I got to thinking about this as someone raised a side issue over the St George's Day bank holiday thread. I have put together a none-to-brief history of and reasons for celebrating Easter:

Easter is the principal festival of the Christian church year. It is probably the oldest Christian observance after the Sabbath (originally observed on Saturday, later on Sunday). Later, the Sabbath came to be regarded as the weekly celebration of the Resurrection.

Although principally a celebration commemorating the resurrection, the celebrations of Easter have many customs and legends that are pagan in origin and have nothing to do with Christianity.

Scholars, accepting the derivation proposed by the 8th-century English scholar St. Bede, believe the name Easter is thought to come from the Scandinavian "Ostra" and the Teutonic "Ostern" or "Eastre," both Goddesses of mythology signifying spring and fertility whose festival was celebrated on the day of the vernal equinox.

The English name "Easter" is much newer. When the early English Christians wanted others to accept Christianity, they decided to use the name Easter for this holiday so that it would match the name of the old spring celebration. This made it more comfortable for other people to accept Christianity.

The prechristian Traditions associated with the festival survive in the Easter rabbit, a symbol of fertility, and in coloured easter eggs, originally painted with bright colours to represent the sunlight of spring, and used in Easter-egg rolling contests or given as gifts.

The Christian celebration of Easter embodies a number of converging traditions with emphasis on the relation of Easter to the Jewish festival of Passover, or Pesach, from which is derived Pasch, another name used by Europeans for Easter.

The Jewish Passover is celebrated during Nisan, the first month of the Hebrew lunar year. It is a feast in the Jewish calendar which is celebrated for 8 days and commemorates the flight and freedom of the Israelites' deliverance from 300 years of slavery in Egypt.

It was in during this Passover in 30AD Christ was crucified under the order of the Roman governor Pontius Pilate as the then Jewish high priests accused Jesus of "blasphemy". The resurrection came three days later, on the Easter Sunday. The early Christians, many of them being brought up in Jewish tradition regarded Easter as a new feature of the Pascha (Passover). It was observed in memory of the advent of the Messiah, as prophesied in the Old Testament. It also celebrates the resurrection. Thus the early Christian Passover turned out to be a unitive celebration in memory of the death and resurrection of Jesus. However, by the 4th century, Good Friday came to be observed as a separate occasion. And the Pascha Sunday had been devoted exclusively to the honour of the resurrection.

Throughout the Christian faith, the Sunday of Pascha had become a holiday to honour Christ. At the same time many of the pagan spring rites came to be a part of the same celebration. Maybe it was the increasing number of new converts who could not totally break free of the influence of their pagan culture.

In spite all the influence there was an important shift in the spirit of the festival. The physical return of the Sun God was no longer glorified. Instead the emphasis was on the Sun of Righteousness who had conquered death.

The Feast of Easter was well established by the second century, although there had been dispute over the exact date of the Easter observance between the Eastern and Western Churches. The East wanted to have it on a weekday because early Christians observed Passover every year on the 14th of Nisan, the month based on the lunar calendar. But, the West wanted Easter celebrated a Sunday.

To solve this problem the emperor Constantine called the Council of Nicaea in 325AD. The question of the date of Easter was one of its main concerns. The council decided that Easter should fall on Sunday following the first full moon after the vernal (spring) equinox. But pin-pointing the date of the Equinox was still a problem. The Alexandrians, noted for their knowledge of astronomy were given the task, and March 21st was their decision.

Thus easter is observed by the churches of the West on the first Sunday following the full moon that occurs on or following the spring equinox (March 2I). So Easter became a "movable" feast which can occur as early as March 22 or as late as April 25. Christian churches in the East which were closer to the birthplace of the new religion and in which old traditions were strong, observe Easter according to the date of the Passover festival.

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Very well observed, Stubbs Minor. 9/10 and two house points.

However, I noticed during double Latin on Thursday that you're still doing 'that thing' with the elastic band and clingfilm, so it's my study at hometime and a rendezvous with Mr. Swishy!

Hey, I was the original wasted education - sport, music and girls were far more important as a spotty kid.

As I got older - and I am very very old! I have a thirst to learn, but this is what I remembered from my confirmation classes as a 15 year old. Oh my word - that's 35 years ago!

By all means beat me, Terry, just don't hurt me, OK?

I say! Stubbsy's half-a-stack old, then?

Blimey, I'll not be that ancient for.....um.....er... Oh no - less than 18 months!

Where has all that tempus fugited to, that what I wants to know.

I can't for the life of me remember who it is (is that an on-set of Alzheimer's - or Old Timers disease?), but one of the posters on here has a signature saying 'inside every old person is a young person wondering what happened'

It always raises a smile.

Tempus fugit - I thought it should have read Tempus? F**k it!

I'm stupendously proud to declare that I'm still the biggest kid in my family - and in all aspects of the term.

My greatest endorsement came after a day out with my three and a mate of theirs, spent getting covered in mud catching frogs, roasting sausages on an open fire and having a mud-sliding competition. The mate said to one of my lot 'Your dad's not like normal dads, is he?'

That'll do for me!

Alan, I'm impressed; I mean, REALLY impressed. And here's me thinking that the date for Easter was dependant on when Tesco's got their supply of chocolate eggs.

Just goes to show, you're never too old to learn...

That's the first laugh of the day, Jim!

Jim... I am in the 2nd year of a degree course, and I just love this learning lark, and find that the discipline comes easily. One of the downsides, though was requiring treatment for depression - bought on, in part, by the realisation that I had wasted my school years.

I now look at my children - one of whom is a student at the University of Kent a year early, and my daughter has applied to Liverpool University to study geography and ocean sciences.
Their achievements are due entirely to their mother.

Possibly the daftest thing I ever did was as a Scout leader - I had a group of cubs spend an evening making as many paper darts as they could, and suitably decorating them. the following week, we researched the location of Home Counties air defence airfields and the airfields in France and Benelux where the Luftwaffe operated, used ropes across the floor laid out to show the respective coastlines and had a cub stood where each airfield was located and fought the battle of Britain.

What were the leaders doing? Air-Sea Rescue, returning planes to the respective sides and using pea shooters as anti-aircraft guns, that's what.


Nah, Terry, your's was more fun.

[ 27. March 2005, 02:43 PM: Message edited by: Alan Stubbs ]

Wordbender, in that respect you remind me of me, I have been known to have a group of 30 plus kids in a conga line along the beach and sea front, 2 of whom were related to me! My kids are no longer embarrassed by me which is an achievement as the youngest is no 20 and just returned from a tour of duty in Iraq.

My grandkids still come in the house to see if I want to "come out and play". When I take 'em fishing we spend hours making up silly stories about the wildlife we see, (in which I try to include some factual stuff), and if I take my grandkids anywhere I can guarantee there friends move heaven and earth to come along too.

Long live the kid in all of us, there is a time to put away the things of childhood, I have yet to get to that time is all.

SteveH