The Date of Easter
Prior to A.D. 325, Easter was apparently celebrated on different days of the week, including Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. In that year, the Council of Nicaea was convened by emperor Constantine who issued the Easter Rule which states that Easter shall be celebrated on the first Sunday, after the first full moon on or after the vernal equinox. However, a caveat must be introduced here. The "full moon" in the rule is the ecclesiastical full moon, which is defined as the fourteenth day of a tabular lunation, where day 1 corresponds to the ecclesiastical New Moon. It does not always occur on the same date as the astronomical full moon. The ecclesiastical "vernal equinox" is always on March 21. Therefore, Easter must be celebrated on a Sunday between the dates of March 22 and April 25.
About Easter Celebration
A time to celebrate the life and resurrection of Jesus Christ usually with chocolate bunnies, marshmallow chicks, and colored eggs! Well you must be thinking what does The resurrection of Christ has to do with eggs and bunnies, well since its conception as a holy celebration in the second century, Easter has had its non-religious side. In fact, Easter was originally a pagan festival.
The second-century Christian missionaries encountered the tribes of the north with their pagan celebrations, they attempted to convert them to Christianity. They did so, by celebrating their holy days with observances that coincide with celebrations that already existed,
Eastre. The missionaries cleverly decided to spread their religious message slowly throughout the populations by allowing them to continue to celebrate pagan feasts, but to do so in a Christian manner.
As it happened, the pagan festival of Eastre occurred at the same time of year as the Christian observance of the Resurrection of Christ.
The ancient Saxons celebrated the return of spring with an uproarious festival commemorating their goddess of offspring and of springtime, Eastre (the earlier name before it was changed to it's modern spelling Easter).
At the festival, Eastre, The goddess, was worshipped by the Anglo-Saxons through her earthly symbol, the rabbit (The Germans brought the symbol of the Easter rabbit to America. It was widely ignored by other Christians until shortly after the Civil War. In fact, Easter itself was not widely celebrated in America until after that time.).
As for the Easter Egg, it predates the Christian holiday of Easter. The exchange of eggs in the springtime is a custom that was centuries old when Easter was first celebrated by Christians. As from the earliest times, the egg was a symbol of rebirth in most cultures thus
best represented the rebirth of Christ the best.
Eggs were often wrapped in gold leaf or, if you were a peasant, colored brightly by boiling them with the leaves or petals of certain flowers.
Today, children hunt colored eggs and place them in Easter baskets along with the modern version of real Easter eggs -- those made of plastic or chocolate candy.
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