Easter Controversy

This article covers the Easter controversy over the correct date for Easter.

The controversy over the correct date for Easter began in Early Christianity as early as the 2nd century AD. Discussion and disagreement over the best method of computing the date of Easter Sunday have been ongoing and unresolved for centuries. Different Christian denominations continue to celebrate Easter on different dates, with Eastern and Western Christian churches being notable examples.

Quartodecimanism

Some see this first phase as mainly concerned with whether Christians should follow Old Testament practices, see also Christian views on the Old Covenant and Judaizers. Eusebius of Caesarea (Church History, V, xxiii) wrote:

A question of no small importance arose at that time [the time of Pope Victor I c. 190]. The dioceses of all Asia, according to an ancient tradition, held that the fourteenth day [τεσσαρεσκαιδεκάτην], on which day the Jews were commanded to sacrifice the lamb, should always be observed as the feast of the life-giving pasch (ἐπὶ ταῖς τοῦ σωτηρίου Πάσχα ἑορταῖς), contending that the fast ought to end on that day, whatever day of the week it might happen to be. However it was not the custom of the churches in the rest of the world to end it at this point, as they observed the practice, which from Apostolic tradition has prevailed to the present time, of terminating the fast on no other day than on that of the Resurrection of our Saviour.

Quartodecimanism, a word not used in Eusebius’ account as he wrote in Greek, is derived from the Biblical Latin term for the practice of fixing the celebration of Passover for Christians on the fourteenth (Latin quarta decima) day in the Hebrew Calendar (for example Lev 23:5). This was the original method of fixing the date of the Passover, which is to be a “perpetual ordinance”.[1] According to the Gospel of John (for example John 19:14), this was the day that Jesus was crucified in Jerusalem. (The Synoptic Gospels place the day on 15 Nisan, see also Chronology of Jesus.)

Irenaeus records the diversity of practice regarding Easter that had existed at least from the time of Pope Sixtus I (c. 120). He recorded Polycarp, the bishop of Smyrna, taught as the Asiatic churches did, thus by extension Polycarp must have observed the fourteenth day, following a tradition which he claimed to have derived from John the Apostle.

Easter Egg Egg Glass Fragile Feather White Easter

“Polycarp also was not only instructed by apostles, and conversed with many who had seen Christ, but was also, by apostles in Asia, appointed bishop of the Church in Smyrna, whom I also saw in my early youth, for he tarried [on earth] a very long time, and, when a very old man, gloriously and most nobly suffering martyrdom,(1) departed this life, having always taught the things which he had learned from the apostles, and which the Church has handed down, and which alone are true. To these things all the Asiatic Churches testify, as do also those men who have succeeded Polycarp down to the present time.” (Irenaeus, Against Heresies Book p. 4, http://www.prudencetrue.com/images/Irenaeus_Against_Heresies_Book_III.pdf)

Around 195, Pope Victor I, attempted to excommunicate the Quartodecimans, turning the divergence of practice into a full-blown ecclesiastical controversy. According to Eusebius, synods were convened and letters were exchanged, but in the end, having overstepped his mark, Victor, the Bishop of Rome, was rebuked and had to back down.

Eusebius of Caesarea (Church History, V, xxiv) notes:

But this did not please all the bishops. And they besought him to consider the things of peace, and of neighborly unity and love. Words of theirs are extant, sharply rebuking Victor. Among them was Irenaeus, who, sending letters in the name of the brethren in Gaul over whom he presided, maintained that the mystery of the resurrection of the Lord should be observed only on the Lord’s day. He fittingly admonishes Victor that he should not cut off whole churches of God which observed the tradition of an ancient custom.

First Council of Nicaea in 325

Main article: First Council of Nicaea § Separation of Easter computation from the Jewish calendar

Council of Nicaea 325

Council of Nicaea 325

The First Council of Nicaea in 325 declared that Easter was always to be held on a Sunday, and was not to coincide with a particular phase of the moon, which might occur on any day of the week. However, a new dispute arose as to the determination of the Sunday itself, since Sundays can occur on any date of the month. Shortly before the Nicean Council, in 314, the Provincial Council of Arles in Gaul had maintained that the Lord’s Pasch should be observed on the same day throughout the world and that each year the Bishop of Rome should send out letters setting the date of Easter.[2]

The Syriac Christians always held their Easter festival on the Sunday after the Jews kept their Pesach. On the other hand, at Alexandria, and seemingly throughout the rest of the Roman Empire, the Christians calculated the time of Easter for themselves, paying no attention to the Jews. In this way the date of Easter as kept at Alexandria and Antioch did not always agree. The Jewish communities in some places, possibly including Antioch, used methods of fixing their month of Nisan that sometimes put the 14th day of Nisan before the spring equinox. The Alexandrians, on the other hand, accepted it as a first principle that the Sunday to be kept as Easter Day must necessarily occur after the equinox.

The Council of Nicaea ruled that all churches should follow a single rule for Easter, which should be computed independently of the Jewish calendar, as at Alexandria. However, it did not make any explicit ruling about the details of the computation, and it was several decades before the Alexandrine computations stabilized into their final form, and several centuries beyond that before they became normative throughout Christendom.

Synod of Whitby in 664

The Roman missionaries coming to Britain in the time of Pope Gregory I (590–604) found the British Christians adhering to a different system of Easter computation from that used in the Mediterranean basin. This system, on the evidence of Bede, fixed Easter to the Sunday falling in the seven-day period from the 14th to the 20th of its lunar month, according to an 84-year cycle. The limits of Nisan 14 – Nisan 20 are corroborated by Columbanus. The method used by the Roman Church was Nisan 15 – Nisan 21. The 84-year cycle, the lunar limits, and an equinox of March 25 also receive support from McCarthy’s analysis of Padua, Biblioteca Antoniana, MS I.27. Any of these features alone could have led to occasional discrepancies from the date of Easter as computed by the Alexandrian method.

This 84-year cycle (called the latercus) gave way to the Alexandrian computus in stages. The Alexandrian computus may have been adopted in parts of the south of Ireland in the first half of the 7th century. Among the northern English, the use of the Alexandrian computus over the Brittano-Irish cycle was decided at the Synod of Whitby in 664. The Alexandrian computus was finally adopted by the Irish colonies in northern Britain in the early 8th century.

Modern calls for a reform of the date of Easter

reform of the date of Easter has been proposed several times because the current system for determining the date of Easter is seen as presenting two significant problems:

  • Its date varies from year to year. It can fall on up to 35 days in March and April of the respective calendar. While many Christians do not consider this to be a problem, it can cause frequent difficulties of co-ordination with civil calendars, for example academic terms. Many countries have public holidays around Easter weekend or tied to the date of Easter but spread from February to June, such as Shrove Tuesday or Ascension and Pentecost.
  • Many Eastern churches calculate the date of Easter using the Julian calendar, whereas some Eastern churches use the Revised Julian calendar and all Western churches and civil authorities have adopted the Gregorian reforms for all calendrical purposes. Hence in most years, Easter is celebrated on a later date in the East than in the West.
Dates for Easter for 20 years in the past and in the future
(Gregorian dates, 2000 to 2040)
Year Western Eastern
2000 April 23 April 30
2001 April 15
2002 March 31 May 5
2003 April 20 April 27
2004 April 11
2005 March 27 May 1
2006 April 16 April 23
2007 April 8
2008 March 23 April 27
2009 April 12 April 19
2010 April 4
2011 April 24
2012 April 8 April 15
2013 March 31 May 5
2014 April 20
2015 April 5 April 12
2016 March 27 May 1
2017 April 16
2018 April 1 April 8
2019 April 21 April 28
2020 April 12 April 19
2021 April 4 May 2
2022 April 17 April 24
2023 April 9 April 16
2024 March 31 May 5
2025 April 20
2026 April 5 April 12
2027 March 28 May 2
2028 April 16
2029 April 1 April 8
2030 April 21 April 28
2031 April 13
2032 March 28 May 2
2033 April 17 April 24
2034 April 9
2035 March 25 April 29
2036 April 13 April 20
2037 April 5
2038 April 25
2039 April 10 April 17
2040 April 1 May 6

After the Gregorian reform of the calendar by promulgation in 1582, the Roman Catholic Church as well as Protestant churches of the Christian West came to follow a different method of computing the date of Easter from the one that had been previously accepted. The Orthodox Church and the majority of the Christian East continue the older practice aligned to the Julian calendar.

Several attempts have sought to achieve a common method for computing the date of Easter. In 1997 the World Council of Churches proposed a reform of the method of determining the date of Easter at a summit in Aleppo, Syria: Easter would be defined as the first Sunday following the first astronomical full moon following the astronomical vernal equinox, as determined from the meridian of Jerusalem. The reform would have been implemented starting in 2001, since in that year the Eastern and Western dates of Easter would coincide. This reform has not been implemented.

Adapted from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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