The Determination of the Celebration of Easter

Until the first quarter of the fourth century, all Christian Churchs’s did not celebrate Easter at the same time.

Each bishop would call a local synod and according to the existing conditions in the local area, he would determine the time of the celebration of Easter that year.

St Constantine the Great asked the Holy fathers of the First Ecumenical Synod to study and to set a date for the celebration of Easter which will be common for all of the Christian world.

This issue, which was essential for the uniformity and the good appearance of Christianity, was attended to by the First Ecumenical Synod in 325 A.D. in Nicaea of Constantinople.

The Synod used the study which the church of Alexandria had done on this issue. It used the method of the well-known astronomer Meton to determine the date using the heavenly phenomenon of the movement of the sun and moon and the other necessary information for the accuracy of the movements of the sun and moon which were necessary in order to make a formula for finding the date of Easter each year until the end of the ages. That is why it is called the eternal "paschalion".

In this article, we are not aiming at giving a detailed scientific explanation of the calculation of Easter, but with simple and understandable terms, help Christians to understand how the celebration of Easter is calculated. We will concentrate on four main rules, which we Orthodox Christians must go by :

Rule 1: Easter must always be celebrated after the spring equinox for the northern hemisphere and the autumn equinox for the southern hemisphere.

EQUINOX

We have an equinox twice a year (spring and autumn). The equinox is the dividing measure of a whole year. Easter is celebrated after the equinox so that Easter is not celebrated twice a year, but only once.

In the Apostolic Orders, the Apostles strongly point out: "Brethren, you must observe the days of Easter with great attention, after the equinox, so that you do not celebrate one passion twice a year, but once, for He only died once."

(Book 5 chap.17)

Rule 2: Our Easter must not be on the same day or before the Jewish Pascha (Passover) because, historically speaking, as we know by the information provided to us by the Holy Evangelists, the Resurrection of the Lord occurred after the Jewish Passover. Therefore, the celebration of Easter must not occur before, or on the same day as the Jewish Passover, but always after it.

Rule 3: Easter must be celebrated after the first full moon which follows the equinox.

Rule 4: The celebration of Easter must be on a Sunday. The New Testament tells us very clearly that the Resurrection of Christ occurred on a Sunday.

St Mark the Evangelist informs us: "Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they (the Myrrh-bearers) were on their way to the tomb and they were saying to each other, "Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?" But when they looked up, they saw that the stone had been rolled away...." (Mark 16:2)

On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the stone at the entrance of the tomb had been rolled away. The Lord, therefore, had already been resurrected.

We Christians have dedicated this glorious first day of the week to the Resurrected Lord and we have named it "Kyriaki" which, in Greek, means Lord's Day.

More can be said about the equinox and its accuracy and also about the formula according to which the date of the celebration of Easter is calculated. We could also refer to the differences between the celebration of Easter in the eastern and western churches, but all of these fall under a scientific theory which presupposes some astronomical knowledge from the part of the reader.

Concluding this article, we emphasise once again what is mentioned in the Apostolic Orders: that we must celebrate Easter observing by the rules and regulations set by the Holy Fathers of the Church.

We must not forget that the celebration of Easter was set with the decision of the First Ecumenical Synod, and the decisions of the Ecumenical Synods are made through the enlightenment and guidance of the Holy Spirit.

By the late Father Nicholas Moutafis 1931-2001