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Course 21 · Lesson 3.2

Easter, Holy Week and the dispute over the date

10 minute read

Lessons in this course

Course 21 outline

Module 1: The Theology of Worship

  1. What liturgy is: the word, the idea and the debate
  2. Worship in the Old and New Testaments
  3. Praying and believing: how worship shapes doctrine and doctrine shapes worship
  4. Word, sacrament and sign across the traditions

Module 2: How Christian Liturgy Developed

  1. The earliest descriptions: the Didache, Justin Martyr and the early church orders
  2. The liturgical families of East and West
  3. The Reformation and the revision of worship
  4. Liturgical renewal in the twentieth century

Module 3: The Christian Year: Calendars, Feasts and Fasts

  1. Sunday, the week and the hours of the day
  2. Easter, Holy Week and the dispute over the date
  3. Advent, Christmas and Epiphany
  4. Lent, the Orthodox fasting seasons and Protestant approaches to fasting
  5. Saints days and the second cycle of the calendar

Module 4: Sacred Space and Sacred Images

  1. From house church to basilica: the development of church buildings
  2. The meaning of church buildings: altar, table, orientation and the Orthodox and Gothic examples
  3. Icons and the Incarnation: John of Damascus and the Second Council of Nicaea
  4. Images and the Reformation: Lutheran, Reformed and Anglican approaches

Module 5: Material Signs: Incense, Water, Oil and Blessings

  1. Incense: Scripture, temple worship and its use in the churches
  2. Water: baptism, the renewal of baptismal vows and holy water
  3. Oil: anointing of the sick, chrismation, confirmation and ordination
  4. Blessings: what the church means when it blesses a person, a house or an object
  5. Sacraments and sacramentals: the Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant vocabulary

Module 6: Popular Piety and Devotional Practice

  1. What popular piety is, and why scholars take it seriously
  2. Pilgrimage, relics, medals and pious objects
  3. The rosary, the Stations of the Cross, litanies and akathists
  4. How the churches have regulated and corrected popular devotion

Module 7: Telling Tradition from Superstition

  1. What the theologians mean by superstition, and why the line is hard to draw
  2. A method: source, date, doctrine, authority and consequence
  3. Case studies: apocryphal legends, magical formulas and invented history
  4. Honesty and respect in judging other people’s devotion

All courses

Program / Course 21: Liturgical Theology / Lesson 3.2

What you will learn

  • Describe how Easter (Pascha) grew from the weekly Sunday to an annual feast.
  • Explain the second-century dispute over the date and the decision at Nicaea.
  • Explain why Western and Eastern churches usually celebrate Easter on different dates.
  • Outline Holy Week in Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, Lutheran and Reformed practice.

The big idea

Easter is the oldest and greatest feast of the church. The Christians of the second century argued over when to keep it. The Council of Nicaea in 325 sought a common practice, and later methods of calculation led to a split between the Julian and Gregorian calendars that still divides the dates of Western and Eastern churches in most years. Holy Week, the days leading to Easter, developed in Jerusalem and spread. Traditions keep it very differently, and a person at home can follow much of it but cannot replace the church’s own services.

Key terms

Pascha
The Greek and Latin name for Passover, used by Christians for Easter. English uses the Old English word Easter.
Quartodeciman
A Christian, mainly in Asia Minor, who kept Easter on the fourteenth day of the Jewish month Nisan, whatever day of the week it fell on.
Paschal Triduum
The three days from Holy Thursday evening to Easter evening, kept as one great celebration in Western churches.
Julian calendar
The calendar introduced by Julius Caesar in 45 BC. It is slightly too long and drifts against the solar year.
Gregorian calendar
The corrected calendar introduced by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582 and now the civil calendar in most of the world.
Holy Week
The week from Palm Sunday to Holy Saturday, in which Christians recall the last days of Jesus.
Easter Vigil
The long night service before Easter Sunday, with readings, baptisms in many churches and the first Easter Eucharist.

Background

The earliest Christians met every Sunday to remember the resurrection. By the second century, many also kept an annual celebration around the Jewish Passover, since Christ died at that time according to the Gospels. The churches of Asia Minor kept it on the fourteenth of Nisan, which could fall on any day of the week. Rome and many other churches kept it on the Sunday after, so that the feast always fell on the day of the resurrection. Around the year 190 Bishop Victor of Rome pressed the Asian bishops to conform, and Irenaeus is recorded as urging peace. The two practices coexisted for a time.

The Council of Nicaea in 325 decided that all churches should keep Easter on the same Sunday and not follow the Jewish reckoning. The council’s letter says that the churches agreed, but the exact method of calculating the date was worked out in later centuries. Students should be careful about claims that Nicaea set a precise formula.

Step-by-step explanation

Step 1: The rule for the date

The rule that came to be used in both East and West is that Easter falls on the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after the spring equinox, which was fixed by the church at 21 March. The full moon is not the astronomical one but an ecclesiastical one computed from tables. This rule keeps Easter after Passover in most years. It was worked out in Alexandria and later adopted widely, with modifications.

Step 2: Why East and West differ

In 1582 Pope Gregory XIII corrected the Julian calendar, which had drifted by about ten days, and adjusted the tables for the date of the full moon. Catholic countries adopted the new calendar at once, Protestant countries over the next centuries, and England and its colonies in 1752. The Orthodox churches did not accept the Gregorian reform of the Easter reckoning. They compute Easter by the Julian calendar, so that the date usually falls later than the Western date, and sometimes by one week, four weeks or five weeks. In some years the two coincide. A few Orthodox churches use a revised Julian calendar, adopted in 1923, for fixed feasts such as Christmas, but nearly all Orthodox churches keep the traditional date of Easter, so that they celebrate together (the Orthodox Church of Finland is a known exception). Proposals to unify the date, such as one made in 1997 by the World Council of Churches at Aleppo, have not been adopted.

Step 3: Holy Week

Pilgrim Egeria, a fourth-century traveler to Jerusalem, left a description of the week’s services held at the sites of Jesus’ last days. These practices spread through the church. Palm Sunday recalls the entry into Jerusalem (Matthew 21). Holy Thursday, also called Maundy Thursday, recalls the Last Supper and the washing of the feet (John 13). Good Friday recalls the crucifixion, with readings of the Passion, in the West a veneration of the cross and in the East the burial service and the procession of the shroud. Holy Saturday is a day of waiting, and the Easter Vigil or the midnight service celebrates the resurrection with light, readings, baptism and the first Eucharist of Easter.

Step 4: Traditions compared

Catholics keep the Triduum with Mass of the Lord’s Supper on Thursday, the Passion of the Lord on Friday and the Easter Vigil. The Orthodox keep Great and Holy Week with services nearly every day, including the Bridegroom Matins in the early part of the week and the long Matins of the Twelve Gospels on Thursday night. Anglicans and Lutherans keep Holy Week with services for each day, usually adapted from the Western pattern. Many Reformed churches in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries rejected holy days other than Sunday, and Puritan Scotland did not keep Easter. Most Reformed and evangelical churches today keep Good Friday and Easter, and many keep Maundy Thursday, though practice varies.

Step 5: What a person alone can do

A person at home can read the Passion narratives in the Gospels, fast on Good Friday if their tradition asks it, and read the Psalms. They can pray in silence during the vigil hours. They cannot take part in the sacramental rites, such as the veneration of the cross, the Easter Vigil baptisms, the washing of feet in a congregation or the Eucharist, which are acts of the gathered church. If a person cannot attend, the churches encourage prayer at home and, where possible, contact with a pastor, and do not suggest that a private rite takes the place of the service.

  1. On what day and by what reckoning does this church keep Easter?
  2. Does it keep Holy Week with special services, and which ones?
  3. What does each day of the week commemorate, and from what Gospel text?
  4. What does this tradition do on Good Friday and at the Vigil?
  5. Why might a church reject or minimize an annual feast?
  6. What can I keep at home, and what depends on the church’s gathering?

Examples

Different Easters

In some years, a Catholic neighbor and an Orthodox neighbor celebrate Easter on the same day, and in other years they differ by one week or more. This is not a disagreement about the resurrection but about how to compute the date.

The Triduum in one parish

A Catholic parish keeps Thursday evening, Friday afternoon and the Saturday night Vigil, then Easter morning. Many parishioners describe the Triduum as one long service in three parts.

A Reformed Good Friday

A Presbyterian congregation holds a Good Friday service with Scripture readings from John and quiet prayer. In an earlier age the same church might not have held any such service, as the Reformed churches avoided days not commanded by Scripture.

Different perspectives

Catholic

Easter is the center of the liturgical year. The Triduum is the summit of the year and the Sunday Eucharist is a weekly Easter. Catholics use the Gregorian reckoning.

Orthodox

Pascha is the feast of feasts. The church keeps the Julian computation for Easter, which many Orthodox defend as the ancient and conciliar practice, while others believe that a common date should be agreed.

Anglican and Lutheran

Both keep Holy Week and Easter with services drawn from the older Western pattern, revised in the Reformation and again in the twentieth century.

Reformed

Historically, the Reformed churches rejected holy days not commanded by Scripture, and kept only Sunday. Today most keep Easter and Good Friday, and some use a church year. A few conservative congregations still follow the earlier custom.

Scholarly

Historians note that the evidence for the second-century practice is fragmentary and that the Nicene decision has been described in later sources, so that exact claims need care.

Why it matters

Easter is the center of the Christian faith, and the way each church keeps it shows how it relates to its past. The dispute over the date also shows how a practical matter can carry a theological one: whether the church should follow the Jewish calendar or its own. A student who understands these things will not be confused when the neighbors of different churches keep Easter at different times.

Common misunderstandings

Misunderstanding: Easter is a pagan festival of a goddess Eostre.

Correction: The word Easter may be connected with an Old English month name, according to Bede, but this is debated, and the feast itself is a Christian celebration of the resurrection tied to Passover. The Greek and Latin churches call it Pascha.

Misunderstanding: The Council of Nicaea fixed the whole formula for the date.

Correction: Nicaea agreed on uniformity and independence from Jewish reckoning. The detailed calculation was developed afterward.

Misunderstanding: Orthodox Christians use an old, wrong calendar for everything.

Correction: Several Orthodox churches use the Revised Julian calendar for fixed feasts, and nearly all keep the Julian paschal calculation, for reasons of conciliar tradition and unity.

Misunderstanding: Protestants never kept Holy Week.

Correction: Lutherans and Anglicans did, and most other Protestants today keep Good Friday and Easter, although some Reformed churches avoided annual feasts in earlier centuries.

Knowledge check

What was the Quartodeciman dispute?

Churches in Asia Minor kept Easter on the fourteenth of Nisan, whatever the weekday, while Rome and others kept it on the following Sunday. Around 190 Bishop Victor of Rome pressed for uniformity, and the practice was resolved over time.

How is Easter dated in the West?

It falls on the first Sunday after the first ecclesiastical full moon on or after 21 March, in the Gregorian calendar introduced in 1582. The Orthodox use the same rule with the Julian calendar, which usually gives a later date.

What are the days of the Paschal Triduum?

They run from Holy Thursday evening through Good Friday and Holy Saturday to the evening of Easter Sunday, and are kept as one celebration in Western churches.

What can a person at home keep, and what needs the church?

A person can read the Passion narratives, pray, fast and keep silence. The Vigil, baptisms, veneration of the cross and the Eucharist are acts of the gathered church.

Think it through

  1. Why might the date of Easter matter so much to the early church?
  2. Should the churches agree on a common date, and what would be lost or gained?
  3. What might a Reformed Christian of 1650 and a Reformed Christian today each say about Good Friday?
  4. How would you keep Holy Week if you had no church nearby?

Independent assignment

A Holy Week reading plan

In your own notebook, write a reading plan of 400 to 600 words for Holy Week using only Gospel passages for each day, and note which tradition keeps which day with a service. Add a paragraph on which parts a person can do alone, and which are acts of the gathered church. Do not send this to anyone.

Further study