122-709: The Royal Easter Show is an event held annually during Easter in Auckland , New Zealand . It was first held in 1843 and since then has included agricultural events , art exhibitions , live entertainment, sporting events , rides , sideshows , a marketplace and circuses . The show is held at the Epsom Showgrounds in Epsom . Due to the COVID-19 pandemic in New Zealand , the show was not held in 2020 or 2021. The Royal Easter Show
244-520: A Friday, and the next day is Lazarus Saturday . The Vespers which begins Lazarus Saturday officially brings Great Lent to a close, although the fast continues through the following week. The Paschal Vigil begins with the Midnight Office , which is the last service of the Lenten Triodion and is timed so that it ends a little before midnight on Holy Saturday night. At the stroke of midnight
366-633: A Paschal table (attributed to pope Cyril of Alexandria ) covering the years 437 to 531. This Paschal table was the source which inspired Dionysius Exiguus , who worked in Rome from about 500 to about 540, to construct a continuation of it in the form of his famous Paschal table covering the years 532 to 616. Dionysius introduced the Christian Era (counting years from the Incarnation of Christ) by publishing this new Easter table in 525. A modified 84-year cycle
488-500: A Sunday. The Hebrew calendar does not have a simple relationship with the Christian calendars : it resynchronizes with the solar year by intercalating a leap month every two or three years, before the lunar new year on 1 Nisan . Later Jews adopted the Metonic cycle to predict future intercalations . A possible consequence of this intercalation is that 14 Nisan could occur before
610-501: A century year). This is a correction to the length of the tropical year, but should have no effect on the Metonic relation between years and lunations. Therefore, the epact is compensated for this (partially – see epact ) by subtracting one in these century years. This is the so-called solar correction or "solar equation" ("equation" being used in its medieval sense of "correction"). However, 19 uncorrected Julian years are
732-528: A correlation between the lunar months and the solar year , while also accounting for the month, date, and weekday of the Julian or Gregorian calendar . The complexity of the algorithm arises because of the desire to associate the date of Easter with the date of the Jewish feast of Passover which, Christians believe, is when Jesus was crucified. It was originally feasible for the entire Christian Church to receive
854-475: A day earlier than it would normally be, in order to keep Easter before April 26, as explained below. In the year 2100, the difference will increase by another day. The epacts are used to find the dates of the new moon in the following way: Write down a table of all 365 days of the year (the leap day is ignored). Then label all dates with a Roman numeral counting downwards, from "*" (0 or 30), "xxix" (29), down to "i" (1), starting from 1 January, and repeat this to
976-557: A little longer than 235 lunations. The difference accumulates to one day in about 308 years, or 0.00324 days per year. In one cycle, the epact decreases due to the solar correction by 19 × 0.0075 = 0.1425 on average, so a cycle is equivalent to 235−0.1425/30 = 234.99525 months, whereas there are actually 19 × 365.2425 / 29.5305889 ≈ 234.997261 synodic months. The difference of 0.002011 synodic months per 19-year cycle, or 0.003126 days per year, necessitates an occasional lunar correction to
1098-442: A multiple of 30. This is a problem if compensation is only done by adding months of 30 days. So after 19 years, the epact must be corrected by one day for the cycle to repeat. This is the so-called saltus lunae ("leap of the moon"). The Julian calendar handles it by reducing the length of the lunar month that begins on 1 July in the last year of the cycle to 29 days. This makes three successive 29-day months. The saltus and
1220-456: A new cycle. At the time of the reform, the epacts were changed by 7, even though 10 days were skipped, in order to make a three-day correction to the timing of the new moons. The solar and lunar corrections work in opposite directions, and in some century years (for example, 1800 and 2100) they cancel each other. The result is that the Gregorian lunar calendar uses an epact table that is valid for
1342-568: A number of countries on Easter Monday . In parishes of the Moravian Church , as well as some other denominations such as the Methodist Churches , there is a tradition of Easter sunrise services , often starting in cemeteries in remembrance of the biblical narrative in the Gospels, or other places in the open where the sunrise is visible. Date of Easter As a moveable feast ,
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#17330846427771464-404: A number of synods were convened to deal with the controversy, which he regarded as all ruling in support of Easter on Sunday. Polycrates ( c. 190 ), however, wrote to Victor defending the antiquity of Asian Quartodecimanism. Victor's attempted excommunication was apparently rescinded, and the two sides reconciled upon the intervention of bishop Irenaeus and others, who reminded Victor of
1586-423: A period of from 100 to 300 years. The epact table listed above is valid for the 20th, 21st and 22nd century. As explained below, the dates of Easter repeat after 5.7 million years, and over this period the average length of an ecclesiastical month is 2,081,882,250/70,499,183 ≈ 29.5305869 days, which differs from the current actual mean lunation length (29,5305889 d: see Lunar month#Synodic month ) in
1708-423: A slender crescent in the western sky after sunset) on the first day of the lunar month. The conjunction of Sun and Moon ("new moon") is most likely to fall on the preceding day, which is day 29 of a "hollow" (29-day) month and day 30 of a "full" (30-day) month. Historically , the paschal full moon date for a year was found from its sequence number in the Metonic cycle, called the golden number , which cycle repeats
1830-649: A time after the Council of Nicaea. In any case, in the years following the council, the computational system that was worked out by the church of Alexandria came to be normative. The Alexandrian system, however, was not immediately adopted throughout Christian Europe. Following Augustalis ' treatise De ratione Paschae (On the Measurement of Easter), Rome retired the earlier 8-year cycle in favor of Augustalis' 84-year lunisolar calendar cycle, which it used until 457. It then switched to Victorius of Aquitaine 's adaptation of
1952-540: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Easter Easter , also called Pascha ( Aramaic , Greek , Latin ) or Resurrection Sunday , is a Christian festival and cultural holiday commemorating the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, described in the New Testament as having occurred on the third day of his burial following his crucifixion by the Romans at Calvary c. 30 AD . It
2074-405: Is about 11 days shorter than the calendar year, which is either 365 or 366 days long. These days by which the solar year exceeds the lunar year are called epacts ( Ancient Greek : ἐπακταὶ ἡμέραι , romanized : épaktai hēmérai , lit. 'intercalary days'). It is necessary to add them to the day of the solar year to obtain the correct day in the lunar year. Whenever
2196-468: Is an exception. The month ending in March normally has 30 days, but if 29 February of a leap year falls within it, it contains 31. As these groups are based on the lunar cycle , over the long term the average month in the lunar calendar is a very good approximation of the synodic month , which is 29.530 59 days long. There are 12 synodic months in a lunar year, totaling either 354 or 355 days. The lunar year
2318-449: Is celebrated has again differed. In 725, Bede succinctly wrote: "The Sunday following the full Moon which falls on or after the equinox will give the lawful Easter." However, this does not precisely reflect the ecclesiastical rules. The full moon referred to (called the Paschal full moon ) is not an astronomical full moon, but the 14th day of a lunar month . Another difference is that
2440-511: Is derived from the Saxon spring festival Ēostre ; Easter is linked to the Jewish Passover by its name ( Hebrew : פֶּסַח pesach , Aramaic : פָּסחָא pascha are the basis of the term Pascha), by its origin (according to the synoptic Gospels , both the crucifixion and the resurrection took place during the week of Passover) and by much of its symbolism, as well as by its position in
2562-435: Is divergence in the date of Easter in most years (see table). Easter is determined on the basis of lunisolar cycles. The lunar year consists of 30-day and 29-day lunar months, generally alternating, with an embolismic month added periodically to bring the lunar cycle into line with the solar cycle. In each solar year (1 January to 31 December inclusive), the lunar month beginning with an ecclesiastical new moon falling in
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#17330846427772684-416: Is given by the formula That is, the year number Y in the Christian era is divided by 19, and the remainder plus 1 is the golden number. (Some sources specify that you add 1 before taking the remainder; in that case, you need to treat a result of 0 as golden number 19. In the formula above we take the remainder first and then add 1, so no such adjustment is necessary.) Cycles of 19 years are not all
2806-521: Is kept in many different ways among Western Christians. The traditional, liturgical observation of Easter, as practised among Roman Catholics, Lutherans , and some Anglicans begins on the night of Holy Saturday with the Easter Vigil which follows an ancient liturgy involving symbols of light, candles and water and numerous readings form the Old and New Testament. Services continue on Easter Sunday and in
2928-406: Is no problem since they are the same. This does not move the problem to the pair "25" and "xxvi", because the earliest epact 26 could appear would be in year 23 of the cycle, which lasts only 19 years: there is a saltus lunae in between that makes the new moons fall on separate dates. The Gregorian calendar has a correction to the tropical year by dropping three leap days in 400 years (always in
3050-636: Is often marked with fasting. The week before Easter, known as Holy Week , is an important time for observers to commemorate the final week of Jesus' life on earth. The Sunday before Easter is Palm Sunday , with the Wednesday before Easter being known as Spy Wednesday (or Holy Wednesday). The last three days before Easter are Maundy Thursday , Good Friday and Holy Saturday (sometimes referred to as Silent Saturday). Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday and Good Friday respectively commemorate Jesus's entry in Jerusalem,
3172-549: Is one day less: in years 1, 6, and 17 of the cycle the date is only 18 days later, and in years 7 and 18 it is only 10 days earlier than in the previous year. In the Eastern system , the Paschal full moon is usually four days later than in the West. It is 34 days later in 5 of the 19 years, and 5 days later in years 6 and 17, because in those years, the Gregorian system puts the Paschal full moon
3294-451: Is swallowed up in victory". The First Epistle of Peter declares that God has given believers "a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead". Christian theology holds that, through faith in the working of God, those who follow Jesus are spiritually resurrected with him so that they may walk in a new way of life and receive eternal salvation , and can hope to be physically resurrected to dwell with him in
3416-576: Is the culmination of the Passion of Jesus , preceded by Lent (or Great Lent ), a 40-day period of fasting , prayer , and penance . Easter-observing Christians commonly refer to the week before Easter as Holy Week , which in Western Christianity begins on Palm Sunday (marking the entrance of Jesus in Jerusalem), includes Spy Wednesday (on which the betrayal of Jesus is mourned), and contains
3538-456: Is the first one in the year to have its fourteenth day (its formal full moon ) on or after 21 March. Easter is the Sunday after its 14th day (or, saying the same thing, the Sunday within its third week). The paschal lunar month always begins on a date in the 29-day period from 8 March to 5 April inclusive. Its fourteenth day, therefore, always falls on a date between 21 March and 18 April inclusive (in
3660-639: Is the same as in the Western church. The Greek island of Syros , whose population is divided almost equally between Catholics and Orthodox, is one of the few places where the two Churches share a common date for Easter, with the Catholics accepting the Orthodox date—a practice helping considerably in maintaining good relations between the two communities. Conversely, Orthodox Christians in Finland celebrate Easter according to
3782-496: Is therefore the Saturday after Easter Sunday. The day before Easter is properly called Holy Saturday. Eastertide , or Paschaltide, the season of Easter, begins on Easter Sunday and lasts until the day of Pentecost , seven weeks later. In Eastern Christianity , the spiritual preparation for Easter/Pascha begins with Great Lent , which starts on Clean Monday and lasts for 40 continuous days (including Sundays). Great Lent ends on
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3904-529: Is too late: The full moon would fall on 19 April, and Easter could be as late as 26 April. In the Julian calendar the latest date of Easter was 25 April, and the Gregorian reform maintained that limit. So the paschal full moon must fall no later than 18 April and the new moon on 5 April, which has epact label "xxv". 5 April must therefore have its double epact labels "xxiv" and "xxv". Then epact "xxv" must be treated differently, as explained in
4026-477: The Easter Bunny and egg hunting . There are also traditional Easter foods that vary by region and culture. The modern English term Easter , cognate with modern Dutch ooster and German Ostern , developed from an Old English word that usually appears in the form Ēastrun , Ēastron , or Ēastran ; but also as Ēastru , Ēastro ; and Ēastre or Ēostre . Bede provides
4148-582: The Hebrew calendar , generating a number of controversies . The First Council of Nicaea (325) established common Paschal observance by all Christians on the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after the vernal equinox . Even if calculated on the basis of the Gregorian calendar , the date of that full moon sometimes differs from that of the astronomical first full moon after the March equinox . The English term
4270-730: The Kingdom of Heaven . Easter is linked to Passover and the Exodus from Egypt recorded in the Old Testament through the Last Supper , sufferings , and crucifixion of Jesus that preceded the resurrection. According to the three Synoptic Gospels , Jesus gave the Passover meal a new meaning, as in the upper room during the Last Supper he prepared himself and his disciples for his death. He identified
4392-655: The Last Supper and the crucifixion . Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday are sometimes referred to as the Easter Triduum ( Latin for "Three Days"). Many churches begin celebrating Easter late in the evening of Holy Saturday at a service called the Easter Vigil . The week beginning with Easter Sunday is called Easter Week or the Octave of Easter , and each day is prefaced with "Easter", e.g. Easter Monday (a public holiday in many countries), Easter Tuesday (a much less widespread public holiday), etc. Easter Saturday
4514-544: The Northern Hemisphere spring equinox. The Sardica paschal table confirms these complaints, for it indicates that the Jews of some eastern Mediterranean city (possibly Antioch ) fixed Nisan 14 on dates well before the spring equinox on multiple occasions. Because of this dissatisfaction with reliance on the Jewish calendar, some Christians began to experiment with independent computations. Others, however, believed that
4636-763: The Patriarch of Constantinople and the Serbian Patriarch , met in Constantinople in 1923, where the bishops agreed to the Revised Julian calendar . The original form of this calendar would have determined Easter using precise astronomical calculations based on the meridian of Jerusalem . However, all the Eastern Orthodox countries that subsequently adopted the Revised Julian calendar adopted only that part of
4758-537: The Western Christian date. In the 20th and 21st centuries, some individuals and institutions have propounded changing the method of calculating the date for Easter, the most prominent proposal being the Sunday after the second Saturday in April. Despite having some support, proposals to reform the date have not been implemented. An Orthodox congress of Eastern Orthodox bishops, which included representatives mostly from
4880-471: The astronomical equinox is a natural astronomical phenomenon, which can fall on 19, 20 or 21 March, while the ecclesiastical date is fixed by convention on 21 March. In addition, the lunar tables of the Julian calendar are currently five days behind those of the Gregorian calendar. Therefore, the Julian computation of the Paschal full moon is a full five days later than the astronomical full moon. The result of this combination of solar and lunar discrepancies
5002-414: The date of Easter is determined in each year through a calculation known as computus ( Latin for 'computation'). Easter is celebrated on the first Sunday after the Paschal full moon (a mathematical approximation of the first astronomical full moon , on or after 21 March – itself a fixed approximation of the March equinox ). Determining this date in advance requires
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5124-462: The resurrection of Jesus , which Christians believe to have occurred on the third day (inclusive) after the beginning of Passover . In the Hebrew lunisolar calendar, Passover begins at twilight on the 14th day of Nisan . Nisan is the first month of spring in the northern hemisphere , with the 14th corresponding to a full moon. By the 2nd century, many Christians had chosen to observe Easter only on
5246-434: The 14th day fall between 21 March and 18 April inclusive, thus spanning a period of (only) 29 days. A new moon on 7 March, which has epact label "xxiv", has its 14th day (full moon) on 20 March, which is too early (not following 20 March). So years with an epact of "xxiv", if the lunar month beginning on 7 March had 30 days, would have their paschal new moon on 6 April, which
5368-548: The 16th century the lunar calendar was out of phase with the real Moon by four days. The Gregorian Easter has been used since 1583 by the Roman Catholic Church and was adopted by most Protestant churches between 1753 and 1845. German Protestant states used an astronomical Easter between 1700 and 1776, based on the Rudolphine Tables of Johannes Kepler , which were in turn based on astronomical positions of
5490-448: The 29-day period from 8 March to 5 April inclusive is designated as the paschal lunar month for that year. Easter is the third Sunday in the paschal lunar month, or, in other words, the Sunday after the paschal lunar month's 14th day. The 14th of the paschal lunar month is designated by convention as the Paschal full moon , although the 14th of the lunar month may differ from the date of the astronomical full moon by up to two days. Since
5612-463: The 30) epact labels assigned to it. The reason for moving around the epact label "xxv/25" rather than any other seems to be the following: According to Dionysius (in his introductory letter to Petronius), the Nicene council, on the authority of Eusebius , established that the first month of the ecclesiastical lunar year (the paschal month) should start between 8 March and 5 April inclusive, and
5734-486: The 6th figure after the decimal point. This corresponds to an error of less than a day in the phase of the moon over 40,000 years, but in fact the length of a day is changing (as is the length of a synodic month), so the system is not accurate over such periods. See the article ΔT (timekeeping) for information on the cumulative change of day length. This method of computation has several subtleties: Every other lunar month has only 29 days, so one day must have two (of
5856-533: The Alexandrian system. Because this Victorian cycle differed from the unmodified Alexandrian cycle in the dates of some of the Paschal full moons, and because it tried to respect the Roman custom of fixing Easter to the Sunday in the week of the 16th to the 22nd of the lunar month (rather than the 15th to the 21st as at Alexandria), by providing alternative "Latin" and "Greek" dates in some years, occasional differences in
5978-510: The British Empire and colonies, a determination of the date of Easter Sunday using Golden Numbers and Sunday letters was defined by the Calendar (New Style) Act 1750 with its Annexe. This was designed to match exactly the Gregorian calculation. In Western Christianity, using the Gregorian calendar, Easter always falls on a Sunday between 22 March and 25 April, within about seven days after
6100-578: The British Isles. The British tables used an 84-year cycle, but an error made the full moons fall progressively too early. The discrepancy led to a report that Queen Eanflæd , on the Dionysian system – fasted on her Palm Sunday while her husband Oswiu , king of Northumbria, feasted on his Easter Sunday. As a result of the Irish Synod of Magh-Lene in 630, the southern Irish began to use
6222-670: The Christian celebration was, and still is, called Pascha (Greek: Πάσχα ), a word derived from Aramaic פסחא ( Paskha ), cognate to the Hebrew פֶּסַח ( Pesach ). The word originally denoted the Jewish festival known in English as Passover , commemorating the Jewish Exodus from slavery in Egypt . As early as the 50s of the 1st century, Paul the Apostle , writing from Ephesus to
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#17330846427776344-712: The Christians in Corinth , applied the term to Christ, and it is unlikely that the Ephesian and Corinthian Christians were the first to hear Exodus 12 interpreted as speaking about the death of Jesus , not just about the Jewish Passover ritual. In most languages, the feast is known by names derived from the Greek and Latin Pascha . Pascha is also a name by which Jesus himself is remembered in
6466-409: The Council in 325. The Canons of the Council preserved by Dionysius Exiguus and his successors do not include any relevant provision, but letters of individuals present at the Council mention a decision prohibiting Quartodecimanism and requiring that all Christians adopt a common method to independently determine Paschal observance following the churches of Rome and Alexandria, the latter "since there
6588-545: The Dionysian tables, and the northern English followed suit after the Synod of Whitby in 664. The Dionysian reckoning was fully described by Bede in 725. It may have been adopted by Charlemagne for the Frankish Church as early as 782 from Alcuin , a follower of Bede. The Dionysian/Bedan computus remained in use in western Europe until the Gregorian calendar reform, and remains in use in most Eastern Churches, including
6710-654: The Easter or Paschal season , begins on Easter Sunday and lasts seven weeks, ending with the coming of the 50th day, Pentecost Sunday , but in Eastern Christianity the leavetaking of the feast is on the 39th day, the day before the Feast of the Ascension . Easter and its related holidays are moveable feasts , not falling on a fixed date; its date is computed based on a lunisolar calendar (solar year plus Moon phase) similar to
6832-476: The Gregorian Easter, were delayed one week so they were on the same Sunday as the Gregorian Easter. Germany's astronomical Easter was one week before the Gregorian Easter in 1724 and 1744. Sweden's astronomical Easter was one week before the Gregorian Easter in 1744, but one week after it in 1805, 1811, 1818, 1825, and 1829. Two modern astronomical Easters were proposed but never used by any Church. The first
6954-476: The Gregorian calendar (during the 20th and 21st centuries). Consequently, the date of Orthodox Easter varies between 4 April and 8 May in the Gregorian calendar. Orthodox Easter is usually several days or more than a month later than Western Easter. Among the Oriental Orthodox , some churches have changed from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar and the date for Easter, as for other fixed and moveable feasts,
7076-402: The Gregorian or Julian calendar, for the Western and Eastern system, resp.), and the following Sunday then necessarily falls on a date in the range 22 March to 25 April inclusive. However, in the Western system Easter cannot fall on 22 March during the 300-year period 1900–2199 (see below). In the solar calendar Easter is called a moveable feast since its date varies within a 35-day range. But in
7198-503: The Julian calendar or the Gregorian calendar is used. For this reason, the Catholic Church and Protestant churches (which follow the Gregorian calendar) celebrate Easter on a different date from that of the Eastern and Oriental Orthodoxy (which follow the Julian calendar). It was the drift of 21 March from the observed equinox that led to the Gregorian reform of the calendar , to bring them back into line. Easter commemorates
7320-567: The Orthodox Church, especially in connection with his resurrection and with the season of its celebration. Others call the holiday "Resurrection Sunday" or "Resurrection Day", after the Greek Ἀνάστασις , Anastasis , 'Resurrection' day. Easter celebrates Jesus' supernatural resurrection from the dead, which is one of the chief tenets of the Christian faith. Paul writes that, for those who trust in Jesus's death and resurrection, "death
7442-529: The Paschal celebration itself begins, consisting of Paschal Matins , Paschal Hours , and Paschal Divine Liturgy . The liturgical season from Easter to the Sunday of All Saints (the Sunday after Pentecost ) is known as the Pentecostarion (the "50 days"). The week which begins on Easter Sunday is called Bright Week , during which there is no fasting, even on Wednesday and Friday. The Afterfeast of Easter lasts 39 days, with its Apodosis (leave-taking) on
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#17330846427777564-460: The Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Churches had begun to determine a common date for the celebration of Easter. The agreement is expected to be reached for the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea in 2025. The WCC presented comparative data of the relationships: In most branches of Western Christianity, Easter is preceded by Lent , a period of penitence that begins on Ash Wednesday , lasts 40 days (not counting Sundays), and
7686-558: The Sun and Moon observed by Tycho Brahe at his Uraniborg observatory on the island of Ven , while Sweden used it from 1739 to 1844. This astronomical Easter was the Sunday after the full moon instant that was after the vernal equinox instant using Uraniborg time ( TT + 51 ) . However, it was delayed one week if that Sunday was the Jewish date Nisan 15, the first day of Passover week, calculated according to modern Jewish methods. This Nisan 15 rule affected two Swedish years, 1778 and 1798, that instead of being one week before
7808-514: The Sunday in the period from 9 to 15 April). However, the legislation has not been implemented, although it remains on the Statute book and could be implemented, subject to approval by the various Christian churches. At a summit in Aleppo , Syria, in 1997, the World Council of Churches (WCC) proposed a reform in the calculation of Easter which would have replaced the present divergent practices of calculating Easter with modern scientific knowledge taking into account actual astronomical instances of
7930-402: The allegory of Jesus as the Passover lamb . As the Gospels assert that both the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus occurred during the week of Passover, the first Christians timed the observance of the annual celebration of the resurrection in relation to Passover. Direct evidence for a more fully formed Christian festival of Pascha (Easter) begins to appear in the mid-2nd century. Perhaps
8052-404: The astronomical Easter one month before the Gregorian Easter in 1924, 1943, and 1962, but one week after it in 1927, 1954, and 1967. The 1997 version would have placed the astronomical Easter on the same Sunday as the Gregorian Easter for 2000–2025 except for 2019, when it would have been one month earlier. The Easter cycle groups days into lunar months, which are either 29 or 30 days long. There
8174-420: The astronomical full moon. The preceding Friday, Good Friday , and following Monday, Easter Monday , are legal holidays in many countries with predominantly Christian traditions. Eastern Orthodox Christians use the same rule but base their 21 March according to the Julian calendar. Because of the thirteen-day difference between the calendars from 1900 through 2099, 21 March Julian corresponds to 3 April in
8296-453: The bread and cup of wine as his body , soon to be sacrificed, and his blood , soon to be shed. The Apostle Paul states in his First Epistle to the Corinthians : "Get rid of the old yeast that you may be a new batch without yeast—as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed." This refers to the requirement in Jewish law that Jews eliminate all chametz , or leavening, from their homes in advance of Passover, and to
8418-406: The calendar. In most European languages, both the Christian Easter and the Jewish Passover are called by the same name; and in the older English translations of the Bible, as well, the term Easter was used to translate Passover. Easter traditions vary across the Christian world , and include sunrise services or late-night vigils ; exclamations and exchanges of Paschal greetings ; flowering
8540-532: The cross ; the wearing of Easter bonnets by women; clipping the church ; and the decoration and the communal breaking of Easter eggs (a symbol of the empty tomb ). The Easter lily , a symbol of the resurrection in Western Christianity, traditionally decorates the chancel area of churches on this day and for the rest of Eastertide. Additional customs that have become associated with Easter and are observed by both Christians and some non-Christians include Easter parades , communal dancing (Eastern Europe),
8662-423: The customary practice of consulting Jews should continue, even if the Jewish computations were in error. The settlement of the controversy about the Paschal season caused by the Quartodeciman practice of Asian churches is listed in our principal source for the works of the Council of Nicaea , Socrates Scholasticus 's Ecclesiastical History , as one of the two reasons for which emperor Constantine convened
8784-402: The cycle in use since 1900 and until 2199), then an epact of 25 puts the ecclesiastical new moon on April 4 (having the label "25"), otherwise it is on April 5 (having label "xxv"). An epact of 25 giving April 4 can only happen if the golden number is greater than 11. In which case it will be 11 years after a year with epact 24. So for example, in 1954 the golden number was 17, the epact was 25,
8906-416: The date for Easter directly from the March equinox. In The Reckoning of Time (725), Bede uses computus as a general term for any sort of calculation, although he refers to the Easter cycles of Theophilus as a "Paschal computus ." By the end of the 8th century, computus came to refer specifically to the calculation of time. The calculations produce different results depending on whether
9028-408: The date for Easter is determined on a lunisolar calendar similar to the Hebrew calendar . The precise date of Easter has at times been a matter of contention. By the later 2nd century, it was widely accepted that the celebration of the holiday was a practice of the disciples and an undisputed tradition. The Quartodeciman controversy, the first of several Easter controversies , arose concerning
9150-460: The date of Easter as fixed by Alexandrian rules continued. The Alexandrian rules were adopted in the West following the tables of Dionysius Exiguus in 525. Early Christians in Britain and Ireland also used an 84-year cycle. From the 5th century onward this cycle set its equinox to 25 March and fixed Easter to the Sunday falling in the 14th to the 20th of the lunar month inclusive. This 84-year cycle
9272-473: The date of Easter each year through an annual announcement by the pope . By the early third century, however, communications in the Roman Empire had deteriorated to the point that the church put great value in a system that would allow the clergy to determine the date for themselves, independently yet consistently. Additionally, the church wished to eliminate dependencies on the Hebrew calendar , by deriving
9394-534: The date on which the holiday should be celebrated. The term "Quartodeciman" refers to the practice of ending the Lenten fast on Nisan 14 of the Hebrew calendar , "the L ORD 's passover". According to the church historian Eusebius , the Quartodeciman Polycarp (bishop of Smyrna , by tradition a disciple of John the Apostle ) debated the question with Anicetus (bishop of Rome). The Roman province of Asia
9516-445: The date; subsequent scholarship has refuted this tradition, but, with regards to the rule of the equinox, evidence that the church of Alexandria had implemented it before 325 suggests that the Council of Nicaea implicitly endorsed it. Canons and sermons condemning the custom of computing Easter's date based on the Jewish calendar indicate that this custom (called "protopaschite" by historians) did not die out at once, but persisted for
9638-667: The day before the Feast of the Ascension . Pentecost Sunday is the 50th day from Easter (counted inclusively). In the Pentecostarion published by Apostoliki Diakonia of the Church of Greece, the Great Feast Pentecost is noted in the synaxarion portion of Matins to be the 8th Sunday of Pascha. However, the Paschal greeting of "Christ is risen!" is no longer exchanged among the faithful after the Apodosis of Pascha. The Easter festival
9760-419: The day of the full moon . It is the day of the lunar month on which the moment of opposition ("full moon") is most likely to fall. The Gregorian method derives new moon dates by determining the epact for each year. The epact can have a value from * (0 or 30) to 29 days. It is the age of the moon in days (i.e. the lunar date) on 1 January reduced by one day. The "new moon" is most likely to become visible (as
9882-476: The days of the Easter Triduum including Maundy Thursday , commemorating the Maundy and Last Supper , as well as Good Friday , commemorating the crucifixion and death of Jesus. In Eastern Christianity , the same events are commemorated with the names of days all starting with "Holy" or "Holy and Great", and Easter itself might be called Great and Holy Pascha. In both Western and Eastern Christianity, Eastertide ,
10004-452: The earliest extant primary source referring to Easter is a mid-2nd-century Paschal homily attributed to Melito of Sardis , which characterizes the celebration as a well-established one. Evidence for another kind of annually recurring Christian festival, those commemorating the martyrs, began to appear at about the same time as the above homily. While martyrs' days (usually the individual dates of martyrdom) were celebrated on fixed dates in
10126-519: The eastern fringes of the Roman empire, by the tenth century all had adopted the Alexandrian Easter, which still placed the vernal equinox on 21 March, although Bede had already noted its drift in 725 – it had drifted even further by the 16th century. Worse, the reckoned Moon that was used to compute Easter was fixed to the Julian year by the 19-year cycle. That approximation built up an error of one day every 310 years, so by
10248-579: The ecclesiastical new moon falls on a date from 8 March to 5 April inclusive, the paschal full moon (the 14th of that lunar month) must fall on a date from 22 March to 18 April inclusive. The Gregorian calculation of Easter was based on a method devised by the Calabrian doctor Aloysius Lilius (or Lilio) for adjusting the epacts of the Moon, and has been adopted by almost all Western Christians and by Western countries which celebrate national holidays at Easter. For
10370-411: The ecclesiastical new moon was reckoned on April 4, the full moon on April 17. Easter was on April 18 rather than April 25 as it would otherwise have been, such as in 1886 when the golden number was 6. This system automatically intercalates seven months per Metonic cycle. Label all the dates in the table with letters "A" to "G", starting from 1 January, and repeat to the end of the year. If, for instance,
10492-517: The end of the 3rd century. Although a process based on the 19-year Metonic cycle was first proposed by Bishop Anatolius of Laodicea around 277, the concept did not fully take hold until the Alexandrian method became authoritative in the late 4th century. The Alexandrian computus was converted from the Alexandrian calendar into the Julian calendar in Alexandria around 440, which resulted in
10614-425: The end of the year. However, in every second such period count only 29 days and label the date with xxv (25) also with xxiv (24). Treat the 13th period (last eleven days) as long, therefore, and assign the labels "xxv" and "xxiv" to sequential dates (26 and 27 December respectively). Add the label "25" to the dates that have "xxv" in the 30-day periods; but in 29-day periods (which have "xxiv" together with "xxv") add
10736-405: The epact for the year is entered. If the epact for the year is for instance 27, then there is an ecclesiastical new moon on every date in that year that has the epact label "xxvii" (27). If the epact is 25, then there is a complication, introduced so that the ecclesiastical new moon will not fall on the same date twice during a Metonic cycle. If the epact cycle in force includes epact 24 (as does
10858-463: The epact reaches or exceeds 30, an extra intercalary month (or embolismic month) of 30 days must be inserted into the lunar calendar: then 30 must be subtracted from the epact. Charles Wheatly provides the detail: "Thus beginning the year with March (for that was the ancient custom) they allowed thirty days for the moon [ending] in March, and twenty-nine for that [ending] in April; and thirty again for May, and twenty-nine for June &c. according to
10980-434: The epact. In the Gregorian calendar, this is done by adding 1 eight times in 2,500 (Gregorian) years (slightly more than 2500 × 0.003126, or about 7.8), always in a century year: this is the so-called lunar correction (historically called "lunar equation"). The first one was applied in 1800, the next is in 2100, and will be applied every 300 years except for an interval of 400 years between 3900 and 4300, which starts
11102-405: The epacts only from 8 March to 5 April. As an example, if the epact is 27, an ecclesiastical new moon falls on every date labeled xxvii . The ecclesiastical full moon falls 13 days later. From the table above, this gives new moons on 4 March and 3 April, and so full moons on 17 March and 16 April. Then Easter Day is the first Sunday after the first ecclesiastical full moon on or after 21 March. In
11224-497: The equinox, irrespective of actual astronomical observation. In 395, Theophilus published a table of future dates for Easter, validating the Alexandrian criteria. Thereafter, the computus would be the procedure of determining the first Sunday after the first ecclesiastical full moon falling on or after 21 March. The earliest known Roman tables were devised in 222 by Hippolytus of Rome based on eight-year cycles. Then 84-year tables were introduced in Rome by Augustalis near
11346-528: The equinox, which some third-century Christians considered unacceptable (this cannot happen in the fixed calendar in use today). Consequently, it was decided to separate the dating of Easter from the Hebrew calendar, by identifying the first full moon following the March equinox. By the time of the First Council of Nicaea (AD 325), the Church of Alexandria had designated 21 March as an ecclesiastical date for
11468-441: The example, this paschal full moon is on 16 April. If the dominical letter is E, then Easter day is on 20 April. The label " 25 " (as distinct from "xxv") is used as follows: Within a Metonic cycle, years that are 11 years apart have epacts that differ by one day. A month beginning on a date having labels "xxiv" and "xxv" written side by side has either 29 or 30 days. If the epacts 24 and 25 both occur within one Metonic cycle, then
11590-540: The first Sunday of the year is on 5 January, which has letter "E", then every date with the letter "E" is a Sunday that year. Then "E" is called the dominical letter (DL) for that year – from dies dominica (Latin for 'the Lord's day'). The dominical letter cycles backward one position every year. In leap years, after 24 February, the Sundays fall on the previous letter of the cycle, so leap years have two dominical letters:
11712-419: The first for before, the second for after the leap day. In practice, for the purpose of calculating Easter, this need not be done for all 365 days of the year. For the epacts, March comes out exactly the same as January, because 31+28 days = 30+29 epacts, so one need not calculate January or February. To avoid the need to calculate the dominical letters for January and February, start with D for 1 March. You need
11834-439: The following Sunday, had in common the custom of consulting their Jewish neighbors to learn when the month of Nisan would fall, and setting their festival accordingly. By the later 3rd century, however, some Christians began to express dissatisfaction with the custom of relying on the Jewish community to determine the date of Easter. The chief complaint was that the Jewish communities sometimes erred in setting Passover to fall before
11956-411: The keeping of this or any other festival. Although he describes the details of the Easter celebration as deriving from local custom, he insists the feast itself is universally observed. Easter and the holidays that are related to it are moveable feasts , in that they do not fall on a fixed date in the Gregorian or Julian calendars (both of which follow the cycle of the sun and the seasons). Instead,
12078-447: The label "25" to the date with "xxvi". The distribution of the lengths of the months and the length of the epact cycles is such that each civil calendar month starts and ends with the same epact label, except for February and, one might say, for August, which starts with the double label "xxv"/"xxiv" but ends with the single label "xxiv". This table is called the calendarium . The ecclesiastical new moons for any year are those dates when
12200-529: The local solar calendar, the date of Easter was fixed by means of the local Jewish lunisolar calendar . This is consistent with the celebration of Easter having entered Christianity during its earliest, Jewish period , but does not leave the question free of doubt. The ecclesiastical historian Socrates Scholasticus attributes the observance of Easter by the church to the perpetuation of pre-Christian custom , "just as many other customs have been established", stating that neither Jesus nor his apostles enjoined
12322-407: The lunar calendar, Easter is always the third Sunday in the paschal lunar month, and is no more "moveable" than any holiday that is fixed to a particular day of the week and week within a month, such as Thanksgiving . As reforming the computus was the primary motivation for the introduction of the Gregorian calendar in 1582, a corresponding computus methodology was introduced alongside
12444-430: The lunar month took the name of the Julian month in which it ended. The nineteen-year Metonic cycle assumes that 19 tropical years are as long as 235 synodic months. So after 19 years the lunations should fall the same way in the solar years, and the epacts should repeat. Over 19 years the epact increases by 19 × 11 = 209 ≡ 29 ( mod 30) , not 0 (mod 30) . That is, 209 divided by 30 leaves a remainder of 29 instead of being
12566-445: The lunar phase on January 1 every 19 years. This method was modified in the Gregorian reform because the tabular dates go out of sync with reality after about two centuries. From the epact method, a simplified table can be constructed that has a validity of one to three centuries. The date of the Paschal full moon in a particular year is usually either 11 days earlier than in the previous year, or 19 days later. In 5 out of 19 years it
12688-419: The new (and full) moons would fall on the same dates for these two years. This is possible for the real moon but is inelegant in a schematic lunar calendar; the dates should repeat only after 19 years. To avoid this, in years that have epacts 25 and with a Golden Number larger than 11, the reckoned new moon falls on the date with the label 25 rather than xxv . Where the labels 25 and xxv are together, there
12810-460: The new calendar. The general method of working was given by Clavius in the Six Canons (1582), and a full explanation followed in his Explicatio (1603). Easter is the Sunday following the Paschal full moon date. The Paschal full moon date is the ecclesiastical full moon date on or after the ecclesiastical equinox on 21 March. The fourteenth day of the lunar month is ecclesiastically considered
12932-585: The old verses: Impar luna pari, par fiet in impare mense; In quo completur mensi lunatio detur. "For the first, third, fifth, seventh, ninth, and eleventh months, which are called impares menses , or unequal months, have their moons according to computation of thirty days each, which are therefore called pares lunae , or equal moons: but the second, fourth, sixth, eighth, tenth, and twelfth months, which are called pares menses , or equal months, have their moons but twenty nine days each, which are called impares lunae , or unequal moons." Thus
13054-467: The only documentary source for the etymology of the word, in his eighth-century The Reckoning of Time . He wrote that Ēosturmōnaþ (Old English for 'Month of Ēostre', translated in Bede 's time as "Paschal month") was an English month, corresponding to April, which he says "was once called after a goddess of theirs named Ēostre , in whose honour feasts were celebrated in that month". In Latin and Greek,
13176-519: The revised calendar that applied to festivals falling on fixed dates in the Julian calendar. The revised Easter computation that had been part of the original 1923 agreement was never permanently implemented in any Orthodox diocese. In the United Kingdom , Parliament passed the Easter Act 1928 to change the date of Easter to be the first Sunday after the second Saturday in April (or, in other words,
13298-414: The same length, because they may have either four or five leap years. But a period of four cycles, 76 years (a Callippic cycle ), has a length of 76 × 365 + 19 = 27,759 days (if it does not cross a century division). There are 235 × 4 = 940 lunar months in this period, so the average length is 27759 / 940 or about 29.530851 days. There are 76 × 6 = 456 usual nominal 30-day lunar months and
13420-457: The same number of usual nominal 29-day months, but with 19 of these lengthened by a day on leap days, plus 24 intercalated months of 30 days and four intercalated months of 29 days. Since this is longer than the true length of a synodic month, about 29.53059 days, the calculated Paschal full moon gets later and later compared to the astronomical full moon, unless a correction is made as in the Gregorian system (see below). The paschal or Easter-month
13542-416: The seven extra 30-day months were largely hidden by being located at the points where the Julian and lunar months begin at about the same time. The extra months commenced on 1 January (year 3), 2 September (year 5), 6 March (year 8), 3 January (year 11), 31 December (year 13), 1 September (year 16), and 5 March (year 19). The sequence number of the year in the 19-year cycle is called the " golden number ", and
13664-485: The spring equinox and full moon based on the meridian of Jerusalem, while also following the tradition of Easter being on the Sunday following the full moon. The recommended World Council of Churches changes would have sidestepped the calendar issues and eliminated the difference in date between the Eastern and Western churches. The reform was proposed for implementation starting in 2001, and despite repeated calls for reform, it
13786-453: The tolerant precedent of Anicetus. Quartodecimanism seems to have lingered into the 4th century, when Socrates of Constantinople recorded that some Quartodecimans were deprived of their churches by John Chrysostom and that some were harassed by Nestorius . It is not known how long the Nisan 14 practice continued. But both those who followed the Nisan 14 custom, and those who set Easter to
13908-751: The vast majority of Eastern Orthodox Churches and Non-Chalcedonian Churches . The only Eastern Orthodox church which does not follow the system is the Finnish Orthodox Church, which uses the Gregorian. Having deviated from the Alexandrians during the 6th century, churches beyond the eastern frontier of the former Byzantine Empire, including the Assyrian Church of the East , now celebrate Easter on different dates from Eastern Orthodox Churches four times every 532 years. Apart from these churches on
14030-556: Was Quartodeciman, while the Roman and Alexandrian churches continued the fast until the Sunday following (the Sunday of Unleavened Bread), wishing to associate Easter with Sunday. Neither Polycarp nor Anicetus persuaded the other, but they did not consider the matter schismatic either, parting in peace and leaving the question unsettled. Controversy arose when Victor , bishop of Rome a generation after Anicetus, attempted to excommunicate Polycrates of Ephesus and all other bishops of Asia for their Quartodecimanism. According to Eusebius,
14152-492: Was adopted in Rome during the first half of the 4th century. Victorius of Aquitaine tried to adapt the Alexandrian method to Roman rules in 457 in the form of a 532-year table, but he introduced serious errors. These Victorian tables were used in Gaul (now France) and Spain until they were displaced by Dionysian tables at the end of the 8th century. The tables of Dionysius and Victorius conflicted with those traditionally used in
14274-491: Was among the Egyptians an ancient science for the computation ." Already in the end of the 4th century and, later on, Dionysius Exiguus and others following him maintained that the bishops assembled at Nicaea had promulgated the celebration of Easter on the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after the vernal equinox and that they had adopted the use of the 19-year lunar cycle, better known as Metonic cycle , to determine
14396-580: Was cancelled due to crowd restrictions introduced to combat the COVID-19 pandemic in New Zealand . This was only the second time in 177 years that the show was not held. The 2021 show was also cancelled. The Royal Easter Show is host to the Wine Awards, New Zealand's longest-running wine competition, and therefore also one of the most competitive. also hosted are the Art Awards, New Zealand's largest open art competition. This New Zealand –related article
14518-500: Was first held in 1843. In 2013, the show featured the largest ferris wheel in Auckland's history. The free event in 2014 attracted more than 130,000 attendees. In 2016, hundreds of people claimed that they would boycott the show after pictures of injured animals were shared. The free event in 2019 offered farm animals , FMX shows, a Looney Tunes Live Show , rides and a performance by Tiki Taane . The 2020 show, scheduled for 9 –13 April,
14640-557: Was not ultimately adopted by any member body. In January 2016, the Anglican Communion , Coptic Orthodox Church , Greek Orthodox Church , and Roman Catholic Church again considered agreeing on a common, universal date for Easter, while also simplifying the calculation of that date, with either the second or third Sunday in April being popular choices. In November 2022, the Patriarch of Constantinople said that conversations between
14762-498: Was proposed as part of the Revised Julian calendar at a Synod in Constantinople in 1923 and the second was proposed by a 1997 World Council of Churches Consultation in Aleppo in 1997. Both used the same rule as the German and Swedish versions but used modern astronomical calculations and Jerusalem time ( TT + 2 21 ) without the Nisan 15 rule. The 1923 version would have placed
14884-406: Was replaced by the Alexandrian method in the course of the 7th and 8th centuries. Churches in western continental Europe used a late Roman method until the late 8th century during the reign of Charlemagne , when they finally adopted the Alexandrian method. Since 1582, when the Roman Catholic Church adopted the Gregorian calendar while most of Europe used the Julian calendar, the date on which Easter
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