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

Re "In the Orthodox church, Pascha NEVER falls before Passover"
In fact this has happened a long time ago (see my article on page 6 of this thread), using the current Rabbinic/Talmudic method of Moses Maimonides.
Also the Jewish Karaite Passover could possibly fall after Julian Easter even in our times (if there is bad spring weather in Judea for consecutive years). See Jewish Karaite leap years [groups.yahoo.com] for a recent example of the issues.

The greatest pre-schism exponent of the Julian Calendar was St Bede the Venerable.
His book on the subject has been translated into English The Reckoning of Time [books.google.co.uk]
Here is an example from page 143
This means that Easter Sunday should fall on one of the days of the Feast of Unleavened bread (the 7 days after Passover).
But if you check the calendar for 2009 (or use this calculator [phys.uu.nl]) you will see the Gregorian Easter Sunday fits this rule of Bede, whereas the Julian calendar does not (its a few days after the Feast of Unleavened bread ends).
Why is this important?
One of the cycles that Pascha is trying to synchronise with the original Passion and Resurrection is the lunar cycle. It cannot be disputed that the Crucifixion was at the full moon, but this year the Julian Good Friday will be 17 April which is the last quarter of the waning moon. This is because the Julian ecclesiastical moon has drifted a long way from the real moon. This is one of the problems that the Gregorian calendar fixed. The Gregorian fix was not perfect, but is good enough. This year Gregorian Good Friday is only one day after the real Paschal full moon.

Here is Bede again (page 128):

There has been much previous discussion about the leap year error in the Julian calendar. Some have said this does not matter since "Pascha in midsummer" is so far away there is no need to worry about it. But perhaps the drift of the Julian/Dionysian moon is faster. Has anyone worked out how long it will be before Julian Good Friday is celebrated on a real New Moon (the exact opposite to how St Polycarp thought it should be)?

Canon VII of the Holy Apostles:

If any Bishop, or Presbyter, or Deacon celebrate the holy day of Easter before the vernal equinox with the Jews, let him be deposed.

Canon I of Antioch:

As for all persons who dare to violate the definition of the holy and great Synod convened in Nicaea in the presence of Eusebeia, the consort of the most God-beloved Emperor Constantine, concerning the holy festival of the soterial Pascha, we decree that they be excluded from Communion and be outcasts from the Church if they persist more captiously in objecting to the decisions that have been made as most fitting in regard thereto; and let these things be said with reference to laymen. But if any of the person occupying prominent positions in the Church, such as a Bishop, or a Presbyter, or a Deacon, after the adoption of this definition, should dare to insist upon having his own way, to the perversion of the laity, and to the disturbance of the church, and upon celebrating Pascha along with the Jews, the holy Synod has hence judged that person to be an alien to the Church, on the ground that he has not only become guilty of sin by himself, but has also been the cause of corruption and perversion among the multitude. Accordingly, it not only deposes such persons from the liturgy, but also those who dare to commune with them after their deposition. Moreover, those who have been deposed are to be deprived of the external honor too of which the holy Canon and God's priesthood have partaken.

See also the Sigillon of 1583 which anathematized the Gregorian and Papal Calendar.

But what do the words of canons VII and I mean? Properly read and understood, as I and others have documented at length in previous posts, they support the method of the Gregorian calendar and Aleppo. The Julian calendar/Paschalion is on much weaker ground.

I have only found this on the Sigillon of 1583:
which is no more than an unbecoming and ill informed rant.

Ah do continue. I dont think that with Scholastic theology you will ever understand the mind of the Traditional Orthodox for it is antithetical to Orthodox tradition which is hesychastic. What is it that you say "I believe so as to understand" Anselm of Canterbury said this. And so we continue to hold fast to the traditions that were handed down to us.

No need, that just about sums it up.

Starting a new thread on Scholastic theology may be the way to go. It could provide the opportunity to discover how it actually treats various theological topics and its proper methodology, information that is sorely lacking by some in the East and West. As I have written before, I will not reply directly to some scholastic bogyman that is presented as though factual and an accurate representation of the approach. I will say that some theologians in the past have misapplied or perhaps were misinformed about Scholastic theology, Scholasticism etc., using it as a label for undesirable or unnecessary western influences in eastern theology. While that at times was unwarranted and unfortunate, in that it did happen or was characterized as such, to now continue propagating the myth of the mutual incomprehensibility and incompatibility of Scholasticism and the East is reprehensible.

I dont seem to be making myself clear. So here is a story from the old country.

Reverend Clergy, Orthodox Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Please forgive the babbling of an unworthy Greek folk priest, but I thought
I share with you this humble and Greek folk spiritual testimony, from a
humble Old Country Grandmother.

Panagiota came from Greece to Chicago in the late 60s with her late husband
and three children. A very simple, very devoted, and pious, woman past 65
now. She was a shepherd girl back in the hillsides near Tripoli having very
little secular education, being the older child in the family had to attend
the small flock of sheep, the family's main source of survival.

She called me yesterday and very humbly told me the following event that
happend the day before in an informal discusion with some of her New
Calendar (Ecumenist) neighbors. Their conversation drifted into the
Ecumenism issue where her visitors insisted that Ecumenism union and
communion with all "Christian faiths" is good for the church and that all
the churches are all the same and all branches of the same tree.

"I tried to convince them" she said, "that they were wrong but to no avail."
She is uneducated and they tried in their educated way to prove her wrong to
her persistence that the Church is only one, The One Holy Katholic and
Apostolic Church, The Traditional Othodox Church and no branches.

In her defense to Holy Orthodoxy, not being able to convey the truth to her
overpowering visitors, she crossed herself and prayed to our Holy God to
give her the wisdom and the words to defend her Holy Faith. As she prayed
the thought came to her and she made the following statement. She said to
them, the Holy and Traditional Orthodox Church in comparison to Ecumenism is
like this:

In the prairie you find many sorts of plants, also, many beautiful flowers
that stand out among all other plants. In the same way, the True and Holy
Orthodox churches all over the world stand out like the beautiful flowers in
the prairie. There in the prairie, you also find many insects, pasturing
each to its own pasture, including the flies where they pasture on anything.
But among all the insects, there is one very particular insect, which does
not go to just anything to pasture, but only, to the beautiful flowers. This
very particular insect, the cleanest of all insects, is the blessed honey
bee. In the same way also, the true and blessed believers, ought to be like
the blessed honey bees, and not go, to just any "church".

So she concluded to her visitors, my friends forgive me for my illiteracy,
but this is my humble comparison between the True Church of God and
Ecumenism, and my humble comparison between the True believers of God and
the Ecumenists.

This is Grandmother Panagiotas' humble comparison of the True Holy Orthodox
Church.

In Christ our Lord and Savior
the unworthy Greek folk priest,

Fr. Athanasios

----------

and lastly:
Elder Nectarius of Optina

*One must not demand of a fly that it do the work of a bee. Every
man should give according to his won measure. Everyone cannot do
the same thing.

This seems better suited to a new thread on Orthodoxy versus Ecumenism.

My own take: Grandmother Panagiotas expressed in good faith what she has been told about Ecumenism; she would give a similar opinion, I suspect, about the calendar if that were the issue she was addressing. The teachers and leaders who have taught her incorrectly, venting their venom rather than seeking and expressing the truth, are the ones who deserve condemnation; they are a disgrace.

I said just the same thing, more or less, in another thread yesterday and to a number of different people in my BCC parish and in my local OCA parish. The Orthodox will not change the reckoning of the date, so hopefully the pope will change the CC's reckoning. I have asked people, "do you know what the date of Pascha is two years from now?" (answer, always "no"). "If there were a secret conspiracy to unify the date and the two sides actually came up with a different method entirely and so the date for Pascha ended up being different, would you have any idea or care?" (answer always "no"). "If the pope changed unilaterally so that we all celebrated the same day would you know if no one told you, and would you mind?" ("no"). The Orthodox are always more rigid, IMO, and probably /would/ care about which date Pascha was on if they thought there were any Catholic influence on any change or compromise. This is in spite of the fact that the two methods of reckoning are both complex and somewhat arbitrary and if they were switched you'd still have people claiming their method was correct. Because the Orthodox will not be flexible I say just make the date the same as they have it and be happy about one more tiny step toward being unified with them.

(Emphasis added)

This, right here, is the set up for a heart-breaking non-starter. To say essentially "You can't understand this because you are in error" precludes it could ever go any further: a decision has been declared that those Errant-Thomistic-Westerners-with-their-scholasticism™just aren't going to get it and really simply can't get it through no fault of their own beyond being the victims of such errant thomistc western scholastic thought.

Do not pass go, do not collect $200. Not only are those you oppose wrong, they are so unduly - even if unkowingly - influenced by so much wrongness, they are left unable to see the wrongness their wrongness. Where could one even start if they even wanted to bother?

I've addressed this question several times already and will not rehash the argument here. Just take it as a given that there is an important body of Christians who are not about to change the Paschalia. Those who so passionately want a "common Easter date" are welcome to use the one that we use, should they so desire.

Fr. Serge

Resurrectio Domini, spes nostra

I say unicuique suum, to each his own.

Why should it be such a big problem that there are two different dates for Easter? Let's not forget that every Sunday is the celebration of the resurrection of Christ.

The good news is that next year (2010) the Gregorian and Julian Easter dates will coincide.

Guess I cant go to Jerusalem to celebrate the Tridum next year and will have to say again "next year in Jerusalem".
Stephanos I

Hear, hear, father!

I assume you've heard that the EU wants to set the date of Pascha?

Amen Father!

Wouldn't it make sense for those who changed to change back and see the errors of their ways?! Or are they afraid of change?

In fact once this is taken care of, there are several other items that could use the same logic

Monomakh

Christ is in our midst!! He is and always will be!!

As interesting as this discussion always is, there is an additonal element in the equation that no one has ever addressed.

The time when the Bishop of Rome could speak for the whole of Western Christendom was over some 500 years ago. Even if the Catholic Church decided to begin using the Orthodox method of calculating the date of Pascha, there would still be a large body of believers left behind--the Anglicans, Lutherans, and otehr Protestants. I'd venture to guess that these folks would object to changing with Rome simply because they don't accept Roman authority to do anything at all let alone change the date by which they have calculated Pascha.

You have to consider that many non-Roman Westerners think that the true form of Christianity followed westward through Rome, leaving the East in hopeless error, and that they have been in the same linear path, keeping the true form of Christianity by reforming Rome.

It seems there are more considerations about this question than a mere decision between Rome and the Eastern Churches, both Chalcedonian and non-Chalcedonian.

Praying that my brethren celebrating the Great and Holy Week find a deeper relationship with Christ as the fruit of their participation in His Saving Mysteries revelaed this week liturgically,

BOB