Monday, March 03, 2008

Easter Trivia

One of my sisters sent me this info, thought I would share. As a Religious Studies major (undergrad), I did know about setting the date of Easter, but some of this was new.

The date of this coming Easter is quite early this year, but I didn't realize the details shown below.

Easter is always the 1st Sunday after the 1st full moon after the Spring Equinox (which is March 20). This dating of Easter is based on the lunar calendar that Hebrew people used to identify Passover, which is why it moves around on our Roman calendar.

This year is the earliest Easter any of us will ever see the rest of our lives!

And only the most elderly of our population have ever seen it this early (95 years old or above!).

And none of us have ever, or will ever, see it a day earlier!

Here are the facts:

  • The next time Easter will be this early (March 23) will be the year 2228 (220 years from now).
  • The last time it was this early was 1913 (so if you're 95 or older, you are the only ones that were around for that!).
  • The next time it will be a day earlier, March 22, will be in the year 2285 (277 years from now).
  • The last time it was on March 22 was 1818.
So, no one alive today has or will ever see it any earlier than this year!
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2 comments:

  1. CyberGoddess1:55 PM

    You may be interested to know that Passover (which should probably coincide with Easter - after all, wasn't the Last Supper a Seder?) will begin (first Seder) on April 19th.

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  2. Michael A. Golrick2:14 PM

    Some of the difference between Passover and Easter goes to the early days of "the church" and where Spring is counted as beginning. For some, it is based in Jerusalem and others in Rome. And depending when the full moon occurs (if it is near midnight, it could be one day in Jerusalem and the next in Rome). It also depends on when the full moon falls in relation to Sunday and the Sabbath.

    Surprisingly it is not simple. I did a paper on this in college!

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