www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Calendar-Easter

"If any Bishop, or Presbyter, or Deacon celebrate the holy day of Easter before the vernal equinox with the Jews, let him be deposed." -Apostolic Canons. Reminder, as a liturgist let me again point out that Passover is an eight day festival not one day. To quote an eminent Eastern Catholic theologian and liturgist, "it is liturgically bizarre to celebrate the Passover of the New Law when the Passover of the Old Law is yet to be completed." Nor does the Gregorian "Easter" computation meet the requirements for the computaton of Pascha as evinced by the teaching of St. John Chrysostom. The statement that: "it is part of the Nicene decision that the computus must not depend in any way on Jewish computations" is deceptive and misleading, as most patristic scholars would point out.

Again, the argumntative nature of ths thread is itself the problem. Standing loudly and pontificating on an "issue" merely because it is perceived as the pro-Roman position is exactly why the Holy Churches of God are in the predicament they are in.

Who is the "eminent Eastern Catholic theologian and liturgist," and what is the reference for his quoted words?

Again, please be specific -- a reference or link.

How so is it "deceptive and misleading"? Who are the "patristic scholars"?

Does any of this matter when you have been shown clearly wrong and your position rebuffed as divisive disinformation?

"Who is the "eminent Eastern Catholic theologian and liturgist," and what is the reference for his quoted words?"

Is Father Robert Taft SJ,eminent enough for you? Reference? Dinner conversation.

It does matter. As for " clearly wrong and your position rebuffed as divisive disinformation" see the link I provide below.



Father Robert's scholarship is rightly respected, and you have a direct quote from him from a "[d]inner conversation," As that quote stands, not knowing the complete context, he is quite misinformed. So in this instance he is, in fact, "eminent enough" for me, eminently wrong. As presented, he has a different prescription for Pascha than Nicaea.

About the "eight day festival not one day" and "liturgically bizarre to celebrate the Passover of the New Law when the Passover of the Old Law is yet to be completed" consider:Link=> No, Pascha does not have to be after Passover (and other Orthodox urban legends) [blogs.ancientfaith.com]

Another worthwhile discussion is
Link=> Some Common Misperceptions about the Date of Pascha/Easter [publicorthodoxy.org].

In contrast, here is an example of the problem, pontifications from those with authority who misinform with gusto.
Link=> Christian Pascha after the Hebrew Passover is an "Orthodox Urban Legend"? [oodegr.com].
He recites the words but apparently has not a clue of what they actually say. Others then take up such arguments, and the fiction becomes fact.

Well, if you see ALL the Patristic sources and the canonists as wrong where you know better, your arguments just boil down to you wanting to be right beyond the actuality of the historical, factual record. That is a singular reality. St. Vincent of Lerins or even Francis de Sales dealt with that unCatholic mythology. So your links can't undo clear, historical fact. They discredit themselves as unserious by trying to do so.

So what difference does any of your rejoinder make when primary sources and people contradict you, your hallowed, biased links and the earnestness you have placed into divisive calendar reform rhetoric and insincere polemics?

The point of all local churches celebrating the feasts on the same day was not astronomical correctness nor full moons nor the authority of one local church over another, but rather affirming the Catholic consciousness of the Church in liturgical unity with all times, places and faces. (Even on the science aspect of your polemic - despite the clearly irreconcilable canonical, liturgical and Patristic shortcomings of the calendar reform rhetoric - your position is problematic at best and more often than not disinformative.) The fact that partisans of your side resort to calling people who disagree with your radical positions "Old Calendarists" (even when they are members of officially New Calendar local churches) illustrates just how unbalanced calendar reform propaganda is.

Let's be frank - if this were an open forum where I could freely present information, I would have settled this argument for you a month ago. I have dealt with the disinformation you put forward in Orthodox circles and have always illustrated the shortsightedness of your side. Calendar reforms which promote disunity violate the spirit of Nicea which established a common calendar for all the churches so that a Catholic unity in worship and anemnesis would be observed universally by all people, of all places and all times. Surely, Fr. Taft has even underscored this point to a greater or lesser degree in his liturgical work.

Truth is, it doesn't matter that you are a calendar reform zealot ready to brand everyone who doesn't go along with you a schismatic making an ersatz cudgel out of science which is actually not as germane to this discussion as unity is. (Your use of science is not especially strong either.) Rome will decide for you. It would more than willingly embrace a common Paschalion with the Orthodox, return to the use of Prosphora instead of azymes or even omit the filioque universally with papal documents statements stating "through the Son" was the meaning all along: all the Orthodox must do is bend the knee, accept papal magisterium and the reformed spirit of Vatican II and validate the liberal rule of the Roman Catholic church. Rome would gladly exchange what it believes are "Orthodox cosmetics" for a final Lyons/Florence/Brest. It would even offer up its Eastern Catholic communities "and return them to their mother churches (read Moscow and Antioch) to rectify mistakes of the past." The problem is ecclesiologically, canonically and even theologically, the unionists in the Orthodox Church are a slim minority and thus such a scheme of a new paradigm of Greek Catholicism in Union with Rome has no chance of success. Rome knows this. So these rabbit holes are tossed out there as distractions as sly worded statements are put together by closed door, secretive commissions to try and sway as many as possible to increase the Orthodox minority supporting union and cast it as "reasonable." Those who espouse reunion by stressing the oneness of Faith in ecclesiological, theological, canonical teaching and liturgical temperance, however, are the not so silent majority which the liberals and conservatives in Rome can't fully reach: they need to be worked around.

So, honestly, Mr. Protopappas is correct that unity would be promoted between the Orthodox Catholic Church and the Roman Catholic church by the Vatican universally adopting the Orthodox Paschalion in place since Nicea. It would be a step in the right direction and a good idea. While insisting on disunity and upheaval in the Orthodox Church where Orthodox Catholics simply "submit" will only declare all the unionists' rhetoric of the last fifty years stillborn, another failed attempt at union. He rather adroitly addressed and rebutted your position as factually wrong, divisive and precisely a stumbling block to reconciliation. The fact you use the unmeasured rhetoric of epithets using perjoratives like "Old Calendarist" and "Orthodox mythology" to insist that the world is flat and Orthodox Catholics must accept that and submit precisely proves Mr. Protopappas' point of why the Vatican should return to the Paschalion used by the Orthodox Catholic Church.

Protopappas76,

Could you provide the actual number of the canon you referenced from the Apostolic Canons.


Thanks

I asked for a reference for the specific sources; don't know who they are so could not have said they're wrong. Still don't know.

I've written very favorably of St. Vincent, even in posts on this forum. Our mission has liturgy at a RC parish dedicated to St. Francis de Sales so I also have a bond with him.


The links are Orthodox sources, well-written, balanced and knowledgeable. I've not been shown any documented primary source that refutes the understanding and interpretation of Nicaea that I've presented. The polemics from me are quite sincere and contain well-documented facts.

Actually, patristic sources, Sts. Ambrose and Chrysostom specifically, were very keen on the moon. Astronomical correctness here does not necessarily entail a mathematically and physically accurate model, that is a calendar system, but just the correct observation of nature, the natural phenomena of sun and moon. It is the natural phenomena that constrain the calendar. The Julian calendar minions have it the other way, that the calendar trumps nature. It is a simple test, observation as shown for instance in the moon images provided in a recent post, that demonstrate the unacceptable and unwarranted departure of the Julian computus from reality.

My science is sound (credentials, experience and all that).

Isn't that what they are, "Old Calendarists"? I felt a response to your post was in order but shall limit it to this extent
.

You simply won't appreciate any answer which either shows you are factually wrong or actually off base. Such an attitude does not promote any reasonable understanding of any given topic. It only strengthens Mr. Protoppas' point that your emphasis is divisive, is founded on less than stellar argumentation, should be abandoned by the Vatican if Rome wants unity (or to at least to promote unity) with the Orthodox Catholic Church.

No, the point of a common Paschalion and liturgical calendar for the entire Church was to promote common anamnesis, liturgical unity throughout all times, places, amongst all the faithful: that is the liturgically Catholic witness of the Church. Appeals to astronomical computations or redacted lunar observances were always secondary to unity.

No, just because someone promotes radical and divisive calendar reform propaganda in the name of "science" or some official institution doesn't give that person the license to slur those who disagree with his divisive posturing. "Old Calendarist" has a very specific, derisive meaning with the implied meaning of schismatic: Old Calendarists have a set ecclesiology and propaganda which does not include everyone who regards calendar reform zealotry as unwarranted and a needless and divisive distraction (Actually most people who disagree with you either on the Old or New Calendar by over 90% would never be considered "Old Calendarists"). Using slurs only diminishes your position and underscores its divisive nature.

If it is still necessary to follow the prescription of Nicaea, this unity can only be achieved by accepting the Gregorian reform or an equivalent. Unity under the Julian computus is an abandonment of Nicaea's position.

They go together. If they did not, Quartodecimanism or a fixed Sunday celebration would be a solution.

The Gregorian reform used God-given knowledge to reform the calendar to conform to the Council of Nicaea's prescription to achieve unity.

In your head then but not in mine where Old Calendarist = one who follows the old calendar, the Julian Calendar.

For me this describes, in part, the Old Calendar Zealot who has put the Julian calendar above the Church and promotes it (the calendar) as a cause in itself.

The problem is your entire argument is "according to you" with its slurs, its own "facts," its canonical liberties and its entire "science". Blatently so when it ignores history, patristics, the holy canons, common sense principles of reconcilation to then insist on submission to you, epithets and ultimatums as your bonus. Then you redouble your demands feverishly using abusive, highly redacted, half baked "science" which does not at all support your point and even delegitimizes it in how it ignores the Church's Catholic consciousness and anemnesis. Thank you for illustrating just exactly what I have been talking about. Mr. Protoppas I am sure is happy you have reinforced his position by your divisive calendar reform zealotry and insistence on slurs and straw men.

So with that our conversation is over: you have made our point. There is nothing more to express. Be well.

If you want that unity and adherence to Nicaea then accept the Gregorian reform or the Aleppo proposal or equivalent. Of course we have a bone to pick; that's what we're doing here. Some of the bones are:

As already shown in previous posts (you have to read them and the links provided) there is no such requirement and the Julian computus itself violates the stated requirement. You Julian calendar folks are so adamant that you don't bother to simply check the actual facts where the Julian computus itself doesn't even meet the incorrect requirement intended to disqualify the."Roman calculation."

Because the Latins here are less diligent for the truth than the Orthodox are zealous in their insistence on following an erroneous calendar.

The required mathematical correctness here is the true servant of what the Council of Nicaea desired and mandated.

As a priest who taught Liturgy (including the "calendar issue" on the seminary and graduate level, I find that the toxix temper pf this supposed dialogue in some cases illustrates my point. Christian charoty and the unity of the Church of Christ is infinitely more important than mathematical and astronomical compuations. "Father that they may be one..." is not a simple statement, it is the essence of the Church. "One bread and one cup at one holy table" obviously by extension means one paschalion. As a priest who has served Christians predominently from the Holy Land, let me simply point out the scandal this kind of "useless calendar argumentation is" to the suffering people of the Middle East.
I am not promoting the Julian calendar, I am not promoting the Revised Julian calendar, nor am I attacking the Gregorian calendar. Rather, I am urging an end to the quibbling and endless argumentation that the Apostle Paul warns us against. Every time I stand at the Holy Table and serve the Divine Liturgy I am struck by the awesome reality that is our call that, through the all-encompassing power of the Holy Spirit, the nature of things changes. Bread and wine become the Body and Blood of the Living God and we ourselves are called to change. Pride of correctness give lie to the" humility which is te key t all the virtues."
The Church is not about calendars and popes, or even dogmatic formulation - as important as they might be - it is about the unity of one faith in the love of one God. Promoting this calendar or that calendar is not what we should be promoting from our own castle-like citadels (even those with their own telescopes and astronomical tables.) Rather we should be calling out and pleading to heaven together with the Christ who loves us: "Father that WE may be one..."

Eusebius of Caesarea, On the Celebration of Easter; De sollemnitate Paschali (2010)
Angelo Mai, Novae Patrum Bibliotheca 4 (1847), pp.209-216 (De sollemnitate paschali)

... 8. When, however, the emperor most beloved of God was presiding in the midst of the holy Synod,[38] and the question of the Pascha was brought forward, there was said all that was said. And three [fourths] of the bishops of the whole world had the advantage in numbers as they strove against those of the East: The peoples of the North, the South, and the Occident together, being fortified by their harmony, pulled in the opposite direction from those of the Orient, who were defending their ancient custom. But at the end of the discussion, the Orientals yielded, and thus there came to be a single festival of Christ—and thus they stood apart from the killers of the Lord, and were joined to those who hold the same doctrine.[39] For nature draws like to like. And if someone were to say that it is written, "On the first day of [the festival] of Unleavened Bread the disciples approached the Savior and said to him, 'Where do you want us to make preparations for you to eat the Pascha?'—and he sent them to such-and-such a man, bidding them to say, 'I am celebrating the Pascha at your house'"[40]—I will answer that this is not a command, but a historical account of an event that took place at the time of the Savior's passion. It is one thing to recount the ancient event, and quite another to make a law and to leave behind commands for posterity.
9. But furthermore, the Savior did notcelebrate the Pascha along with the Jews at the time of his passion. For when they were sacrificing the lamb, at that time he himself was conducting his own Pascha with his disciples. They [i.e., the Jews] were doing this[41] on the Preparation day on which the Savior suffered; for this reason, they did not enter the praetorium, but instead Pilate came out to them. But he [i.e., Jesus] a full day earlier, on the fifth day of the week, was reclining at table with his disciples, and as he ate with them he said, "I have very much desired to eat this Pascha with you."[42] Do you see how the Savior did not eat the Paschaalong with the Jews? Because this was a new custom, and one foreign to the customary Jewish ways, it was necessary for him to institute it by saying, "I have very much desired to eat this Pascha with you before I suffer." The one set of practices, being now ancient and indeed antiquated—the [Pascha] which he used to eat along with the Jews—was notdesirable; but the new mystery of his new covenant, which he imparted to his disciples, was desirable to him, quite rightly so. Since many prophets and righteous ones before him desired to see the mysteries of the new covenant, and since the Word himself, who thirsted at all times for the general salvation, was passing down a mystery by which all people would celebrate the festival, he professed that this was desirable to him. The Pascha of Moses was not suitable for all the nations of all time—of course not, when the Law had stipulated that it be celebrated in a single place, namely Jerusalem.[43] And so it was not desirable. But the Savior's mystery of the new covenant is suitable for all people, and so it was naturally desirable to him.

10. But he himself, before he suffered, ate the Pascha and celebrated the festival with his disciples, not with the Jews. But when had celebrated the festival at evening, the chief priests came upon him with the traitor and laid their hands on him; for they were not eating the Pascha [that] evening, otherwise they would not have busied themselves with him. And then, having seized him, they led him off to the house of Caiaphas, where, after spending the night, they gathered together and conducted the preliminary inquiry. Then, after that, they arose and led him, in company with the crowd, to Pilate; and at that point, the Scripture says that they did not enter the praetorium, so that they would not become defiled[44] (so they thought) by coming in under a pagan roof, and would eat the Paschaat evening with their purity intact—those most foul ones—who strained out a gnat but swallowed a camel;[45] those who had become defiled already in soul and body by their bloodthirstiness against the Savior feared to come in under [Pilate's] roof! They, on the one hand, on that very day of the passion, ate the Pascha that was injurious to their own souls, and asked for the Savior's blood—not on their own behalf, but to their own detriment; our Savior, on the other hand, not then, but the day before, reclined at table with his disciples and conducted the festival that was desirable to himself.

11. Do you see how from that time, he [i.e., Jesus] was separating himself from them and moving away from the Jews' bloodthirstiness, but was joining himself with his disciples, celebrating the desirable festival together with them? So then, we too ought to eat the Pascha with Christ, while purifying our minds from all leaven of evil and wickedness, and taking our fill of the unleavened bread of truth and sincerity, and having within ourselves, in our souls, the "Jew in secret"[46] and the true circumcision, and anointing the doorposts of our minds with the blood of the Lamb who was sacrificed for us, to ward off our destroyer. And we do this not only at a single time of the whole year, but every week. Let our "Preparation" be fasting,[47] the symbol of mourning, on behalf of our former sins, and for the sake of remembering the Savior's passion.

12. I assert that the Jews have gone astray from the truth, ever since they plotted against the Truth itself and drove away from themselves the Word of Life. And the Scriptures of the holy Gospels present this fact clearly. For they testify that the Lord ate the Pascha on the first day of Unleavened Bread; but they did not eat the Pascha that was customary for them on the day on which, as Luke says, "the Pascha had to be sacrificed,"[48] but instead on the following day, which was the second day of Unleavened Bread and the fifteenth day of the lunar month, on which, when our Savior was being judged by Pilate, they did not enter the praetorium—and consequently, they did not eat it on the first day of Unleavened Bread, on which it had to be sacrificed, in accordance with the Law. For in that case they themselves too would have been celebrating the Pascha along with the Savior; instead, they were blinded by their own wickedness from that very time, concurrently with their plot against the Savior, and they wandered from all truth. We, on the other hand, conduct the same mysteries [as Christ did] all through the year: On every day before the Sabbath we carry out a remembrance of the Savior's passion through a fast that the Apostles first engaged in at the time when the bridegroom had been taken away from them; and every Lord's day we are made alive by the consecrated body of the same Savior, and are sealed in our souls by his precious blood. ...



[38] I.e., Constantine at the Council of Nicaea.



http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/eusebius_on_easter.htm

1) If any bishop, or presbyter, or deacon celebrates the holy day of Easter before the vernal equinox with the Jews, let him be deposed.

(Canon 7, Council of Nicea, 325 A.D.)

2) Whosoever shall presume to set aside the decree of the holy and great Synod which was assembled at Nicea in the presence of the pious Emperor Constantine, beloved of God, concerning the holy and salutary feast of Easter; if they shall obstinately persist in opposing what was rightly ordained, let them be excommunicated and cast out of the Church; this is said concerning the laity. But if anyone of those who preside in the Church, whether he be bishop, presbyter or deacon, shall presume, after this decree, to exercise his own private judgment to the subversion of the people and to the disturbance of the churches, but observing Easter at the same time with the Jews, the holy Synod decrees that he shall thenceforth be an alien from the Church...

(Canon 1, Council of Antioch, 341 A.D.)

3) If any bishop, presbyter, or deacon shall celebrate the holy day of Easter before the vernal equinox with the Jews, let him be deposed.

(Seventh Apostolic Canon)