Who decides what date Easter will be as it changes by about 2 or 3 weeks every year ?

Answer 1

Easter is always the 1st sunday after the 1st full moon after the vernal equinox (start of spring)

Answer 2

The month changes after a year from the last Easter it the next Easter!

Answer 3

Easter is celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Spring equinox - the Paschal Full Moon. This may occur any time from March 21 to April 18, inclusive. So, the date of Easter is anywhere from March 22 to April 25, again inclusive.

Answer 4

Because this event originally took place at the time of Passover, it stays with it. Passover is determined by moon phases. I can't remember if it's full moon or new moon. That is why it changes each year. Good Friday, evening is the start of Jewish Passover and Easter Sunday is the morning they discovered Jesus had risen from the grave. I was taught this all my life.

Answer 5

In Western Christianity, Easter always falls on a Sunday from March 22 to April 25 inclusive. The following day, Easter Monday, is a legal holiday in many countries with predominantly Christian traditions. In Eastern Christianity, Easter falls between April 4 and May 8 between 1900 and 1970 based on the Gregorian date.

Easter and the holidays that are related to it are moveable feasts, in that they do not fall on a fixed date in the Gregorian or Julian calendars (which follow the motion of the sun and the seasons). Instead, they are based on a lunar calendar similar—but not identical—to the Hebrew Calendar. The precise date of Easter has often been a matter for contention.

At the First Council of Nicaea in 325 it was decided that Easter would be celebrated on the same Sunday throughout the Church, but it is probable that no method was specified by the Council. (No contemporary account of the Council's decisions has survived.) Instead, the matter seems to have been referred to the church of Alexandria, which city had the best reputation for scholarship at the time. The Catholic Epiphanius wrote in the mid-4th Century, "...the emperor...convened a council of 318 bishops...in the city of Nicea...They passed certain ecclesiastical canons at the council besides, and at the same time decreed in regard to the Passover that there must be one unanimous concord on the celebration of God's holy and supremely excellent day. For it was variously observed by people..."(Epiphanius. The Panarion of Epiphanius of Salamis, Books II and III (Sects 47–80), De Fide). Section VI, Verses 1,1 and 1,3. Translated by Frank Williams. EJ Brill, New York, 1994, pp.471–472).

The practice of those following Alexandria was to celebrate Easter on the first Sunday after the earliest fourteenth day of a lunar month that occurred on or after March 21. While since the Middle Ages this practice has sometimes been more succinctly phrased as Easter is observed on the Sunday after the first full moon on or after the day of the vernal equinox, this does not reflect the actual ecclesiastical rules precisely. The reason for this is that the full moon involved (called the Paschal full moon) is not an astronomical full moon, but an ecclesiastical moon. Determined from tables, it coincides more or less with the astronomical full moon.

The ecclesiastical rules are:

Easter falls on the first Sunday following the first ecclesiastical full moon that occurs on or after March 21 (the day of the ecclesiastical vernal equinox).
This particular ecclesiastical full moon is the 14th day of a tabular lunation (new moon).
The Church of Rome used its own methods to determine Easter until the 6th century, when it may have adopted the Alexandrian method as converted into the Julian calendar by Dionysius Exiguus (certain proof of this does not exist until the ninth century). Most churches in the British Isles used a late third century Roman method to determine Easter until they adopted the Alexandrian method at the Synod of Whitby in 664. Churches in western continental Europe used a late Roman method until the late 8th century during the reign of Charlemagne, when they finally adopted the Alexandrian method. Since western churches now use the Gregorian calendar to calculate the date and Eastern Orthodox churches use the original Julian calendar, their dates are not usually aligned in the present day.

Answer 6

Look up Whitby Abbey, Yorkshire.
around 644 AD the Synod of Whitby.
King Oswy decided in favour of the Roman over the Celtic calculation for Easter. We have been lumbered with it ever since.
Yes it is a symbol of rebirth.....or it is the end of 40 days and 40 nights of LENT (when we are supposed to give up something we love the most for that period).
In the past folk gave up eggs, (mean feat when your only source of protien was egg),

Answer 7

The moon decides. It has to happen after the first full moon of spring. So you will notice that on Easter, the moon is always pretty full, within a few days or even on the actual day of the full moon.

Answer 8

My comment: whoever set it up this way had no consideration for modern people. If Easter were a set Sunday, those wanting to go on holiday could have it the same every year.

--That Cheeky Lad

Answer 9

as the last supper was a Passover meal Easter is linked to Passover and the Jewish calendar is a lunar one which is why Easter is at a different time every year.

Answer 10

i've always heard it was the first Sunday after the forth full moon of the year.

but when i think about it logically, it must have to be decided by what day Passover is, b/c Jesus was arrested at Passover (the "Lord's Supper" was a Passover meal)