| rdfs:comment
| - The Easter controversy is a series of controversies about the proper date to celebrate Easter. There are four distinct phases of the dispute.
- This was mainly concerned with whether Christians should follow Old Testament practices, see also Biblical law in Christianity. Eusebius of Caesarea (Church History, V, xxiii) wrote: A question of no small importance arose at that time [i.e. the time of Pope Victor I, about A.D. 190]. The dioceses of all Asia [meaning the Roman Province of Asia, see also Early Christianity#Western Anatolia], according to an ancient tradition, held that the fourteenth day of the moon [of Nisan], on which day the Jews were commanded to sacrifice the lamb, should always be observed as the feast of the life-giving pasch [epi tes tou soteriou Pascha heortes], contending that the fast ought to end on that day, whatever day of the week it might happen to be. However it was not the custom of the churches in the re
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| abstract
| - The Easter controversy is a series of controversies about the proper date to celebrate Easter. There are four distinct phases of the dispute.
- This was mainly concerned with whether Christians should follow Old Testament practices, see also Biblical law in Christianity. Eusebius of Caesarea (Church History, V, xxiii) wrote: A question of no small importance arose at that time [i.e. the time of Pope Victor I, about A.D. 190]. The dioceses of all Asia [meaning the Roman Province of Asia, see also Early Christianity#Western Anatolia], according to an ancient tradition, held that the fourteenth day of the moon [of Nisan], on which day the Jews were commanded to sacrifice the lamb, should always be observed as the feast of the life-giving pasch [epi tes tou soteriou Pascha heortes], contending that the fast ought to end on that day, whatever day of the week it might happen to be. However it was not the custom of the churches in the rest of the world to end it at this point, as they observed the practice, which from Apostolic tradition has prevailed to the present time, of terminating the fast on no other day than on that of the Resurrection of our Saviour. Quartodecimanism, a word not used in Eusebius' account, refers to the practice of fixing the celebration of Passover for Christians on the fourteenth (Latin quarta decima) day of Nisan in the Old Testament's Hebrew Calendar (for example Lev 23:5). This was the original method of fixing the date of the Passover, which is to be a "perpetual ordinance". According to the Gospel of John (for example John 19:14), this was the day that Jesus was crucified in Jerusalem. (The Synoptic Gospels place the day on 15 Nisan, see also Chronology of Jesus.) A letter of St. Irenaeus shows that the diversity of practice regarding Easter had existed at least from the time of Pope Sixtus I (c. 120). Further, Irenaeus states that St. Polycarp kept Easter on the fourteenth day of the moon, whatever day of the week that might be, following therein the tradition which he claimed to have derived from St. John the Apostle. About 195, Pope Victor I attempted to excommunicate the Quartodecimans, turning the divergence of practice into a full-blown ecclesiastical controversy. According to Eusebius, synods were convened and letters were exchanged. The controversy seems to have died down after Irenaeus and other bishops reminded Victor of his predecessor Anicetus' more tolerant attitude.
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