As we all know, it will be Easter Sunday this weekend, and it will be one the earliest Easter in any of our lifetimes. The last time Easter was this early was in 1913, and it will not happen again until 2160. The only earlier possible date for Easter is 22nd March, which will never happen in our lifetime.
Most of us may know that Easter is a moveable feast. But two questions come to mind about this: a) why is it a moveable feast, and b) how is the date of Easter worked out? Well, the first answer is that it is moveable because no-one actually knows when the events that it is meant to commemorate actually happened. It is known (from the Bible) that the Crucifixion and the Resurrection happened at the time of the Jewish Passover festival, but not the year it happened. So, the tradition became that it should be commemorated just after passover, with some factions, such as those known as the Quartodecimans (from the Latin for fourteen) commemorating it on the 14th day of the Jewish month of Nisan (the beginning of Passover) and others marking the occasion on the first Sunday following.
In the year 325 AD, the Emperor Constantine held a council at Nicaea, in what is now Turkey, to resolve questions relating to the date of Easter. It had become intolerable that people were keeping this festival on different dates. Amongst the things decided at this council were the following:
1) the festival of Easter should be commemorated on the same date by all Christians (and on a Sunday), and
2) the date of Easter should not depend upon the Jewish feast of Passover.
In effect, what came out of this was that the churches would devise their own reckoning for when Easter should occur, by calculating the date of the full moon around spring time (the 14th day of the lunar month), without having to consult the Jews, and that it should not take place before the spring equinox. This caused problems, however, because although at that time the spring equinox took place around the 21st March, many people still took the Roman date of 25th March. The rule of 21st march being applied did not occur until later. Another problem was the drift of the Julian calendar. This meant that the equinox began to happen earlier and earlier according to the calendar, until in the 16th century it was on 11th March. But the calculations were still done according to 21st March, so Easter was getting later and later as compared to the equinox. This was resolved by the introduction of the Gregorian calendar in 1582 (not introduced in Britain until 1752), which, by removing 10 days from the calendar, restored the equinox to on or around 21st March.
So, nowadays, it is celebrated on the first Sunday following the first full moon on or after the day of the spring equinox, which is still taken as being 21st March. This year's full moon is on the 21st, but by the ecclesiastical calculations it is the 22nd, and thus the next Sunday is the 23rd. If it had not been for the Gregorian calendar reform, however, Easter would have been on 27th April this year (as it will be for the eastern orthodox churches in places like Greece and Russia), except that it would have been called 14th April. This is because they still take the equinox as occurring on 21st March, but by the Julian calendar, which is 3rd April in our calendar. Confused? I'm not surprised.
A solution?
Many solutions to this difference of dates have been put forward but there are two that have the most favour:
1) Use a purely astronomical solution, i.e. use the actual date of the full moon and the actual date of the equinox to decide the date. The problem with this is that the date of the full moon differs depending upon time zone, so it might be 21st March in London but 22nd March in Jerusalem. The meridian of Jerusalem has been suggested, however. Also, it is difficult to predict the actual full moons much beyond a few thousand years into the future, as its orbit changes over time. This may not seem to be important to us, but it is deemed important by the churches. The current Gregorian calculations cover a period of 5,700,000 years, although these will be well out of synchronisation with the moon by then.
2) A fixed date. Did you know that by British law the date of Easter has been fixed as the first Sunday after the second Saturday in April, i.e. the 9th to the 15th. It has not been enacted, however, because the churches have not come to agreement over it yet.
So, for the time being it will be a moveable feast, and though it will be very early this year, we'll still enjoy our chocolate eggs.
Happy Easter.
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