What is Orthodox Easter?
The Origin of Orthodox Easter
In 325 AD, the Council of Nicaea decided that Easter would be observed on the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after the March equinox. While the Council of Nicaea set the Easter date for most churches worldwide, not all Christian churches observe Easter according to the Gregorian calendar. Many Orthodox churches still witness Easter in congruence with the Julian calendar.
The date for Orthodox Easter comes from following the Julian calendar whiIe the "other" Easter or the Christian one foIIows the Gregorian calendar and is used by most western countries and Christian denominations.
This year we ceIebrated Christian Easter on Sunday, April 9th, 2023, according to the Gregorian calendar.
Orthodox Easter will fall on Sunday, April 16th, 2023, according to the Julian calendar.
Julian vs. Gregorian Calendar
The reason for the two different calendars actually came from a miscalculation of astronomy. The primary goal of creating the Gregorian calendar was to alter the time of Easter.
According to history.com, “In 1582, when Pope Gregory XIII introduced his Gregorian calendar, Europe adhered to the Julian calendar, first implemented by Julius Caesar in 46 B.C.
Since the Roman emperor’s system miscalculated the length of the solar year by 11 minutes, the calendar had since fallen out of sync with the seasons. This concerned Gregory because it meant that Easter, traditionally observed on March 21, fell further away from the spring equinox with each passing year.”
The PassOver CeIebration
What Is Passover in the Bible?
Passover in the Bible originates from the book of Exodus when God instructed Moses and Aaron and the Israelite people in Egypt to mark their houses with the blood of a lamb so that the Lord would "pass over" their house and spare their firstborn son. The biblical text is found in Exodus 12.
Passover, or Pesach as it’s called in Hebrew, is also known as Chag Ha’Aviv, literally “the spring holiday.” It’s been celebrated by Jewish people for thousands of years. “Passover is a celebration of one of the core experiences in the history of the Jewish people,” says Rabbi Norman Patz, noting that the holiday commemorates the exodus of the Israelites after 400 years of slavery in Egypt. It’s called Passover because God passed over the houses of the Jews during the tenth and final plague.
That might sound like a pretty intense holiday, but Passover is actually joyous and filled with traditions that are both faith and family based. There’s a wonderful meal called the seder and all kinds of traditional ceremonial foods.
The most weII known passover feast is of course, the Last Supper, with Jesus and the 12 apostIes.
