www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Common Easter date?

Deacon Anthony,

While I certainly find your statements here to be essentially factual, let us not forget that there was another important consideration posited by the Fathers of I Nicaea, namely that all Christians celebrate Pascha on the same day. This is arguably more important in the scheme of things than which date is chosen.

That being the case, and given the fact that most EOs (and a number of ECs) are steadfast in their adherence to the ancient Paschalion, it follows that a compromise is in order here. Unity and fraternity among Christians is a very important thing; astronomical accuracy, while not unimportant, is decidedly less important than the former.

Furthermore, I really think that few RCs would be upset if Pascha never fell in March anymore and sometimes fell in May. (However, this applies only to the Paschalion--having Christmas moved to January 7 every year would be much harder to swallow!)


Peace,
Deacon Richard

You know I actually believe Christmas on January 7th could be a good thing. It would get us out from under the secular shopping marathon.

The only thing is there is a wonderful DVD out that actually can justify the December 25th date. So they might have to re-do the days to the other calendar.
http://thestarofbethlehemmovie.com/

May the EO members of this forum forgive me for jumping in here, but I believe the real answer lies in the fact that the Julian Paschalion represents an unbroken tradition of more than 1000 years' standing, thus a perfect alignment, going backward through time, with past celebrations. This is more meaningful to people than stars and planets.


Peace,
Deacon Richard

Father Deacon Richard,

Read back through the threads. They start with someone advancing the Julian Paschalion with faulty arguments which when turned around on them are then denied as important; in many if not most of those posts, there is then little concern for unity. Aleppo was a disinterested attempt for unity. There is no good reason to require that a stable calendar be abandon for one with an ever-increasing error. Would you trade an accurate watch for one that kept time incorrectly, that had an accumulating error and that could not be reset? Who would recommend for the sake of unity that everyone use the same type of clock that had an ever accumulating error in running too slow and so, eventually, when daylight comes and we are ready for breakfast, the clock reads 2AM, so go back to sleep, ignore the morning sun in the sky, pretend it's really the dark of night.

Aleppo was just such a compromise.

As I've said repeatedly, it all depends on what factors are important, what's given up and what it is important to retain. The fact that you mention January 7 Christmas should sound like that faulty clock I mentioned. In that case be content in unity marking the vernal equinox on Julian calendar March 21, and making believe that it is really occurring then, when in reality it happened 13 days (and increasing) before.

The sole Russian Orthodox student at the school where I teach celebrated Christmas on January 7th as a religious festival focused solely upon the nativity of Christ, and she was quite happy about not being associated with the neo-pagan revelry and materialistic hedonism that surrounds the secularized festival held on the 25th of December.

Frankly, I found it wonderful to see a young girl so excited about celebrating the birth of Christ, and not worrying about what kinds of gifts she was going to get for Christmas, or about partying with her friends. I think the Orthodox should keep the old calendar in its entirety.

Well then Rome was in violation of the Nicene decrees (none of which are extant) for more than a century. Goodness, the Roman Church was not very faithful to Nicaea.

Provide the canons of Nicaea that speak on this issue and that will end our debate, but providing documentation that comes a generation or more after the event will not suffice.

Nicaea left no system for calculating the date of the Pascha.

"perfect alignment"? The whole issue is that the Julian Paschalion is most often no longer in alignment with the situation, the alignment, at the time on the Council of Nicaea.

Just to be clear, the quotes in the quote above may be mistaken for my words. They are from the essay at the link I provided, i.e., these are the words of Nicholas Ossorguine, Instructor in Liturgics, St Sergius Orthodox Theological Institute, Paris, 1979 as noted before: His words, not mine. So this "stars and planets" stuff, if indeed less "meaningful to people" is a concept advanced by, I presume, an Orthodox teacher.

They are not all that important to me, because it is not like the Alexandrian practice for determining the date of the Pascha is divinely revealed. The Church of Rome itself used an 84 year lunar-solar calendar cycle for determining the date of the Pascha until the mid 5th century, more than 100 years after the Council of Nicaea.

Clearly the issue of doing the hard work, that awful science stuff, was in development and primitive by our standards (but impressive in what it was able to accomplish with so little). The problem was realized early on, the difficult task of finding a fix was at least in part responsible for the delay. When the method to achieve the correction was accepted, Rome wisely and with deference to Nicaea, took what may be seen as the drastic step of removing the 10 days error and thus accomplishing a re-alignment with the calendar at the time of Nicaea. See Inter Gravissimas [bluewaterarts.com] #7.

Since the actual canons are not documented as such, as I said, I have proceeded on the basis of the one thing that is a consensus, what I have called the rule: vernal equinox-full moon- Sunday.

I agree and I hope all will understand what this correctly states. "Nicaea left no system" no method and therefore no definitive Paschalion. It also left no record of canons, but we do have a universally agreed upon rule. So let's use a reliable method, not one with known and problematic errors, to achieve compliance with the rule.

Yes, I accept this --"it is not like the Alexandrian practice for determining the date of the Pascha is divinely revealed"-- and I've tried to make that very point. Do Julian calendar/paschalion advocates also accept this?

Precisely, a different and faulty method to try to adhere to the "rule." It's one thing to know there is a problem, another to know how to fix it. Rome finally found and advanced a fix in 1582, and most of the world uses it.

I am using the term "alignment" here to refer to the consistent use of the Julian Paschalion for all those centuries.

True, but the opinions of scholars have little impact outside the realm of academia until they are embraced by the people--if, indeed, they are embraced. On the other hand, 1000+ years of unbroken practice is something that even the simple and unlettered can appreciate.

I think that very often the scientific-minded think they are thinking "outside the box," when in fact they are locked in a kind of mathematical way of thinking that leaves out a whole dimension of human existence--one that is only perceived intuitively.

The fact that St. Thomas Aquinas was unable to finish the Summa Theologica after his vision is an example of this.


Peace,
Deacon Richard

I commented in one of the other threads that the internal consistency of the two calendars is such that the cycle of feasts, the interplay of the temporal and paschal cycles -- the typicon -- is assured. I think sometimes the "people" have been taught that the Gregorian calendar disrupts the harmony of the Typicon. It does not, and there are only minor differences between the two calendars in terms of internal consistency. So I'm skeptical about what the people are devoted to. If they're anything like me, they are just told and accept when Pascha will be observed, and are not doing the determination themselves as a religious exercise.

Also, the science factor is misunderstood. As I have tried to convey, science, mathematics, astronomy, are neutral and are tools to insure one applies the rule correctly. They provide insights for understanding the necessary technical aspects of being able to predict, to tabulate the dates of Pascha. And this is what was done in the past since Nicaea. But one does not need this science to have a feel for the phenomena, and like it or not that involves planets. So people have the sense of a periodic night and day, light and dark, and the changing of seasons -- the sun and earth -- and the monthly shape, the brightness of the moon, etc. And that is what the "rule" addresses.

So I don't believe that the faithful have some inherent resonance with the Julian calendar/Paschalion such that they could perceive just by observing the typicon an obvious difference relative to the Gregorian or Aleppo method or other accurate calendars. (Such a disruption results, for instance, when trying to merge Gregorian fixed and Julian paschal cycles.) So what is the difference or the issue as long as internal consistency is maintained?

Only this, the external consistency: harmony with those natural occurrences that have no religious bias, the seasonal and daily cycles of nature. This is what Ossorguine is expounding, not science or astronomy per se. If the harmony and symbolism that he notes is not warranted then make life easy and choose a convenient Sunday -- the second Sunday of April for example -- as a simple, fixed method of dating. But if it is desired that on the day after the Great and Holy Sabbath, early in the morning before sunrise, the moon in the sky lighting the way is the very Paschal moon associated with the Nicaean directive (i.e. the "rule") than the choice is not the Julian calendar/Paschalion.

Using the Julian calendar, Pascha is moving consistently towards the summer. The intent of Nicaea was for it to stay fixed, close after the beginning of spring, just as at the time of Nicaea, just as at the time of the crucifixion and resurrection. One may chose that alignment -- the Council, the Incarnation -- or align with an ancient Roman calendar and an ancient Alexandrian "scientific" calculation of paschal moons that are moving the feast away from its primitive external (celestial) orientation.

We are in no imminent danger of Orthodox Easter happening in the summer. The date of Easter according to the Julian calendar will remain in either April or May for at least the next 2,000 years.

In the year A.D. 3978 Orthodox Easter will be on May 21st.

Correct. This illustrates the issue quite well. As I said:It also exemplifies the inertia in facing the "danger", hopefully not aspiring to "Après moi, le déluge".

There is no pressing need for change.