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In a study done by the University of Sydney it was discovered that Easter actually began as a pagan festival celebrating spring in the Northern Hemisphere, long before the advent of Christianity. In the first couple of centuries after Jesus’s life, feast days in the new Christian church were attached to old pagan festivals. Spring festivals with the theme of new life and relief from the cold of winter became connected explicitly to Jesus having conquered death by being resurrected after the crucifixion.

But the first of the actual religious intervention happened in 325AD when the first major church council, the Council of Nicaea, determined that Easter should fall on the Sunday following the first full moon after the spring equinox. This is why Easter changes dates to this day and are sometimes called movable feasts.

Easter takes its name from a pagan goddess from Anglo-Saxon England who was described in a book by the eighth-century English monk Bede. Eostre was a goddess of spring or renewal and that’s why her feast is attached to the vernal equinox. In Germany the festival is called Ostern, and the goddess is called Ostara. But what’s in a name?

rwood

Easter was always celebrated about the time of Passover. The Last Supper was a Passover meal. But there was disagreement on the exact date (should they follow the Jews in calculating the date of Passover or ensure that the Resurrection would always be celebrated on a Sunday). The Council of Nicaea spelled out the rules (although disagreements continued for centuries).

When Pope Gregory XIII promulgated the calendar reform in 1582 by saying that 10 days should be dropped (the day after October 4 would be October 15), he was getting the calendar back to where it was in A.D. 325, so that the rules for calculating the date of Easter would work properly.

That was the custom that the Church of Rome followed going back to the 2nd Century, ie. when to celebrate Pascha (Italian) or what we call Easter Sunday (wasn’t called that in 2nd Century Rome).

Saint Ireneaus of Lyons gives a clear account of Easter being celebrated in the late 2nd century. In paragraph 3, you see there were debates about not only the day (Easter day) but the length of the fast (Lent practices in the 2nd century) and if you read on to paragraph 7, you see the “day” is a reference to Easter Sunday (again using English terminology).

The discussion above relates to the debates between the Pope and some Eastern Churches over the celebration of Easter which is referred to as the Quartodeciman controversy over the Date for Easter and the related Lenten fast, etc. The Council of Nicea in 325 adopted the Church of Rome’s as the standard practice.
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08130b.htm

http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0134.htm

” In Germany the festival is called Ostern, and the goddess is called Ostara. But what’s in a name?”

Our days and months are named after pagan gods and figures (at least in English).

Eostre is only mentioned by Bede. And this was 300 years after paganism died out.

There are no writing about this Eostre anywhere else.

You have writing about thor, freyja etc but no Eostte.

There was no pagan goddess called Eostre