Easter dispute

With Easter dispute or timing of Easter dispute an altercation early is Christianity over the correct date for the celebration of the Easter festival called. The unequal Easter dates between East and West triggered the first disputes between Pope Anicetus (around 154-166) and Bishop Polycarp of Smyrna (around 69-155). Under Pope Viktor I (189-198?) The dispute over the date of Easter was raised again.

The dispute

In the Easter dispute of the 2nd century, not to be confused with the Easter Festival dispute, several views clashed about the celebration of Easter, because in the Eastern and Western communities of Christendom there were different opinions about the choice of the day of the week , the demarcation from the Jewish Passover , the method of determining the date and finally which event in the Passion of Jesus Christ is to be celebrated as a day of remembrance . So far, Easter has been celebrated in different places at different times and on different occasions.

Around 190 the question was whether in Asia Minor and Palestine , the festival should be celebrated exactly on the Jewish Passover on the 14th after the 1st of Nisan or whether it should always be celebrated on a Sunday near the Jewish Passover. Here Irenaeus of Lyon (135-202) and Viktor I, as the leader of the dispute, faced one another in an ecumenical dispute. Viktor I asked all churches in the world to follow the Roman custom, otherwise he wanted to abolish church fellowship with the communities of Asia Minor. This threat met with considerable resistance, and the Council of Arles tried in vain to reach an agreement in 314. Only after pressure from Emperor Constantine the Great (around 280-337) was the dispute settled, but not ended , at the First Council of Nicaea (325), which he called up. The Council Fathers suggested a common Easter date and asked Bishop Athanasius of Alexandria to announce a date valid in East and West in his so-called "Easter Letters". The Council of Nicaea put an end to the Easter festival dispute and stipulated: "Easter is to be celebrated on the Sunday after the first full moon in spring; if this full moon falls on a Sunday, Easter is not to be celebrated until the following Sunday".

The dispute over the date of Easter dragged on for another 150 years, as there was still no agreement between Rome and Alexandria , the center of Christians in Asia Minor. Pope John I (523-526) asked Dionysius Exiguus , who became known as the founder of the Christian Era , for advice in 525 . Dionysus calculated an Easter table for a cycle of 532 years, which was recognized in the west and east and ended the dispute over Easter. Until 1582 there was now a common Easter date for Christendom, which was only achieved by Pope Gregory XIII this year . (1572–1585) created calendar reform was changed.

literature

Stefan Heid : Was there a Quartodeciman congregation in Rome? In: Roman quarterly for Christian antiquity and church history 114 (2019), pp. 5–26.
Viktor and the so-called Easter dispute . In: Theological Real Encyclopedia . Edited by Horst Robert Balz u. Gerhard Müller. Vol. 35. Berlin 2003, pp. 94-96.
Josef Gelmi : From the beginning to the Constantinian turning point. In: Bruno Moser (Ed.): The Papacy - Epochs and Forms. Südwest-Verlag , Munich 1986, ISBN 3-517-00809-5

Web links

Individual evidence

^ Josef Gelmi, Directory of all Popes from Peter to John Paul II and From the Beginnings to the Constantinian Turn. In: Bruno Moser (Ed.): The Papacy - Epochs and Forms. Südwest-Verlag , Munich 1986, pages 51 ff. And page 384, ISBN 3-517-00809-5

[1] Josef Gelmi, Directory of all Popes from Peter to John Paul II and From the Beginnings to the Constantinian Turn. In: Bruno Moser (Ed.): The Papacy - Epochs and Forms. Südwest-Verlag , Munich 1986, pages 51 ff. And page 384, ISBN 3-517-00809-5