We are called, like the early Church, to rejoice in the event of the Resurrection. The new and principal day of worship of the Christians was the first day of the Jewish week (i.e., the day in which the Lord was raised from the dead). They assembled on that day to celebrate the Eucharist, through which they proclaimed the Lord’s death and confessed his resurrection. That is what we actually do in the Divine Liturgy. Eventually they gave this day a Christian name, the Day of the Lord. It would be hard to imagine that the Christians of the first century would not have projected and connected in some new and significant way their weekly celebration of the sacred events of Christ’s death and resurrection on the annual observance of the Passover. Truly, Christ is the new MOSES who has led humans out of bondage and captivity to the mores and customs of society to the freedom of the Kingdom of God.

As I shared in the last Bulletin, a part of the early Church began to celebrate the feast of the Resurrection on the 14 of Nisan, while all the other churches observed Pascha on the Sunday after the 14 of Nisan, emphasizing the resurrection. These two ways of computing the date of Pascha gave rise to the Paschal controversies of the second century. At the beginning of the third century, these disputes were settled in favor of the Sunday observance of Pascha. However, difficulties with inadequate calendars continued to plague the local churches, until the issue was finally resolved by the First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea in 325 CE. The Fathers of the Council decreed that henceforth Pascha was to be celebrated on the first Sunday, after the first full moon of the spring equinox. The Council, also, determined that the date would be calculated in accordance with the Alexandrian calendar. Most of the Christian Orthodox world and some of the Eastern Catholics still maintain this tradition (This past year the calendars were uniform and all Christians celebrated Pascha on the same day).

In the early Church, according to local custom, the celebration of Pascha was preceded by a one or two day fast. In a letter written to Pope Victor regarding the Paschal disputes, Irenaeus makes mention of the fasting practices that were being observed in his time by various local churches. He wrote, “for the controversy is not only concerning the day, but also concerning the very manner of the fast. For some think that they should fast one day, others two, yet others more; some moreover, count their day as consisting of forty hours day and night. And this variety in its observance has not originated in our time but along before in that of our ancestors.

It is clear from this testimony that fasting had become an integral element of the Paschal observance from the apostolic period. It probably came about as a result of the words of the Lord, “can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come, when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.