why is easter on different days every year?

Answer 1

I think Bif said it best. It is indeed a matter of counting Sundays from what I know of it.
--That Cheeky Lad

Answer 2

Easter is always celebrated on the Sunday immediately following the first full moon after the vernal (spring) equinox. The vernal equinox is one of only two times in the year when the sun crosses the celestial equator making the length of day and night approximately equal.

Western churches use the Gregorian Calendar to calculate the date of Easter and Eastern Orthodox churches use the Julian Calendar.

This is why the dates are not normally the same.
Easter and its related holidays do not fall on a fixed date in either the Gregorian or Julian calendars, making them moveable holidays. The dates, instead, are based on a lunar calendar very similar to the Hebrew Calendar.

Since the days of early church history, determining the precise date of Easter has been a matter for continued argument.

The ecclesiastical rules are:

Easter falls on the first Sunday following the first ecclesiastical full moon that occurs on or after the day of the vernal equinox;
this particular ecclesiastical full moon is the 14th day of a tabular lunation (new moon); and
the vernal equinox is fixed as March 21.
resulting in that Easter can never occur before March 22 or later than April 25.


Any clearer?... lol

Jen x

Answer 3

It is on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Spring Equinox. What a Pagan way of determining the placement of a holiday (and Pagans were celebrating Equinox long before Easter appeared). It should follow the Jewish calendar since Easter happened during Passover, but it doesn't - sometimes causing the 2 holidays to be as much as a month apart!
BTW, did you know that because of the way that Christians determine Easter - in the year that Jesus would have died, Easter would have occured before Passover (meaning he rose from the dead before he died...)

Answer 4

Easter is on a different day every year because it has to be on a Sunday, etc.

Answer 5

It's computed to be the first Sunday after the first full moon in Spring, that is, after the Spring equinox. Because the full moon comes around every twenty-eight days, but there are thirty or thirty-one days in the months, Easter occurs at different dates.

Answer 6

easter is always on different days from march to april because it follows the hebrew holiday of passover. good friday, the day before passover is a friday, and easter is sunday the day after passover in the hebrew calendar. passover is calculated from a lunar calendar system, thus it occurs at the same points of the lunar cycle, while the gregorian calendar is what is followed by the moderen world and consists of 12 months totalling 365 days, and does not equal the same as a lunar calendar.

Answer 7

The usual statement, that Easter Day is the first Sunday after the full moon that occurs next after the vernal equinox, is not a precise statement of the actual ecclesiastical rules.

The vernal equinox is usually 21st March so the next full moon is usually within the following 4 weeks...ish

Answer 8

a short heritage on the justifications for the diverse dates of Easter The early church debated even if to have a good time Easter on the same day of the month each and every 3 hundred and sixty 5 days or on the Sunday following Passover. It became finally agreed to continually save it on a Sunday each and every 3 hundred and sixty 5 days. The church fathers believed it became extremely only suitable to have a good time Easter on a Sunday. The date became fastened through the Council of Nicaea in A.D. 325 to be the Sunday after the Paschal, or Passover, moon after the vernal, or spring, equinox. This finished moon occurs on or about March 21. One difficulty with this rule became the adaptation interior the calendars used on the on the spot, which led to some communities to have a good time Easter on diverse days. 3 diverse calendars were used in previous testomony cases and maximum were lunar calendars. Lunar calendars are depending on the cycles of the moon, which replace fairly each and every 3 hundred and sixty 5 days. This makes calculating the precise time of the completed moon and spring equinox, in boost, quite complicated and time eating. The Orthodox church calculates it somewhat otherwise. between the adjustments is that the completed moon in accordance to which the date of Western Easter is calculated isn't a 'authentic' moon. It does no longer go throughout the mild cyclical differences interior the size of the month. it is a 'calendar' moon. Orthodox Easter is calculated through the Julian calendar, which does no longer thoroughly coordinate with the Gregorian calendar used through Western churches. The Julian calendar inserts a bounce 3 hundred and sixty 5 days each and every 4 years, which receives the calendar off quicker or later in accordance to century. The Gregorian calendar skips a bounce 3 hundred and sixty 5 days once a century to proceed to be precise. immediately, both calendars are practically 2 weeks aside. The Julian calendar is going lower back to the time of Julius Caesar. The Gregorian calendar became named after Pope Gregory XIII who, in 1582, set a collection of scholarly clergymen to finish a redesigning of the calendar to deliver each and every of the calendars and extraordinarily the date of Easter lower back in protecting with the astronomical equinox. regrettably they did not search for the contract of the jap churches for his or her redesigning of the calendar and the ensuing replacing of the date of Easter, and ever in view that then the Lord has had to bear a divided annual party of the Paschal secret of His lack of life and resurrection Jane

Answer 9

It's a moveable holiday
http://www.godshew.org/Easter.htm

It's also the day Peter(called Satan) spent chained in jail.
Matthew 16:23... Acts 12:4... 2Peter 3:8... Revelation 20.
In which things are an "allegory" and "mystery" to solve.

The GRACE of our Lord Jesus Christ with you all. Amen.

Answer 10

It's not on different days. Always easter sunday etc.

Answer 11

easter is always on the same day, sunday. The date changes cos of the date of other things. If xmas is on a sat then the first sunday of xmas wil be 26th so easter will be early. If xmas if on a sunday then the first sunday will be on 1st jan, ash wednesday wil be late, lent will be late and therefore easter wil be late. I didn't understand it til not long ago when i asked!