(Why is there such concern over a common heterodox date but NO concern over instilling in the heterodox ONENESS OF FAITH?! ecumenism. --R)
http://monachos.net/great_lent/holy_week_services.shtml
...THE DATE OF PASCHA
There is among the Orthodox a very widespread belief that the Christian celebration of Easter must necessarily come after the Jewish Passover. This chronological order is considered imperative and bears a symbolic meaning, as it is believed to have been decreed by the First Ecumenical Council held at Nicea in 325. This belief is stated and reaffirmed in the 12th century by the Byzantine canonist Zonaras. Another famous canonist of the later Middle Ages, Matthew Blastaris, in summing up the opinions of his time on the Paschal question, included among the rules for determining the date of Easter that it must not coincide with the Jewish Passover. We find this also in the writing of the learned canonist of the present century, Nicodemus Milash.
Yet, not only is such a stipulation totally absent from the decision taken on the Paschal question at Nicea, but it is foreign and, in a sense, contrary to what was then decreed. How, then, has such an opinion taken shape through the centuries?
In the primitive Church, there was no need for computing the date of Easter independently of that of the synagogue, by which the Passover was determined. The controversy that brought, toward the end of the second century, the Churches of Asia Minor and the Church of Rome into opposition did not concern this point. The matter in dispute was quite different: the Asians celebrated Easter on the 14th of the month Nisan, whatever the day of the week, while the other Christians waited until the following Sunday. But both parties based their Easter date on the Jewish computation of the Passover. This computation was questioned, however, soon after the Jews changed their mode of calculating their Passover, no longer taking the vernal equinox into account.
The Bible did, indeed, specify the time the Passover should be celebrated, but it made no express reference to the vernal equinox. However, since the prescribed offering consisted of the first fruits of the harvest, a celebration prior to that time would have been inconceivable. But this empirical criterion, relative as it is to the climate conditions of that area, could hardly be preserved once the Jews lost their geographical proximity to Palestine as a result of the Roman crushing of the Bar-Bakhba revolt (approximately 135 AD). A period of uncertainty followed, and then towards the end of the second century, the rabbis established a new system which disregarded the vernal equinox. With the new system, at least once every three years the Passover fell before the equinox.
Then, many Christians wondered why they should celebrate the commemoration of the Passion and Resurrection on the basis of a computation which was no longer the one used at the time of our Lord. Thus, as early as the third century, the Christians began to devise their own calculations of the Easter date. A learned Alexandrian, Anatolius (later bishop of Laodicea in Syria), used for his Easter computation the nineteen-year cycle invented in 432 BC by the Athenian astronomer Meton. However, most Churches in the region of Antioch continued to follow the computation of the synagogue in spite of the fact that the latter no longer took the equinox into account. This on occasion caused considerable differences in the date of Easter between the Antiochian churches and others; in contrast, variations among the latter were neither frequent nor notable.
These differences promoted the question of the date of Easter before the First General Council at Nicea. This venerable assembly did take a decision on this issue. But though there have been references to a decree, there does not seem to have been issued a written text of it. Thus, the document to which reference is often made is in fact a compilation of a number of authentic data. According to this kind of evidence, we are able to reconstruct the decision of the first General Council on the question of Easter follows:
Easter must necessarily be celebrated on the same Sunday by all churches.
This Sunday must be the first after the full moon following the vernal equinox.
The Churches that follow the Jewish calculation must abandon it and conform with the general usage.
However, there was some resistance to that decision which necessitated new injunctions: the First Canon of the Council of Antioch (around 330 AD), and the Seventh Apostolic Canon (second half of the fourth century). These canons condemned those who celebrated Easter ‘with the Jews.’ This did not mean, however, that the dissidents were celebrating Easter on the same day as the Jews; rather, that they were celebrating on a date calculated according to the synagogal computations.
There is clear evidence that it was not a chance coincidence to which the canons referred. Especially, since, on account of the ever-increasing time delay brought about by the inaccuracies of the Jewish calendar, any chance of coincidence between the Christian Easter and the Jewish Passover disappeared.
As a result, the real cause that had prompted the decision of the First Ecumenical Council came to be forgotten. The belief gradually grew that the phrase ‘with the Jews’ was to be understood literally, and that the Holy Fathers at Nicea had decreed that the Christian Easter must not, even accidentally, occur on the same day as the Passover; rather, it must be celebrated later. As a matter of fact, however, such an interpretation was not only inaccurate but contrary to the spirit of what was decreed at Nicea, considering that acceptance of this interpretation necessitates a chronological relationship between the Christian Easter and the Jewish Passover, the very undesirable connection the Great Council sought to abolish.
Archbishop Peter of New York and New Jersey
The Orthodox Church Newspaper, April-May 1994
FROM Eusebius:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quartodecimanism
... Eusebius' Life of Constantine, Book 3 chapter 18 records Constantine the Great as writing: "... it appeared an unworthy thing that in the celebration of this most holy feast we should follow the practice of the Jews, who have impiously defiled their hands with enormous sin, and are, therefore, deservedly afflicted with blindness of soul. ... Let us then have nothing in common with the detestable Jewish crowd; for we have received from our Saviour a different way."...
...Theodoret's Ecclesiastical History 1.9 records The Epistle of the Emperor Constantine, concerning the matters transacted at the Council, addressed to those Bishops who were not present: "It was, in the first place, declared improper to follow the custom of the Jews in the celebration of this holy festival, because, their hands having been stained with crime, the minds of these wretched men are necessarily blinded. ... Let us, then, have nothing in common with the Jews, who are our adversaries. ... avoiding all contact with that evil way. ... who, after having compassed the death of the Lord, being out of their minds, are guided not by sound reason, but by an unrestrained passion, wherever their innate madness carries them. ... a people so utterly depraved. ... Therefore, this irregularity must be corrected, in order that we may no more have any thing in common with those parricides and the murderers of our Lord. ... no single point in common with the perjury of the Jews."
Philip Schaff's History of the Christian Church, volume 3, section 79, The Time of the Easter Festival states: "The feast of the resurrection was thenceforth required to be celebrated everywhere on a Sunday, and never on the day of the Jewish passover, but always after the fourteenth of Nisan, on the Sunday after the first vernal full moon. The leading motive for this regulation was opposition to Judaism, which had dishonored the passover by the crucifixion of the Lord. ... At Nicaea, therefore, the Roman and Alexandrian usage with respect to Easter triumphed, and the Judaizing practice of the Quartodecimanians, who always celebrated Easter on the fourteenth of Nisan, became thenceforth a heresy. Yet that practice continued in many parts of the East, and in the time of Epiphanius, about a.d. 400, there were many, Quartodecimanians, who, as he says, were orthodox, indeed, in doctrine, but in ritual were addicted to Jewish fables, and built upon the principle: “Cursed is every one who does not keep his passover on the fourteenth of Nisan.” <footnote: Exodus 12:15...
THEREFORE, THE HOLY CANONS PRONOUNCE THE FOLLOWING:
http://www.orthodoxinfo.com/ecumenism/ecum_canons.aspx
On the Date for Celebrating Pascha
Canon VII of the Holy Apostles
If any Bishop, or Presbyter, or Deacon celebrate the holy day of Easter before the vernal equinox with the Jews, let him be deposed.
Canon I of Antioch
As for all persons who dare to violate the definition of the holy and great Synod convened in Nicaea in the presence of Eusebeia, the consort of the most God-beloved Emperor Constantine, concerning the holy festival of the soterial Pascha, we decree that they be excluded from Communion and be outcasts from the Church if they persist more captiously in objecting to the decisions that have been made as most fitting in regard thereto; and let these things be said with reference to laymen. But if any of the person occupying prominent positions in the Church, such as a Bishop, or a Presbyter, or a Deacon, after the adoption of this definition, should dare to insist upon having his own way, to the perversion of the laity, and to the disturbance of the church, and upon celebrating Pascha along with the Jews, the holy Synod has hence judged that person to be an alien to the Church, on the ground that he has not only become guilty of sin by himself, but has also been the cause of corruption and perversion among the multitude. Accordingly, it not only deposes such persons from the liturgy, but also those who dare to commune with them after their deposition. Moreover, those who have been deposed are to be deprived of the external honor too of which the holy Canon and God's priesthood have partaken.
Further Reading:
http://orthodoxinfo.com/ecumenism/firecsyn.pdf
As to the topic at hand, what is there to get all in a twist about? Constantine tried to settle the issue by basically suggesting that the entire Church adopt the custom already in practice in Alexandria, Rome, and elsewhere. Most of the Churches agreed. Some places (e.g., England) weren't with the program 100%, but eventually pretty much everyone conformed to the standard. At some later point some Churches changed their mind. So what? The First Ecumenical Council also says that Bishops aren't to go from city to city. That canon wasn't followed. Another canon said not to go to Jewish doctors. That canon isn't followed. A Russian canon says that lay people are not to correct priests, even if they lay people are right. The internet is filled with people who don't follow that canon. I've heard that the Greeks have a canon about publically publishing accusations rather than going through the proper channels. The internet (and real life) is filled with people who don't care. The Scripture says to pick clergy who can handle their family and are pious and not neophytes. Many jurisdictions (especially "traditionalist" ones) don't follow this one very well. St. Ignatius said to look on the bishop (and Deacons!) as you would on Christ. Yeah right, who does that? The Scripture says to correct gently. I know a person (who happens to post on this thread) that I have never seen correct someone gently (or even in a civil manner) 