Why is Easter a floating holiday?
458523
easter lands on a different day each year because it's the 1st sunday after the 1st full moon after the first day of spring.  since a full moon doesn't occur the same day each year, easter sunday will be a floating hoilday
392547
it was a sunday, but I don't know if it was easter
921507
Many of the customs were borrowed from Pagan traditions.  It does not mean Xmas and Easter are pagan holidays.  Where did you get this stuff??\n\nYou can celebrate anything you want.  It's a free country.
311967
Easter is always on a Sunday, just like Thanksgiving is always on a Thursday.  So the dates will always be different year to year.
483132
The origin of this custom has been much disputed, and many theories have been suggested, e.g. that it is a farcical commemoration of Christ being sent from Annas to Caiaphas, from Caiaphas to Pilate, from Pilate to Herod, and from Herod back again to Pilate, the crucifixion having taken place about the 1st of April.\nWhat seems certain is that it is in some way or other a relic of those once universal festivities held at the vernal equinox, which, beginning on old New Year's day, the 25th of March, ended on the 1st of April.\nIt has been suggested that Europe derived its April-fooling from the French [2]. They were the first nation to adopt the reformed Gregorian calendar, Charles IX in 1564 decreeing that the year should begin with the 1st of January. Thus the New Year's gifts and visits of felicitation which had been the feature of the 1st of April became associated with the first day of January, and those who disliked or did not hear about the change were fair game for those wits who amused themselves by sending mock presents and paying calls of pretended ceremony on the 1st of April. However, it is unlikely that this explanation of April Fool's Day’s origin is correct. Well before 1582, when King Charles IX of France brought in the new Gregorian calendar, French and Dutch references from respectively 1508 and 1539 describe April Fool's Day jokes and the custom of making them on the first of April.\nThough the 1st of April appears to have been anciently observed in Great Britain as a general festival, it was apparently not until the beginning of the 18th century that the making of April-fools was a common custom. In Scotland the custom was known as "hunting the gowk," i.e. the cuckoo, and April-fools were "April-gowks," the cuckoo being there, as it is in most lands, a term of contempt. In France the person fooled is known as poisson d'avril. This has been explained from the association of ideas arising from the fact that in April the sun quits the zodiacal sign of the fish. A far more natural explanation would seem to be that the April fish would be a young fish and therefore easily caught.\nThe Dutch have their own reason. Back in 1572, the Netherlands were still ruled by Spain's King Phillip II. There were roaming Dutch rebels who called themselves Geuzen, after the French "gueux", meaning beggars. On April 1, 1572, they took a small coastal town called Den Briel. This event was also the start of the general civil rising against the Spanish in other cities in the Netherlands. General Alva of the Spanish army could not do much. Bril is the Dutch word for glasses, so on April 1, 1572, "Alva lost his glasses". Dutch people find this joke so hilarious they still commemorate the first of April.\nIn 1400, Chaucer refers to March 32 (April 1) in the Nun's Priest's Tale, Chanticleer and the Fox, which is a story of a rooster and a fox, both made fools of by their pride.
347222
nope. Easter is a religious holiday. The 1st Amendment prevents the State from recognizing one religion over another.
290282
Well, not always. There are only 35 different days on which Easter can fall, and people have been celebrating Easter on Sunday for more than 35 years, so there have been some duplicates.\n\nEaster falls on the Sunday following the first full moon on or after the Spring equinox. Since the Spring equinox usually falls on March 21, if there is a full moon on that day then and if it is a Saturday, Easter can be as early as March 22. Easter can also be as late as April 25.\n\nThis year, there was a full moon on March 14 (too early) and there will be one on April 13 (just right). Easter is the Sunday following, April 16.
473565
The Date of Easter\n\nbar\n\nEaster is an annual festival observed throughout the Christian world. The date for Easter shifts every year within the Gregorian Calendar. The Gregorian Calendar is the standard international calendar for civil use. In addition, it regulates the ceremonial cycle of the Roman Catholic and Protestant churches. The current Gregorian ecclesiastical rules that determine the date of Easter trace back to 325 CE at the First Council of Nicaea convened by the Roman Emperor Constantine. At that time the Roman world used the Julian Calendar (put in place by Julius Caesar).\n\nThe Council decided to keep Easter on a Sunday, the same Sunday throughout the world. To fix incontrovertibly the date for Easter, and to make it determinable indefinitely in advance, the Council constructed special tables to compute the date. These tables were revised in the following few centuries resulting eventually in the tables constructed by the 6th century Abbot of Scythia, Dionysis Exiguus. Nonetheless, different means of calculations continued in use throughout the Christian world.\n\nIn 1582 Gregory XIII (Pope of the Roman Catholic Church) completed a reconstruction of the Julian calendar and produced new Easter tables. One major difference between the Julian and Gregorian Calendar is the "leap year rule". See our FAQ on Calendars for a description of the difference. Universal adoption of this Gregorian calendar occurred slowly. By the 1700's, though, most of western Europe had adopted the Gregorian Calendar. The Eastern Christian churches still determine the Easter dates using the older Julian Calendar method.\n\nThe usual statement, that Easter Day is the first Sunday after the full moon that occurs next after the vernal equinox, is not a precise statement of the actual ecclesiastical rules. The full moon involved is not the astronomical Full Moon but an ecclesiastical moon (determined from tables) that keeps, more or less, in step with the astronomical Moon.\n\nThe ecclesiastical rules are:\n\n    * Easter falls on the first Sunday following the first ecclesiastical full moon that occurs on or after the day of the vernal equinox;\n    * this particular ecclesiastical full moon is the 14th day of a tabular lunation (new moon); and\n    * the vernal equinox is fixed as March 21. \n\nresulting in that Easter can never occur before March 22 or later than April 25. The Gregorian dates for the ecclesiastical full moon come from the Gregorian tables. Therefore, the civil date of Easter depends upon which tables - Gregorian or pre-Gregorian - are used. The western (Roman Catholic and Protestant) Christian churches use the Gregorian tables; many eastern (Orthodox) Christian churches use the older tables based on the Julian Calendar.\n\nIn a congress held in 1923, the eastern churches adopted a modified Gregorian Calendar and decided to set the date of Easter according to the astronomical Full Moon for the meridian of Jerusalem. However, a variety of practices remain among the eastern churches.\n\nThere are three major differences between the ecclesiastical system and the astronomical system.\n\n    * The times of the ecclesiastical full moons are not necessarily identical to the times of astronomical Full Moons. The ecclesiastical tables did not account for the full complexity of the lunar motion.\n    * The vernal equinox has a precise astronomical definition determined by the actual apparent motion of the Sun as seen from the Earth. It is the precise time at which the apparent ecliptic longitude of the Sun is zero. (Yes, the Sun's ecliptic longitude, not its declination, is used for the astronomical definition.) This precise time shifts within the civil calendar very slightly from year to year. In the ecclesiastical system the vernal equinox does not shift; it is fixed at March 21 regardless of the actual motion of the Sun.\n    * The date of Easter is a specific calendar date. Easter starts when that date starts
1090149
Easter will be on April 8 in 2007.
42327
I and my family do every Easter. We do it to suffer along with Jesus during lent. It brings us to understanding his sacrifice.
235203
The origin of this custom has been much disputed, and many theories have been suggested, e.g. that it is a farcical commemoration of Christ being sent from Annas to Caiaphas, from Caiaphas to Pilate, from Pilate to Herod, and from Herod back again to Pilate, the crucifixion having taken place about the 1st of April.\n\nWhat seems certain is that it is in some way or other a relic of those once universal festivities held at the vernal equinox, which, beginning on old New Year's day, the 25th of March, ended on the 1st of April. This view gains support from the fact that the exact counterpart of April-fooling is found to have been an immemorial custom in India. The festival of the spring equinox is there termed the feast of Holi, the last day of which is the 31st of March, upon which the chief amusement is the befooling of people by sending them on fruitless errands.\n\nIt has been plausibly suggested that Europe derived its April-fooling from the French [1]. They were the first nation to adopt the reformed Gregorian calendar, Charles IX in 1564 decreeing that the year should begin with the 1st of January. Thus the New Year's gifts and visits of felicitation which had been the feature of the 1st of April became associated with the first day of January, and those who disliked or did not hear about the change were fair butts for those wits who amused themselves by sending mock presents and paying calls of pretended ceremony on the 1st of April.\n\nHowever, it is unlikely that this explanation of April Fool's Day’s origin is correct. Well before 1582 when King Charles IX of France brought in the new Gregorian calendar, French and Dutch references from respectively 1508 and 1539 describe April Fool's Day jokes and the custom of making them on the first of April.\n\nThough the 1st of April appears to have been anciently observed in Great Britain as a general festival, it was apparently not until the beginning of the 18th century that the making of April-fools was a common custom. In Scotland the custom was known as "hunting the gowk," i.e. the cuckoo, and April-fools were "April-gowks," the cuckoo being there, as it is in most lands, a term of contempt. In France the person befooled is known as poisson d'avril. This has been explained from the association of ideas arising from the fact that in April the sun quits the zodiacal sign of the fish. A far more natural explanation would seem to be that the April fish would be a young fish and therefore easily caught.\n\nThe Dutch history book-version is this: In 1572 The Netherlands were still ruled by the Spanish king Phillip II, son of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor. Because the Dutch did not comply with this, they fought back. There was this band of roaming so-called freedom fighters, what we'd now call terrorists, calling themselves Geuzen, after the french geux which means beggars. They were sailing around the Northsea looking for Spanish ships to sink and after a while they got tired and needed some rest, but having no Dutch port to land in, they figured they'd capture one. So on April 1, 1572, they took this little coastal town called Den Briel. This event was also the start of the general civil rising against the Spanish in other cities in The Netherlands. This general phillip had send up called Alva was very upset and all but he couldn't do much. Bril is the Dutch word for glasses, so on April 1, 1572, Alva lost his glasses. Dutch people find this joke so hilarious they still commemorate April the first.
273685
Easter is an annual festival observed throughout the Christian world. The date for Easter shifts every year within the Gregorian Calendar. The Gregorian Calendar is the standard international calendar for civil use. In addition, it regulates the ceremonial cycle of the Roman Catholic and Protestant churches. The current Gregorian ecclesiastical rules that determine the date of Easter trace back to 325 CE at the First Council of Nicaea convened by the Roman Emperor Constantine. At that time the Roman world used the Julian Calendar (put in place by Julius Caesar). \n\nThe Council decided to keep Easter on a Sunday, the same Sunday throughout the world. To fix incontrovertibly the date for Easter, and to make it determinable indefinitely in advance, the Council constructed special tables to compute the date. These tables were revised in the following few centuries resulting eventually in the tables constructed by the 6th century Abbot of Scythia, Dionysis Exiguus. Nonetheless, different means of calculations continued in use throughout the Christian world. \n\nIn 1582 Gregory XIII (Pope of the Roman Catholic Church) completed a reconstruction of the Julian calendar and produced new Easter tables. One major difference between the Julian and Gregorian Calendar is the "leap year rule". See our FAQ on Calendars for a description of the difference. Universal adoption of this Gregorian calendar occurred slowly. By the 1700's, though, most of western Europe had adopted the Gregorian Calendar. The Eastern Christian churches still determine the Easter dates using the older Julian Calendar method. \n\nThe usual statement, that Easter Day is the first Sunday after the full moon that occurs next after the vernal equinox, is not a precise statement of the actual ecclesiastical rules. The full moon involved is not the astronomical Full Moon but an ecclesiastical moon (determined from tables) that keeps, more or less, in step with the astronomical Moon. \n\nThe ecclesiastical rules are: \n\nEaster falls on the first Sunday following the first ecclesiastical full moon that occurs on or after the day of the vernal equinox; \nthis particular ecclesiastical full moon is the 14th day of a tabular lunation (new moon); and \nthe vernal equinox is fixed as March 21. \nresulting in that Easter can never occur before March 22 or later than April 25. The Gregorian dates for the ecclesiastical full moon come from the Gregorian tables. Therefore, the civil date of Easter depends upon which tables - Gregorian or pre-Gregorian - are used. The western (Roman Catholic and Protestant) Christian churches use the Gregorian tables; many eastern (Orthodox) Christian churches use the older tables based on the Julian Calendar. \nIn a congress held in 1923, the eastern churches adopted a modified Gregorian Calendar and decided to set the date of Easter according to the astronomical Full Moon for the meridian of Jerusalem. However, a variety of practices remain among the eastern churches. \n\nThere are three major differences between the ecclesiastical system and the astronomical system. \n\nThe times of the ecclesiastical full moons are not necessarily identical to the times of astronomical Full Moons. The ecclesiastical tables did not account for the full complexity of the lunar motion. \nThe vernal equinox has a precise astronomical definition determined by the actual apparent motion of the Sun as seen from the Earth. It is the precise time at which the apparent ecliptic longitude of the Sun is zero. (Yes, the Sun's ecliptic longitude, not its declination, is used for the astronomical definition.) This precise time shifts within the civil calendar very slightly from year to year. In the ecclesiastical system the vernal equinox does not shift; it is fixed at March 21 regardless of the actual motion of the Sun. \nThe date of Easter is a specific calendar date. Easter starts when that date starts for your local time zone. The vernal equinox occurs at a
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!
785500
Never, of course. They are two completely separate dates and thus they can not by definition ever fall on the same day of the year, silly. (When was the last time Christmas and Easter fell on the same day of the year? Did you wake up and hunt Easter eggs while at the same time you were opening your presents from Santa?)
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.
226716
Easter falls on the first Sunday subsequent to the first full moon after the vernal equinox (March 21). Thus, it can occur as early as March 22 and as late as April 25. (If the full moon after the equinox falls on Sunday, Easter follows a week later.)\n\nOriginally Easter was celebrated on the same day as the Jewish Passover. Since the Jewish calendar is lunar, Passover can fall on any day of the week, and some Church fathers were distressed that the Lenten fast should end on any day other than a Sunday. They argued about it until the 8th century, when the church officially adopted the procedure we have now.
306254
Easter has nothing to do with Jesus christ. It was made up by false religions. It's a lie.\n\n\nEaster was “originally the spring festival in honor of the Teutonic goddess of light and spring known in Anglo-Saxon as Eastre.” (The Westminster Dictionary of the Bible) “There is no indication of the observance of the Easter festival in the New Testament.”