Happy Easter From Israel

Day 3,785, 00:58 • Published in Israel Israel • by Filthy McNasty

Early in the history of the church, it was widely accepted that the Lord's Supper (the breaking of unleavened bread at Passover) was a practice of the disciples and a recognized tradition. However, a dispute arose concerning the date on which Pascha (Easter) should be celebrated. This conflict came to be known as the Easter/Paschal controversy. Bishop Polycarp of Smyrna, a disciple of John the Evangelist, disputed the computation of the date with Bishop Anicetus of Rome, specifically as to when the pre-paschal fast should end.

The practice in Asia Minor at the time was that the fast ended on the fourteenth day of Nisan, strictly in accordance with the Hebrew calendar and the commandment of Scripture. The Roman practice was to continue the fast until the following Sunday. One objection to the fourteenth of Nisan was that it could fall on any day of the week. The Roman church wished to associate Easter with Sunday and sever the link to Jewish practices.

According to Eusebius, (Life of Constantine, Book III chapter 18[13]), Emperor Constantine I declare😛 "Let us then have nothing in common with the detestable Jewish crowd; for we have received from our Savior a different way." However, the custom of Christians and Jews joining in the Passover feast seems to have persisted, as Saint John Chrysostom found it necessary to condemn such inter-faith activities in his sermons. "The very idea of going from a church to a synagogue is blasphemous," he declared, and "to attend the Jewish Passover is to insult Christ."

What we discover is the fact that in Christian theology, Easter has as its very foundation a hate motif that the hierarchy of the Roman church wished to show toward the Jewish people and to the biblical festival called Passover.