The Other Easter (Bright Year: Day 30)

Calendars are slippery things. We modern humans spend a disproportionate amount of our time setting up events, planning meetings, adjusting for daylight savings and time zones. Changing the schedule is a regular (but ever-annoying) occurrence. These days my calendars are all digital, but in the past I gladly incinerated them at the end of the year. Good riddance.

The Christian calendar hasn’t been easy easier. All the faithful hold that Jesus was raised from the dead on Easter, the Sunday following the Passover. That didn’t mean that everyone would agree on the exact date of observance each year. In the second century there was a devout bunch called the Quartodecimans who sought to celebrate Easter on the Passover, highlighting the connections between the two. The majority view prevailed, celebrating on the Sunday after.

The dating controversies continues, so the Council of Nicea (325) set the date of Easter as the first Sunday after the first full moon of the spring equinox. Problem solved? No. The Roman west followed their own calendar while the east followed the Julian calendar. After some refinements the Church was guaranteed that there would, on virtually any year, be two Easters.

Today (May 2) is Easter in the east. As a westerner trying out Bright Year, I hold no grudge. Let’s have us Pascha all over again. Let us be keeping the feast.