Easter

Images in the Bible
 

    Easter is the most important holiday of the Christian year, observed on a Sunday of March or April each year to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus from the dead on the Cross on Good Friday. Not Christmas nor Good Friday nor Palm Sunday nor Pentecost, but Easter is the most important day in the Christian calendar.

    Easter can also refer to the season of the church year, which follows this holiday and ends in Pentecost, lasting for 50 days plus Trinity Sunday and Corpus Christy.

    The Christian festival of Easter celebrates the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The spring festival has its roots in the Jewish Passover, which commemorates Israel's deliverance from the bondage of Egypt, and in the Christian reinterpretation of its meaning after the crucifixion of Jesus during the Passover of AD c.30 and the proclamation of his resurrection three days later.

    Early Christians observed Easter on the same day as Passover (14-15 Nisan, a date governed by a lunar calendar). In the 2d century, the Christian celebration was transferred to the Sunday following the 14-15 Nisan, if that day fell on a weekday. According to the Venerable Bede, the name Easter is derived from the pagan spring festival of the Anglo- Saxon goddess Eostre, and many folk customs associated with Easter (for example, Easter eggs) are of pagan origin.

    Easter Day is currently determined as the first Sunday after the full moon on or after March 21. The Eastern Orthodox churches, however, follow the Julian rather than the Gregorian calendar, so their celebration usually falls several weeks later than the Western Easter. Easter is preceded by a 40 days period of preparation called Lent.

    Happy Easter   Easter Costumes   Easter Bunny   Holidays Costumes

The Name:

    In most languages other than English and German, the holiday's name is derived from Pesach, Pascua in Spanish, the Hebrew name of Passover, a Jewish holiday to which the Christian Easter is intimately linked.

    Actually "Eastern" means "from the East", and Jesus is the Sun of our lives who comes from the East every day. Yes, Easter Sunday is celebrated once a year, but every day should be a Feast of Eastern for every Christian.

    Other explanations:The English and German names, "Easter" and "Ostern", seem clearly unrelated to Pesach etymologically and likely derive either from Eostremonat, an old Germanic month name, or Eostre, an Asatru fertility goddess of spring festivals. The Eostre merged with the Christian Pesach celebrations after the Germanic heathens were Christianized.

    The word "Easter" in other languages

    Names derived from the goddess Eostre or from Eostremonat:

    Names derived from the Hebrew Pesach (Passover):

    Names used in other languages

  • Bulgarian Великден (Velikden) (literally: the Grand Day)
  • Polish Wielkanoc (literally: the Grand Night)
  • Czech Velikonoce (plural, no singular exists; made from Grand Nights)
  • Serbian Uskrs or Vaskrs (literally: resurrection)
  • Japanese 復活祭 (Fukkatsu-sai; lit. resurrection festival)

The Date of Easter:

    Easter is the Solemnity of Solemnities and feasts, the date around which many others are placed, like Ash Wednesday, Palm Sunday, Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Ascension, Pentecost, Holy Trinity, Corpus Christy, all Lent... http://religion-cults.com/saints/saints2.htm

    In Western Christianity, Easter Day always falls on a Sunday between March 22 and April 25 inclusive.

    Easter and the holidays that are related to it are moveable feasts, in that they do not fall on a fixed date in the Gregorian or Julian calendars (which follow the motion of the Sun and the seasons). Instead, they are based on a lunar calendar similar -- but not identical -- to the Hebrew Calendar.

    Since the Middle Ages Easter is observed on the Sunday after the first full moon on or after the day of the vernal equinox. And in astronomy, the vernal equinox (spring equinox, March equinox, or northward equinox) is the equinox at the beginning of spring in the northern hemisphere: the moment when the sun appears to cross the celestial equator, heading northward. The equinox occurs on or very close to March 21, the precise time being about 5 hours 49 minutes later in a common year, and about 17 hours 26 minutes earlier in a leap year, than in the previous year.

 Easter   Easter 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter
http://www.twingroves.district96.k12.il.us/Easter/Easter.html#anchor259810
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter#The_date_of_Easter
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vernal_equinox
http://www.religioustolerance.org/easter5.htm Attempts to find a common date
 

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