I may be a nobody in the greater scheme of things re bringing Christians together, for example, by agreeing to a common date for Easter, but a couple of slightly somebodies in the great scheme have just edged us closer to a common date :)
In a Twitter exchange last night about this my "Twitter memory" reminded me that I have previously argued for a fixed date for Easter, so yes, my grand ecumenical plan is:
1. securing a common date for Easter (West/East/Middle East)
2. Fixing the date for Easter (second Sunday in April please).
2 comments:
"my grand ecumenical plan is:
1. securing a common date for Easter (West/East/Middle East)
2. Fixing the date for Easter (second Sunday in April please)."
Never happen this side of the Day of Judgement Peter
The date for Easter was determined by a Church Council at Nicaea in 325 AD (N.B. not 325 CE but 325 AD)
And this date was reckoned by the Julian Calendar not the Papal one introduced by Pope Gregory and now adopted by the secular world.
And while it is true that those nations subdued by the Protestant British and the Catholic/Secular French after WW2 were forced to adopt a modified Julian Calendar that aligned the fixed feasts of the Church, particularly Christmas, with the Papal/Protestant/Secular dates Easter or Pascha remains strictly Julian to this day.
The Monks of the Holy Mountain Athos would never go for it and I am with them not the Neo Marxist gnomes who run the bureaucracies of the West and who loath the way Easter moves from year to year messing up their calendar schedules.
We may well get a "holiday" centered around the second Sunday of April, it might well be called "Ëaster" in English and be all about bunny rabbits and chocolate eggs and it will provide a nice opportunity for picking up specials on 4k TVs and other dross at your local mall but the Monks of the Holy Mountain will ignore it except on those years where it coincides with the Julian celebration of Pascha regardless of how Anglicans decide to handle this innovation
Christian unity will not be enhanced by this rather it will be further degraded - which is why the bureaucratic gnomes who rule the West will love it.
Hi Andrei
What man has disposed man may rearrange.
I see no intrinsic reason why a new Nicaea might not make for a new calculation of Easter. (Of course I see plenty of practical obstacles in the way ...).
I also see no specific reason why Christian leaders and secular bureaucrats must differ on what makes them happy!
It is not as though Christmas is not a congenial date for all (mid winter holiday in the northern hemisphere; end of year holiday in the southern hemisphere).
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