Lunar Eclipse Pix

As mentioned in the last newsletter, we had a total lunar eclipse back on March 14.  Wouldn't you know, I slept right through it!  I finally woke up at 5:30 AM and missed the whole show.  And judging from the pix posted online afterwards, it looks like this was a really pretty one, a nice rosy pink color.  Sometimes you see light-colored lunar eclipses that are a washed out yellowish-orange, and sometimes they can be very dark, brown or smoky grey, so dark they're hard to see.  But this was a "Golidlocks" lunar eclipse, not too dark, not too light but just right.  

Here's a couple pix from Henry and Syliva in Ontario. Very nice work, thanks so much for sharing!

Here's another that shows the the path of the Moon across the Earth's umbra.  Thanks again, Henry and Sylvia!  

There are a couple more USA lunar eclipses coming up next year, an early morning eclipse on March 3, 2026 and a deep partial eclipse on August 28.  I expect to report on those as the time approaches.  After that there will be a long stretch of penumbral eclipses and we won't see a total lunar eclipse over the USA until 2029. 

Easter and the 1700th Anniversary of the Counil of Nicaea

The Council of Nicaea in A.D. 325 was one of the most important gatherings in the history of the Christianity.  Centuries of persecution had recently ended and several hundred bishops from around the Roman empire gathered for the first time in Nicaea, a small town near Constantinople, which was the new imperial capital at the time.

The Council primarily convened to condemn the teachings of the presbyter Arius, who taught that Christ was a created being.  The bishops established the Nicene Creed which asserted the doctrine of the Trinity, thereafter deemed a foundational teaching of orthodox Christianity, throughout the churches of Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy and Protestantism in all the centuries since.

The Council of Nicaea convened through May and June of A.D. 325, which makes the spring of 2025 the 1700th anniversary of this momentous gathering.  The current Easter season offers Christians an opportunity to reflect on the Council and how it still impacts the Christian life today.

One of the issues resolved at the Council of Nicaea was the establishment of a common date for the celebration of Pascha, the Feast of the LORD's Resurrection, called "Easter" in the English language.  Originally, the early Christians celebrated Passover after the Jews, using the Greek word Pascha as the counterpart of the Jewish word Pesach.  The early church incorporated the Resurrection observance since the events of Jesus' death and rising occurred over the Passover.  

The early Christians also celebrated the LORD's Day (Sunday) at sunrise as a weekly Pascha observance, since Jesus rose on the first day of the week, and the women arrived at the tomb at sunrise, in accordance with the Gospel accounts (as recounted at the top of this newsletter).  

Over the three centuries leading up to Nicaea, different Paschal customs developed in different parts of the Roman empire.  The eastern church celebrated Pascha with the Jews at the time of Passover, on the 14th day of the Jewish month Nisan, "the 14th day of the first month" as set forth in Exodus 12.  This is the time of the first Full Moon of spring in accordance with the Jewish lunar calendar of telling time by the phases of the Moon.  A different custom developed in the western church of celebrating Pascha on the Sunday following the Passover, in accordance with the Gospel account.  

At Nicaea, the bishops sought to resolve these divergent customs and establish a common Pascha celebration for all Christians.  The eastern bishops asserted that they had received their custom of celebrating Pascha with the Full Moon directly from the Apostle John, who was associated with the Church of Ephesus in Asia Minor (modern Turkey).  The western bishops claimed that they had received their Sunday observance directly from the Apostle Peter, who was regarded as the first Bishop of Rome.  

It was the decision of the Council that all Christians would follow the Roman method of celebrating Pascha on Sunday.  Rules were established that Pascha would be celebrated on the first Sunday following the first Full Moon after March 21, the vernal equinox.  In this manner, all Christians everywhere would be commonly celebrating Pascha together at the same time.  

This method was based on the Julian Calendar of the Roman Empire and worked well for centuries.  However, this reckoning included the Leap Year every four years.  The tropical year, or the annual seasonal cycle of the Sun, was assumed to be an even 365-1/4 days, or precisely 365 days, 6 hours.  The actual tropical year is not that precise, but is short by about 11 minutes.  

While 11 minutes per year is a small amount, it adds up over time.  By A.D. 1582, it accumulated to 11 days so that Pascha no longer aligned with the vernal equinox.  This discrepancy was corrected with the implementation of the Gregorian Calendar, which was instituted in Catholic lands at the behest of Pope Gregory XIII.  The Gregorian Calendar dropped the extra 11 days from the calendar and brought Pascha back into alignment with the equinox.  A new calendar reckoning dropped three days from the calendar every 400 years, thereby assuring that the alignment would continuein perpetuity.

Not surprisingly, this "popish" calendar innovation was resisted in Christian lands outside of Catholicism.  Protestant nations eventually adopted the Gregorian method over subsequent centuries.  Eastern Orthodoxy reckons Pascha according to the Julian Calendar to this day, and the 11 minute discrepancy has now accumulated to 14 days.  For this reason, eastern Pascha falls in the Gregorian months of April and May instead of March and April as with the western churches.  So Pashca is usually celebrated in the east one Full Moon later than in the west.  This is an ironic historical development since the Council of Nicaea intended to establish a common celebration for Christian churches in the east and west.

Happily, in apparent commemoration of the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea, the LORD worked out the calendar astronomy for 2025 so that everyone will be celebrating Pascha at the same time!  The Paschal Full Moon of 2025 falls on April 13, well after the actual vernal equinox, so that western Pascha will fall on Sunday, April 20.  But this late Full Moon date is early for eastern Pascha, coinciding with the first Full Moon following March 21 in the Julian calendar, thereby causing the western Pascha date to align with the eastern.  So east and west will join in celebrating Pascha together in 2025!

As a special bonus, the Jewish Passover also coincides this year with the same Paschal Full Moon, Sunday, April 13.  So the Passover of 2025 commences at sundown on Saturday, April 12.  If you happen to notice the Full Moon rising in the east next weekend, ponder how the Sun, Moon and stars are given to us by the LORD for "signs and seasons" (Gen. 1:14) in regular, predictable cycles so that we can establish a calendar for reckoning the time of the LORD's feasts.    

I've written on this subject several times in the past in this newsletter.  The first time was in 2003 in The Astronomy of Easter, which is reprinted in the link at Crosswalk.com.  This newsletter was also massaged into the Epilogue of our Signs & Seasons homeschool astronomy curriculum.  In 2009 I wrote The Astronomy of Passover

to address certain other perspectives of this subject.  I further wrote Is Easter a Pagan Holiday or Christian? to address the persistent "urban legend" perennially popular among certain Christians that the Feast of the LORD's Resurrection is somehow a product of ancient Babylonian fertility worship.

Wishing you all a blessed and Happy Easter! Or as I prefer to say, Happy Pascha!