 |
| Author | Post |
|---|
CajunRick
Network Helper
| Joined: | Fri Sep 29th, 2006 |
| Location: | Houma, Louisiana USA |
| Posts: | 4981 |
| First Name: | Rick (& Kermie) | | Gender: | Male | | Faith History: | Lifetime Catholic, Latin Rite |
| Status: |
Offline
|
|
Posted: Tue Apr 3rd, 2007 01:27 am |
|
SYROS, Greece, APRIL 2, 2007 (Zenit.org).- It is a motive of great joy for many Christians that the Catholic and Orthodox Churches will celebrate Easter on the same day this year, says Bishop Franghiskos Papamanolis.
The Catholic Church, following the Gregorian calendar, normally celebrates Easter earlier than the Orthodox Church, which follows the Julian calendar. This year the two coincide with the celebration of Easter on April 8.
Bishop Papamanolis, president of the Greek Catholic episcopal conference, told ZENIT that the Catholic community in the country normally celebrates Easter on the same day as the Orthodox Church.
He said: "To celebrate Easter on different days creates social problems, and for us, it also creates pastoral problems.
"For us it is a suffering to celebrate Easter on a different day than Rome."
"The suffering is even greater," the bishop added, "when we can't celebrate Easter together in Greece, as there are many mixed families."
Bishop Papamanolis of Syros and Milos said that the ideal "would be to arrive to an agreement so that all Christians could celebrate Easter together."
Next year, he added, "the Catholic universal Church will celebrate Easter on March 23, while the Orthodox Church -- along with us Catholic Greeks -- will do so on April 27."
The Council of Nicaea established that the day of Easter should fall on the first Sunday after the first full moon following the vernal equinox. The difference of dates for the Catholic and Orthodox Churches is due to fact that they follow different calendars.
The next time Easter coincides for the two Churches will be April 4, 2010.
The above article is reposted from Zenit.
Note that in 2008, Catholics in western countries (including the United States) will be celebrating Easter at around the same time Orthodox and Catholics in Greece (and other majority Orthodox countries) will be beginning their season of Great Lent.
The Gregorian calendar used in the West was imposed by Pope Saint Gregory the Great, and was never adopted in the East, where the Julian calendar of Julius Caesar is still in effect, accounting for the five week difference in the dates of Easter in 2008.
Under Church law, Catholics accept the date of Easter established by the Christian majority in countries where they are in the minority, so Eastern Catholics in the United States and other western countries use the date established under the Gregorian calendar, while Catholics in countries with an Orthodox majority use the Julian date, a further indication that the Catholic mass is not the same everywhere in the world on any given day.
____________________
Understanding is the reward of faith. Therefore seek not to understand that you may believe, but believe that you may understand. - Augustine
Rick Luquette
Luquette Lane
|
|
|
Darlene
Member
| Joined: | Mon Oct 9th, 2006 |
| Location: | Pocono Mountains, Pennsylvania USA |
| Posts: | 877 |
| First Name: | Darlene | | Gender: | Female | | Faith History: | Christian, trusting His love and forgiveness |
| Status: |
Offline
|
|
Posted: Wed Apr 4th, 2007 01:01 am |
|
Since calendars are made in advance, how do those who make them know when "the first full moon following the vernal equinox" will be? Do scientists/astonomers have instruments or telescopes from which they are able to predict this occurance?
And in the early centuries immediately after our Lord's resurrection, how did people ascertain when "the first full moon following the vernal equinox" would occur? They did not have the advances in science which we have, although cultures have been studying the heavens since antiquity.
Darlene
____________________
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. II Corinthians 13:14
|
|
|
CajunRick
Network Helper
| Joined: | Fri Sep 29th, 2006 |
| Location: | Houma, Louisiana USA |
| Posts: | 4981 |
| First Name: | Rick (& Kermie) | | Gender: | Male | | Faith History: | Lifetime Catholic, Latin Rite |
| Status: |
Offline
|
|
Posted: Wed Apr 4th, 2007 09:02 am |
|
Darlene wrote: Since calendars are made in advance, how do those who make them know when "the first full moon following the vernal equinox" will be? Do scientists/astonomers have instruments or telescopes from which they are able to predict this occurance?
Yes, scientists know the precise motion of the moon, and so can predict its orbit centuries in advance.
And in the early centuries immediately after our Lord's resurrection, how did people ascertain when "the first full moon following the vernal equinox" would occur? They did not have the advances in science which we have, although cultures have been studying the heavens since antiquity.
The date of Passover is specified according to the Jewish calendar (Ex 12). When we change calendars, however, conversions are necessary. The early Church refused to use the Jewish calendar, and so they set their own date. Catholics in the west and the Orthodox in the east still use different calendars, so sometimes the dates coincide and sometimes they don't.
____________________
Understanding is the reward of faith. Therefore seek not to understand that you may believe, but believe that you may understand. - Augustine
Rick Luquette
Luquette Lane
|
|
|
Current time is 10:41 am | |
|
|
|
|
|
