# Easter and Passover Dates Question **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 18, 2003, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easter-and-passover-dates-question/169632 "2003-04-18T20:25:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Super\_Gnat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@Super\_Gnat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Super_Gnat)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2003, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easter-and-passover-dates-question/169632/1 "2003-04-18T20:25:50Z")
Long long ago, when I was a child, I was told that back in the day when the church fathers decided when Easter would be celebrated, they set it so that Easter and Good Friday would never intersect with Passover. I was told they did this due to their anti-semitism. And yet, I notice this year that Easter is during Passover. I have a few different theories about this: 1. The person who told me this was lying. 2. Good Friday/Easter was chosen so as not to intersect with a specific _day_ of Passover (like the first or last day). 3. This was true at one time, but then they changed it around. 4. The shifting and resetting of dates over the years makes this no longer true. Anybody got the Straight Dope on this? ---
**Author:** ![CBCD](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9fc348/32.png) [@CBCD](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CBCD)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2003, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easter-and-passover-dates-question/169632/2 "2003-04-18T20:34:50Z")
Easter Sunday is the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox. The Orthodox Church uses a slightly different calculation. Passover is also determined by the date of the spring equinox and Rosh Hashana. Someone else will have to tell you more about the details fo the dates for Passover. ---
**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2003, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easter-and-passover-dates-question/169632/3 "2003-04-18T21:07:11Z")
The first day Passover is on the 15th of Nisan on the Jewish calendar. Given simply that rule, and the rule for Easter the two dates can coincide, though not often. On the Gregorian calendar, it last happened in 1981, and will next happen in 2123 according to this site, which also gives you a fair amount of background on the dates, and a calculator for them: [http://www.phys.uu.nl/~vgent/easter/eastercalculator.htm](http://www.phys.uu.nl/~vgent/easter/eastercalculator.htm) There are some sources which claim that the council of Nicea in 325, in addition to fixing the “first Sunday after …” etc, rule also added a rule that if Passover occurred on the same day, Easter was to be the NEXT Sunday after that. If there ever was such a rule in effect, it has been dropped in modern times. ---
**Author:** ![kniz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c37758/32.png) [@kniz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kniz)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2003, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easter-and-passover-dates-question/169632/4 "2003-04-18T22:18:06Z")
Jesus went to Jerusalem in order to celebrate **Passover**. He was crusified just prior to **Passover** and had to be taken down from the cross because of **Passover**. How could Easter be planned so that it didn’t coincide with **Passover**? ---
**Author:** ![C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2003, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easter-and-passover-dates-question/169632/5 "2003-04-19T21:58:31Z")
Easter is the first Sunday after the full moon after the spring equinox. Passover begins on the full moon (give or take a day), usually the first full moon after the spring equinox, and lasts eight days (seven days in Israel.) Thus, it seems to me that the two will almost always overlap. Passover begins on the full moon, and goes for eight days, so the first Sunday after the full moon must come out during Passover. On the other hand, it would be very rare that the first night of Passover (the first Seder night) would come out coincident with Easter. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2003, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easter-and-passover-dates-question/169632/6 "2003-04-19T22:18:42Z")
Dext: Can you enlighten us as to why Israel observes Passover for one day less than communities outside of Israel? ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2003, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easter-and-passover-dates-question/169632/7 "2003-04-19T22:28:56Z")
There is a grain of truth in the story told to **Super Gnat**. The Christian churches (note plural) of the first five centuries did wrestle with just how to establish a consistent date for Easter. Prior to the European domination of the world and the imposition of the Gregorian calendar as a common reckoning, it was not possible to simply declare “Date X is Easter” because people scattered all across the Middle East, North Africa, and Europe did not all share a common calendar that would identify Date X. During those discussions, there were, indeed, people who insisted that the Easter date not be tied to Passover–and included a rejection of or opposition to Judaism as their reason. However, they basically argued that the churches should come up with their own reckoning in order to not base their date on the Jewish calendar. I do not recall anyone who argued that Easter had to be _moved_ if there was a danger of coincidental dates. The _reckoning_ had to be different, but the outcome did not have to be different. (I seem to recall a year when the Seder was to be celebrated coincident with Holy Thursday (which would have been very appropriate, depending on which Gospel account one follows) and no effort was made to “adjust” it.) ---
**Author:** ![Dogface](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9d8465/32.png) [@Dogface](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dogface)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2003, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easter-and-passover-dates-question/169632/8 "2003-04-19T23:16:33Z")
Gregorian calendar as common reckoning? I can assure you that the Orthodox Church does not use the Papal reckoning for Easter. Likewise, you claim that people did not share a common calendar over those locales is quite false. The Roman civil calendar was known in all of those areas. “Date X” (Ides Aprilia, for example) could have been used. But it wasn’t. The problem is that local communities had locally chosen different ways to date the holiday. What had happened is that some communities used the Jewish (lunard) date, Nissan 15 to 22, while others picked a date in the spring on the Roman calendar (which is mostly solar). Thus, some communities were fasting while others were celebrating. Now, the Jewish calendar was not well known in the Empire. The civil calendar was, and it was at least theoretically synchronized with the solstices. Therefore, the Council of Nicea determined that, for the sake of everybody playing the same note at the same time, the “method of Alexandria” would be used. This method was essentially the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Vernal Equinox, a compromise between purely lunar and solar methods. However, it should be noted that this equinox was not determined for the whole Church by means of astronomical observation. Instead, an “ecclesiastic” equinox was chosen that corresponded to the equinox of that time. Likewise, it is an “ecclesiastic” full moon that is used, not an observed full moon. This was probably to allow for calendars to be planned ahead of time. The minutes and canons of the First Ecumenical Council (Nicea) get into more detail on this. Now, there is one little sticking point regarding the Christian Passover and the Jewish Passover. One of the Nicean Canons stated that the Christian holiday was not to be celebrated “with the Jews”. Unfortunately, this was not explicitly elaborated. One interpretation is that the Christian feast is not to be celebrated in the synagogues. At the time, some Christian communities still held their worship in synagogues. Another interpretation was that it was not to coincide at all with the Jewish celebration. While modern authors, resplendent in their comfort and safety, like to claim that “antisemitism” was the cause, at the time, Christians were persecuted by Jews. It was the Jews who had the political connections and power to bring the state down on the Christians, especially after the Jewish communities formally cast out the “Nazarites”. No longer considered Jews, they no longer had the religious exemption granted Jews. Unfortunately, instead of responding as we were supposed to, once the tables were turned, we Christians abused power as badly and worse as it was abused against us. Now, even though the Nicene Council (AD 325) did determine a standard date for the celebration, this still took some time to get all the way around. As late as AD664 there were communities in the British Isles who celebrated according to a method variant from the standard simplification–although they did not use the quartedecimian determination, no matter what Bede might have claimed. Finally, just to complicate matters further, the West does not use the same calendar as the Ancient Church. The Ancient Church used the Julian calendar, which is longer than the actual tropical year. A few smarty guys in Rome did a dramatic demonstration of the severity of equinoctal precession for a horrified Pope Gregory, who commanded a calendrical revision in the 16th century. England did not adopt the calendar until the 18th century, and Russia took even longer. Even in that case, most Orthodox countries only adopted it as a civil calendar. So the Orthodox use the Julian calendar to determine the date (except for in Finland). However, the Orthodox Church also tends to interpret “with the Jews” to mean “coincide at all”, so there is an additional complication added that if the Orthodox calculation gives a date that is before or upon Jewish Passover, the holiday is delayed to the NEXT Sunday after the NEXT full moon. ---
**Author:** ![brianmelendez](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/65b543/32.png) [@brianmelendez](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brianmelendez)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2003, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easter-and-passover-dates-question/169632/9 "2003-04-19T23:39:26Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Dogface \* > \*\*The minutes and canons of the First Ecumenical Council (Nicea) get into more detail on this. > > Now, there is one little sticking point regarding the Christian Passover and the Jewish Passover. One of the Nicean Canons stated that the Christian holiday was not to be celebrated “with the Jews”. Unfortunately, this was not explicitly elaborated. One interpretation is that the Christian feast is not to be celebrated in the synagogues. At the time, some Christian communities still held their worship in synagogues. Another interpretation was that it was not to coincide at all with the Jewish celebration. > > While modern authors, resplendent in their comfort and safety, like to claim that “antisemitism” was the cause, at the time, Christians were persecuted by Jews. It was the Jews who had the political connections and power to bring the state down on the Christians, especially after the Jewish communities formally cast out the “Nazarites”. No longer considered Jews, they no longer had the religious exemption granted Jews.\*\* While it may have been true through much of the second and third centuries that “the Jews . . . had the political connections and power to bring the state down on the Christians,” it was no longer true by the Council of Nicaea, by which time Christianity had become the official state-sponsored religion. The Emperor Constantine himself convoked the Council, presided over its opening session, and placed the Empire’s resources at its disposal: > [@](#): > > The emperor himself, in very respectful letters, begged the bishops of every country to come promptly to Nicaea. Several bishops from outside the Roman Empire (e.g., from Persia) came to the Council. It is not historically known whether the emperor in convoking the Council acted solely in his own name or in concert with the pope; however, it is probable that Constantine and Sylvester came to an agreement. In order to expedite the assembling of the Council, the emperor placed at the disposal of the bishops the public conveyances and posts of the empire; moreover, while the Council lasted he provided abundantly for the maintenance of the members. The choice of Nicaea was favourable to the assembling of a large number of bishops. It was easily accessible to the bishops of nearly all the provinces, but especially to those of Asia, Syria, Palestine, Egypt, Greece, and Thrace. The sessions were held in the principal church, and in the central hall of the imperial palace. A large place was indeed necessary to receive such an assembly, though the exact number is not known with certainty. . . . > > The Council was opened by Constantine with the greatest solemnity. The emperor waited until all the bishops had taken their seats before making his entry. He was clad in gold and covered with precious stones in the fashion of an Oriental sovereign. A chair of gold had been made ready for him, and when he had taken his place the bishops seated themselves. After he had been addressed in a hurried allocution, the emperor made an address in Latin, expressing his will that religious peace should be re-established. He had opened the session as honorary president, and he had assisted at the subsequent sessions, but the direction of the theological discussions was abandoned, as was fitting, to the ecclesiastical leaders of the council. The actual president seems to have been Hosius of Cordova, assisted by the pope’s legates, Victor and Vincentius. From the Catholic Encyclopedia, [The First Council of Nicaea](http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11044a.htm). ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2003, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easter-and-passover-dates-question/169632/10 "2003-04-19T23:50:53Z")
I did not say that the Orthodox used the Gregorian calendar. I said that there was not a common calendar for _all_ the churches to agree to use. Currently, in the _secular_ world, everyone either uses or cross-references to the Gregorian calendar. That is how shipments of goods from China, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, etc. can all be scheduled toarrive in the U.S. on April 19, 2003–because there is a world-wide common calendar against which any local calendar is indexed to arrive at a common date. That was the only reference I made to the Gregorian calendar. As to the use of the Roman calendar in the early days of the church, that would have provided _some_ uniformity across many lands, but Christianity did extend outside the bounds of the Roman world, and even within the Empire dates had a habit of being re-computed from time to time (hence the much later Gregorian adjustment). Most of your post provides a much better in-depth presentation than I had attempted, but it does not contradict my post. > [@](#): > > While modern authors, resplendent in their comfort and safety, like to claim that “antisemitism” was the cause, at the time, Christians were persecuted by Jews. It was the Jews who had the political connections and power to bring the state down on the Christians, especially after the Jewish communities formally cast out the “Nazarites”. No longer considered Jews, they no longer had the religious exemption granted Jews. First, it is not a matter of “modern authors…in…comfort and safety” who noted the anti-Jewish opinions, they are clearly expounded in the early church documents. There was, indeed, a period, particularly in Roman Palestine and Asia Minor, when the Jews inflicted persecution on early Christians. However, that period had firmly closed before 100 C.E. and the statements attacking Jews in 300 or 400 were not based on any active memories of Jewish persecution of the early church, but had taken a life of their own. Along with the Nicene documents is this statement from Constantine: [“At this meeting the question concerning the most holy day of Easter was discussed, and it was resolved by the united judgment of all present that this feast ought to be kept by all and in every place on one and the same day. . . And first of all it appeared an unworthy thing that in the celebration of the Jews, who have impiously defiled their hands with enormous sin. . . for we have received form our Saviour a different way. . . And I myself have undertaken that this decision should meet with the approval of your Sagacities in the hope that your Wisdoms will gladly admit that practice which is observed at once in the city of Rome and in Africa, throughout Italy and in Egypt. . . with entire unity of judgment.”](http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05228a.htm) This is hardly a simple statement that we don’t happen to want to celebrate with Jews. (Indeed, as that article notes, there were factions who explicitly attempted to keep Easter tied to the Passover, but they lost the debate.) ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2003, 6:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easter-and-passover-dates-question/169632/11 "2003-04-22T06:23:04Z")
Monty: > [@](#): > > Dext: Can you enlighten us as to why Israel observes Passover for one day less than communities outside of Israel? Basically, way back when, when the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem still stood and then for about 150 years after that, the beginning of the new Jewish month was not automatically decided by calendar calculations. It was determined by witness testimony regarding when the new moon was spotted in Jerusalem. (if no witnesses came forward by the 31st day after the prior new moon, that day was automatically the beginning of the new month…this only determined whether a month would be 29 days or 30, but it would never be longer) So, in Israel, word about when the new month began was immediately circulated, and the holidays (not just Passover) were celebrated on the exact dates, for the exact length of time specified in the Torah…in the case of Passover, seven days. However, in those pre-telecommunications days, communities outside Israel might not get the word for a while, so, in order not to transgress the holiday rules by accident, the Rabbis made them add an extra day to the holiday…they had to observe holidays as if the new month were declared on either the 30th or the 31st. What happened in the early 3rd century CE was that Roman persecution in Israel made the Jewish “Prince” at the time, a man named Hillel II (as opposed to Hillel the Elder, a great rabbi of about four hundred years earlier) determine that he could not ensure the continuity of the Jewish court system, which was responsible for declaring the new month. So he had the court of his time declare, based on calendar calculations, the new months for all future years going forward, and it is based on that authority and those calculations that the Jewish calendar in use today is valid. In theory, this means that communities outside Israel know exactly when the new months begin and holidays could be observed for the same length of time as in Israel. However, since that extra day was already sanctified as a holiday outside Israel by Rabbinic authority, no later court could rescind that sanctification, so the extra day outside Israel continues to be observed as a Jewish holiday.