Re: CHAT: Passover, Easter & Lunisolar calendars (was: CHAT: Passover _and_ CHAT: Jewish Calendar)

At 3:36 pm -0400 27/4/00, bjm10@CORNELL.EDU wrote:
>On Thu, 27 Apr 2000, Raymond Brown wrote:
>
>> To make things even more complicated, as Irina has pointed out, some
>> Orthodox now also follow the 'New Style' calendar & celebrate Easter on the
>> same date as their Catholic & Protestant brethren while others - I guess
>
>ONLY the Orthodox Church in Finland does this,
I wouldn't know.  The impression I got from Irina's mail, however, was that
even in Holland there were some Orthodox celebrating Easter according to
the New Style, but I may well have misunderstood her.

[....]
>
>> Indeed, in more recent times there has been a move in Christian circles to
>> abandon the lunisolar system and to adopt a fixed Easter.  As early as June
>
>Amend that to "a move in the more crackpot of Christian circles", please.
I do not really think it helpful to label either the Anglican Church (of
1928) or the 2nd Vatican Council as "the more crackpot of Christian
circles".

My own experience - admittedly, practically all among Protestant & Catholic
Christians - has been that most of the laity do not know how Easter is
calculated, find the present system whereby Easter may fall as early as
March 22nd or as late as April 25th (by Western reckoning) awkward &
confusing, and are somewhat surprised - when I explain - that a lunisolar
system is still being used.  They often point out to me that the
(conventional) date for celebrating Christ's birth is fixed, so why not his
death & resurrection?  I point out the age-long tradition of the Church(es)
of commemorating Christ's death on a Friday & his resurrection on Sunday
and I find no objection to perpetuating that.  But the question I'm
continually asked, is why can't the Sunday be fixed?

IME the vast majority of these people are ordinary folk, trying to live
reasonable Christian lives in this western neo-pagan society where Mammon,
Venus & Bacchus seem to be the most potent deities; I do not consider them
to be crackpots.  But then, I guess, in this consumerist, hedonistic &
materialist society both you & I are considered as crackpots   :)

>> 'Brithenig group' - and I seem to recall it being said that there had been
>> agreement between Rome, the World Council of Churches and the (main)
>> Orthodox Churches to fix Easter on the 2nd Sunday of April and that this
>> would be enacted in 2001, to mark the 1st year of the 3rd Christian
>
>NEVER!!!!
Who knows?  Stranger things have happened; 'never' is a word I'd use with
caution - but I guess 2001 is out.

[...]
>
>You need to check your sources.
I said as much.  Maybe it got mooted in the World Council of Churches only
and, like the Anglican move of 1928, got no further.

>What was mentioned was calculating Pascha according to the astronomical
>phenomena as observed from Jerusalem.
I know there was certainly a move by the Orthodox Churches to do this.  I'm
sure the Roman Church would be want to be party to this also if it were
agreed.

>That will probably not come to
>pass, mostly due to opposition on the part of the laity who only know "we
>aren't Romanists" and have no knowledge of the actual calculation methods.
<sigh> Aren't Church leaders there to _lead_?  Couldn't any leader worth
his salt put it across as the Orthodox reforming what Gregory XIII only
imperfectly tried to change and that the Romanists, realizing the error of
their ways, were now following the Orthodox?

Indeed, if the laity have no knowledge of the actual calculation methods
(and, as I wrote above, this has been my experience also with regard to the
western Churches), why should the laity even know there's a change to
oppose?

Ray.



=========================================
A mind which thinks at its own expense
will always interfere with language.
                   [J.G. Hamann 1760]
=========================================