Every year, the calendar reflects a different day for Easter, often in a different month, representing a seemingly random nature that makes it appear as though a random drawing determined the onset of this holy holiday. The Catholic Church is permitted to celebrate Easter on any Sunday that falls between March and April, preceded, of course, by Palm Sunday.
Despite the appearance of randomness when flipping through several years’ worth of calendars, there is a method to the madness that determines Easter’s date. It goes far beyond simply marking it on a calendar at random. Once upon a time, there was significant debate about the timing of the celebration of Easter. The Western church leaders wanted Easter to fall on or near the spring equinox, a time when many Pagan rituals and holidays were observed. On the other hand, the Eastern church leaders, who had Jewish roots, preferred Easter to fall around the time of Passover to maintain some continuity.
This debate took place during an era when communication was remarkably slow, and the great discussion began about where to place the holiest holiday on the calendar. Letters were sent, meetings were held, and opinions were aired, but no reasonable agreement could be reached on when to celebrate Easter.
Yet, there was still a need to find a uniform date to celebrate Easter across the regions. The Council of Nicaea attempted to solve this debate by hosting the Bishops’ council repeatedly, only to encounter the same great debates each time.
The Solution Emerges
In 325 A.D., the Bishops engaged in a great debate, arguing and pleading their cases. Some advocated for a mid-winter celebration, while others wanted it nearly into summer. Eastern European and Western Asian Bishops all agreed that Easter and Passover should share space on the calendar, not just for continuity, but because their best mathematical estimates placed Jesus’ death close to Passover.
The best compromise these Bishops could reach, in conjunction with each other’s requests and demands, was that Easter would be celebrated on a Sunday. However, it would take another two hundred years of debate, discussion, pleas, and arguments before the Dionysius Exiguus method was agreed upon. This method stated that Easter would be scheduled on the first Sunday following the first full moon after the Spring Equinox.
Under the guidance of Venerable Bede, Easter celebrations finally had a set schedule. However, over the next several years, minor (and not-so-minor) adjustments were required, making it seem to the Bishops that Easter was simply being squeezed into the calendar. They sought advice from the best astronomers, and what initially seemed like an insignificant issue turned out to be distorting the holiday’s placement on the calendar.
The problem? The year was a little too long. It overshot the astronomers’ best calculations by somewhere between eleven and twelve minutes. Who would have thought this would be such a big deal? But it was. Over a 400-year period, those extra minutes added up to just over three days.
As an adult, I wouldn’t mind my years being slowly extended over my lifetime. However, I suppose it’s not fair to inconvenience all of humanity just so I can postpone my thirtieth birthday. To solve this problem, the Julian calendar was adjusted by removing about ten days in October, leaping from the fourth day of the month to the fifteenth in one night.
Pope Gregory XIII approved several referendums and eventually a complete reconstruction of the calendar in order to achieve a more accurate timekeeping standard. The calendar would continue to receive adjustments over time, but eventually, it was agreed that Easter would always fall on a Sunday between March and April, on any one of thirty-five specified days.
However, this year, when the kids start eagerly asking about Easter, and you now have all this knowledge about how the Easter Sunday date came to be, they may also be interested to know that in 2007, Easter fell on April 1st.
