Why do Orthodox Christians and Roman Catholic and Protestants celebrate Easter on different days?
341188
Technically, the Pope is in charge of the calendar for all of Christianity.  Pope Gregory altered the calendar and added leap days.  Since this was after the Great Schism, the Orthodox have not updated their calendar from the Julian system.  It means that the days move and it triggers differences in the date for Pascha which is after the 20th of March on the first Sunday on or after the fourteenth day of the Paschal moon.  It is the March 20th part that triggers the difference.  Additionally, the Orthodox currently interpret a particular passage from the bulletins at Nicaea in such a way that it further complicates the calculation.
93121
Like most Roman Catholics I pay lip service to my faith and am terrible about attendance.  Orthodox members take seriously the obligations of the sacriments and of course the holy days of obligation.  The orthodox do not recognize the Holy Father as Christ's Vicar on Earth.
264860
That darn Easter. Can it never make up its mind? What is a silly wabbit to do? It is always on a Sunday, so like Thanksgiving it is on different days in different years.
201317
Well, yes and no.\nAll Catholics are Christian, but not all Christians are Catholic.  Some Christians can be Protestant.  The Holy Trinity is still the same for both.\nWithin the Catholic tradition, there are different sects, or groups.  Besides the well-know Roman Catholic sect, there are the Greek Orthodox, the Russian Orthodox (self-explanatory where they are) and the Coptic Catholics (mostly in Egypt).  \nSimilarly, the Protestant tradition has different sects, such as Lutheran, Baptist, Presbyterian, Mennonite (the Amish are a good example of this), Evangelical, and for people who just can't or won't pick, the all-inclusive Nondenominational.\nThe most important thing to remember is that the underlying faith in the Holy Trinity remains the same.  The difference is in how that faith is expressed.  It can be done with rituals (as with Catholics), more subdued (some Nondenominationals), or a contagious explosion of joy (as with some of the Baptists).  But these expressions do not make that faith.  Without the foundation of faith, there would be no expressions of any kind.
1022376
They don't celebrate the Christian holidays, because they are all based on Pagan holidays:\nAll Souls (saints) Day, Halloween/Samhain\nChristmas/Yule, WInter Solstice\nEaster/Oestre\nGroundhog Day (I know, not Christian)/Imbolc\n\nRejection of Holidays\n\nOne of the more well-known practices of the Jehovah's Witnesses is their non-celebration of holidays. All holidays, including birthdays, are considered "pagan holidays" and may not be observed by Witnesses. The official website of the Jehovah's Witnesses explains:\n\n    Jesus never commanded Christians to celebrate his birth. Rather, he told his disciples to memorialize, or remember, his death. (Luke 22:19, 20) Christmas and its customs come from ancient false religions. The same is true of Easter customs, such as the use of eggs and rabbits. The early Christians did not celebrate Christmas or Easter, nor do true Christians today.\n\n    The only two birthday celebrations spoken of in the Bible were held by persons who did not worship Jehovah. (Genesis 40:20-22; Mark 6:21, 22, 24-27) The early Christians did not celebrate birthdays. The custom of celebrating birthdays comes from ancient false religions. True Christians give gifts and have good times together at other times during the year. {1}
302133
Easter is a holiday celebrating the resurrection of Christ..
504929
Easter is celebrated on the first sunday after the first full moon following the spring equonix. Because the jews used a lunar calander, we use a lunar calender, too.
994996
Well I am Roman Catholic so I am closer to Orthodox Christianity than to Protestantism.\n\nWhat I see in those conversions is that people begin to sense the paradox inherent in Sola Scriptura and the absence of authority in interpretation of the scriptures. Commonly these conversions arise from research into theology and that of the history of the Christian Church.\n\nThe ones I've read tend to delve into the man-made doctrines and traditions of the Protestant Reformed faiths. They usually mention the traditions of the Church Fathers and the congruent and common traditions that arose in the earliest churchest and still are present today as not being in the Protestant faith.\n\nThe paradox I was describing earlier seems to me to be about the lack of accountability in defining doctrine. Since the Bible is the rule of faith alone there is no rule of faith which can interpret the Bible. Everyone is left to their own interpretation and becomes a church unto himself.\n\nThe attraction to Orthodox may lie in the explanations and lack of paradox contained in the above paragraph.\n\nFurthermore, Orthodox churches tend to believe that they are sinners and need to abide in God's will. Whereas Protestants can easily be lulled away from Reformed tradition and believe that they can't go wrong even while sinning. People become disillusioned with the 'once saved always saved' tradition made a couple hundred years ago. They seek to have faith and to live out that faith with a church that will support them in this and not merely say they are saved once and for all.\n\nThis is what I get from many of the Orthodox conversion stories.\n\nI relate a bit since my faith is similar. I think Roman Catholics that convert to Orthodox typically lie in the realm of being of the same faith as your spouse and sometimes in the belief that Christ did not intend a Pope, but intended all those other things the Catholic Church does.
452139
:}\nIsn't it interesting that many of these same Correspondences have been retained in the Christian celebration of easter. Not only have they been retained, but they have taken on new and meaningful symbolism. \nEven the name of the Holiday:  Eostre's Day and Easter Day \nEaster bunnies and colored eggs including the Pastel Colours:\nPink, Yellow, Grass Green, Robin's Egg Blue\n\nI for one am thankful that pagan holiday which was as lust oriented as was the Vernal Equinox could have been apropiated to such an important spiritual purpose.
23950
The church had nothing to do with it. A roman emperor in the 4th century A.D. wanted to make everybody happy. There was a pagan celebration called Saturnalia. The emperor set the Christian's holiday at the same time as Saturnalia so pagans and Christians could be celebrating at the same time. Is everybody happy?  \n\nSee link for the history.
881662
No.  Easter is ALWAYS the first Sunday after the first full moon  after the first day of Spring.  That was probably decided eons ago by the Catholic Church.   There is rhyme and reason to holidays.\nMemorial day is the last Monday in May, Labor Day the first Monday in September.  Thanksgiving the 3rd Thursday in November.  Those are American dates and were decided by Congress.\n\nBut you get the picture on why the date may be different, right?\n\nI guarantee your birthday will be on Easter once again.  Here is a great website that goes up to the year 9999 for Easter dates.\n\nAnd yeah, below is right, I forgot my Catholic School lessons on the date and I had a brain fart.  Of course it is the first Sunday after the first full moon after the first day of Spring.  \n\nMy daughter's birthday is April 16 and she is 22 and I believe Easter has fallen on her birthdate 3 times.\nEaster can be no earlier than March 22 and no later than April 25.  I went up to the year 2040 and Easter did not fall again on your birthday.  I can't give you an explanation for that.
343293
As a matter of fact, there were various ways for celebrating these events in the early centuries of the church.  Some did actually celebrate this whole series of events --including Jesus' death and resurrection-- according to the Jewish calendar, at the time of Passover, since that is when Jesus died.\n\nBut in other parts of the church the custom grew of celebrating the resurrection on the FIRST day of the week, to recall that it was on the first day that Jesus rose.\nIn fact, fairly early the churches had shifted to holding a regular weekly assembly on this day of the week, largely BECAUSE that was the day of the week on which Christ was raised (as well as the day of the week of another foundational event for the church -- the church's first Pentecost [Acts 2]).  \n\nSo, in honor of the resurrection, the first day made a lot of sense, and ultimately at the Council of Nicaea (AD 325) the various branches of the church agreed to ALWAYS celebrate the Day of Resurrection on the first day of the week.   But they determined WHICH Sunday by a formula derived from the date by which the Jews determined the yearly of Passover (that is, by the beginning of the Jewish religious year), though also 'freed' from it by using the vernal equinox as its starting point.  \n\nThus the church sought to keep TWO connections with the events of the first Easter\n1) celebrating the FIRST day of the week (thought of, also, as parallel to the creation -- the resurrection being the first day of a NEW creation)\n2) maintaining the understanding that Jesus was fulfilling the PASSOVER feast's celebration of God's redemption of his people (including his initiating "the Lord's Supper" at the Passover meal, indicating that he was fulfilling it)\n\nAs for your proposal, which would tie it to a specific date in the ROMAN calendar.  There is no evidence any in the early church ever considered doing it that way.   This may be, in part, because of some uncertainty about which year and so which precise days by the Roman calendar these things happened.   But I'm not sure they even cared about that even if they DID know the Roman date(or thought they could calculate it).  The fact is they were NOT trying to institute some new ROMAN holiday.  The connections they were interested in related, as noted above, to the first day (day of resurrection/new creation) and the fulfillment of the Jewish Passover.
379342
What do these all have to do with Christianity?  The answer is, NOTHING! People find it hard to believe that the traditions for their favorite holidays didn't originate with that holiday. Easter is the Christian celebration of the rebirth of Jesus. The holiday was set at this time of the year because it coencides with Passover, a Jewish tradition remembering the night when the angel of death came and killed the sons of Egypt.  It also conincided with the pagan celebration of the Spring Equidox, and the coming of Spring. \n\n The traditions of modern Easter, though, are very Pagan. The name of easter is linked to the goddess Ester, of firtility. Some of her symbols were: rabbits, young animals (such as chicks), eggs, and chocolate. (Do these seem familiar?) When christians would convert pagans, they would bring some of their traditions with them. There are many other influences in this holiday as well.\n\nDitto with the oriigns of Christmas.  If you study the Bible, and the climate of the Middle East, topography etc.  you will find that Jesus was most likely born in the Spring,and not December 25.  So what's with celerbrating Chirstmas 24 ~ the Winter Solstice ~ you've got it ~ another orginal Pagan holiday!
125442
Western Christianity\nIn Western Christianity, Easter marks the end of the forty days of Lent, a period of fasting and penitence in preparation for Easter which begins on Ash Wednesday and ends at Easter Sunday.\n\nThe week before Easter is very special in the Christian tradition: the Sunday before is Palm Sunday, and the last three days before Easter are Maundy Thursday or Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday (sometimes referred to as Silent Saturday). Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday and Good Friday respectively commemorate Jesus' entry in Jerusalem, the Last Supper and the Crucifixion. Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday are sometimes referred to as the Easter Triduum (Latin for "Three Days"). In some countries, Easter lasts two days, with the second called "Easter Monday". Many churches start celebrating Easter late in the evening of Holy Saturday at a service called the Easter Vigil.\n\nEastertide, the season of Easter, begins on Easter Sunday and lasts until the day of Pentecost, seven weeks later.\n\n\nEastern Christianity\nIn Eastern Christianity, preparations begin with Great Lent. Following the fifth Sunday of Great Lent is Palm Week, which ends with Lazarus Saturday. Lazarus Saturday officially brings Great Lent to a close, although the fast continues for the following week. After Lazarus Saturday comes Palm Sunday, Holy Week, and finally Easter itself, or Pascha (Πάσχα), and the fast is broken immediately after the Divine Liturgy. Easter is immediately followed by Bright Week, during which there is no fasting, even on Wednesday and Friday.\n\nThe Paschal Divine Liturgy generally takes place around midnight, into the early morning of Pascha. Placing the Paschal Divine Liturgy at midnight guarantees that no Divine Liturgy will come earlier in the morning, ensuring its place as the pre-eminent "Feast of Feasts" in the liturgical year.
145167
Party, party, party!!!  It is a pagan holliday where people get very drunk and act like wild animals.  It is also called Fat Tuesday.  It is the Tuesday just before Lent or Ash Wednesday, the Catholic holliday where people promise to give up something they really enjoy for 40 days till Easter.  It is most popularly celebrated in New Orleans.  There is a carnival atmosphere where people get very intoxicated in the streets of New Orleans.  Guys buy beaded necklaces and give them to girls for flashing their breasts.  \n\nFor me as a Christian, I think it is kinda sad.  I look forward to celebrating Easter as the time when Christ died for me and rose again.  I think that a devout Catholic should be ashamed of themself if they were to go out and act like this, then go to confession, followed by Ash Wednesday where they make a "sacrifice" to show how much they love Him.
247584
Sunday is the first day of the week, and that is when Jesus Christ arose from the dead, then that is the day we should celebrate The Lord's day!  We should change Sunday to Churchday or someting like that!  Any suggestion?  Also, in the Russian calendar the first day of the week is called 'Voskresenie' meaning 'Resurrection' so it is very fitting, and the communists never pick-up on it, I guess, otherwise they would have changed it to a 'Sunday' or 'Leninday'.  This is a good question!  You can get many variotions of this type of questions, like 'Easter' & 'Halloween' and other pagan & christian designated dates, and what they might have in common.  You'd be surprised as to what you will find out!
11095
As catholics, I think we celebrate a few more holy days, as we believe in the communion of saints.  I don't think the protestants do, but I could be wrong.  This month, we celebrated Saint Nicholas' feast day, the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, and are observing several advent traditions/customs.  Other than that, I can't think of any obvious way you'd notice a difference.  Maybe in the crosses we hang on our walls.  Catholics will have crucifix, with Jesus on it.  Protestants, I think, are more likely to have a plain cross.