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

Raymond Brown wrote:
> 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,
I've always felt that it gives it a nice bit of variety, so that in some
years the Epiphany Season is longer than in others.  But, then again,
I'm also a bit fond of irregularities in language and the like.  :-)
Perfect order is just so incredibly BORING.  :-)

> But the question I'm
> continually asked, is why can't the Sunday be fixed?
ObConculture, that's probably how the Terra Novans do it.  Living on
another world, it wouldn't make sense to try to fit it according to an
Earth calendar, altho theoretically the middle or outer moon could be
used.  However, they decided on second sunday in April.

> Who knows?  Stranger things have happened; 'never' is a word I'd use with
> caution - but I guess 2001 is out.
The proposal I'D read was that 2001 would be the first year in which an
astronomical basis would be used.  2001 being one of the relatively few
years in which both churches celebrate Easter on the same day.

> 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)
Same here.  I've only met a few people (mostly pastors) who knew about
the lunisolar basis.  And even there, they didn't realize that it was
merely calculated full moon rather than actual full moon.

--
"If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men
believe and adore, and preserve for many generations the remembrance of
the city of God!" - Ralph Waldo Emerson
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