Today we will try to follow the story of Pascha, the Passover and Easter feasts, which will help to explain why the Christian Orthodox Church celebrates Easter differently than the rest of the Christianity.
During the first centuries of Christianity, the Resurrection of Jesus Christ was celebrated on different dates in various parts of the world. An universal date for celebrating Easter was agreed on by the Holy Fathers of the First Ecumenical Council, which took place in 325 AD and was led by the Roman Emperor Constantine.
Pascha was set to be celebrated on the first Sunday, after the first full moon, following the Vernal Equinox (the date of the Spring Equinox is set to be March 21 on the Gregorian and April 3 on the Julian Calendar), but always after the Jewish Passover.
The Christian world accepted the formula and kept celebrating the Resurrection of Christ at the same time in the following over 12 centuries. The East–West Schism, also known as the Great Schism of 1054, when the Catholic and Orthodox Churches split from each other, did not result in the split of Easter dates. But the Gregorian calendar, which was introduced in 1582, did the job.
The Orthodox Church continued to strictly follow the Council of Nicaea’s ruling, along with the Julian calendar and to calculate the date of Pascha 13 days behind the rest of Christianity. While the West Christianity went on ignoring the First Council’s requirement to place the Easter dates after the Jewish Passover and as a consequence of those two factors, today both Churches calculate Pascha differently, with some years still seeing the Catholic and Orthodox Christian Easter dates matching.
The word pascha, itself, was borrowed from the Christian Church when it transformed the Jewish Passover, which commemorates the freeing of the Hebrew people by God from slavery in Egypt and their freedom as a nation under the leadership of Moses into a feast which commemorates the resurrection of Christ which freed humanity from the bondage of death, sin and evil.
Pascha – origin
The word pascha entered the English language circa 12th century, as naturally the Middle English term for ‘Easter’ from the Old French paschal which derived from the Old Greek pascha (passover) from the Aramic pasha and the corresponding Hebrew pesah.
Some linguist scholars link the roots of the word to the Egyptian “pa-sh” (remembrance), and others to the Biblical pesaḥ ‘to perform a ritual dance around a sacrifice.’
To summarise, Easter is the English word which is used today to translate the Greek term Pascha, which translates the Hebrew Passover.
There is no trace of Easter celebration in the New Testament, but the belief that Christ is the New Pascha for believers in Him, and that this is to be celebrated by Christians.
The word pascha was firstly recorded in use in a British source in the Enchiridion, a manual of the Benedictine monk and scholar Byrhtferth, circa late 10 century: “Pesach is a Hebrew noun and it means “over-going”
The first record clearly identifies the origin and the meaning of our word.
