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Easter

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Easter is a Christian holiday commemorating the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead on the Sunday after his Crucifixion on Good Friday and marking the end of Lent.

Easter is the holiest day in the Christian calendar, followed by Christmas and is recognized as a legal holiday in most countries with a significant Christian tradition, with the notable exception of the United States where Easter is only celebrated on Easter Sunday (and not also on Easter Monday).

The timing of Easter depends on the Jewish Pesach, in English Passover, (see 1 below), which commemorates the sparing of the Hebrew first-born, as recounted in Exodus, since it is during this holiday that Jesus is believed to have been resurrected. In Western Christianity Easter Day must always fall on a Sunday on one of the 35 possible dates from March 22 to April 25.

The date of Easter

Easter and the holidays that are related to it are moveable feasts, in that they do not fall on a fixed date in the Gregorian calendar or Julian calendar (which follows the motion of the Sun and the seasons). Instead, they are based on a lunar calendar like that used by the Jews. At the First Council of Nicaea in 325 it was decided that Easter would be celebrated on the Sunday after the 14th day of the first lunar month of spring (in theory, the Sunday after the first full moon on or after the day of the vernal equinox). Eventually, all churches accepted the Alexandrian method of computing Easter, which set the northern hemisphere vernal equinox at March 21 (the actual equinox may fall one or two days earlier or later), and the date of the full moon was to be determined by using the Metonic cycle.

A problem here is the difference between the Western churches and the Eastern Orthodox churches. The former now use the Gregorian calendar to calculate the date of Easter, while the latter still use the original Julian calendar. The World Council of Churches proposed a reform of the method of determining the date of Easter at a summit in Aleppo, Syria, in 1997. This reform would have replaced an equation-based method with direct astronomical observation and would have eliminated the difference in the date between the Eastern and Western churches. The reform was proposed to be implemented starting in 2001, but it was never formally adopted by any member group. See Reform of the date of Easter.

Computing the date of Easter, known as computus, is somewhat complicated. The Wiki page explains the traditional tabular methods, but also has algorithms such as the one developed by the famous mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss.

Easter has not fallen on the earliest date possible, March 22, since 1818, and will not do so again until 2285; it fell on the latest possible date, April 25, most recently in 1943, and will next fall on that date in 2038.

Historically, other forms of determining the holiday's date were also used. For example, Quartodecimanism was the practice of setting the holiday on the 14th day of the Jewish month of Nisan.

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Western Christianity

In Western Christianity, Easter marks the end of the 46 days of Lent, a period of fasting and penitence in preparation for Easter, which begins on Ash Wednesday and ends on Easter Sunday. Lent strictly comprises 40 days, since the six Sundays during this period are excluded from the Lenten fast. Alternatively, Lent is sometimes said to comprise the 40 days from the first Sunday of Lent to the Thursday of Holy Week. In this scheme, Ash Wednesday and the four days following it, while penitential days, are excluded from Lent proper.

The days before Easter also are special in the Christian tradition: the Sunday before is Palm Sunday, and the last three days before Easter are Maundy Thursday or Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday (sometimes referred to as Silent Saturday). Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday and Good Friday respectively commemmorate Jesus's entry in Jerusalem, the Last Supper and the Crucifixion. Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter Sunday together are sometimes referred to as the Triduum (Latin for "Three Days"). In some countries Easter lasts two days, Sunday and Monday, called first and second Easter day, or "Easter Monday".

Pentecost is seven weeks after Easter.

Eastern Christianity

In Eastern Christianity, preparations begin with Great Lent. Following the fifth Sunday of Great Lent is Palm Week, which ends with Lazarus Saturday. Lazarus Saturday officially brings Great Lent to a close, although the fast continues for the following week. After Lazarus Saturday comes Palm Sunday, Holy Week, and finally Easter itself, or Pascha (Πασχα), and the fast is broken immediately after the Divine Liturgy. Easter is immediately followed by Bright Week, during which there is no fasting, even on Wednesday and Friday.

The Paschal Divine Liturgy generally takes place around midnight, into the early morning of Pascha. Placing the Paschal Divine Liturgy at midnight guarantees that no Divine Liturgy will come earlier in the morning, ensuring its place as the preeminent "Feast of Feasts" in the liturgical year.

Other celebrations of Easter

As with other Christian dates, Easter is also commercially important, with big sales of confectionery such as chocolate Easter eggs, marshmallow bunnies, Peeps, jelly beans, and greeting cards.

In the United States, the Easter holiday has been secularized, such that the main holiday event for many Americans is the coloring of Easter eggs, followed on Easter Sunday by an Easter egg hunt, in which young children gather the eggs that have been hidden in their homes or yards. According to the children's stories, eggs and other treats are delivered by the Easter Bunny in the form of an Easter basket which children find waiting for them when they wake up on Easter Sunday. The Easter Bunny's motives for doing this are seldom clarified.

Names

It is alleged that some Germanic languages may have named the holiday directly for the goddess Eostre, although there is no direct evidence of this. It is equally likely that the holiday was named after "Eostremonat", which was the spring month in which it usually occurred. (After all, nobody would presume that "Good Friday" is named after the Norse goddess Freyja merely because the day "Friday" is named for her.)

However, in most Christian-dominated nations, namely the European, the names of Easter are from Hebrew Pesach (Passover):

Symbolism of Easter

The religious symbolism of Easter is explicitly Christian, with many elements adapted from the Passover celebration in Judaism—for example, the image of Jesus as the Lamb of God, which is linked to the Jewish paschal lamb. The Christian celebration of Jesus' Resurrection also parallels pagan celebrations of nature's rebirth in the spring; the traditional customs of Easter eggs and the Easter Bunny (originally a hare) are both tied to pre-Christian paganism.

Some Christian fundamentalists reject nearly all the customs surrounding Easter, believing them to be irrevocably tainted with paganism and idolatry. The Jehovah's Witnesses do not celebrate Easter at all, believing it to be entirely a pagan invention [1].

When is Easter?

See also Computus.

Western (Roman Catholic and Protestant)

Eastern (Orthodox)

Traditional Orthodox Greetings

  • English - Christ is Risen! Truly He is Risen!
  • German - Christus ist Auferstanden! Jawohl Er ist Auferstanden!
  • Swedish - Christus är uppstanden! Han är nerkligen uppstanden!
  • Latin - Christus surrexit! Surrexit vere!
    • French - Le Christ est ressuscite! En verite il est resuscite!
    • Romanian - Christos E Anviat! Adeverat Anviat!
    • Spanish - Christo Ha Resucitado! Verdaderamente, Ha Resucitado!
  • Old Irish - Asréracht Críst! Asréracht Hé-som co dearb!
    • Irish - Tá Críosd ar éirigh! Go deimhin, tá e ar éirigh!
    • Scottish Gaelic - Tha Crìosd air èiridh! Gu dearbh, tha e air èiridh!
    • Manx - Kriost Eirgim! Eigim!
  • Welsh - Atgyfododd Crist! Yn wir atgyfododd!
  • Slavonic - Христос воскресе! Воистину воскресе! (Christos Vozkrese! Voistinu Vozkrese!)
    • Bulgarian - Христос Возкресе! Воистина Возкресе! (Christos Vozkrese! Voistina Vozkrese!)
    • Russian - Христос Воскресе! Воистину Воскресе! (Christos Voskrese! Voistinu Voskrese!)
    • Serbian - Христос Воскресе! Ваистину Воскресе! (Christos Voskrese! Vaistinu Voskrese!)
    • Slovak - Christos Voskrese! Voistinu Voskrese!
    • Ukrainian - Христос Воскрес! Воістину Воскрес! {Christos Voskres! Voistinu Voskres!)
  • Greek - Χριστος Aνερτη! Aληθως Aνεστη! (Christos Anesti! Aleithos Anesti!)
  • Arabic - Al-Masih-Qam! Hakkan Qam!
  • Finnish - Kristus nousi kuolleista! Tortisesti nousi!
  • Turkish - Hristós diril-Dí! Hakíkatén diril-Dí!
  • Japanese - Harisutosu Siochatsu! Makoto-ni Siochatsu!
  • Chinese (Mandarin) - 基督復活了 他確實復活了 (Ji-du fu-huo-le! Zhen-de Ta fu-huo-le!)
  • Luganda Kristo Ajukkide! Kweli Ajukkide!
  • Nigerian Jésu Krísti Ébilíwõ! Ézia õ´ Bilíwõ!
  • Swahili Kristo Amefufukka! Kweli Amefufukka!
  • Indonesian - KrÍstus tÉlah Bangkit! Benár día têlah Bángkit!
  • Hawaiian - Ua ala hou ´o kristo! Ua ala ´i ´o no ´oia!
  • Esperanto - Kristos Levigis! Vere Levigis!

See also

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