Why does the month of Easter fluctuate?
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Easter is based in part on the Hebrew calendar, which uses the lunar cycle, rather than the solar cycle used in the West.  Therefore, the date of Easter will fluctuate throughout the solar year, similar to the way the Chinese new year does, which is also based on a lunar calendar.
238896
The months are lunar (based on the moon) and a year is solar (based on the sun). The numbers are dependent on the revolution of the earth around the sun and the moon around the earth. \n\nIf you are referring to the fluctuating number of days in a month, the Romans did this in order to get the lunar and solar calendars to match. \n\nThe more intriguing question is: who thought up the weekly cycle?
211622
because they do - directly and indirectly.\nEaster Eggs:\nAccording to the ancient tradition of the Eastern Orthodox Church , Mary Magdalene was a wealthy woman from whom Christ expelled seven "demons." On Easter morning she was the first to bear witness to his resurrection. She is called "Equal to the Apostles." The Eastern tradition tells us that after the Ascension she journeyed to Rome where she was admitted to the court of Tiberius Caesar because of her high social standing. After describing how poorly Pilate had administered justice at Jesus' trial, she told Caesar that Jesus had risen from the dead. To help explain his resurrection she picked up an egg from the dinner table. Caesar responded that a human being could no more rise from the dead than the egg in her hand turn red. The egg turned red immediately, which is why red eggs have been exchanged at Easter for centuries in the Byzantine East. \nEaster Bunny:\nThe day we celebrate as Easter was formerly a pagan holiday. The church decided to set the date for the resurrection of Jesus at the spring solstice, and then named it for a Celtic pagan feast day they wished to eradicate. It was named for Eostre, the goddess of the spring, and fertility. She was depicted with a white rabbit (the Easter Bunny).
785500
Never, of course. They are two completely separate dates and thus they can not by definition ever fall on the same day of the year, silly. (When was the last time Christmas and Easter fell on the same day of the year? Did you wake up and hunt Easter eggs while at the same time you were opening your presents from Santa?)
301096
In the Western churches, the date of Easter is set (more or less) as the first Sunday after the first full moon that occurs next after the vernal equinox.  The vernal equinox, of course, is the event that begins spring, on or around March 21 each year.\n\nI say "more or less" because there are some other minor considerations for which church officials over the centuries have actually spent a great deal of time and effort in drawing up rules, tables, pronouncements, etc.  For most years, however, the above statement is the rule.
435006
"Easter" is the "goddess of fetility", she represents the new life that springs up in the springtime.  Eggs and rabbits are pretty much the ultimate symbols of fertility or birth and life.  Why do we hide them? so others can find them - it's a game.   When the pagan leaders converted to christianity, they kept their old holidays and rituals and skewed them to represent their new god.  Thus, the "new time of birth" was called a "resurrection" and the "returning of the sun" (the spring equinox) became known as 'the return of the son'.  The roots are the same though - representing a rebirth in the time of spring - thus the eggs (rebirth and fertility).
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The Date of Easter\n\nbar\n\nEaster is an annual festival observed throughout the Christian world. The date for Easter shifts every year within the Gregorian Calendar. The Gregorian Calendar is the standard international calendar for civil use. In addition, it regulates the ceremonial cycle of the Roman Catholic and Protestant churches. The current Gregorian ecclesiastical rules that determine the date of Easter trace back to 325 CE at the First Council of Nicaea convened by the Roman Emperor Constantine. At that time the Roman world used the Julian Calendar (put in place by Julius Caesar).\n\nThe Council decided to keep Easter on a Sunday, the same Sunday throughout the world. To fix incontrovertibly the date for Easter, and to make it determinable indefinitely in advance, the Council constructed special tables to compute the date. These tables were revised in the following few centuries resulting eventually in the tables constructed by the 6th century Abbot of Scythia, Dionysis Exiguus. Nonetheless, different means of calculations continued in use throughout the Christian world.\n\nIn 1582 Gregory XIII (Pope of the Roman Catholic Church) completed a reconstruction of the Julian calendar and produced new Easter tables. One major difference between the Julian and Gregorian Calendar is the "leap year rule". See our FAQ on Calendars for a description of the difference. Universal adoption of this Gregorian calendar occurred slowly. By the 1700's, though, most of western Europe had adopted the Gregorian Calendar. The Eastern Christian churches still determine the Easter dates using the older Julian Calendar method.\n\nThe usual statement, that Easter Day is the first Sunday after the full moon that occurs next after the vernal equinox, is not a precise statement of the actual ecclesiastical rules. The full moon involved is not the astronomical Full Moon but an ecclesiastical moon (determined from tables) that keeps, more or less, in step with the astronomical Moon.\n\nThe ecclesiastical rules are:\n\n    * Easter falls on the first Sunday following the first ecclesiastical full moon that occurs on or after the day of the vernal equinox;\n    * this particular ecclesiastical full moon is the 14th day of a tabular lunation (new moon); and\n    * the vernal equinox is fixed as March 21. \n\nresulting in that Easter can never occur before March 22 or later than April 25. The Gregorian dates for the ecclesiastical full moon come from the Gregorian tables. Therefore, the civil date of Easter depends upon which tables - Gregorian or pre-Gregorian - are used. The western (Roman Catholic and Protestant) Christian churches use the Gregorian tables; many eastern (Orthodox) Christian churches use the older tables based on the Julian Calendar.\n\nIn a congress held in 1923, the eastern churches adopted a modified Gregorian Calendar and decided to set the date of Easter according to the astronomical Full Moon for the meridian of Jerusalem. However, a variety of practices remain among the eastern churches.\n\nThere are three major differences between the ecclesiastical system and the astronomical system.\n\n    * The times of the ecclesiastical full moons are not necessarily identical to the times of astronomical Full Moons. The ecclesiastical tables did not account for the full complexity of the lunar motion.\n    * The vernal equinox has a precise astronomical definition determined by the actual apparent motion of the Sun as seen from the Earth. It is the precise time at which the apparent ecliptic longitude of the Sun is zero. (Yes, the Sun's ecliptic longitude, not its declination, is used for the astronomical definition.) This precise time shifts within the civil calendar very slightly from year to year. In the ecclesiastical system the vernal equinox does not shift; it is fixed at March 21 regardless of the actual motion of the Sun.\n    * The date of Easter is a specific calendar date. Easter starts when that date starts
300985
Easter Sunday on the 16th April\nBlack Saturday on the 15th April\nGood Friday    on the 14th April\nMaunday Thursday on the 13th April
320968
This has little to do with Easter/Passover and more to do with the time they occur, during the vernal equinox. The Sun has crossed the equator back into the Northern hemisphere again, and is causing temperature differentials, with which comes great winds as they cause pressure differentials. \nYou will notice similar violent winds during the autumnal equinox, as the Sun recedes behind the equator again. See the source for more details.
338325
Rabbits and Easter eggs have about as much to do with easter as christmas and easter have to do with christianity. Absolutely nothing.On December 25 Tammuz was born, the son of Nimrod (who I believe to be Satan)& Semiramis the sun goddess. Tammuz was killed by a wild boar thats why people eat their easter ham.The sun worshipers would weep over his death every year it was celabrated the first Sunday after the first full moon of spring. Eggs and rabbits were used to celibrate new life. Christmas and Easter never were Christian holidays to begin with neither is Sunday a sabbathday. Saturday is the Sabbathday.Most of the world will follow after the beast.
458523
easter lands on a different day each year because it's the 1st sunday after the 1st full moon after the first day of spring.  since a full moon doesn't occur the same day each year, easter sunday will be a floating hoilday
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easter is calculated according to when the first new moon of the year arrives\nFathers day is always the third sunday in june.\nMother's day I'm not sure of,in Ireland it is earlier (March)than in the US (may)
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If you are referring to the Easter Bunny,  the answer is, Easter isn't all about Christ!  Only to Christians is Easter all about Jesus's resurrection.  Here is an article.\n\nQuite a few pagan cultures hold celebrations in the spring. It's the time of year when plants return to life after being dormant all winter and when animals mate and procreate. These festivities celebrate the renewal of life and promote the fertility of crops, animals, and even people, which was important in these agrarian communities. The Saxons believed in a maiden goddess of fertility named Eastre or Eostre (Oestre in Latin) and honored her with a spring festival. Hares and rabbits were considered sacred to Eastre because they are notoriously fertile animals. \n\nIn the second century A.D., Christian missionaries tried to convert northern European tribes. To help make Christianity attractive, the missionaries turned pagan festivals into Christian holidays. The pagan Eastre festival occurred around the same time as the Christian celebration marking Christ's resurrection so the two celebrations blended into one, rabbit and all. \n\nOver time, Eastre became Easter, and the symbolism changed as well. Instead of the Easter rabbit symbolizing fertility, the rabbit may symbolize an innocent, vulnerable creature that can be sacrificed, similar to the lamb. To Christians, these innocents are tokens of Christ and the sacrifice he made. \n\nThe Easter bunny we know today was influenced by German traditions dating back to the 1500s. German children believed that the Oschter Haws (a magical rabbit) would leave them a nest of colored eggs at Eastertime if they were good. Pennsylvania Dutch settlers brought this tradition to America in the 1700s. \n\nOn a related note, eggs have long been a symbol of rebirth and thus associated with spring celebrations. In the 600s, Pope Gregory the Great forbade the eating of eggs during Lent (the 40 days proceeding Easter), and this helped make eggs a special treat at Easter. Many European cultures also have old customs of decorating eggs and giving them as gifts.
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Easter is a holiday celebrating the resurrection of Christ..
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I think that some of the people answering this question would benefit greatly from an elementary history lesson. Easter, in it's original form, was very much a Pagan holiday.  You can deny it until you're blue in the face, that doesn't change history.\n\nWhen Christians were forcing people to convert, they took over the Pagan holidays because it was easier to manipulate those holidays than it was to get Pagans to celebrate new ones.  So, they took over our holidays, built their churches on our sacred space and called it a day.  That's history, not opinion.  It's fact, look it up.
310666
easter is the day that jesus ressurected and people celebrate it to honor that.  its the day that lint is over and most (religious) people go to church.  the whole easter egg thing probably began because eggs symbolize life and whatnot and somewhere in the past it turned into a hunt for children to do.  and easter is always celebrated on the 3rd sunday of april.  the wednesday before is passover and the friday before is good friday.
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Eggs are associated with Easter for a very simple reason - the egg is seen as the symbol of life (a young chick, duckling etc will grow from it). Then, it also represents Jesus's grave. So when we break the eggs we are remembering what Jesus did when he resurrected and came to life from the dead and got out from his grave (so breaking the egg is similar to Jesus opening his grave).\n\nThe Easter bunny has its origin in pre-Christian fertility lore. The Hare and the Rabbit were the most fertile animals known and they served as symbols of the new life during the Spring season. (more about this one at the website below:)