Without googling, do *you* know how the date of Easter Sunday is calculated?

[Emori]

Happens every year with wild variation. Do you understand why?

I knew it was related to the moon. I was born on a Shrove Tuesday and when I was young I was disappointed if my birthday was a Tuesday but not Shrove Tuesday... so I found out about it!

Easter is in an 11-year cycle, so in 11 years' time Easter (and Shrove Tuesday) will be the same date as this year. Mothering Sunday is always 3 weeks before Easter. Ascension is 40 days after Easter (a Thursday) and is a bank holiday in some European countries. Pentecost/Whit Sunday is 7 weeks after Easter. The late May bank holiday in the U.K. used to be on Whit Monday but is now fixed as the last full weekend in May, while some other countries still have a bank holiday at Pentecost. This means that here in France, depending when Easter falls, there are often four bank holidays in May - 1st (Labour day), 8th (VE day), Ascension and Whit Monday!

And here endeth the lesson

I know that it is something to do with Whitby, and a politically/theologically fraught brainstorming session. Beyond that, it's like the offside rule: It just goes into a special part of my brain reserved for flushable facts.

Of course the people that know will answer and maybe a few who have a vague idea! Those that don’t may say so but most of those will scroll on so not sure the point of this thread. It’s not like you randomly picked 1000 people who had to answer.

Before reading replies, I was going to say:

First Sunday after...something to do with the moon and equinoxes.

Sorry but did you know Easter is celebrated in a huge number of countries? So it could not be 'made a set date' by the U.K. government! Plus as a load of posters have mentioned, it's primarily a religious festival linked to Easter and Passover

is it something to do with the Sundays and Fridays? Like the first or last Sunday of the month?

Oh, I suppose we can’t have our own dates then
apologies

This. ^ I always wondered this too, (how they got the Easter date,) but did find it out some 10 years ago.

We celebrate Mothering Sunday on a different date to the one on which many countries celebrate Mother's Day. But does this matter?

Re. the OP's question - I knew it had something to do with the moon but that's it.

The ways of working out bank holiday dates are even more complicated (and somewhat arbitrary). I don't think about this too much. If I tried to predict when I thought they ought to be, I'd just get frustrated.

Yhe first Sunday on or after the first full moon after 21st March ( Spring Solstice).
That was without looking at PP or Google.

Without googling or reading any answers I know it is based on the lunar calendar, one of the full moons. So that´s why it is different every year.

I would have said it was tied to Palm Sunday and that Easter always comes a week after...but it's Palm Sunday that moves because of something to do with the Moon amd Easter gets dragged along. I have no idea why I think this.

Now i'm going to Google 😂

Truly, I haven't looked at the answers yet. It's to do with the first Sunday after a new moon, as I believe is the Jewish Passover. Therefore it is a moveable feast and long may it remain so.
The good Jewish boy, Jesus, ate the Passover meal with his friends and then they went out on to the hill opposite, where he prayed because he was frightened of what was going to happen to him.
A Christian church-going woman once pointed out to me something which was probably passed on long before her - that the full moon which will shine on us in Holy Week (April 2nd this year if the sky is clear) is the same moon which shone down on Jesus, wrestling with his thoughts and fears, under the 'Passover-tide' moon.

I went to secondary school with some girls who had gone to a C of E primary school and they had been taught how to reckon the date of Easter.

It's when the Easter Bunny arrives, of course, which depends on supply routes and there being enough chocolate in the shops to feed the country.

Once you know the date of Easter, as a pp has pointed out, you can work out the dates of Shrove Tuesday, Ash Wednesday (the start of Lent), Mothering Sunday, used-to-be-called Passion Sunday, Palm Sunday, Ascension Day (Senshy), Whitun/Pentecost. Relation, in last century, taught in a C of E school and they had an outing on Ascension Day.
Sainsbury has umpteen different flavours of H C Buns. I've got a lemon with half the rind grated off. I'm wondering if it can last until next Tuesday or whether several practice Pancake Days are necessary.

In 2027 it is in march

Historically when Christians were trying to recruit the church decided to align the Christian stuff with the major pagan stuff which were themselves aligned with lunar cycle. Christ wasn’t born on Dec 25th and no one really knew when his birthday was but it coincides with the winter equinox when they celebrated the start of the days getting longer.

The Christians were pretty slick when promoting their new religion.
You can imagine the selling point “ well what a coincidence, your big feast day is the same week as Christmas, let’s have a joint party”

Easter was the hijacked Eostre festival. Rostre was the goddess of spring and dawn, a deity representing fertility. Most of the random Easter traditions such as bunnies and eggs are pagan rather than Christian.

Eostre is the origin of the word estrogen. So in effect Easter is a celebration of fertility and women. It was widely celebrated throughout Northern Europe. The Christian’s would have had a tough time selling it to the pagans. I would imagine any festival celebrating fertility involved a great deal of debauched fun.

May Day is probably the only stand alone pagan festival we still acknowledge. Probably a trade off since some years it coincided with with Whit Sunday. Again it was a big fertility based celebration which would end up with men and women pairing up for fun in the fields. It was probably a bit warmer than Easter so more conducive to outdoor sex.

Im not a pagan but I’m fascinated by medieval and pre medieval history when there was a big crossover in religion. Pre medieval the catholical church was still a missionary based religion in Northern Europe. In a predominantly rural/farming community the pagan calendar was much more practical than the churches calendar. Hence the churches need to align with it.

I knew about the full moon, and I know Mothering Sunday is always three weeks before Easter which helps me anchor things in my mental calendar.

It's when they run out of mini eggs.

Someone rings the church up and says "we're out and don't want to make any more".

It's when God says so.

It matters because it's a religious holiday, celebrated on the same day by Christians throughout the world. Mothering Sunday in the U.K. is linked to the Christian church calendar and is always three weeks before Easter. Countries that celebrate 'mothers' day' on different dates have chosen not to link it to Easter.

Easter is considered by most Christians to be the most important date in the Church calendar, in spite of the fact that many people thinks it's Christmas. The Resurrection (celebrated at Easter) is what makes Christianity what it is. The U.K. is still - nominally at least - a Christian country.

Something to do with a full moon but I couldn't be more specific than that.

I only celebrate the traditional pagan aspects though, none of the christian stuff.

Yes it was 4 March last year, it moves around (personally I think there should be one in both February and March - just saying!)