When Is Easter?
Christmas is December 25; Valentine's Day is February 14; Halloween is October 31 -- but when is Easter? Each year we have to look at a calendar to find out when Easter is, for this moveable feast can occur any time from March 22 to April 25. Why is this so?

The Emperor Constantine built the church. Archaeologists have found remains of a cemetery and garden below the church.The yearly celebration of Jesus' resurrection is the oldest feast of the Christian Church, and the resurrection has been the central belief of the Christian faith from the beginning. As Paul said, if Christ is not risen, our preaching is in vain and we are a people most miserable (I Corinthians 15:12-14). Of course, every Sunday's worship is a celebration of the risen Lord, but a special day for the resurrection has been part of the life of the church from its early days.

The earliest Christians celebrated the resurrection on the fourteenth of Nisan (our March-April), the date of the Jewish Passover. Jewish days were reckoned from evening to evening, so Jesus had celebrated His Last Supper the evening of the Passover and was crucified the day of the Passover. Early Christians celebrating the Passover worshiped Jesus as the Paschal Lamb and Redeemer.

No Quickie Christians
As more and more people were added to the early church, the church began to organize training sessions for the new converts or catechumens before they were baptized. Sometimes the period of instruction would last two or three years. The baptism of these catechumens was often scheduled for Easter Sunday, with the baptismal candidates often fasting two or three days before. They held a vigil Saturday night and at the sun's first rays on Sunday eagerly proclaimed, "Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!" After baptism the Christians were given white robes to wear the following week to symbolize their new life in Christ. The practices of the Lenten fast before Easter and wearing new clothes on Easter Sunday had their beginnings in these catechumen customs.

Some of the Gentile Christians began celebrating Easter in the nearest Sunday to the Passover, since Jesus actually arose on a Sunday. This especially became the case in the western part of the Roman Empire. In Rome itself, different congregations celebrated Easter on different days!

Setting the Date
During the first three centuries of the Church, when believers were frequently under persecution, there was little effort to establish uniform observances of the Christian festivals. However, when Constantine became emperor and Christianity was no longer illegal, it was possible to consider more carefully the date of Easter. One of the purposes of the Council of Nicea in 325 was to settle that date. Constantine wanted Christianity to be totally separated from Judaism and did not want Easter to be celebrated on the Jewish Passover. The Council of Nicea accordingly required the feast of the resurrection to be celebrated on a Sunday and never on the Jewish Passover. Easter was to be the Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox.

But Which Calendar?
The ruling of the Council was not immediately accepted everywhere. It did not sit well for those who had been celebrating the resurrection on the Passover to suddenly be declared heretics. Confusion was also caused by Rome and Alexandria having different dates for fixing the spring equinox, sometimes resulting in different Easter dates. Eventually, however, the ruling of the Council of Nicea was accepted by all the church, and the date of Easter was between March 22 and April 25. In the sixteenth century the West accepted the new Gregorian calendar while the Eastern and Russian churches kept the Julian calendar. Because of this, Easter is again celebrated on different dates.