Posted on 04/03/2007 2:20:28 AM PDT by NYer
SYROS, Greece, APRIL 2, 2007 (Zenit.org).- It is a motive of great joy for many Christians that the Catholic and Orthodox Churches will celebrate Easter on the same day this year, says Bishop Franghiskos Papamanolis.
The Catholic Church, following the Gregorian calendar, normally celebrates Easter earlier than the Orthodox Church, which follows the Julian calendar. This year the two coincide with the celebration of Easter on April 8.
Bishop Papamanolis, president of the Greek Catholic episcopal conference, told ZENIT that the Catholic community in the country normally celebrates Easter on the same day as the Orthodox Church.
He said: "To celebrate Easter on different days creates social problems, and for us, it also creates pastoral problems.
"For us it is a suffering to celebrate Easter on a different day than Rome."
"The suffering is even greater," the bishop added, "when we can't celebrate Easter together in Greece, as there are many mixed families."
Bishop Papamanolis of Syros and Milos said that the ideal "would be to arrive to an agreement so that all Christians could celebrate Easter together."
Next year, he added, "the Catholic universal Church will celebrate Easter on March 23, while the Orthodox Church -- along with us Catholic Greeks -- will do so on April 27."
The Council of Nicaea established that the day of Easter should fall on the first Sunday after the first full moon following the vernal equinox. The difference of dates for the Catholic and Orthodox Churches is due to fact that they follow different calendars.
The next time Easter coincides for the two Churches will be April 4, 2010.
The situation of ‘mixed families’ is not unique to Greece; it abounds throughout the Middle East. I imagine this is also true in Russia and the Ukraine. In our parish, we have several mixed families. This can be a source of confusion for their children.
Whats the reasoning for the Orthodox for continuing to use the Julian Calendar?
“The situation of ‘mixed families’ is not unique to Greece; it abounds throughout the Middle East. I imagine this is also true in Russia and the Ukraine. In our parish, we have several mixed families. This can be a source of confusion for their children.”
I was never confused.
“Whats the reasoning for the Orthodox for continuing to use the Julian Calendar?”
Because that’s the calendar the Council of Nicea used when it fixed the calculations for the date of Pascha.
So does the Reformed Julian essentially correct the following?
The Gregorian Calendar was devised both because the lunar calendar had grown conspicuously wrong, and the mean Julian Calendar year is slightly too long, so that the vernal equinox slowly drifts backwards through Julian calendar years. This caused problems in computing the date of Easter.
Nope. The problems with the Julian calendar remain the same but Pascha is an ecclesiastical feast, not a lunar feast. In any event, because the date of Pascha cannot be earlier than, I think, around March 27 or later than a date in early May, there’s no real problem with it other than the difference in dates for Pascha in some years as between the East and the West. In the East, most Churches, but not all, celebrate Pascha according to the Orthodox reckoning, even those in communion with Rome.
By the way, the earlier the Pascha, the smaller and more expensive the lambs are, a practical consideration of no small import! :)
The Council of Nicea desired to continue the early church practice of tying Pascha to Passover. Christ is our Passover and the Passion did occur at that time of the year. The problem is that the Jewish religious calendar is a lunar calendar (Passover is on 14 Nisan), and the rest of the Roman world used the solar Julian calendar. Therefore the Council sought to impose a formula for converting the date of Passover from the lunar calendar to the solar calendar using the 19 year metonic cycle. The result is that Pascha would be on the “first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox”.
When the Council of Nicea met in 325, the Julian Calendar had been in use for approximately 400 years. By then, it was noticed that an error of approximately 3 days had acculmated since Julius Caesar introduced the calendar in 45 BC. The imperial scholars at the time believed this to be the result of a math error and the Council adjusted the date of the vernal equinox by three days.
About 400 years later, the same error appeared again. A group of Western monks (I’m not sure which ones) who had been observing the years discovered the problem. The Julian Calendar is based on a 365.25 day year. The year is actually 364.224 days long- an error of three days every 400 years. Nothing could be done about this until Europe was politically stable enough to make a large scale adjustment. This occurred in the 16th Century with our present Gregorian Calendar. All Catholic nations immediately switched. The British Empire made the change in the 1730’s (which is why there are two dates for Washington’s birthday: one is “old style” and the other is “new style”) and Russia held out until the Bolsheviks adopted the Gregorian in 1918.
There are a lot of issues on which the Orthodox are correct about (Filioque), but the calendar is not one of them.
“The British Empire made the change in the 1730’s (which is why there are two dates for Washington’s birthday: one is “old style” and the other is “new style”)”
I always wondered about that. That came up when I was reading H.W. Brands’s The First American. I never understood why the calendar jumped like that.
“There are a lot of issues on which the Orthodox are correct about (Filioque), but the calendar is not one of them.”
LOL!!!!!!!! Whaddya mean? Don’t you know that God’s calendar was established by a pagan Roman Emperor? :)
PRAYER FOR CHRISTIAN UNITY
O Lord, who on the eve of Your death for our sake, have prayed so that all Your disciples become wholly One, the same as You are in Your Father and Your Father is in You, please make us feel grievously the infidelity of our disunion.
Give us the loyalty to acknowledge and the courage to reject the mutual indifference, mistrust and even hostility which hide in us.
Grant us that we all meet in You so that Your prayer for the Unity of Christians ascend unceasingly from our souls and lips, such as You want it and through the means that You choose.
In You who are total charity, let us find the path that leads to Unity in obedience to Your love and Your truth. Amen.
http://www.soufanieh.com/PETITION/petition.htm
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LOL!!
it’s probably very common in ukraine and many of the middle fsu east europe states... i suspect most ctholics in russia proper are probably whole families...
Ahhhhh, yes: Marshmallow Peeps.
An obvious symbol of immortality.
They NEVER get stale.
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