St. Anthony's Parish  Your English speaking Roman catholic parish in Kraineem   

Home > Communication > News >

News

Printable version     

Easter in 2008

by Father Philip Sandstrom

Brussels (30th March 2008).- Easter is a ‘moveable feast’. The season from Ash Wednesday to Easter to Pentecost seems to ‘float’ in the year because it is based on a ‘moon calendar’ which also settles the dates of the Jewish feasts of Passover, Shavuot (Pentecost) and Succoth (Tabernacles). All the rest of the Christian Calendar is based on the ‘sun calendar’ – which means that the feasts and saints appear on the same day every year. (When there is a conflict between Easter and the rest of the Christian Calendar, Holy Week and Easter Week are more important and take preference. This explains the movement of the dates for the Annunciation, Saint Joseph and Saint Patrick this year). 

Easter in 2008 is practically as early as it possibly can be (the very earliest possible date is 22 March). And it is very rarely so early – only a couple of times in a century at most. 

Our earliest ancestors in the Faith did not concern themselves with a special date for Easter Sunday, nor Holy Week either, because they celebrated Easter every Sunday – which they saw as the ‘eighth day of creation, or better, the first day of the New Creation’. For them, and ourselves, the Sunday celebration is our ‘doorway’ through Jesus’ Cross and Resurrection to sharing Divine life given in the Holy Spirit on Easter/Pentecost to the Church. [The Russian word for Sunday means “little Easter”, so they continue in their ordinary language to make the connection between each Sunday and Easter. The Romance languages and Greek speak of Sunday as the “day of the Lord” which is another expression of the same link.] 

By the fourth century, when the Christianity had spread throughout the East and the West of the Roman Empire, and when the Emperor Constantine recognized the Church’s place within the Empire, it became possible for ordinary folk to visit the Holy Land as pilgrims. St. Helena, the mother of Constantine, oversaw the identification of the special ‘holy sites’ of our Lord’s life on earth and built churches on the places which could be named with some confidence. The Church in Jerusalem began the custom of celebrating Easter as the Great Feast of the Church Year at the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre, and then, accommodating the influx of pilgrims, gradually extended the celebrations backward into what is now Holy Week and Lent, and forward till Pentecost. 

There was much controversy and different opinions as to how to establish the proper day for this Great Feast of Easter celebration. From the New Testament they knew that it took place in the context of the Jewish Feast of Passover. Some wanted to celebrate it, Sunday or not, two days after the Jewish Passover. Others were content to have a connection with the date of Passover, but wanted to keep to the closest Sunday for the celebration. And there were other opinions besides. 

At the First Council of Nicea (325AD) which was called at the request of the Emperor Constantine, among many other important matters the Bishops present from all over the Empire decided that the Great Feast of Easter should come on “the Sunday following the first full moon following the Spring Equinox, and after the Jewish Passover”. In the Western Church, for all sorts of historical reasons, they gradually left out reference to “and after the Jewish Passover”. 

This explains why this year Easter for the Western Church is 23rd March, and for the Eastern Church it is after the Jewish Passover (20th April) on 27th April. 

The variation in establishing the date of Easter is a subject discussion over many centuries between the East and the West of the Church. All would like to celebrate the Resurrection of the Lord on the same day. The problem comes down to which moon calendar system to follow, or perhaps abandoning the moon calendar all together, and just establishing a common annual Sunday date for the celebration – and all the seasonal dates with go with it. [In fact most of the Eastern Catholic communities here in Brussels keep the same date for Easter as the rest of the Catholic Church. The situation is much more complicated among the Eastern Orthodox Churches.]

Saint Paul tells us: “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins” and again, “if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain” (I Corinthians 15: 14 & 17). Our faith is not in vain! Death and sin are conquered in the works the Christ has accomplished for us.

Easter, what ever dating we use, (and every Sunday also) is when we do proclaim with great solemnity: “Christ is risen! He is truly risen! 

▲up