Easter already! Blame it on the bishops
Independent.co.uk Web
By David Randall
Sunday, 16 March 2008
Annoyed that Easter is so early this year? Family life complicated by
school and religious holidays being separated? Today, we name and shame
the men responsible. Step forward Aristakes of Armenia, Protogenes of
Sardica, Spyridion of Trimythous, and Eusebius of Caesarea. It was
they, and several hundred other bishops, who decided at a meeting 1,683
years ago how we should lead our leisure lives today.
The Council of Nicea in AD325, to which all the leading clerics of the
Christian world were invited, had been called by the Roman Emperor
Constantine, and it had three main results: 1) the Nicene Creed (the
first unified Christian doctrine); 2) providing an early and
convincing-sounding Christian event for Dan Brown to misrepresent in
The Da Vinci Code; and 3) determining when Easter falls.
Before Nicea, this was tied to the Jewish feast of Passover. After it,
the day was set as the first Sunday after the full moon following the
vernal (spring) equinox. This latter event, something of a movable
feast in those days, is now fixed on 21 March. Thus, the earliest that
Easter Sunday can be is 22 March, the latest, 25 April. This year’s
date of 23 March is the earliest since 1913, and none of us will see
its like again, the next such occurence being in 2160.
Of course, things could be simpler, as the Easter Act, passed by
Parliament as long ago as 1928, tried to ensure. This said that Easter
should fall on the first Sunday after the second Saturday in April.
However, since this also required the agreement of the churches, it has
never come into force. Time, maybe, for another Council of Nicea.