Since I talked about the Easter name earlier today, I though I would give the standard answer on how they pick the date for Easter, i.e. the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox.
I look it up an discovered I was not quite correct. The U.S. Naval Observatory offers a more interesting and arcane answer!
Here is the introduction to their answer!
The commonly stated rule, that Easter Day is the first Sunday after the Full Moon that occurs next after the vernal equinox, is somewhat misleading because it is not a precise statement of the actual ecclesiastical rules. In order that the date should be incontrovertibly fixed, and determinable indefinitely in advance, the Church constructed tables to be used permanently for calculating the age of the Moon. Easter is determined by the "ecclesiastical moon" defined by these tables, which is not strictly identical with the real Moon. In addition, the vernal equinox (the time at which the apparent longitude of the Sun is zero degrees) is fixed at March 21, not by the actual motion of the Sun. Moreover, the date of Easter is determined independently of any meridian of longitude, and is always the same in all time zones, unlike astronomical phenomena.
--- If this has not brought “tears to your eyes” you can get the full details by clicking on the Naval Observatory site below ! ---
--------------------------------------------------------------------- Source: http://aa.usno.navy.mil/AA/faq/docs/easter.html --------------------------------------------------------------------- You should note that this is the Western Easter. The Eastern Churches have a different interpretation and thus a different date. Many erroneously think it is due to the difference between the Gregorian and Julian Calendars. This is not the case since both Easters are derived from astronomical phenomena regardless of how the calendars differ. For example, certain Eastern churches use the same formula but then insist that it is the next Sunday after Passover has ended. As a result most years have the Eastern Church Easter a week later than the Easter in the Western Church. About once every 7 years they line up as it did on April 15, 2001 . You can also have a very wide gap, as in 2002, when the Western Church had it on March 31 and the Eastern Church had it on May 5. This happens about once every 11 years.
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