ularly Turkey,
church
officials stuck with
the 14th of Nissan,
but by the second
century A.D., the celebration in Rome became
fixed on a Sunday, Frizzell says. (Pope Victor I even
threatened to have the so-called
“Quartodecimans,” or Fourteeners,
in Asia Minor excommunicated, and
eventually celebrating Easter on Sunday
became universal.)
But which Sunday? The Council of Nicaea in
325 A.D. determined it should be the first Sunday
after the first full moon following the vernal equinox, fixed at March 21. This year’s March 27 is certainly on the early side, but the earliest Easter can occur is
March 22 — that last happened in 1818 and won’t happen
again until 2285.
That’s in the Roman Catholic Church. When Pope Gregory XIII
corrected the Julian calendar in the 16th century to adjust for the
discrepancy of calendar time versus calculated astronomical time,
those in what is now known as the Orthodox Catholic Church (or Eastern Orthodox Church) refused to adopt the revised calendar until well
into the 20th century, and even now, they still celebrate Easter according to
the old (Julian) calendar, not the Gregorian calendar.
That means their Easter usually falls on a different and later Sunday — May 1 this
year, five weeks after the Roman Catholic Easter.
7 PAGE | ICONIC MAGAZINE