Looking to “fathers” who lived over 200 years after Jesus conveyed the faith in pure form to the Apostles is like looking to the writings of Justice Ginsburg for guidance on the Constitution.
The Apostle Paul did not warn about the “faith once delivered” for nothing. I and many like me, follow that faith, not some different faith that came centuries later by the hand of secular authority.
Speaking of which, what you omit in with the claim that Constantine had nothing to do with their decision was that the Council’s decision was enforced upon pain of death, and the secular authorities were more than happy to enforce it for the Church. Without that assistance, the Church would have been powerless to impose Easter on Christians (like myself) who found that the Apostles observed Passover. “Easter” not even being in the Scriptures was a totally foreign concept. Where that word appears in the King James, the Greek word is properly “Passover”.
Of the major features on the Christian “liturgical” calendar, Xmas and Easter are by far so well documented and easy to understand as both pagan and syncretic that even a junior high school student can find the truth.
Since there wasn’t even a general consensus on what books were properly to be considered as scriptural until the 3rd century (unless you want to throw your support to Marcion’s canon) I think you are treading on theologically thin ice.
You are correct. Jesus and the Apostles observed Passover. They also observed the Hebrew Sabbath. And the pre-trib rapture theory started around 1830 (John Nelson Darby).
You also seem to have a hangup regarding passover vs Easter. Just for informational purposes Easter is only the English name given to the feast, which in Greek (the language of the Church which gathered in that Council) is Pascha, or Passover. If you read the Latin documents of the Church you will never find the term Easter or Oster or any German names at all, and so supposed Pagan origins for the name are hardly relevant to what we as Catholics do or believe. It is just the name in our language for that day and feast, nothing more.
As for paganism and the major feasts, that is all built on assumptions based on correlations but no actual evidence. Sure, there are periods of the year which have supposedly drawn multiple people to celebrate various festivals on them, but that demonstrates nothing other than a shared human interest in the seasons and cosmos. That the equinoxes, solstices and other such times might have been observed by many peoples in common demonstrates no shared origin. After all, according to many anthropologists and such people we can find Celts, Romans, Greeks, Germans and American Indians all recognizing these events and developing various myths around them, but that hardly means that the Amerindians of Cahokia were actually worshiping Roman gods. If these various peoples all celebrate some sort of ritual or festival on an equinox it certainly cannot imply that they derive this from one another, and therefore neither can it be reasonably assumed that early Christians were following pagans in what they did.
And, if you don't believe me, then just ask yourself why the Jews would be engaging in pagan worship by observing Passover? It is that feast, after all, which is the model and origin of our Easter, and not some Roman pagan festival.
Actually the Greek word for Passover is transliterated as “Pascha”.
They used the same Greek word at the council of Nicaea, and never used the word “Easter”.
Orthodox Christians to this day still use the word “Pascha”.
So how can you say they imposed “Easter” on anyone?
Your argument falls apart...
“Looking to “fathers” who lived over 200 years after Jesus conveyed the faith in pure form to the Apostles is like looking to the writings of Justice Ginsburg for guidance on the Constitution.”
No, it isn’t. The Fathers were Christians in the Church, which is the mystical body of Christ. Ginsburg is not even a constitutionalist. There’s a huge difference there.
Primary source documentation for that claim?
and the secular authorities were more than happy to enforce it for the Church. Without that assistance, the Church would have been powerless to impose Easter on Christians (like myself) who found that the Apostles observed Passover. “Easter” not even being in the Scriptures was a totally foreign concept. Where that word appears in the King James, the Greek word is properly “Passover”.
Constantine never knew any word that sounded anything like "Easter". The holiday whose dating was promulgated under his name was called Πασχα, or in the Latin alphabet, "Pascha".
Don't believe me? The decree of Nicaea on the dating of Pascha (Easter) is online in the original Greek. Look it up.
"Pascha" is obviously related to the Hebrew "pesach". In fact, some scholars think that "pascha" is the correct Hebrew vowel pointing, and "pesach" is a later invention intended to distance Jews from Christians.
If your complaint is that Pascha is not celebrated on the 14th of Nisan, all I can say is that that was an active topic of discussion in the early church. The "Quartodeciman" (14th of Nisan) side lost the argument, but they didn't go into schism over it.