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Originally Posted by Theodoric
Did you know that Easter is defined as the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after the Vernal Equinox? <snip>.
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...unless that day is a Sunday, in which case Easter Sunday will be the week following.
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Is this definite? They've been suggesting a fixed Easter date for years.
Actually, I don't think it would cause too much of a hassle. Good Friday has been a working day for years now, and I suppose anyone who takes his religion seriously enough to wish to follow the Stations of the Cross at church would simply take the Friday off.
However, a further question. Would Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday, not being civil holidays stay on the religious calendar; I'd guess, yes.
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'they' are presumably the Government. A fixed spring holiday date might well make sense but if introduced wouldn't affect the Church calendar. Easter would have to remain where it is, because the events leading up to the Crucifixion were associated with the Jewish Passover festival, and the date of that festival is determined according to a lunar calendar in the way you just described so ably! And if Easter remains a moveable feast, the other dates associated with it would too.
Xac - some of the 'new life' ideas now associated with Easter were indeed 'borrowed' by early Catholic missionaries to try to make their newfangled religion more palatable to the pagans (not a practice I would endorse myself), but just for once we didn't nick the date from said pagans. We nicked it from the Jews.
