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→Passover and Easter: The current traditional calculating of the Christian Easter Sunday
The dispute continued until the Council of Nicea in 325 AD, ordered by the (pagan) Emperor Constantine to resolve various controversies that existed in the Church – including whether the Passover or Easter should be celebrated. In his order from the Council of Nicea he said:<blockquote>''Constantine, August, to the churches… When the question arose concerning the most holy day of Easter, it was decreed by common consent to be expedient, that this festival should be celebrated on the same day by all, in every place... it seemed to every one a most unworthy thing that we should follow the custom of the Jews in the celebration of this most holy solemnity, who, polluted wretches having stained their hands with a nefarious crime, are justly blinded in their minds. It is fit, therefore, that, rejecting the practice of this people, we should perpetuate to all future ages the celebration of this rite, in a more legitimate order, which we have kept from the first day of the Lord’s passion even to the present times. Let us then have nothing in common with the most hostile rabble of the Jews.''<ref>Boyle, Isaac "A Historical View of The Council of Nicea" (T Mason and G Lane, New York; 1839)</ref></blockquote>
The dispute continued until the Council of Nicea in 325 AD, ordered by the (pagan) Emperor Constantine to resolve various controversies that existed in the Church – including whether the Passover or Easter should be celebrated. In his order from the Council of Nicea he said:<blockquote>''Constantine, August, to the churches… When the question arose concerning the most holy day of Easter, it was decreed by common consent to be expedient, that this festival should be celebrated on the same day by all, in every place... it seemed to every one a most unworthy thing that we should follow the custom of the Jews in the celebration of this most holy solemnity, who, polluted wretches having stained their hands with a nefarious crime, are justly blinded in their minds. It is fit, therefore, that, rejecting the practice of this people, we should perpetuate to all future ages the celebration of this rite, in a more legitimate order, which we have kept from the first day of the Lord’s passion even to the present times. Let us then have nothing in common with the most hostile rabble of the Jews.''<ref>Boyle, Isaac "A Historical View of The Council of Nicea" (T Mason and G Lane, New York; 1839)</ref></blockquote>
==The first Sunday after the first Full Moon after the Spring Equinox==
The [[Orthodox Church]]es, the [[Catholic Church]], and the majority of the [[Protestantism|Protestant]] churches observe the Feast of the Resurrection, commonly called Easter Sunday, on the First Sunday after the first Full Moon on or after the Spring Equinox (the Vernal Equinox). This [[Equinox]] corresponds to the immediate point from which the first day of Nisan in the lunar calendar of Judaism is calculated. The first sighting of the first New Moon on or after the Vernal Equinox is the first day of Nisan. The first Full Moon follows fourteen days later, fourteen Nisan.
Because the [[Resurrection|Resurrection of Jesus]] occurred at dawn on the First Day of the week, '''Sunday''' (Matthew 28:1-7; Mark 16:2-6; Luke 24:1-5; John 20:1-9; Malachi 4:2), observance of the celebration of the Lord's Resurrection on Sunday, rather than on any other day of the week, and of the immediately preceding Friday as Good Friday in commemoration of his Crucifixion and entombment as the Sacrifice of Atonement for the sins of the world, became the norm as determined by the [[Ecumenical council]] of bishops and legislated by Emperor Constantine as the norm of Christian communion of faith and unity of common ecclesiastical practice throughout the Empire.
The Orthodox Churches retained the celebration of the Resurrection according to the dating of the [[Julian calendar]] authorized by Julius Caesar; the Catholic Church according to the [[Gregorian calendar]] authorized by Pope Gregory, which is the standard calendar used throughout most of the inhabited world to the present day. A minority of Christian [[sect]]s quietly hold to the calculation of the 14th day after the first New Moon on or after the Vernal Equinox in harmony with the Jewish observance of Passover, some of them including as an integral part of the celebration the eating together of the traditional foods of Passover as recorded in Exodus 20:8-9.
The date of the observance of the Resurrection varies yearly in accordance with the timing of the first Full Moon on or immediately after the Equinox, and for this reason the observance is not fixed in the civil calendar annually as one particular date or Sunday of any one particular month of the year.
==The Christian Passover in the present day==
==The Christian Passover in the present day==