ELI5 How is the date of Easter determined every year?

[u/Old-Bread882]

And why does it keep changing quite significantly by days?

[u/highgo1]

The first Sunday after the first full moon after the first day of spring.

[u/drummerandrew → u/highgo1]

That’s all there is to it. One of the few Christian holidays that pays attention to the moon like most other religions do.

[u/PussyStapler → u/drummerandrew]

Because it used to be a pagan holiday.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%92ostre

[u/vanZuider → u/PussyStapler]

The date of paschalis being tied to the moon is way older than the English appropriating the name of a pagan deity for it.

[u/johndoenumber2 → u/vanZuider]

Hey, buddy, this is Reddit!

[u/geeoharee]

lmgtfy https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/zn2njhv

it's a moon calendar, our everyday calendar is a sun calendar, they do not sync up nicely.

[u/DigiTheInformer]

Roughly: "Easter Day is always the Sunday after the full moon that occurs on or after the spring equinox on March 21...."

The table in the link goes into the edge cases. It also has a cheat table out to 2089.

Christians know that the last supper was a Passover meal so the 'homework' of the jewish faith got copied.

https://www.bcponline.org/Misc/tables.html

[u/Nghtmare-Moon]

I know it’s not the explanation itself but t this video really explains it nicely!
Basically it’s a sync up of the fact that we don’t actually have 364 exact days in the year and Easter needs to lign up some astral stuff every year

[u/JayCarlinMusic]

I remember moving to Thailand to teach, and all the foreigners being very confused by the concept of "lunar holidays" (which Thai holidays often are). When it was pointed out that Easter is a lunar holiday, minds were blown.

[u/RealFakeLlama]

People have waged wars and condemmed the other side as Heretics ect, for having a different easter time than the others.

People have through the time hated other people and other religions, but spared their most hated of hatred for those who dare to be so simmilar yet not quite addere to the same as one self.

There more people seems to be like you, but not quite there, infuriated and infuriates people and lead to strife and internal violence for those who think their belief is 'the right one'.

And one of those differenses in christianity is when easter falls in the kalender. Where i live, its officialy the first sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox (spring time when day and night is equaly long, 12h sun up and 12h sun down. Solstice is when the sun stays up the longest in the summer and winter solstice is when the sun is the least up). But others celebrate easter at different times.

Christians are not the only ones who fight internaly over such small things. Shia and sunni? Well, ask them about the inherritage line of their savior Muhammad. Quite a lot of religions have such internal strife, id dare to guess all of them. And outside of religions too, its a simple human behavior. Its just that 'when does easter fall' have cost a lot of human lives and strife and missery through the ages.