Category: philosophy/religion topics
Sorry about that. I press send before i write something in the topick.
As you probaply know i am from Cyprus. In Cyprus we are Christian orthodox. The orthodox Easter the most of the years is different than the Katholic Easter. It's usualy later. Just to get an idea this year the katholic easter was a week earliertan our Easter. Last year the katholic Easter was on the 27th of March and our Easter on the first of May. Next year is going to be the same date i think 11th of Aprill.
Does anyone know why the two Easters are in different dates? I don't even understand why we have orthodox and katholiks in the first place but this is another story. At the end of the day we all believe in god and Gesus etc.
So what do you all think?
Nikos
I'm just as puzzled as you are about why some christians worship god on sunday while others worship god on saturday. You all have your own supporting arguments for doctrine, and that's what makes christianity weak; each church claims to hold the truth. These are all controversies, but I guess you christians are taught to not focus on the non-essentials, right? What in the world does a number or day on a calendar have to do with worshiping a god? Would god, if there is such a being, care if you observe this or that day? That would surely present a problem for me if I were thinking about serving a god. :)
Every church has some specialities, I'd say. The catholics for example worship the virgin Mary and - in my opinion, treat the pope as if he was God himself. This is why I never liked being catholic much. I go to "liberal christians" or public mission, like they call themselves. I don't know though, why the easer dates are different. I didn'T even know that until you told us right now. I even believe some Russian people celebrate christmas later than we do. I have no idea why, and it makes me sad that christians can't just agree with each other somehow. Though - as I already said, I can't agree to the catholics at all.
What I am going to quote can be found here:
The Date of Easter from the U.S. Naval Observatory
Note, this is taken out of context as it is a very long and confusing article. But, I think this might give a technical answer to Nikos's question.
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"resulting 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.
In 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.
There are three major differences between the ecclesiastical system and the astronomical system.
List of 3 items
• 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.
• 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.
• The date of Easter is a specific calendar date. Easter starts when that date starts for your local time zone. The vernal equinox occurs at a specific
date and time all over the Earth at once.
list end"
Hesh, think I'll go back to the simple relativity theory.
Good question Nikos.
Bob
Ah, now that is very interesting. I didn't know that myself until reading this. Thanks for posting.
daughter of light, I agree with you.
Well, for the two religions. I don't know if this is right, since I only learnt it from history class, and a lot of it isn't accurate these days. Cathlics can help me confirm this.
The Church had two men leaders. They had a fight, and separated. The Catholic church split in to the two divisions. As explained above by another poster they must have used a totally different system from one another, as they didn't comunicate. They believed a little differently.
Yeah, sorry, I am protestant, so I have not a clue. I only learnt in history, and vaguely remember.