence, from a calendar point of view, on the evening of 13th
of Nisan.
By the third century AD, all the Churches had agreed upon celebrating
Easter on the Sunday following 14th of Nisan. This date was
determined in accordance with the Jewish calculation of Passover, on the
first full moon following the vernal equinox. Following the destruction
of Jerusalem in AD 70, however, the Jews of the Diaspora depended upon
local pagan calendars for their calculations. The feast of Passover consequently
sometimes preceded the vernal equinox and most Christians abandoned the
practice of regulating the date of Easter through the date of Passover
in order to avoid the inaccuracy occasioned by the dependence on these
calendars.
The alternative to depending upon Passover for the determination
of a date for Easter was the system of 'paschal cycles', each paschal
cycle having a duration of several years, throughout which the full moon
occurs on the same day of the year, with only some exceptions. Once again
differences in the employment of these cycles arose between the Eastern
and Western Churches; the Eastern Church adopted a 19-year cycle whereas
the Western Church employed a less accurate 84-year cycle, which resulted
in more differences. In the West the vernal equinox was observed on 18th
March, while in the East it was observed on 21st March.
The issue was finally brought before the First Ecumenical Synod
at Nicaea in AD 325, which decreed that Easter must not be calculated
according to Passover, but that it must be celebrated after the vernal
equinox, specifically, on the Sunday following the first full moon occurring
after the date of the vernal equinox. Subsequently, the regulation concerning
Passover was interpreted as requiring that Easter be celebrated after
Passover. The Eastern Church then reverted to the original method for
the determination of the date of Passover and consequently of Easter.
Since AD 325 the “loss of time” has resulted in a “forwarding”
of calendar dates and hence 21st March at the time of the Synod
at Nicaea now corresponds with 3rd April. Therefore Easter may not be
celebrated before this date or after 8th May by the Orthodox Church.
Although the Eastern Church has neglected consideration for the
progressive loss of time since AD 325, the Western Church has also neglected
this, in addition to not having taken into account either the original
method for the determination of the Passover date or the accurate determination
of the vernal equinox, without which an accurate determination of the
date of Easter is impossible. The present discrepancy is consequently
a result of all the above-mentioned factors and will not be resolved unless
new standards of accuracy are sought and effected.
Read
other writings by His Eminence Metropolitan Makarios in Adventures
in the Unseen
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