ICONIC April 2016 | Page 7

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