Such a convenient thing as a calendar, entered our life long and densely. And no one even thinks about where it came from, we just use this fruit of human ingenuity and ingenuity every day. And which only in our days of calendars has not divorced: moon, and garden, and the usual calendar for each year. But there is another very interesting calendar - a calendar for the celebration of Easter or Easter. Let's talk about it in more detail.
Where does the Easter calendar come from?
From the church tradition and scripture it is known that the first mention of the calendar of the celebration of Easter refers to the Old Testament time. Namely, to the event of the exodus of the Jews from the Egyptian captivity. The Bible even has a place where it is said of God's command to celebrate Easter in the first month, the 14th day, and this month is Nisan. The Israelis follow this calendar and to this day, regardless of their place of residence.
And how did the Orthodox calendar for the celebration of Easter appear?
But here on earth important events took place, dividing the entire believing world into two absolutely opposite camps. And the event is the crucifixion and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. It also initiated the Orthodox calendar. Initially Christian paschalia did not differ from the Jewish one. After all, the first Christians were Jews. And Easter in the first centuries was celebrated modestly on every Sunday and especially lavishly once a year on the day of the event itself. But already in the second century after the birth of Christ, Christian Paschalia began to acquire the outlines of isolation. By joint agreement of the hierarchs of the time, it was decided to celebrate the Christian Easter the next Sunday after the Jewish one. And in the fourth century, the law on the celebration of Easter on the first Sunday after the first full moon, which will happen after the vernal equinox, was approved at the so-called Council of Nicaea. It is this rule that is used for the calculations of the Orthodox and Catholic Easter calendar. By the name of the founder until the sixteenth century, he was called Julian. But then, due to astronomical inaccuracies, the Easter calendar underwent a change. And the baptized world was divided into Orthodoxy and Catholicism with its own Pascha and the style of the calendar.
Separation of the Easter calendar into the Julian and Gregorian
For five hundred years, both the Eastern and Western Churches lived according to the same Easter calendar. However, at the end of the sixteenth century, Rome decided to take the eastern Easter eggs, in connection with which the entire Easter calendar was changed. The founder of the new calculation and the Easter calendar was the Pope Gregory XIII, the hierarch of the Roman Catholic Church. So the calendar for the celebration of Easter was divided into Orthodox Julian and Catholic Gregorian. Currently, the difference between these two Easter pasts is 13 days. And the celebration of Orthodox Easter can not be before the spring equinox, and the Catholic can even coincide with the Jewish Easter and greatly outstrip the Orthodox.
Contemporary Easter Calendar
In the twenties of the last century, another attempt was made to reform the Paschal calendar. Conducted by her Patriarch of Constantinople Meletius IV at the All-Orthodox congress. The result of this congress was the creation of the New-Julian Easter calendar. In fact, it is even more accurate than the Gregorian and coincides with it up to the year 2800. However, this variant of the Paschalia was accepted by hostility almost all representatives of the Orthodox Church. At present, this is the case. The Julian calendar is used by Russian, Georgian, Jerusalem and Serbian Orthodox churches. The Catholic world left the Gregorian style. And there is a group of churches that celebrate Easter and passing holidays on the Julian calendar, and all the places that are not in accordance with customs of the church.
In general, the Easter holiday became the center of the church calendar, and according to it all other church events are equal.