Eastern or Western Easter?


MrShorty
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Eastern or Western  

8 members have voted

  1. 1. Do you prefer to celebrate Easter on the date chosen by the Western church or the Eastern church?

    • Western
      3
    • Eastern
      0
    • No preference/whichever is more convenient
      3
    • Both, because why not celebrate the death and resurrection of the Savior of the World twice each year?
      1
    • Easter is just another Pagan celebration co-opted by the Christian church, so let's skip over it completely (and Bah Humbug to Christmas, too!).
      1


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I'm involved in music in our ward, so I often find myself anticipating Easter earlier than many. I learned today that our ward/stake will be having Fast Sunday on 9 Apr (Traditional Western church Easter), so there won't be special musical numbers or such on that day. (The cynic in me is expecting a lot of testimonies focused on the prior week's General Conference, but that's another topic. Shouldn't let the cynic run me down before it gets a chance to be proved wrong). I'm told that we will have our Easter service the following week. At first I was disappointed, but then I learned that 16 April is the Eastern church's Easter Sunday. So, maybe it will be okay.

With some of the ways that our General Conference often conflicts with [Western] Easter, I have sometimes wondered if we would do well to regularly adopt the Eastern choice for Easter and break from the Western church on this issue. That might be too much of a break from tradition, though. Can I take comfort in celebrating Easter with the Eastern church, since the date used by the Western church this year is rather inconvenient?

One caveat. I'm not entirely sure how serious I am here, so feel free to have a little fun. On a serious note, I am sometimes disappointed in how we do Easter (mostly because it sometimes feels like an after thought to us rather than the highest point of the liturgical year. At the same time, I can understand that the exact date that we celebrate Easter likely means very little in the grand scheme of things.

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I’m an amateur astronomer so we celebrate Easter on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Vernal (Spring) equinox.

We also celebrate the Passover meal, Sedar, on the Friday evening before Easter.

That way we get to eat great food, have family traditions, and teach the children the importance of passover (the Atonement & the last supper) and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. 

So 

Apr 1-2 General Conference 

Seder  April 7

Easter  April 9

 

I roll with the flow with the local ward.  Although if we have fast Sunday on Easter morning my family will most likely, not be fasting…  

 

Edited by mikbone
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5 hours ago, MrShorty said:

With some of the ways that our General Conference often conflicts with [Western] Easter, I have sometimes wondered if we would do well to regularly adopt the Eastern choice for Easter and break from the Western church on this issue. That might be too much of a break from tradition, though. Can I take comfort in celebrating Easter with the Eastern church, since the date used by the Western church this year is rather inconvenient?

Latter-day Saints do not celebrate any true holidays. Or to be more literal, we celebrate exactly one holiday per week. We have no other religious holidays in the sense that other Christian churches celebrate, or in the sense that ancient Israel did.

We observe Christmas exactly and only because lots of other people do, and it seems like a fun and potentially useful thing to do. Same with Easter. Sometimes we like to think that Easter is truly a divine celebration of resurrection and atonement. It is not. It is the celebration of the pagan spring goddess Eostre (etymologically related to the word east, the direction of the birthing sun), adapted to become a quasi-Christian extension of what used to be the Jewish Passover celebration. If the rest of the larger Christian world did not already celebrate Easter, undoubtedly the Latter-day Saints would never have bothered celebrating it.

If I have a problem with Christmas and Easter—and I really don't—it is that they are fundamentally irreligious observance dates that have been co-opted into Christian culture. Christmas has become a big celebration of Christ's birth, though it's unlikely (not impossible, but not likely) that Jesus was actually born around the winter solstice. I actually much prefer Thanksgiving to either of the other two. To me, it seems somehow a more sincere expression of gratitude for our lives and the blessings we enjoy, without trying to hang any other explicit external religious adornment on it. So for me, discussions about Eastern Catholicism vs Western Catholicism Easter dates fall on deaf ears. I see no advantage nor even reason to preferring one over the other.

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19 minutes ago, Vort said:

Latter-day Saints do not celebrate any true holidays. Or to be more literal, we celebrate exactly one holiday per week. We have no other religious holidays in the sense that other Christian churches celebrate, or in the sense that ancient Israel did.

We observe Christmas exactly and only because lots of other people do, and it seems like a fun and potentially useful thing to do. Same with Easter. Sometimes we like to think that Easter is truly a divine celebration of resurrection and atonement. It is not. It is the celebration of the pagan spring goddess Eostre (etymologically related to the word east, the direction of the birthing sun), adapted to become a quasi-Christian extension of what used to be the Jewish Passover celebration. If the rest of the larger Christian world did not already celebrate Easter, undoubtedly the Latter-day Saints would never have bothered celebrating it.

If I have a problem with Christmas and Easter—and I really don't—it is that they are fundamentally irreligious observance dates that have been co-opted into Christian culture. Christmas has become a big celebration of Christ's birth, though it's unlikely (not impossible, but not likely) that Jesus was actually born around the winter solstice. I actually much prefer Thanksgiving to either of the other two. To me, it seems somehow a more sincere expression of gratitude for our lives and the blessings we enjoy, without trying to hang any other explicit external religious adornment on it. So for me, discussions about Eastern Catholicism vs Western Catholicism Easter dates fall on deaf ears. I see no advantage nor even reason to preferring one over the other.

Bah Humbug

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9 hours ago, Vort said:

Latter-day Saints do not celebrate any true holidays. Or to be more literal, we celebrate exactly one holiday per week. We have no other religious holidays in the sense that other Christian churches celebrate, or in the sense that ancient Israel did.

We observe Christmas exactly and only because lots of other people do, and it seems like a fun and potentially useful thing to do. Same with Easter. Sometimes we like to think that Easter is truly a divine celebration of resurrection and atonement. It is not. It is the celebration of the pagan spring goddess Eostre (etymologically related to the word east, the direction of the birthing sun), adapted to become a quasi-Christian extension of what used to be the Jewish Passover celebration. If the rest of the larger Christian world did not already celebrate Easter, undoubtedly the Latter-day Saints would never have bothered celebrating it.

If I have a problem with Christmas and Easter—and I really don't—it is that they are fundamentally irreligious observance dates that have been co-opted into Christian culture. Christmas has become a big celebration of Christ's birth, though it's unlikely (not impossible, but not likely) that Jesus was actually born around the winter solstice. I actually much prefer Thanksgiving to either of the other two. To me, it seems somehow a more sincere expression of gratitude for our lives and the blessings we enjoy, without trying to hang any other explicit external religious adornment on it. So for me, discussions about Eastern Catholicism vs Western Catholicism Easter dates fall on deaf ears. I see no advantage nor even reason to preferring one over the other.

I think you do make an interesting point in that ancient Israel had a number of official holy days they "celebrated" in addition to the Sabbath but since the coming of Christ that has not really been the case and that includes Christmas and Easter. But while their origins may be a bit dubious I think they have nonetheless become a significant aspect of our worship and faith. I think our celebration of them would fall under the following principle:

Moroni 7:16 ...for every thing which inviteth to do good, and to persuade to believe in Christ, is sent forth by the power and gift of Christ; wherefore ye may know with a perfect knowledge it is of God.

So however they may have started I think the Lord has co-opted them for his own purposes such that we can say, when appropriately observed, they are "of God."

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15 hours ago, mikbone said:

I’m an amateur astronomer so we celebrate Easter on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Vernal (Spring) equinox.

We also celebrate the Passover meal, Sedar, on the Friday evening before Easter.

That way we get to eat great food, have family traditions, and teach the children the importance of passover (the Atonement & the last supper) and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. 

That sounds like our household.  I didn't realize we were such kindred spirits.

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For those who don't know, I work for a family of small-town newspapers. 

Western Easter is what the presses we hire time on (we don't have our own) and most of our customers (including several city government and other government facilities, as Good Friday is usually a holiday) adhere to, effectively obligating us to some celebration of Western Easter as we have to adjust our publication and delivery schedules accordingly. 

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  • 5 weeks later...
7 hours ago, MrShorty said:

However we may each individually vote, I just saw on the Church newsroom that Pres. Nelson and company have voted (very strongly) for 9 April/Western Easter.

https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/latter-day-saints-to-celebrate-easter-with-single-christ-centered-worship-meeting-and-music

This was announced in all the wards of our stake this last Sunday.  I forgot to notice when we will be holding our fast and testimony meetings.  It is my understanding that the church has asked that only one Sunday each month be utilized for fast and testimony meetings.   With conference the first Sunday this would mean that our Stake would have the fast and testimony meeting on the 16th but I do not recall that being announced.

I sincerely hope that all the Saints of Christ will utilize the opportunity to unite and celebrate the great sacrifice that Christ suffered on our behalf (for all mankind) – that we may rise in the resurrection forgiven of all our sins, sorrows, doubts and aliments and rejoice as one in Christ.

 

The Traveler

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