Christians around the world, from Arkansas to Rome, celebrated Easter last Sunday. This Sunday, the rest of Christendom will do so.
Why are the two celebrations a week apart? It all comes down to two calendars -- the ancient Julian calendar and the modern Gregorian calendar, instituted in 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII.
Orthodox Christians, who will celebrate Easter (or Pascha, as they call it) on Sunday, and a few other Christian groups base the date of Easter on the old calendar, while the rest of the Christian world uses the modern one. The two calendars currently differ by 13 days, with the Julian calendar 13 days behind the Gregorian, and that's where the problem lies.
In the early days of Christianity, there was no common date for Easter and local communities often had their own customs when it came to celebrating the Resurrection. It wasn't until the Council of Nicaea met in 325 that a system for establishing the date of Easter was agreed upon. The council used this formula -- Easter would be celebrated on the Sunday following the first full moon after the vernal (spring) equinox. The caveat was that Easter had to follow the Jewish holiday of Passover, which is based on a lunar calendar.
"It sounds simple, but the dating of Passover scrambles things up," said Father John Atchison, priest at St. Nicholas Orthodox Church in Springdale.
The formula held for centuries and Christians celebrated Easter on the same date until the Gregorian calendar was instituted. Not everyone adopted the new calendar but each side continued to use the formula established by the council. But because of the 13-day difference, the vernal equinox (March 21 as set by the council) on the Julian calendar coincides with April 3 on the Gregorian calendar. That means Easter would often fall on different dates depending on which calendar was used.
The Orthodox Church continued to use the old calendar. But during a gathering of bishops in 1923 many branches of the church agreed to finally adopt the Gregorian calendar. Some adopted the calendar later and a few, including the Russian Orthodox Church, refused and retained the Julian calendar. In deference to them, the Orthodox communities that had adopted the Gregorian calendar agreed to continue to base the date of Easter on the Julian calendar, as well as the other movable feasts that are based on Easter's date.
So the differences continue. Some years Easter occurs on the same date, but the two celebrations can be as much as five weeks apart.
"That can be aggravating," Atchison said. "I wish the dates of Easter would be the same. Some don't care and some say 'well, it makes us different.'"
Last year Easter fell on the same date and that will happen again in 2017. After that, the two won't converge again until 2025.
Throughout the years there have been efforts to find a solution.
In 1997 the World Council of Churches and the Middle East Council of Churches hosted a gathering of Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox representatives in Aleppo, Syria, to discuss the date of Easter. The group issued a statement, "Toward a Common Easter," known as the Aleppo Statement, in which the group proposed "maintaining the norms established by the First Ecumenical Council in Nicaea (325 AD), according to which Easter/Pascha should fall on the Sunday following the first full moon of spring, and calculating the necessary astronomical data (spring equinox and full moon) by 'the most accurate possible scientific means' using the Jerusalem meridian as the basis for reckoning."
"The Aleppo document proposal is eminently sensible and would allow everyone to be more faithful to the original formula," said Father Ronald Roberson of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs.
Roberson said the North American Orthodox-Catholic Theological Consultation endorsed the proposal during a meeting in Washington in 1998. It issued another statement of support in 2010. So far no action on the Aleppo proposal has been taken.
"It's very complex," Roberson said, while expressing hope for one day having a unified Easter. "A lot of people have said that with the pastoral situation in the East the solution would be for all churches to celebrate on the Orthodox calendar. That would do it."
But because of a flaw in the Julian calendar, based on an erroneous calculation of the length of a solar year, it will eventually become more and more skewed.
Despite the years of talks, Roberson said, Pope Francis of the Roman Catholic Church has made his views known. "Pope Francis has said very clearly, do we really need to solve this problem?"
Atchison said the late Most Rev. Metropolitan Phillip, who was head of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America, to which his church belongs, was in favor of a unified Easter.
"Our Metropolitan Phillip was very advanced in his thinking and he suggested doing Easter on a fixed date like Christmas," Atchison said. "He suggested the first Sunday of April."
To Atchison it comes down to what ancient traditions the church should hold fast to, and which ones can they give way on.
"We try hard to keep the ancient traditions going," he said. "We have to ask, can you have innovation in the church? How important is it and can it be changed? How do you change an ancient practice and will it make a difference in someone's salvation?
"We've been discussing it for over 400 years, which shows we don't move very fast on these things."
Calendars aside, Easter is the highlight of the liturgical year for Christians of East and West.
"It's the feast of feasts," Atchison said. "It's the biggest one of them all."
Father George Brooks is rector of All Saints of America Orthodox Church in De Queen. The Sevier County congregation includes converts from other denominations, as well as a mix of Orthodox members from Russian, Middle-Eastern and European backgrounds. The church follows the Julian calendar exclusively.
Brooks said that in addition to the differences in calendars, some traditions are also different for Orthodox Easter.
"I think we all have Holy Week, Palm Sunday," he said. "We have Lazarus Saturday before Palm Sunday, commemorating the raising from the dead."
Brooks said Jesus arrived four days after his friend Lazarus had died, which was significant.
"In Jewish tradition it was three days before the soul departed from the body and we hold to that tradition, too, and by holding to the fourth day there would be no doubt that he [Lazarus] was dead," he said. "His raising was quite a miracle that no one could dispute."
The congregation then follows the Holy Week schedule, from Palm Sunday to Holy Saturday.
The celebration of Pascha comes after midnight tonight.
"It's about a four-hour service altogether," Brooks said. "It's one of those things that by the time people get to Saturday evening everyone is physically tired but as the service progresses we all get energized so when we finish the liturgy at 3:30 in the morning we are all just buzzing."
After that it's time to break the fast. Orthodox Christians fast for 40 days during Great Lent before the arrival of Easter. They eat no animal or dairy products. So after celebrating Pascha the congregation will gather in the church hall to eat, Brooks said.
"Everybody has prepared food and they bring Easter or Paschal baskets full of food to share at that meal," he said. "The priest blesses the baskets and then we feast."
Another unique tradition is that of the red eggs. Explanations for why the eggs are dyed red vary, but the color is said to symbolize the blood of Christ while the shell represents his tomb. When the eggs are cracked open it's a reminder of the Resurrection.
A favorite legend is that Mary Magdalene was telling the emperor of Rome about the Resurrection and he expressed disbelief, saying a man could no more come back from death than the egg in her hand could turn red -- and it did. For this reason she is often depicted in icons holding a red egg.
As part of the celebration, members of the church playfully smack the eggs together as they greet one another. One will say "Christ is risen!" and the other replies "Indeed, He is risen!" They then hit the eggs together.
"If your egg doesn't break, the other person has to pray for you for the entire year," Brooks said.
Religion on 04/11/2015