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Easter ( ) is the most important annual religious feast in the Christian liturgical year. According to Christian scripture, Jesus was resurrected from the dead on the third day of his crucifixion. Christians celebrate this resurrection on Easter Day or Easter Sunday (also Resurrection Day or Resurrection Sunday), two days after Good Friday and three days after Maundy Thursday. The chronology of his death and resurrection is variously interpreted to be between 26 and 36 AD.Easter also refers to the season of the church year called Eastertide or the Easter Season. Traditionally the Easter Season lasted for the forty days from Easter Day until Ascension Day but now officially lasts for the fifty days until Pentecost. The first week of the Easter Season is known as Easter Week or the Octave of Easter. Easter also marks the end of Lent, a season of fasting, prayer, and penance.

Easter is a moveable feast, meaning it is not fixed in relation to the civil calendar. The First Council of Nicaea (325) established the date of Easter as the first Sunday after the full moon (the Paschal Full Moon) following the vernal equinox. Ecclesiastically, the equinox is reckoned to be on March 21. The date of Easter therefore varies between March 22 and April 25. Eastern Christianity bases its calculations on the Julian Calendar whose March 21 corresponds, during the twenty-first century, to April 3 in the Gregorian Calendar, in which calendar their celebration of Easter therefore varies between April 4 and May 8.



Theological significance



One interpretation of the Gospel of John is that Jesus, as the Passover lamb, was crucified at roughly the same time as the Passover lambs were being slain in the temple, on the afternoon of Nisan 14. This interpretation, however, is inconsistent with the chronology in the Synoptic Gospels. It assumes that text literally translated "the preparation of the passover" in refers to Nisan 14 (Preparation Day for the Passover) and not necessarily to Yom Shishi (Friday, Preparation Day for Sabbath) and that the priests' desire to be ritually pure in order to "eat the passover" in refers to eating the Passover lamb, not to the public offerings made during the days of Unleavened Bread ( ).

Origins and etymology

Anglo-Saxon and German



Semitic, Romance, Celtic and other Germanic languages

The Greek word Πάσχα and hence the Latin form Pascha is derived from Hebrew Pesach ( ) meaning the festival of Passover. In Greek the word Ανασταση, (upstanding) is used also as an alternative.

Christians speaking Arabic or other Semitic languages generally use names cognate to Pesach. For instance, the second word of the Arabic name of the festival has the root F-Ṣ-Ḥ, which given the sound laws applicable to Arabic is cognate to Hebrew P-S-Ḥ, with "Ḥ" realized as in Modern Hebrew and in Arabic. Arabic also uses the term , meaning "festival of the resurrection," but this term is less common. In Maltese the word is L-Għid. In Ge'ez and the modern Ethiosemitic languages of Ethiopiamarker and Eritreamarker, two forms exist: ፋሲካ ("Fasika," fāsīkā) from Greek Pascha, and ትንሣኤ ("Tensae," tinśā'ē), the latter from the Semitic root N-Ś-', meaning "to rise" (cf. Arabic nasha'a - ś merged with "sh" in Arabic and most non-South Semitic languages).

In all Romance languages the name of the Easter festival is derived from the Latin Pascha. In Spanish, Easter is Pascua, in Italian Pasqua, in Portuguese Páscoa and in Romanian Paşti. In French, the name of Easter Pâques also derives from the Latin word but the s following the a has been lost and the two letters have been transformed into a â with a circumflex accent by elision.


In Dutch, Easter is known as pasen and in the Scandinavian languages Easter is known as påske (Danish and Norwegian), påsk (Swedish), páskar (Icelandic) and páskir (Faeroese). The name is derived directly from Hebrew Pesach. The letter å is a double a pronounced /o/, and an alternate spelling is paaske or paask.

Slavic languages

In most Slavic languages, the name for Easter either means "Great Day" or "Great Night". For example, Wielkanoc, Veľká noc and Velikonoce mean "Great Night" or "Great Nights" in Polish, Slovak and Czech, respectively. Велигден (Veligden), Великдень (Velykden), Великден (Velikden), and Вялікдзень (Vyalikdzyen') mean "The Great Day" in Macedonian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian, and Belarusian, respectively.

In Croatian and Serbian, however, the day's name reflects a particular theological connection: it is called Uskrs, meaning "Resurrection". In Croatian it is also called Vazam (Vzem or Vuzem in Old Croatian), which is a noun that originated from the Old Church Slavonic verb vzeti (now uzeti in Croatian, meaning "to take"). It also explains the fact that in Serbian Easter is sometimes also called Vaskrs, a liturgical form inherited from the Serbian recension of Church Slavonic. The archaic term Velja noć (velmi: Old Slavic for "great"; noć: "night") was used in Croatian while the term Velikden ("Great Day") was used in Serbian. It is believed that Cyril and Methodius, the "holy brothers" who baptized the Slavic people and translated Christian books from Greek into Old Church Slavonic, invented the word Uskrs from the word krsnuti or "enliven". It should be noted that in these languages the prefix Velik (Great) is used in the names of the Holy Week and the three feast days preceding Easter.


Finno-Ugric languages

In Finnish the name for Easter pääsiäinen, traces back to the Swedish påsk, as does the Sámi word Beassážat. The Estonian name lihavõtted and the Hungarian húsvét, however, literally mean the taking of the meat, relating to the end of the Great Lent fasting period.

Easter in the early Church

The first Christians, Jewish and Gentile, were certainly aware of the Hebrew calendar ( ; ; ; ; ), but there is no direct evidence that they celebrated any specifically Christian annual festivals. The observance by Christians of non-Jewish annual festivals is believed by some to be an innovation postdating the Apostolic Age. The ecclesiastical historian Socrates Scholasticus (b. 380) attributes the observance of Easter by the church to the perpetuation of its custom, "just as many other customs have been established," stating that neither Jesus nor his Apostles enjoined the keeping of this or any other festival. However, when read in context, this is not a rejection or denigration of the celebration—which, given its currency in Scholasticus' time would be surprising—but is merely part of a defense of the diverse methods for computing its date. Indeed, although he describes the details of the Easter celebration as deriving from local custom, he insists the feast itself is universally observed.


Second-century controversy

By the later second century, it was accepted that the celebration of Pascha (Easter) was a practice of the disciples and an undisputed tradition. The Quartodeciman controversy, the first of several Paschal/Easter controversies, then arose concerning the date on which Pascha should be celebrated.

The term "Quartodeciman" refers to the practice of celebrating Pascha or Easter on Nisan 14 of the Hebrew calendar, "the 's passover" ( ). According to the church historian Eusebius, the Quartodeciman Polycarp (bishop of Smyrna, by tradition a disciple of John the Evangelist) debated the question with Anicetus (bishop of Rome). The Roman province of Asia was Quartodeciman, while the Roman and Alexandrian churches continued the fast until the Sunday following, 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, 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 the tolerant precedent of Anicetus.

Quartodecimanism seems to have lingered into the fourth century, when Socrates of Constantinople recorded that some Quartodecimans were deprived of their churches by John Chrysostom and that some were harassed by Nestorius.

Third/fourth-century controversy and Council

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 the following Sunday (the Sunday of Unleavened Bread) 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 the northern hemispheremarker spring equinox. Anatolius of Laodicea in the later third century wrote:Those who place [the first lunar month of the year] in [the twelfth zodiacal sign before the spring equinox] and fix the Paschal fourteenth day accordingly, make a great and indeed an extraordinary mistakePeter, bishop of Alexandria (died 312), had a similar complaint

The Sardica paschal table confirms these complaints, for it indicates that the Jews of some eastern Mediterranean city (possibly Antiochmarker) fixed Nisan 14 on March 11 (Julian) in A.D. 328, on March 5 in A.D. 334, on March 2 in A.D. 337, and on March 10 in A.D. 339, all well before the spring equinox.



The reference to Passover twice in the same year might refer to the geographical diversity that existed at that time in the Jewish calendar, due in large measure to the breakdown of communications in the Empire. Jews in one city might determine Passover differently from Jews in another city. The reference to the Jewish "boast", and, indeed, the strident anti-Jewish tone of the whole passage, suggests another issue: some Christians thought that it was undignified for Christians to depend on Jews to set the date of a Christian festival.

This controversy between those who advocated independent computations, and those who wished to continue the custom of relying on the Jewish calendar, was formally resolved by the First Council of Nicaea in 325 (see below), which endorsed the move to independent computations, effectively requiring the abandonment of the old custom of consulting the Jewish community in those places where it was still used. That the older custom (called "protopaschite" by historians) did not at once die out, but persisted for a time, is indicated by the existence of canons and sermons against it.

Some historians have argued that mid-4th century Roman authorities, in an attempt to enforce the Nicene decision on Easter, attempted to interfere with the Jewish calendar. This theory was developed by S. Liebermann, and is repeated by S. Safrai in the Ben-Sasson History of the Jewish People. This view receives no support, however, in surviving mid-4th century Roman legislation on Jewish matters. The Historian Procopius, in his Secret History, claims that the emperor Justinian attempted to interfere with the Jewish calendar in the 6th century, and a modern writer has suggested that this measure may have been directed against the protopaschites. However, none of Justinian's surviving edicts dealing with Jewish matters is explicitly directed against the Jewish calendar, making the interpretation of Procopius's statement a complex matter.

Date of Easter


In Western Christianity, using the Gregorian calendar, Easter always falls on a Sunday between March 22 and April 25 inclusively. The following day, Easter Monday, is a legal holiday in many countries with predominantly Christian traditions. In Eastern Orthodox Churches which continue to use the Julian calendar for religious dating, Easter also falls on a Sunday between March 22 and April 25 inclusive of the Julian calendar. (The Julian calendar is no longer used as the civil calendar of the countries where Eastern Christian traditions predominate.) In terms of the Gregorian calendar, due to the 13 day difference between the calendars between 1900 and 2099, these dates are between April 4 and May 8 inclusive. 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 is the same as in the Western Church.





In applying the ecclesiastical rules, Christian Churches use March 21 as the starting point in determining the date of Easter, from which they find the next full moon, etc. The Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox Churches continue to use the Julian calendar. Their starting point in determining the date of Orthodox Easter is also March 21, but according to the Julian reckoning, which corresponds to April 3 in the Gregorian calendar. In addition, the lunar tables of the Julian calendar are 4 days (sometimes 5 days) behind those of the Gregorian calendar. The 14th day of the lunar month according to the Gregorian system is only the 9th or 10th day according to the Julian. The result of this combination of solar and lunar discrepancies is divergence in the date of Easter in most years. (see table)

The actual calculations for the date of Easter are somewhat complicated, but can be described briefly as follows:

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 (January 1 to December 31), the lunar month beginning with an ecclesiastical new moon falling in the 29-day period from March 8 to April 5 inclusive is designated as the Paschal lunar month for that year. Easter is the 3rd 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 the ecclesiastical new moon falls on a date from March 8 to April 5 inclusive, the Paschal full moon (the 14th of that lunar month) must fall on a date from March 21 to April 18 inclusive.


To prevent any differences developing in the dating of Easter in the Catholic Church, the Church has compiled tables for Easter, which are based on the ecclesiastical rules described above. All affiliated churches celebrate Easter in accordance with these tables.

Relationship to date of Passover

In determining the date of the Gregorian and Julian Easter a lunisolar cycle is followed. In determining the date of the Jewish Passover a lunisolar calendar is also used, and because Easter always falls on a Sunday it usually falls up to a week after the first day of Passover (Nisan 15 in the Hebrew calendar). However, the differences in the rules between the Hebrew and Gregorian cycles results in Passover falling about a month after Easter in three years of the 19-year cycle. These occur in years 3, 11, and 14 of the Gregorian 19-year cycle (corresponding respectively to years 19, 8, and 11 of the Jewish 19-year cycle).

The reason for the difference is the different scheduling of embolismic months in the two cycles (see computus). In addition, without changes to either calendar, the frequency of monthly divergence between the two festivals will increase over time as a result of the differences in the implicit solar years: the implicit mean solar year of the Hebrew calendar is 365.2468 days while that of the Gregorian calendar is 365.2425 days. In years 2200-2299, for example, the start of Passover will be about a month later than Gregorian Easter in four years out of nineteen.

Since in the modern Hebrew calendar Nisan 15 can never fall on Monday, Wednesday, or Friday, the seder of Nisan 15 never falls on the night of Maundy Thursday. The second seder, observed in some Jewish communities on the second night of Passover can, however, occur on Thursday night.

Because the Julian calendar's implicit solar year has drifted further over the centuries than the those of the Gregorian or Hebrew calendars, Julian Easter is a lunation later than Gregorian Easter in five years out of nineteen, namely years 3, 8,11, 14, and 19 of the Christian cycle. This means that it is a lunation later than Jewish Passover in two years out of nineteen, years 8 and 19 of the Christian cycle. Furthermore, because the Julian calendar's lunar age is now about 4 to 5 days behind the mean lunations, Julian Easter always follows the start of Passover. This cumulative effect of the errors in the Julian calendar's solar year and lunar age has led to the often-repeated, but false, belief that the Julian cycle includes an explicit rule requiring Easter always to follow Jewish Passover.

Reform of the date of Easter

A Pan-Orthodox congress of Eastern Orthodox bishops met in Istanbul in 1923 under the presidency of Patriarch Meletios IV, 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 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.

At a summit in Aleppomarker, Syriamarker, in 1997, the World Council of Churchesmarker 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 the spring equinox and full moon based on the meridian of Jerusalem, while also following the Council of Nicea position of Easter being on the Sunday following the full moon. The WCC presented comparative data of the relationships:

Notes: 1. Astronomical Easter is the first Sunday after the Astronomical full moon.

2. Passover commences at sunset preceding the date indicated.

The recommended WCC changes would have side-stepped the calendar issues and eliminated the difference in date between the Eastern and Western churches. The reform was proposed for implementation starting in 2001, but it was not ultimately adopted by any member body.


In the United Kingdom, the Easter Act 1928 set out legislation to allow the date of Easter to be fixed as the first Sunday after the second Saturday in April (or, in other words, the Sunday in the period from April 9 to April 15). 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.

Position in the church year

Western Christianity




Eastern Christianity





Religious observance of Easter

Western Christianity

Procession in the Northwest of Spain.



The first recorded "Sunrise Service" took place in 1732 among the Single Brethren in the Moravian Congregation at Herrnhutmarker, Saxonymarker, in what is now Germany. Following an all-night vigil they went before dawn to the town graveyard, God's Acre, on the hill above the town, to celebrate the Resurrection among the graves of the departed. This service was repeated the following year by the whole congregation and subsequently spread with the Moravian Missionaries around the world. The most famous "Moravian Sunrise Service" is in the Moravian Settlement Old Salem in Winston-Salemmarker, North Carolinamarker. The beautiful setting of the Graveyard, God's Acre, the music of the Brass Choir numbering 500 pieces, and the simplicity of the service attract thousands of visitors each year and has earned for Winston-Salem the soubriquet "the Easter City."




Eastern Christianity

Χριστὸς ἀνέστη ἐκ νεκρῶν,
θανάτῳ θάνατον πατήσας,
καὶ τοῖς ἐν τοῖς μνήμασι
ζωὴν χαρισάμενος.
Christ is risen from the dead,
Trampling down death by death,
And upon those in the tombs
Bestowing life!




Religious and secular Easter traditions


English-speaking world

Throughout the English-speaking world, many Easter traditions are similar with only minor differences. For example, Saturday evening is traditionally spent decorating Easter eggs and hunting for them with children on Sunday morning, by which time they have been mysteriously hidden all over the house and garden. Chocolate eggs have largely supplanted decorated eggs sometimes with a present contained within.
Other traditions involve parents telling their children that eggs and other treats have been delivered and hidden by the Easter Bunny in an Easter basket which children find waiting for them when they wake up. Many families observe the religious aspects of Easter and will attend Sunday Mass or services in the morning and then participate in a feast or party in the afternoon. Many families have a traditional Sunday roast, particularly of roast lamb which is regarded as the traditional Easter feast, and some eat Easter foods such as Simnel cake, a fruit cake with eleven marzipan balls representing the eleven faithful apostles. Hot cross buns, spiced buns with a cross on top, are traditionally associated with Good Friday, but today are often eaten well before and after. In Scotland, the north of England, and Northern Ireland, the traditions of rolling decorated eggs down steep hills and pace egging are still adhered to.



The Netherlands, Belgium and France




Nordic countries



Netherlands and Northern Germany

People watching the Easter Fire in 'De Achterhoek' in eastern Netherlands
In the northern and eastern parts of the Netherlands (Twente and Achterhoek), Easter Fires (in Dutch: "Paasvuur") are lit on Easter Day at sunset.Easter Fires also take place on the same day in large portions of Northern Germany ("Osterfeuer").

Central Europe

Main article: see Egg decorating in Slavic culture




In Sloveniamarker a basket of food is prepared and covered with a handmade cloth, and brought to the church to be blessed. A typical Easter basket includes ham, horseradish, bread, colored eggs, and a type of nut cake called "potica".


In Hungary, Transylvania, Southern Slovakiamarker, Kárpátaljamarker, Northern Serbiamarker - Vojvodinamarker and other territories with Hungarian-speaking communities, the day following Easter is called Locsoló Hétfő, "Watering Monday". Water, perfume or perfumed water is often sprinkled in exchange for an Easter egg.

Easter controversies

Christian denominations and organizations that do not observe Easter

Along with Christmas celebrations, Easter traditions were among the first casualties of some areas of the Protestant Reformation, being deemed "pagan" by some Reformation leaders.

Other Reformation Churches, such as the Lutheran, Methodist, and Anglican, retained a very full observance of the Church Year. In Lutheran Churches, not only were the days of Holy Week observed, but also Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost were observed with three day festivals, including the day itself and the two following. Among the other Reformation traditions, things were a bit different. These holidays were eventually restored (though Christmas only became a legal holiday in Scotland in 1967, after the Church of Scotlandmarker finally relaxed its objections). Some Christians (usually, but not always fundamentalists ), however, continue to reject the celebration of Easter (and, often, of Christmas), because they believe them to be irrevocably tainted with paganism and idolatry. Their rejection of these traditions is based partly on their interpretation of . Additionally, some Christians who do celebrate the event prefer to call it "Resurrection Sunday" or "Resurrection Day", as a way of distinguishing the religious celebration from more secular or commercial aspects of the holiday such as the Easter Bunny.

This is also the view of Jehovah's Witnesses, who instead observe a yearly commemorative service of the Last Supper and subsequent death of Christ on the evening of Nisan 14, as they calculate it derived from the lunar Hebrew Calendar. It is commonly referred to, in short, by many Witnesses as simply "The Memorial". Jehovah's Witnesses believe that such verses as and constitute a commandment to remember the death of Christ (and not the resurrection, as only the remembrance of the death was observed by early Christians), and they do so on a yearly basis just as Passover is celebrated yearly by the Jews.

Members of the Religious Society of Friends traditionally do not celebrate or observe Easter (or any other Church holidays), believing instead that "every day is the Lord's day", and that elevation of one day above others suggests that it is acceptable to do un-Christian acts on other days—they believe that every day is holy, and should be lived as such. This belief of Quakers is known as their testimony against time and season.


Critics charge that such feasts are meaningless in light of the end of the Old Testament sacrificial system and the destruction of the Second Temple in A.D. 70. Televangelist Larry Huch (Pentecostal) and many Calvary Chapel churches have adopted Hebrew-Christian practices, but without rejecting Easter.

Other seventh-day Sabbatarian groups, such as the Church of God, celebrate a Christian Passover that lacks most of the practices or symbols associated with Western Easter and retains more of the presumed features of the Passover observed by Jesus Christ at the Last Supper.

Modern avoidance controversy

In the modern-day United States, there have been instances where public mention of Easter and Good Friday have been replaced with euphemistic terminology. Examples include renaming "Good Friday" as "Spring holiday" on school calendars, to avoid association with a Christian holiday while at the same time allowing a state-sanctioned day off. (Note that the modern USA "Spring Break" can no longer be assumed to correspond with any version of Easter week.) In the United Kingdom, which still recognizes Good Friday and Easter Monday as national holidays, numerous secular events have been established to take advantage of the holidays but not the religious meaning behind the days including numerous annual clubbing events.


  2. 'Easter Day' is the traditional name in English for the principal feast of Easter, used (for instance) by the Book of Common Prayer, but in the 20th century 'Easter Sunday' became widely used, despite this term also referring to the following Sunday.
  3. Frequently asked questions about the date of Easter
  4. , , , , and the associated notes and Passion Week table in
  5. .
  7. , , , and the associated notes in
  10. Max Vasmer, Russisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch. Heidelberg, 1950-1958.
  11. Socrates, Church History, 5.22, in
  12. Cheslyn Jones, Geoffrey Wainwright, Edward Yarnold, and Paul Bradshaw, Eds., The Study of Liturgy, Revised Edition, Oxford University Press, New York, 1992, p. 474.
  13. Cheslyn Jones, Geoffrey Wainwright, Edward Yarnold, and Paul Bradshaw, Eds., The Study of Liturgy, Revised Edition, Oxford University Press, New York, 1992, p. 459:"[Easter] is the only feast of the Christian Year that can plausibly claim to go back to apostolic times...[It] must derive from a time when Jewish influence was effective....because it depends on the lunar calendar (every other feast depends on the solar calendar)."
  14. Eusebius, Church History 5.23.
  15. Socrates, Church History, 6.11, at
  16. Socrates, Church History 7.29, at
  17. Eusebius, Church History, 7.32.
  18. Peter of Alexandria, quoted in the Chronicon Paschale. In Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, eds., Ante-Nicene Christian Library, Volume 14: The Writings of Methodius, Alexander of Lycopolis, Peter of Alexandria, And Several Fragments, Edinburgh, 1869, p. 326, at
  19. MS Verona, Biblioteca Capitolare LX(58) folios 79v-80v.
  20. Sacha Stern, Calendar and Community: A History of the Jewish Calendar Second Century BCE - Tenth Century CE, Oxford, 2001, pp. 124-132.
  21. Eusebius reports that Dionysius, Bishop of Alexandria, proposed an 8-year Easter cycle, and quotes a letter from Anatolius, Bishop of Laodicea, that refers to a 19-year cycle. Eusebius, Church History, 7.20, 7.31. An 8-year cycle has been found inscribed on a statue unearthed in Rome in the 17th century, dated to the third century. Allen Brent, Hippolytus and the Roman Church in the Third Century, Leiden, E.J. Brill, 1995.
  22. Epiphanius, Adversus Haereses Heresy 70, 10,1, in Frank Williams, The Panarion of Epiphanius of Salamis Books II and II, Leiden, E.J. Brill, 1994, p. 412. Also quoted in Margaret Dunlop Gibson, The Didascalia Apostolorum in Syriac, London, 1903, p. vii.
  23. Eusebius, Life of Constantine, 3.18, in A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, Second Series, Volume 14: The Seven Ecumenical Councils, Eerdmans, 1956, p. 54.
  24. Sacha Stern, Calendar and Community: A History of the Jewish Calendar Second Century BCE - Tenth Century CE, Oxford, 2001, pp. 72-79.
  27. S. Liebermann, "Palestine in the 3rd and 4rh Centuries", Jewish Quarterly Review (New Series), 36, p. 334 (1946).
  28. S. Safrai, "From the Roman Anarchy Until the Abolition of the Patriarchate", in H. H. Ben-Sasson, ed., A History of the Jewish People, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1969 (English trans. 1976), p. 350.
  29. Amnon Linder, The Jews in Roman Imperial Legislation, Wayne State University Press, Detroit, 1987. Linder presents only one piece of legislation from the time of Constantine II and one from the time of Constantius II dealing with Jewish matters. Neither has anything do do with the Jewish calendar.
  30. Procopius, Secret History 28.16-19.
  31. Sacha Stern, Calendar and Community: A History of the Jewish Calendar Second Century BCE-Tenth Century CE, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2001, pp. 85-87.
  32. Justinian's Novel 146 of A.D. 553 does, however, forbid public reading of the deuterosis, (probably the Mishnah) or expounding of its doctrines. Amnon Linder, The Jews in Roman Imperial Legislation, pp. 402-411.
  33. The Date of Easter. Article from United States Naval Observatory (March 27, 2007).
  35. Epiphanius, Adversus Haereses, Heresy 69, 11,1, in
  36. Paragraph 7 of Inter gravissimas to "the vernal equinox, which was fixed by the fathers of the [first] Nicene Council at XII calends April [21 March]". This definition can be traced at least back to chapters 6 & 59 of Bede's De temporum ratione (725).
  37. Montes, Marcos J. "Calculation of the Ecclesiastical Calendar" Retrieved 2008-01-12.
  38. Easter Sunday always falls after (never on) March 21, so the earliest it can fall is March 22; if the 14th of the Paschal lunar month falls on April 18 and this day is a Sunday, then Easter falls one week (seven days) later on April 25.
  40. The supposed "after Passover" rule is called the Zonaras proviso, after Joannes Zonaras, the Byzantine canon lawyer who may have been the first to formulate it.
  41. M. Milankovitch, "Das Ende des julianischen Kalenders und der neue Kalender der orientalischen Kirchen", Astronomische Nachrichten 200, 379–384 (1924).
  43. WCC: Towards a common date for Easter
  44. See Hansard reports April 2005
  45. Easter Traditions: from the barmy to the beautiful The Times, London, 2009.
  46. Bermuda Kite History.
  47. accessed 2008-03-22.
  48. Slovenia's Easter Celebrations
  49. London Easter

External links

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