Redneck Bar & Grill

I have often wondered about the history of Easter.  I know that it commemorates the death and resurrection of Christ, but what has always puzzled me is why it’s not celebrated on a specific day.  Why does Easter move around the calender?  I decided to find out.  Unfortunately, the answer is not an easy one.  However I shall do what I can to sum it up for you.

First of all, the word Easter: the true origins are unknown, however it is believed that it comes from "Eastre".  This is an Anglo-Saxon name of a Teutonic goddess of spring and fertility to whom the month of April was dedicated.  Her festival was celebrated on the day of the Vernal Equinox and the traditions included; the Easter rabbit – a symbol of fertility, coloured eggs – brightly painted to represent the spring sunlight which were used in egg rolling contests or given as gifts.

As to the date of Easter; Christ was crucified on the eve of Passover and the Easter festival was to celebrate his resurrection.  In time, however, a debate began as to the exact date that it should occur. Jewish-Christians felt it should immediately follow Passover which, according to their Babylonian lunar calendar, was the evening of the full moon (the 14th day in month of Nisan, the first month of their year).  By that reckoning Easter fell on different days of the week from year to year.  Gentile-Christians begged to differ.  They wanted to celebrate Easter on what was their first day of the week, Sunday, but also after the Passover festival – which varied from year to year.

In the year 325 the Roman Emperor, Constantine I assembled the Council of Nicea.  This council unanimously ruled that the Easter festival should be celebrated throughout the Christian world on the first Sunday after the first full moon following the Vernal Equinox.  This still wasn’t the end of the problem; they had some calendar issues, the details of which I won’t bore you with at this time.  Suffice it to say is wasn’t until the Gregorian calendar was created in 1582 that most of these concerns were sorted out.

Since then there have been a couple of attempts to pin down Easter to one specific day (the first Sunday after the second Saturday in April) or at least narrow the range in which it can fall, but so far it obviously hasn’t happened.
If you would like more exhaustive details about the headaches caused throughout history by Easter, you can check out this article on The History Channel website.