Tonight is the first full moon after March 21, which is why Easter is next Sunday:
In 325CE the Council of Nicaea established that Easter would be held on the first Sunday after the first full moon occurring on or after the vernal equinox.(*) From that point forward, the Easter date depended on the ecclesiastical approximation of March 21 for the vernal equinox.
—timeanddate.com
Is anyone besides me interested in trivia like this?
I was curious why Easter came so early this year, and one thing I discovered was the official start of Spring in the Northern Hemisphere is no longer March 21, which Andy and I were taught as kids and which apparently dated back centuries. Now astronomers and calendar manufacturers want to be more precise and say Spring starts at the March equinox, which isn’t a fixed date on the calendar. Who would have guessed?
Just another example of how things keep changing so we can’t believe everything we think or have been told. Bless Google for explaining — not that many people would care. 🙂
March 23, 2016
I didn’t know that. thank you!
and yes I love google. learning is so much more fun now.
have you read about the ‘unschooling’ that some are doing now?
leo babuata is a proponent of it and has raised 6 children…
all of whom are excelling! i’m going to look into it more. I find it fascinating.
I’ve learned a lot more by myself (even before Google) than I did in school, so curious kids with supportive parents have a great advantage nowadays.
Thanks for the lesson. I understand from my Christian friends that the Friday for Good Friday and the Sunday for Easter Sunday however have to fit into the calendar every year! That is why the dates change though the days don’t.
Mardi Gras and Lent also shift because they’re tied to Easter. I was raised Catholic so we took Lent seriously, and back then we couldn’t eat meat on any Friday. The latter wouldn’t be a problem for you!
Since I’m not really religious, I haven’t really ever given much thought as to what Sunday Easter is.
I’ve always been more concerned as to when schools take Spring Break as that effects my work load.
and Spring…. When I see buds emerging, to me that’s Spring.
When I was a kid our Spring Break was tied to Easter. Don’t know if that’s true nowadays.
And was a rare instance of the Western church not being anti-semitic! They were willing to believe the Jews on the date of Easter.
I was amused by that too. It must have been galling to have to ask. Apparently trying to figure out the date required serious computations and not everyone ended up agreeing. Beate, our neighbor up on the land, sent me the link and wrote,
Who would have guessed? 🙂
I just get confused about the shifting dates – the shifting ideals as well – and they already said here in NZ that it was first day of Autumn/Fall on March 1st.
Not that the leaves have caught on yet – the weather hasn’t much either – although these last 2 days haven’t been crash hot. Yesterday vicious winds, strange lite rain and today the sun never appeared through the white/grey clouds that were continuous not fluffy – but rain/wind gone…
I have never really taken to the what/why of weather and certain other things, I just do what I need – sometimes dependent on weather or for a scheduled appt…
Good for NZ. I think it makes more sense to just pick a calendar date. It simplifies things.