Some others instead preferred to hold the festival on a Sunday, since that was when Jesus’ tomb was believed to have been found. You can select 'Manage settings' for more information and to manage your choices. © Copyright 2021 Center for the National Interest All Rights Reserved, under a Creative Commons license. Before we launch into an explanation of why Easter is on a different date every year, it’s probably a good idea to give you a little Sunday-school lesson first. By clicking "Accept all", you agree that Verizon Media and our partners will store and/or access information on your device through the use of cookies and similar technologies and process your personal data to display personalised ads and content, for ad and content measurement, audience insights and product development. It is also the end of the 40-day period of austerity, fasting, and penance - called Lent. But Easter and Christmas also became reshaped as domestic holidays because understandings of children were changing. This is an updated version of a piece published on March 21, 2018. Some early Christians chose to celebrate the resurrection of Christ on the same date as the Jewish Passover, which fell around day 14 of the month of Nisan, in March or April. Bede was so influential for later Christians that the name stuck, and hence Easter remains the name by which the English, Germans and Americans refer to the festival of Jesus’ resurrection. The traditional word for painting Easter eggs is called pysanka. Easter is quite similar to other major holidays like Christmas and Halloween, which have evolved over the last 200 years or so. This was done partly out of a desire to make the celebration of these holidays less rowdy. As a result, Easter is now celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full moon of the vernal equinox. Brent Landau is a Lecturer in Religious Studies, The University of Texas at Austin College of Liberal Arts. Today Christians still color and decorate eggs. Easter Sunday: Easter Sunday is the highlight of the holiday weekend. From the 17th century onward, there was an increasing recognition of childhood as as time of life that should be joyous, not simply as preparatory for adulthood. See more. These Christians were known as Quartodecimans (the name means “Fourteeners”). The date of Easter, when the resurrection of Jesus is said to have taken place, changes from year to year. However, Easter falls on a different date each year, determined by the Computus. The New Testament gives no information about what time of year Jesus was born. (SERGEI SUPINSKY/AFP/Getty Images) For instance, the New England Puritans regarded both Easter and Christmas as too tainted by non-Christian influences to be appropriate to celebrate. And even though Christians had begun affirming the Christian meaning of the celebration, they continued to use the name of the goddess to designate the season.”. In A.D. 325, the Emperor Constantine, who favored Christianity, convened a meeting of Christian leaders to resolve important disputes at the Council of Nicaea. Click here to find out more about our partners. What is the origin of Easter eggs? The reason for this variation is that Easter always falls on the first Sunday after the first full moon following the spring equinox. Given the symbolism of new life and rebirth, it was only natural to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus at this time of the year. Yet it was only in the 17th century that a German tradition of an “Easter hare” bringing eggs to good children came to be known. Many families attend an Easter service, followed by a traditional Easter … The naming of the celebration as “Easter” seems to go back to the name of a pre-Christian goddess in England, Eostre, who was celebrated at beginning of spring. As Jesus died during the Passover festival and his followers believed he was resurrected from the dead three days later, it was logical to commemorate these events in close proximity. The date of Easter, when the resurrection of Jesus is said to have taken place, changes from year to year. Many scholars believe, however, that the main reason Jesus’ birth came to be celebrated on December 25 is because that was the date of the winter solstice according to the Roman calendar. by The Conversation. Jewish pilgrims streamed into Jerusalem every year in the hope that God’s chosen people (as they believed themselves to be) would soon be liberated once more. Rabbits and Hares were also symbols of fertility. I am a religious studies scholar specializing in early Christianity, and my research shows that this dating of Easter goes back to the complicated origins of this holiday and how it has evolved over the centuries. The fortunes of both holidays changed in the 19th century, when they became occasions to be spent with one’s family. The eggs were called pace eggs, the word coming from the French Paque, which means Easter. Read the original article. A vast amount of folklore surrounds Easter eggs, and in a number of Eastern European countries, the process of decorating them is extremely elaborate. Easter definition, an annual Christian festival in commemoration of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, observed on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox, as calculated according to tables based in Western churches on the Gregorian calendar and in Orthodox churches on the Julian calendar. Similar was the case with Easter, which falls in close proximity to another key point in the solar year: the vernal equinox (around March 20), when there are equal periods of light and darkness. Such festivals also tended to be opportunities for heavy drinking and merrymaking. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Since the days following the winter solstice gradually become longer and less dark, it was ideal symbolism for the birth of “the light of the world” as stated in the New Testament’s Gospel of John. Today Christians still color and decorate eggs. The date of Easter, when the resurrection of Jesus is said to have taken place, changes from year to year. A woman looks at huge Easter eggs as they walk in the open air festival in the center of Kiev, Ukraine on Wednesday. As historian Stephen Nissenbaum writes, “…children were lumped together with other members of the lower orders in general, especially servants and apprentices – who, not coincidentally, were generally young people themselves.”. The death of Jesus is thought to have been commemorated by Christians as part of Easter’s Holy Week at least as far back as the fourth century. He entered Jerusalem in a triumphal procession and created a disturbance in the Jerusalem Temple. Several Eastern European legends describe eggs turning red (a favorite color for Easter eggs) in connection with the events surrounding Jesus’ death and resurrection. And to manage your choices at any time by visiting your Privacy.! At any time by visiting your Privacy Controls of fertility period of,. The Western Christian calendar, called the Gregorian calendar Thursday ‘ while the first Sunday after the ( northern ). 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