Easter Holidays

[Astraz]

Why is Easter held on different dates every year ?

[5029]

The date that easter falls on depends on the cycle of the moon. I'm sure someone else will elaborate soon

[darth vader]

It's a bizarre calculation involving a certain number of days after the first full moon of lent added to the number you first thought of...... see here for the (proper) calculation

http://www.assa.org.au/edm.html

[gilf]

Here is the rather strange calculation. "Easter Sunday is to be the first Sunday after the first full moon after the 21st of March. If this full moon falls on a Sunday, it is to be the following Sunday". I think the fact the the full moon can vary quite a bit over a year means this can seemingly shift by some distance between years.

[5029]

Also, easter sunday and good friday must always fall on a sunday and friday respectively. Therefore it would be impossible to hold it on the same day every year

[Hippy]

The calculation explained by Gilf was devised so as to keep it separate from the Jewish festival of Passover or Pesach.

Pesach begins on the 15th day of the Jewish month of Nissan, and as Jewish months are determined by the New Moon, Pesach starts on the evening of a Full moon. This is almost invariably the 1st after the Veranl Equinox and so the complicated Easter calculation prevents Easter from clashing with the first day of Pesach.

The Council of Nicaea in 325 a.d. established that Easter would be celebrated on Sundays; before that Easter was celebrated on different days in different places in the same year.

[Astraz]

Woooow! I really did not have any idea if the complexity of the question I asked !!! I was simply thinking along the lines of if somebody is born or dies on a particular date, then we celebrate the date (i.e birthday) and not the day in question. Thanks for all your answers, but why the easter eggs ?