A FIXED EASTER

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 71, 25 March 1931, Page 8

A FIXED EASTER

MOVEMENT FOE EEFOEM

CALENDAR NICETIES

Easter this year, as most people realiso, by this time, falls on sth April Last year it was on 20th April, and the year before on 31st March. Nest year it will be even earlier, on 27th March, but in 1933 it will be on 16th April. Even those dates do not cover all Easter's wide possible range, for it has a possible variation of 35 days, from*;22nd March to 25th April. An oscillating date for Easter,, has long been regarded as a nuisance, and an inconvenience. Holidays are fixed by it, as well as a number of subsequent celobrations —ecclesiastical and otherwise—and it has long been felt that a fixed date for Easter would be more in keeping with these days of vaunted efficiency. Old customs, however, die hard, and to change the intricate formula which fixes Easter Day as the first Sunday after the full moon which happens upon or next after the 21st day of March still stands, although would-be calendar reformers have for years been working steadily for an alteration. It is still held by some that for occult and cosmic reasons no alteration should be made in the method of fixing Easter, but in this materialistic age such opinions are hardly likely to carry much weight, especially as apparently the churches themselves are not_, opposed to the establishment of a fixed Easter.

Several years ago the principle of a fixed date for Easter was agreed upon at a conference of Anglican, Eoman Catholic, and Greek Orthodox Churches. In 1921 tho English House of Lords considered a Bill to fix Easter. In order that it' should fall as near as possible on the date of the event it celebrates, 9th April was fixed as the most appropriate date, Easter Sunday to be on that day or the next immediate Sunday. In 1928 a Bill was passed in England, the "Easter Act," definitely . fixing Easter as falling on the first Sunday after the second Saturday in April, but the Bill was only to become operative upon international acceptance, for it was obvious that all oivilised countries would have to come into line, unless confusion was to be made worse confounded.

In the. meantime tho League of Nations Committee dealing with calendar reform had favourably reported upon a fixed Easter. Indeed, the English Act of 1928 was founded upon tho Committee's pronouncement of 1923. And there tho matter stands at present. The coming General Assembly of the League of Nations will probably deal with calendar reform, and the vexed question of a fixed Easter may bo definitely settled once and for all. " So possibly Easter next year will not be as early as 27th March. DIFFERENCES OF OPINION. Easter's date has led. to bloodshed. When the festival of Easter was first established by the Church, there was sharp controversy between those who celebrated the event on the 14th day and those who celebrated it on the 15th day of the month, between Quartodecimans and Quintodecimans, as they were called. The Jewish method of reckoning a day from sunset to sunset had much to do with this. However, tho Council of Nicaea which met in 325, decided that Easter should be celebrated on a Sunday, but owing to the zeal of Pope Gregory XIII. in reforming the calendar in ISB2, tho detailed working being left to Ctavins, we are now left with an exceedingly complicated method of deciding which Sunday it shall be. His was an attempt to reconcile tho solar with the lunar year, on the Metonic system, tho whole being complicated by the weelc, tho month, tho epact, and ail inexact calendar, not to mention tho discrepancy between the real moon and the fictional moon used in making the calculation.

The ecclesiastical significance of Eastor is, of course, paramount. On its date; depend all the other movable feasts and holy days in the Church calendar. It is a festival of supreme importance. As a holiday in the national life of the Western world Easter comes second in importance only to Christmas, and it thus exercises a far-reaching influence on business. The main opposition to a fixed date for Easter is likely to come from the Church, and in that direction opposition seems to be negative. It would now appear, therefore, that all that is needed to bring about this change in tho calendar is a strong lead from some representative body. The League of Nations can give that lead.