Easter Dates And The History Of Easter Eggs

Why Easter?

Easter is an important holiday festival in the history of the Christian Church, but why do we celebrate Easter with eggs, Easter bunnies and Chocolate chicks - which seem to have nothing to do with Christ and his church? And why is Easter a moving festival that is celebrated on a different day each year? One has to look into both the earliest history of human kind and astronomical observations of the periodic movements of the sun and the moon.

For the next decade, Easter Sunday will fall on the following days: -

04 April 2010
24 April 2011
08 April 2012
31 Mar 2013
20 April 2014
05 April 2015
27 Mar 2016
16 April 2017
01 April 2018
21 April 2019
12 April 2020

Why do these dates vary so much (up to 28 days)?

Explaining the moving date

The reason for the moving date is because Easter in the Western Christian Churches is celebrated as the First Sunday after the First Full Moon following the Spring Equinox. In our present (Gregorian) calendar the Spring Equinox in the northern hemisphere, falls on either the 20th or 21st of March. On both of the equinoxes, the length of the day and of the night is exactly equal. The two annual equinoxes (spring and autumn) fall exactly half way between the two solstices. The mid winter solstice is the shortest day and the mid summer solstice is the longest day). And because the lunar month cycle, from full moon to full moon is always 28 days, which is less than a calendar month, the phases of the moon can never be in sync with the calendar and so we get this variation of calendar date.

An Ancient Symbolism

The Easter tradition is far older than Christianity and has very ancient origins - in both the Near East and Pagan Western Europe. Essentially in ancient times it was always a celebration of the onset of spring and the re-birth of the natural world - a welcome time, after the harshness of winter. It heralded the opening of the planting season – a benign time for the rapid germination of seeds and the birth of young animals. It is this tradition of generation and re-birth that lent itself to the symbolism of Easter eggs, Easter chicks and the Easter bunny. This is because these objects are symbols of Spring, adopted because at that time of the year, the early hunters and farmers would have observed the natural world awakening to the warming sun, with eggs hatching everywhere and baby animals, such as rabbits, making their first appearance, as the wild creatures of the woodlands began to get about their business after the long winter hibernation. The arrival of a whole new generation of animals, together with the evidence of newly sprouted seedlings in the fields was a sure sign of hope for good harvests and full larders in the coming months It was this link with rebirth and good times ahead that made it seem so fitting for the early Christians to associate the “re-birth” or “return” of Christ the Saviour from the dead, after his crucifixion, with the ancient tradition of happily celebrating the rebirth of the world after the long dead period of winter.

The linked tradition of abstinence and fasting in the preceding month of Lent, in the Christian tradition, was a reflection of the early farmer’s sensible precaution that no matter how hungry they had become at the end of winter, they must never eat their last seeds (needed for spring planting), nor slaughter their breeding stock (needed to produce the next generation of food animals and birds). To the Christians this period could be seen as an apt period of contrition and mourning to mark the sacrifice of their saviour.

So that is why, even if not everyone is an active churchgoer, we can all have such a happy time at the Easter weekend, with our Easter eggs, Chocolate chickens and Easter bunnies. Whether we know it or not - when we eat our Easter chocolate we are actually sharing a remarkable and timeless link with the hopes and aspirations of our remotest ancestors and are joining with them in the celebration of mankind’s most ancient bond to the cycles of nature. There is truly nothing new under the sun (or under the moon for that matter).