How Easter dates are determined

Every year as the month of March approaches, the question on everyone’s mind – especially now that printed calendars are fast disappearing from homes — is where the four-day Easter holiday will fall.

It is not an idle question. The dates on which Easter falls vary by more than a month. Why? Who sets the dates anyway?

According to wiki.answers.com, the date is determined by a combination of events centred on the lunar cycle, the solar cycle, the division of each year into 365 days and a 1,700-year-old Church ruling.

The explanation starts with the fact that early Christians elected to link the date of Easter to the Hebrew calendar.

The resurrection

The New Testament in the Bible states that the resurrection of Jesus took place on the first day of the week following Passover.

According to timeanddate.com, in 325AD, the Council of Nicaea established that Easter would be held on the first Sunday after the first full moon occurring on or after the vernal equinox. From that point forward, the Easter date depended on the approximation of March 21 for the vernal equinox.

Easter is delayed by one week if the full moon is sighted on a Sunday, which decreases the chances of the holiday falling on the same day as the Jewish Passover.

The council’s ruling, however, was contrary to the Quartodecimans, a group of Christians who celebrated Easter on the day of the full moon, 14 days into the month, says the website.

Sunday is the first day of a Jewish week; the Passover falls on the day of the first full moon after the Spring Equinox, which can fall on either March 20 or 21.

Still, Easter is not celebrated universally on that date. According to catholicism.about.com, while Western Christians use the Gregorian calendar (the calendar that is used throughout the West today, in both the secular and religious worlds) to calculate the date of Easter, the Eastern Orthodox continue to use the older Julian calendar.

Currently, March 21 on the Julian calendar falls on April 3 in the Gregorian calendar. Therefore, for the Orthodox, the Sunday following the 14th day of the full moon sighting has to fall after April 3, hence the discrepancy in the date of Easter, adds catholicism.about.com.

Confusion

The confusion over the dates Easter falls has seen a group of Christians, under the umbrella of the World Council of Churches, leading the clamour to have a day fixed and there seems to be broad support for the idea, according to smart.net.

In fact, Pope John XXIII is on record stating that there is nothing wrong with fixing the date of Easter, and his sentiments have been echoed by many in the World Council of Churches, the website notes.

The website, quoting Encyclopaedeia Brittanica, says the second Sunday in April is the most favoured date.

“Fixing the date of Easter to a particular Sunday would still mean that Easter and the feasts related to it would be movable, but the movement would be restricted to a span of seven dates (for example, the second Sunday in April must fall between April 8th-14th),” says smart.net.

And according to The Independent, a British newspaper, governments and churches around the world have attempted to fix a specific date.

Secularists have suggested that Easter should fall on the second Sunday of April each year. “The World Council of Churches in 1997 suggested replacing the current equation-based system with direct astronomical observation,” says the British newspaper.

“But while there is notional agreement, implementation is another matter. In Britain, an Easter Act was passed in 1928 fixing the holiday as ‘the first Sunday after the second Saturday in April’.”

The law remains in the statute book, but it has never been enforced because there are too many contradictory influences.

Christians believe that Easter marks the season when the son of God, Jesus Christ, was crucified on the cross at Mt Calvary in Jerusalem. The crucifixion was to atone for the sins of Christians, and theologians urge believers to dedicate the Easter season to repenting of their sins, hence the tagline: “Remember Jesus is the reason for the season.”

However, many Kenyans look forward to the four-day holiday for the chance to engage in uproarious festivities.

Fun-filled party

Nairobi resident Derrick Otieno organised one such party yesterday, inviting his friends on the social media platform Facebook to contribute Sh3,000 for the chance to attend “a fun-filled party” at a restaurant in the outskirts of Nairobi.

“Lots of nyama choma (barbecued meat) and beer on Saturday,” promised Derrick.

The Rev Samuel Githinji, the chaplain at St Paul’s University, agrees that over the years, Christians have forgotten the significance of Easter.

“To me, this is the biggest and most important event in the Christian calendar, bigger than even Christmas,” he said.

He organised events over the last two weeks to get his students into the spirit of Easter.

“On Thursday, we had a feet-washing service, on Good Friday, yesterday, we had a mass to mark the day Jesus died, and tomorrow [today], we’ll have another service to celebrate his resurrection,” he said. “Many other churches will have just one service today, which shows they have lost track of the importance of the season.”