It does have a fixed date - the first Sunday after the full moon following
the new moon in March - or something like that :-}


quote
The Easter Season

It might come as no surprise to discover that Easter was originally a
pagan festival beloved by the ancient Anglo-Saxons who celebrated the
return of spring with an uproarious festival commemorating their goddess
of offspring and of springtime, Eastre. When the second-century
Christian missionaries encountered the tribes of the north with their
pagan celebrations, they attempted to convert them to Christianity and
in the process, “Christianised” the existing pagan festivals As it
happened, the pagan festival of Eastre occurred around the same time of
year as the Christian observance of the Resurrection of Christ, which
was originally at the time of the Jewish Passover. It made sense,
therefore, to alter the festival itself, to make it a Christian
celebration as converts were slowly won over. The early name, Eastre,
was eventually changed to its modern spelling, Easter.

The Official Date of Easter

In A.D. 325, Easter, which had until that time been variously celebrated
on different days of the week, including Friday, Saturday, and Sunday,
became fixed in the Christian calendar by decree of the Council of
Nicaea, convened by Emperor Constantine. It issued the Easter Rule which
gave exact, although far from straight forward guidelines (it was a
government decree after all) as to when the death and resurrection of
Christ were to be officially celebrated. It was worked out considering
the phases of the Moon (how pagan is that!) and as a result, Easter will
always be celebrated on a Sunday between the dates of March 22 and April
25. end of quote

http://tinyurl.com/c5tba6

Bobbie.

Sacha writes
Last Easter was *awful* but then it was also extremely early. I do wish
that the Powers That Be would decide on a fixed date. If it keeps shoogling
around all over the place and is said to be THE major Christian festival, I
would have thought it more respectful and sensible to have a fixed date for
it!

It is 'fixed' - it's the nearest Sunday to the first full moon after the
vernal equinox. Shows it's firmly rooted in Christian traditions,
doesn't it ;-)

There's another 13 festivals all defined in relation to Easter, so
fixing it on a particular date would sort them too. It's irritating not
to find out about Pancake Day until you see the pancake races on the 6
o'clock news.

--
Kay

K wrote:
Kathy writes


"Bob Hobden" wrote in message
...

"Sacha" wrote
....for the lovely past weather. We have strong winds and lashing
rain here
tonight and it's none too warm, either. In fact, I think we've
gone straight to autumn!

Beautiful morning here, sun, clear blue sky and still, and a bit of
rain last night to make things grow.

Same here, though we have some low but fluffy clouds. They have
promised more rain tomorrow afternoon.

Sun here (Yorks), but *very* windy. Resident oligochaetologist has
gone out to buy a large bit of wood - not sure how sensible it is to
put large sheets of wood on the roof rack on a day like today. He
should have gone yesterday.

Was he intending to build a new house for his worms? Perhaps it will be a
flying one

On 8/4/09 10:15, in article , "Derek
Turner" wrote:

On Wed, 08 Apr 2009 09:59:10 +0100, Sacha wrote:


Last Easter was *awful* but then it was also extremely early. I do wish
that the Powers That Be would decide on a fixed date. If it keeps
shoogling around all over the place and is said to be THE major
Christian festival, I would have thought it more respectful and sensible
to have a fixed date for it!

But Sacha, it /is/ fixed! It's always the first Sunday after the first
full moon after the spring equinox. What could be simpler? And if Pope
Gregory hadn't buggered about with the calendar we'd all celebrate it on
the same day!

What indeed? All you have to do is go outside, turn round 3 times, hold
onto your left ear lobe while waving a daffodil at the moon and you've got
it. ;-)) I just don't see why it can't be un-buggered!
--
Sacha
http://www.hillhousenursery.com
South Devon
Exotic plants, shrubs & perennials online

On 8/4/09 12:01, in article , "K"
wrote:

Sacha writes
Last Easter was *awful* but then it was also extremely early. I do wish
that the Powers That Be would decide on a fixed date. If it keeps shoogling
around all over the place and is said to be THE major Christian festival, I
would have thought it more respectful and sensible to have a fixed date for
it!

It is 'fixed' - it's the nearest Sunday to the first full moon after the
vernal equinox. Shows it's firmly rooted in Christian traditions,
doesn't it ;-)

It's bad enough people telling us that Christmas is really mid-February or
whatever it is but when Easter moves around like a yoyo, it's ridiculous!

There's another 13 festivals all defined in relation to Easter, so
fixing it on a particular date would sort them too. It's irritating not
to find out about Pancake Day until you see the pancake races on the 6
o'clock news.

Eggsactly. ;-))

--
Sacha
http://www.hillhousenursery.com
South Devon
Exotic plants, shrubs & perennials online

On Wed, 08 Apr 2009 13:23:30 +0100, Sacha wrote:

What indeed? All you have to do is go outside, turn round 3 times, hold
onto your left ear lobe while waving a daffodil at the moon and you've
got it. ;-)) I just don't see why it can't be un-buggered!

The world-wide churches are in discussion about it, but don't hold your
breath: the last time we all agreed on anything was the Council of
Ephesus (431 CE). I will now append the smiley that I missed in my last
post, in case anyone thought I was serious

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reform_of_the_date_of_Easter

Ophelia writes

Sun here (Yorks), but *very* windy. Resident oligochaetologist has
gone out to buy a large bit of wood - not sure how sensible it is to
put large sheets of wood on the roof rack on a day like today. He
should have gone yesterday.

Was he intending to build a new house for his worms? Perhaps it will be a
flying one

He's never shown much interest in live worms ;-) certainly not in the
domestic situation.
--
Kay

On 8/4/09 13:40, in article , "Derek
Turner" wrote:

On Wed, 08 Apr 2009 13:23:30 +0100, Sacha wrote:

What indeed? All you have to do is go outside, turn round 3 times, hold
onto your left ear lobe while waving a daffodil at the moon and you've
got it. ;-)) I just don't see why it can't be un-buggered!

The world-wide churches are in discussion about it, but don't hold your
breath: the last time we all agreed on anything was the Council of
Ephesus (431 CE). I will now append the smiley that I missed in my last
post, in case anyone thought I was serious

I went to Ephesus some years ago to the site where the first Council was
held and my imagination was gripped by the thought of all those men
standing around debating something that had happened hundreds of years
before, that would have repercussions for hundreds of years to come. Even
then, it seems there were contentious issues. ;-(

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reform_of_the_date_of_Easter

--
Sacha
http://www.hillhousenursery.com
South Devon
Exotic plants, shrubs & perennials online

K wrote:
Ophelia writes

Sun here (Yorks), but *very* windy. Resident oligochaetologist has
gone out to buy a large bit of wood - not sure how sensible it is to
put large sheets of wood on the roof rack on a day like today. He
should have gone yesterday.

Was he intending to build a new house for his worms? Perhaps it
will be a flying one

He's never shown much interest in live worms ;-) certainly not in the
domestic situation.

Could it be a first..................... ?