Dear Reader,
Notice that
past SDA representative to the World Council of Churches Faith and Order
Commission, Dr. B.B. Beach, is described as a participant in setting a common
date for EASTER
http://www.wcc-coe.org/wcc/what/faith/easter.html
Participants:
Dr Bert Beach, U.S.A.
(for the General Conference of the Seventh-day Adventists)
Adventists never used to celebrate
Easter. Ellen White said that the Lord’s supper celebrates the resurrection.
What is wrong with Easter
Sunrise?
·
Study into the
tradition of
·
Study into the
implications of worshipping with
·
Study into the
Bible's Instructions to come out of
·
Study and pray
about how
Ron
world council of churches
faith and order
Towards a Common Date for
Easter
World Council of
Churches/Middle East
Council of Churches Consultation
March 5 - 10, 1997
"Christ, our
paschal lamb,
has been sacrificed.
Let us therefore
celebrate the festival."
1 Cor.
5:7-8.
Click to table
for reckoning dates of Easter
according to the proposals below.
I. The Issues
Background to this
consultation
1. In the 20th century the
churches have rediscovered a deep concern for Christian unity. They have
expressed this in their efforts to find common ground on theological issues
that have long divided them. They have learned to give common witness in a
variety of ways. But despite this progress towards visible unity, many
challenges remain. One very sensitive issue, with enormous pastoral
consequences for all the Christian faithful, has taken on growing urgency: the
need to find a common date for the celebration of Easter, the Holy Pascha, the feast of Christ's
resurrection. By celebrating this feast of feasts on different days, the
churches give a divided witness to this fundamental aspect of the apostolic
faith, compromising their credibility and effectiveness in bringing the Gospel
to the world. This is a matter of concern for all Christians. Indeed, in some
parts of the world such as the
2. While the question of a common
date for Easter/Pascha has been addressed at
different times since the earliest Christian centuries, a renewed discussion of
this issue has arisen in the present century in the churches of both East and
West. It also has emerged in significant ways in the secular world. The
question was put to the wider Christian world in a 1920 encyclical of the
ecumenical patriarchate of
3. In recent years, concrete steps
have been taken in the
Besides the work already done
on baptism, eucharist and
ministry, the churches need to address the renewal of preaching, the recovery
of the meaning of Sunday and the search for a common celebration of Pascha as ecumenical theological concerns. This last is
especially urgent, since an agreement on a common date for Easter - even an
interim agreement - awaits further ecumenical developments. Such an agreement,
which cannot depend on the idea of a "fixed date of Easter", should
respect the deepest meaning of the Christian Pascha,
and the feelings of Christians throughout the world. We welcome all initiatives
which offer the hope of progress in this important area." (T.F. Best/D. Heller,
eds., So We Believe, So We Pray: Towards Koinonia in
Worship, Faith and Order Paper No. 171, WCC Publications, Geneva 1995, pp.
9-10.)
In view of the concerns expressed
at these consultations, the Executive Committee of the WCC, meeting in
Bucharest, September 1994, recommended that Unit I, "especially the
Ecclesial Unity/Faith and Order stream and the Worship and Spirituality stream,
give renewed attention to the subject of the common celebration of Easter,
keeping in mind that in the year 2001, the dates of Easter according to both
Eastern and Western calendars coincide."
4. The present consultation,
meeting in
Christ's resurrection, basis
of our common faith
5. The apostolic faith of the
Church is based on the reality of the resurrection of Christ. As
6. As the apostles began their
missionary activity, the resurrection was at the heart of their preaching (1 Cor. 15: 1-17, Acts 2:22-36, 1 Pet 1:3), and as the
evangelists began to record aspects of the Lord's teachings and ministry, the
resurrection comes as the culminating event in their gospels. In every aspect
of her life, the early Church was first and foremost the community of the resurrection.
Thus the early Church's life of worship focused on God's reconciling love as
manifested in the saving passover
of Christ's death and resurrection. The first day of the week became the
preeminent day of the Christian assembly because it was the day on which the
Lord rose from the dead (Jn 20:1, Acts 20:7). At the
same time, this came to be known as the "eighth day," a day of new
creation and ultimate fulfillment. Each year too, Christians both remembered
and experienced the continuing power of Christ's passion and resurrection in a
single but multifaceted celebration. This celebration also became the occasion
for baptism, in which Christians shared in Christ's passage from death to life,
dying to sin and rising to new life in him. Therefore the behavior of
Christians was rooted in their relationship with the risen Lord and reflected
the new reality inaugurated by him (Col. 3:1-11).
Historical background to the
present differences
7. The New Testament indicates
that Christ's death and resurrection were historically associated with the
Jewish passover, but the
precise details of this association are not clear. According to the synoptic
gospels, Jesus' last supper was a passover meal,
which would place his death on the day after passover,
while according to John his death occurred on the day itself, indeed at the
very hour, when the paschal lambs were sacrificed. By the end of the 2nd
century some churches celebrated Easter/Pascha on the
day of the Jewish passover, regardless of the day of
the week, while others celebrated it on the following Sunday. By the 4th
century, the former practice had been abandoned practically universally, but
differences still remained in the calculation of the date of Easter/Pascha. The ecumenical council held at Nicea
in 325 AD determined that Easter/Pascha should be
celebrated on the Sunday following the first vernal full moon. Originally passover was celebrated on the
first full moon after the March equinox, but in the 3rd century the day of the
feast came to be calculated by some Jewish communities without reference to the
equinox, thus causing passover to be celebrated twice
in some solar years. Nicea tried to avoid this by
linking the principles for the dating of Easter/Pascha
to the norms for the calculation of passover
during Jesus' lifetime.
8. While certain differences in
the mechanics of determining the date of Easter/Pascha
remained even after Nicea, which occasionally
resulted in local differences, by the 6th century the mode of calculation based
on the studies of Alexandrian astronomers and scholars had gained universal
acceptance. By the 16th century, however, the discrepancy between this mode of
calculation and the observed astronomical data was becoming evident. This led
to the calendar change introduced by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582. Since that
time, western Christians have come to calculate the date of Easter on the basis
of this newer Gregorian calendar, while the eastern churches generally have
continued to follow the older Julian calendar. While calendrical
changes in some of the Orthodox churches in 1923 affected fixed-date feasts,
the calculation of the Easter date remained linked to the Julian Calendar. Our present differences in calculation of the date
of Easter thus may be ascribed to differences in the calendars and lunar tables
employed rather than to differences in fundamental theological outlook.
9. In its study of the mechanics
of the paschal calculation, the consultation took note of the fact that both
the current eastern (Julian) and the current western (Gregorian) calculations
diverge in certain respects from the astronomical data as determined by precise
scientific calculation. As is well known, the Julian calendar at present
diverges from the astronomical by thirteen days; the Gregorian at present does
not diverge significantly, though it will in the distant future. Less well
known is the fact that both Julian and Gregorian calculations rely upon
conventional tables for determining the lunar cycle. For both modes of
calculation, these tables at times give results that diverge from the
astronomical data.
The continuing relevance of
the Council of Nicea
10. In the course of their
deliberations, the participants in the consultation came to a deeper
appreciation of the continuing relevance of the Council of Nicea
for the present discussion. The decisions of this council, rooted as they
are in scripture and tradition, came to be regarded as normative for the whole
Church.
(a) Despite differences in the
method of calculation, the principles of calculation in the churches of both
East and West are based on the norms set forth at Nicea.
This fact is of great significance. In the present divided situation, any
decision by one church or group of churches to move away from these norms would
only increase the difficulty of resolving outstanding differences.
(b) The Council of Nicea's decisions are expressive
of the desire for unity. The council's aim was to establish principles, based
upon the scriptural data concerning the association of the passion and resurrection
of Christ with the passover,
which would encourage a single annual observance of Easter/Pascha
by all the churches. By fostering unity in this way, the council also
demonstrated its concern for the mission of the church in the world. The council
was aware that disunity in such a central matter was a cause of scandal.
(c) The Nicene norms affirm the
intimate connection between the biblical passover
(cf. especially Exod. 12:18, Lev. 23:5, Num. 28:16,
Deut. 16:1-2) and the Christian celebration of "Christ our paschal
lamb" (1 Cor. 5:7). While the council rejected
the principle of dependence on contemporary Jewish reckoning, it did so on the
grounds that this had changed and become inaccurate, not because it regarded
this connection as unimportant.
(d) In the course of their
discussions the consultation also gained a deeper appreciation for the wealth
of symbolism which the Nicene norms permit. In the worship of many of the
churches, especially in the biblical readings and hymnography of the paschal
season, Christians are reminded not only of the important link between the passover and the Christian Easter/Pascha but also of other aspects of salvation history. For
example, they are reminded that in Christ's resurrection all creation is
renewed. Some early Christian sources thus linked the Genesis account of the
seven days of creation with the week of Christ's passion, death and
resurrection.
(e) The
Council of Nicea also has an enduring lesson for
Christians today in its willingness make use of contemporary science in
calculating the date of Easter. While the council sought to advance the
concrete unity of the churches, it did not itself undertake a detailed
regulation of the Easter calculation. Instead it expected the churches to
employ the most exact science of the day for calculating the necessary
astronomical data (the March equinox and the full moon).
II. Two recommendations
First recommendation
11. In the estimation of this
consultation, the most likely way to succeed in achieving a common date for
Easter in our own day would be
(a) to
maintain the Nicene norms (that Easter should fall on the Sunday following
the first vernal full moon), and
(b) to
calculate the astronomical data (the vernal equinox and the full moon) by
the most accurate possible scientific means,
(c) using
as the basis for reckoning the meridian of
12. This recommendation is made
for the following reasons.
In regard to point a:
(i) The Church needs to be reminded of its origins,
including the close link between the biblical passover
and the passion and resurrection of Jesus Christ - a link that reflects the
total flow of salvation history. In the estimation of this consultation, a
fixed date would obscure and weaken this link by eliminating any reference to
the biblical norms for the calculation of the passover.
(ii) Easter/Pascha
has a cosmic dimension. Through Christ's resurrection, the sun, the moon, and
all the elements are restored to their primordial capacity for declaring God's
glory (Ps. 19:1-2, 148:3). Easter/Pascha reveals the
close link between creation and redemption, as inseparable aspects of God's
revelation. The Nicene principles for calculating the date of Easter/Pascha, based as they are on the cycles of sun and moon,
reflect this cosmic dimension much more fully than a fixed-date system.
(iii) In addition to underscoring
many important symbolic aspects of the feast, a movable date for the observance
of Easter/Pascha also indicates in palpable fashion
the dramatic way in which the resurrection breaks into the comfortable routines
of this world. While such a date may in some respects be less convenient than a
fixed Sunday, it does call attention to a significant theological point which
otherwise might be overlooked.
(iv) An earlier WCC consultation on the date of
Easter/Pascha (Chambésy,
1970) observed, "In any case the churches should arrive at a solution for
reasons based entirely on the religious meaning of the feast and for the
purpose of Christian unity rather than for the purpose of satisfying inherently
secular interests." The present consultation wholly concurs with this
sentiment.
(v) This recommendation maintains
what, for most churches, is an important aspect of tradition. Adoption of a
fixed Sunday approach would raise difficulties for many churches and, if
introduced unilaterally by one church or group of churches, might well result
in not two but three different dates for Easter/Pascha
in a given year.
In regard to point b:
In recommending calculation of the astronomical data by the most accurate
possible scientific means (as distinct, for example, from reliance on
conventional cyclical tables or personal observation), the consultation
believes that it is being completely faithful to the spirit of the Council of Nicea itself, which also was willing to make use of the
best available scientific knowledge. We are fortunate that experts in astronomy
have already provided these necessary calculations; they are conveniently
presented in Synodica V (Chambésy
- Genève, Les Editions du Centre Orthodoxe, 1981) 133
- 149.
In regard to point c:
Astronomical observations, of course, depend upon the position on earth which
is taken as the point of reference. This consultation believes that it is
appropriate to employ the meridian of
13. The recommendation just stated
will have some different implications for the churches of East and West as they
seek a renewed faithfulness to Nicea. Both will face
the need for education of their faithful. For eastern churches, changes in the
actual dating of Easter/Pascha will be more
perceptible than for the western churches. Given the contexts in which these
churches live, this will require both patience and tact. For western churches,
on the other hand, the challenge may lie in communicating deeper aspects of the
Nicene principles for the calculation of Easter/Pascha,
such as those sketched above, and in acquainting their faithful with the
concerns and insights of the eastern churches.
14. The consultation is well
aware of the particular circumstances of many eastern churches. In some
countries in the Middle East and
15. To aid the churches in their
discussion of the above recommendation, the consultation appends to this report
a table of Easter/Pascha dates from 2001 through
2025, based on the astronomical specifications already indicated. For
convenience of reference, the table also indicates the dates of Easter/Pascha according to the current Gregorian and Julian
reckonings, the astronomically determined date of the first vernal full moon,
i.e., the first full moon following the March equinox (cf. Exod.
12:18, Lev. 23:5, Num. 28:16, Deut. 16:1-2), and the date of passover according to current Jewish reckoning.
Second recommendation
16. This consultation also
recommends that the churches now undertake a period of study and reflection towards
the goal of establishing as soon as possible a common date for Easter/Pascha along the lines set forth above. In the year
2001 the paschal calculations now in use by our churches will coincide.
Together, Christians will begin a new century, a new millennium, with new
opportunities to witness to the resurrection of Christ and to proclaim their
joy in his victory over sin, suffering and death. The unity that will be
reflected as Christians celebrate Easter/Past on the same date will be for many
a sign of hope and of witness to the world. This celebration of Easter/Pascha on the same date should not be the exception but the
rule.
17. The way is now open for the
churches to consider again their current practice for determining the date of
Easter/Pascha. As a first step, in the interval
between 1997 and 2001, this consultation encourages the churches to take up
consideration of the recommendations here proposed, and, if they find them
acceptable in principle, to explore ways of implementing them according to
their own procedures, in light of their own opportunities, and within their own
contexts. This consultation suggests that during these years the churches
consult with each other on the ways in which a common date for Easter/Pascha can be implemented. In this interval also, the
present consultation encourages continuation of existing local and regional
initiatives, as interim measures, for observance of a common Easter/Pascha.
18. As a second step, the
consultation suggests that the year 2001 would also provide a good
opportunity for the churches to review reactions and to assess progress made
towards agreement on this matter. It recommends, therefore, that the World
Council of Churches, in cooperation with its ecumenical partners and other
Christian groups, organize then a consultation in which this assessment could
be reported and implementation co uld be discussed.
19. It is the sincere hope of the
participants in this consultation that the churches will give an early and
prayerful consideration to the recommendations made in this report, as a step
towards preparing for a united witness to the death and resurrection of Jesus
Christ.
Participants: Dr Bert Beach, U.S.A. Metropolitan Damaskinos (Papandreou), Canon John Halliburton, Rev. Fayiz
Y. Henain, Fr. Datev
Mikaelian, Archbishop Ven. Dr. Msgr. John Radano,
Mr. Alexander Sologoub, Archbishop Dr. Gunnar Weman, Metropolitan Elias Yusef, |
Hosts: Metropolitan Gregorios Yohanna Ibrahim Mr Razek Syriani Consultants: Prof. John H. Erickson, Rev. Dr. Ronald Kydd, WCC Staff: Fr. Dr. Thomas FitzGerald Rev. Dr. Dagmar Heller |
Table for finding Easter/Pascha dates Year
|
Easter/Pascha by astronomical reckoning |
Easter/Pascha by current Gregorian reckoning |
Easter/Pascha by current Julian reckoning |
Vernal
full moon by astronomical reckoning |
Passover
by current Jewish reckoning |
2001
|
15 April |
15 April |
15 April |
8 April |
8 April |
2002
|
31 March |
31 March |
5 May |
28 March |
28 March |
2003
|
20 April |
20 April |
27 April |
16 April |
17 April |
2004
|
11 April |
11 April |
11 April |
5 April |
6 April |
2005
|
27 March |
27 March |
1 May |
25 March |
24 April |
2006
|
16 April |
16 April |
23 April |
13 April |
13 April |
2007
|
8 April |
8 April |
8 April |
2 April |
3 April |
2008
|
23 March |
23 March |
27 April |
21 March |
20 April |
2009
|
12 April |
12 April |
19 April |
9 April |
9 April |
2010
|
4 April |
4 April |
4 April |
30 March |
30 March |
2011
|
24 April |
24 April |
24 April |
18 April |
19 April |
2012
|
8 April |
8 April |
15 April |
6 April |
7 April |
2013
|
31 March |
31 March |
5 May |
27 March |
26 March |
2014
|
20 April |
20 April |
20 April |
15 April |
15 April |
2015
|
5 April |
5 April |
12 April |
4 April |
4 April |
2016
|
27 March |
27 March |
1 May |
23 March |
23 April |
2017
|
16 April |
16 April |
16 April |
11 April |
11 April |
2018
|
1 April |
1 April |
8 April |
31 March |
31 March |
2019
|
24 March |
21 April |
28 April |
21 March |
20 April |
2020
|
12 April |
12 April |
19 April |
8 April |
9 April |
2021
|
4 April |
4 April |
2 May |
28 March |
28 March |
2022
|
17 April |
17 April |
24 April |
16 April |
16 April |
2023
|
9 April |
9 April |
16 April |
6 April |
6 April |
2024
|
31 March |
31 March |
5 May |
25 March |
23 April |
2025
|
20 April |
20 April |
20 May |
13 April |
13 April |
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