www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall A common date for Easter when???

I am quite at peace, thank you Jonn. I do want to better understand the points raised by others and so, when necessary, I ask questions.

Dn. Anthony

Deacon Anthony,

That's my take on it as well. I would suggest that anyone wanting to challenge this conclusion focus on this point as well--together with the fact that the Julian tables in use today were put together only after the Council of Nicaea!

BTW, didn't the study group at Aleppo some years ago come to precisely the same conclusion? I believe they also recommended a table of dates for Pascha based on the most precise modern astronomical data available, and it differed only about 2% from the existing Gregorian tables!


Peace,
Deacon Richard

Amen and Amen.

Deacon Richard,

Yes, I concur. A good overview is given here [library.catholic.org] and it summarizes:


Aleppo is a modern test case addressing the well-posed task: given the meridian that runs through Jerusalem, determine the date of the Sunday after the vernal full moon; compare that date to the date(s) predicted by the Julian and Gregorian reckoning.

See here [oikoumene.org] especially the table at the end entitled "Table for finding Easter/Pascha dates."

For the 25 years listed, 2001-2025, the Gregorian reckoning differs only for the year 2019. Both the Gregorian and Julian calendars/methods are approximations and approximate tables have always been allowed. The problem with the Julian versus the Gregorian for instance, as I see it, is not that it's an approximation but that the errors -- solar primarily (~1 day/120 years) but lunar (~1 day/300 years) also -- are accumulating, already to a significant degree, at a significant rate, and will continue to do so. The Gregorian calendar appears to be stable until ~ A.D. 5000.


Dn. Anthony

Why don't all Eastern Catholics just standardize on the Gregorian then?

Amens are fine, but understand that no amount of Amens are going to make God's Sun and Earth and its moon do what the Julian calendar and Metonic cycle predict.

Dn. Anthony

I don't know. I think they should adopt the Gregorian calendar since it already functions correctly (Aleppo is another workable approach). There is, I would think, an understandable desire to celebrate Pascha together in regions with a sizable or majority of Orthodox. The maximum discrepancy of about a month is not that drastic so far, but it will get bigger.

But I repeat that my "mission" (as I think it has been called) is not to force anyone to change anything on this issue but to make the facts and consequences known, and to challenge and hopefully correct my false presumptions and those of others.

Dn. Anthony

Do you think the proclamation of the council about the calculation of the date is more important than its stipulation that the date be observed uniformly throughout the world?

In Ukraine, ECs follow the same calendar as EOs because they might as well all celebrate on the same day--there are very few RCs and Protestants, anyway.

Outside of Ukraine, many UGCs prefer the Old Calendar just because a.) it's familiar and they've always done it that way, and b.) it's what they're using back in Ukraine.

FWIW, few UGCs I've met seem to care as much about Old Calendar Pascha (it's the same as New Calendar some of the time, anyway) as they do about having Sviat' Vechir on January 6!


Peace,
Deacon Richard

No. The second, uniform observance, should follow from the first, an agreed method of determination.

I think the Council in specifying the principle for the dating got it as right as could be -- it gave a prescription that's applicable for all times; it is linked to natural -- equinox and full moon -- and biblical -- Sunday, the first day of creation, and the Passover -- events. Each year, though different chronologically, is still the same as that first year of the new creation, the year of the Resurrection. There is a sense of a rhythm and of harmony with nature that I've addressed before, link, but, I realize, not all may accept.

Given the Council�s desire, however, I would hope that all would appreciate and come to accept the mandate and its significance, and we would all be of one accord. But churches in the past have had differing systems and principles. Given the acceptance of a celebration of Pascha as part of a yearly cycle of feasts, and that it should be a Sunday, and especially in today's global village, there is no excuse for Christians not to observe what we all accept on the same effective day.

So, within the context described, both the principle of the dating and, consequently, a uniform resulting date in conformity with that principle are really one and the same.

Dn. Anthony

In today's global village, we have such things as the International Date Line, time zones, and so forth - which means that unless we all decide to run by Jerusalem time, so to speak, we are unlikely to celebrate Pascha simultaneously in any event.

De minimis non curat praetor.

Fr. Serge

I wonder, since the ancients were seemingly off by several years on the birth of Christ, if Nicea was any more accurate in dating the resurrection. It seems to me that there has been a lot of argument on these dates, none of which can be fixed accurately. But you are correct that time zones would make any given and agreed on date impossible to celebrate simultaneously.

What I said:


I intended --hoped-- the word "effective" would cover this, de minimis, point. Also, from before, link :


Dn. Anthony

Nicaea gave us that agreed upon method of observance. It left it in the hands of Alexandria which gave us the 19 year cycles. The PFM cycles are approximations, they are not nor do I think they were intended to be exact astronomical calculations. I think it's important to follow Nicaea, but in doing so means following how Nicaea was put in practice through the tradition of the church, not how we want to go back and re-interpret the tradition based on how we see Nicaea.


I think if we're going to give out advice we should probably be willing to follow it first ourselves. That is why I asked about why it is that some Eastern Catholics do not use the Gregorian Calendar. It seems to me that if what you're saying is really the case, they should stop using the Eastern Paschalion. There is as you say no excuse for them not to observe it on the same day as the rest of their communion.

Does this acknowledge the "agreed upon method of observance" as the equinox-full moon-Sunday sequence being the point of reference, the primary stipulation? If so, then we agree that the Julian calendar and 19 year cycle are secondary. That secondary suggestion or stipulation worked fine for a while but then the application of that approach was observed to give an error. The secondary, the suggestion, deviated from the primary, the essential. Do we fix the secondary or continue to increasingly deviate from the primary?

Perhaps the significance of what I keep saying, that the error in the Julian calendar is accumulating, is not understood. Presently the Julian calendar approach in effect pretends that the equinox actually occurs roughly 13 days after it actually happens -- that's the accumulated error so far -- and the difference will continue to increase. So it increasingly moves the determination away from the event, the vernal equinox, that is the reference point, the primary element.

Also, that the Gregorian and Julian approaches are approximations, as I have noted from the beginning, is acceptable. The difference is that the Gregorian approximation does the job correctly and the Julian does not. This is verified by doing what science knows as the �exact� determination or observation or a higher level of approximation, a more refined methodology. That is what the Aleppo data demonstrates about the correctness of the Gregorian approach and the deficiency of the Julian; this also seems not to be understood by those who miss the point about the need to specify a meridian (Jerusalem) � some place on earth to make the observation -- and then they introduce the irrelevant issues of international date line and time zones.


Of course I�m saying that everyone should use the method that works correctly rather than one that does not. Who would do otherwise? If I had two calculators and I said here�s one that is correct to within the digits shown and here is one that will give an ever-increasing error in the result every day, which would I recommend you use? Which one would you choose to use?

Let me also point out that contrary to what you claim of me when you say, �There is as you [ajk] say no excuse for them not to observe it on the same day as the rest of their communion,� what I actually said was different and qualified: �Given the acceptance of a celebration of Pascha as part of a yearly cycle of feasts, and that it should be a Sunday, and especially in today's global village, there is no excuse for Christians not to observe what we all accept on the same effective day.� If you don�t see the difference let me know.

Dn. Anthony