The celebration of Easter is central for Christians, so it may seem surprising that there has never been agreement as to when to celebrate it, or is it? The celebration is so important that nobody wants to depart from the practice that they have always followed. At the present the Eastern churches usually have a different date from the Western, because of the differing Gregorian and Julian calendars, and we also know about the different practices in our own country, between the tradition from the early British Christians and the Roman ways introduced by St Augustine which were finally resolved at the Synod of Whitby.

The Gospels themselves suggest different dates have been used since earliest times. In St Mark we read: “On the first day of Unleavened Bread, when the Passover lamb is sacrificed, his disciples said to him, ‘Where do you want us to go and make the preparations for you to eat the Passover?’ So he sent two of his disciples, saying to them, ‘Go into the city, and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you; follow him, and wherever he enters, say to the owner of the house, “The Teacher asks, Where is my guest room where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?” He will show you a large room upstairs, furnished and ready. Make preparations for us there.’ So the disciples set out and went to the city, and found everything as he had told them; and they prepared the Passover meal.” Mk 14:12 – 16.
But in John 19 we read: “So they took Jesus; and carrying the cross by himself, he went out to what is called the place of the skull, which in Hebrew is called Golgotha. There they crucified him … Since it was the day of Preparation, the Jews did not want the bodies left on the cross during the sabbath, especially because that sabbath was a day of great solemnity.” Jn 19: 16 – 18, 31.

In Mark the Last Supper is clearly described as the Passover Meal, and Jesus was crucified the next day, while John is careful to stress that the body of Jesus was taken down from the cross before the Sabbath began, the great solemnity of that Sabbath being that it was also the Passover. In John’s chronology Jesus died on the cross at the very time that the Paschal lambs were being slaughtered in the temple, before the Passover Meal, stressing that Jesus is our Paschal Lamb.

As far as we can determine the earliest church had only a weekly celebration of the Lord’s Day c.f. Acts 20:7 – 11, Rev 1:10. They gathered to hear the ‘memoirs of the apostles and the writings of the prophets, to brake bread and give thanks’, Ignatius of Antioch Letter to the Magnesians 9.1. It seems that at first there was no special celebration of Easter.
At the beginning of the second century some churches held a distinct celebration of a Christian Passover, which led to a controversy as to when. In Asia it was kept on the 14th Nisan, the Jewish date for Passover, whatever day of the week it fell, while elsewhere including Rome it was kept the following Sunday. This nearly led to schism, St Irenaeus of Lyons had to write to Pope Victor to dissuade him from excommunicating those who kept the feast on the 14th Nisan, arguing that this difference of practice did not threaten unity of faith, “..the Quartrodecimans affirm that the observance of the fourteenth day was delivered to them by the apostle John: while the Romans and those in the Western parts assure us that their usage originated with the apostles Peter and Paul. Neither of these parties however can produce any written testimony in confirmation of what they assert.” Socrates Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church.

Whichever day Easter was kept, celebrating Christ’s death was never separated from celebrating his resurrection. The earliest vestiges of a triduum were Friday, Saturday and Sunday, the first two being kept as days of fasting and penance without special liturgies. St Ambrose wrote ‘We must observe both the days of the passion and resurrection, so that there may be a day of woe and a day of joy, a fast day and a feast day’. Sermon 358.3. Only later were there separate liturgies for Thursday and Friday.

The modern Triduum begins with the Mass of the Lord’s Supper on Maundy Thursday and ends with Vespers on Easter Sunday.

Fr Gervase Holdaway OSB
Oblate Director, Douai Abbey