What Would Jesus Do?

THE COUNCIL OF NICEA (325 AD)

This was said by Constantine and sent to churches everywhere:

3.18.1 At this meeting the question about our holiest day, Passover, was also discussed, and it was resolved by common consent that everyone, everywhere should celebrate it on one and the same day. For what can be more appropriate, or what more solemn, than that this festival from which we have received the hope of immortality should be observed by everyone without variation, using the same order and clear arrangement?

3.18.2 First of all, it seemed most unworthy that in celebrating this most holy festival we should follow the practice of the Jews, who have impiously defiled their hands with enormous sin and are, therefore, deservedly afflicted with spiritual blindness. Since we have put aside their way of calculating the date of the festival, we can ensure that future generations can celebrate this observance at the more accurate time which we have kept from that first day when the passion occurred until the present time. Let us then have nothing in common with that detestable mass of Jews.

[How subtly and smoothly he makes his argument, a pagan man who clearly understood very little of scripture nor how carefully the Jews followed it].

3.18.3 For we have received from our Savior a different way. A course at once legitimate and honorable lies open to our most holy religion. Let us with one mind adopt this course, and withdraw ourselves from that detestable association. For it is truly most absurd for them to boast that we are incapable of rightly observing these things without their instruction.

3.18.4 For how should they be capable of forming a sound judgment, who, since their parricidal guilt in slaying their Lord, lost their senses, and are led not by any rational motive but by ungoverned passion, and they are swayed by an uncontrollable impulsiveness from the mad spirit that is in them? This is why even in this matter they do not perceive the truth, so that they constantly err in the utmost degree, and will celebrate the Feast of Passover a second time in the same year instead of making a suitable correction [seems Constantine doesn't know that scripturally there can be two Passovers in one year?]. Why then should we follow those who are acknowledged to be in serious error? Surely we should never consent to keep this feast a second time in the same year! But even if these reasons were not sufficient, still it would be incumbent on your good judgment to strive and pray continually that the purity of your souls may not seem in anything to be tarnished by sharing the customs of these most wicked men.

3.18.5 We must consider, too, that in a matter so important and of such religious significance, the slightest disagreement is most irreverent. For our Savior left us a single festival to commemorate the day of our deliverance, the day of his most holy passion. And he has willed that his catholic church should be one, the members of which, are yet cherished by one pervading spirit, that is, by the will of God. Even though they are scattered in many and diverse places.

3.18.6 And let the good sense of your Holiness consider how grievous and scandalous it is that on the same days some should be engaged in fasting while others have festive celebrations [ah, so Constantine would change the holy day to fit with the customs of believers, rather than have believers' customs conform to the schedule of the holy days]; and again, that in the days after Passover some should be present at banquets and amusements, while others are fulfilling the appointed fasts. For this reason Divine Providence has directed us to that we carry out an appropriate correction and establish a uniformity of practice, as I suppose you are all aware.

3.19.1 Therefore, since this matter needed to be rectified, so that we might have nothing in common with that nation of parricides who killed their Lord, and since the arrangements observed by all the churches of the western, southern, and northern parts of the world, and by some parts of the east as well is quite suitable - for these reasons we are all unanimous on this present occasion in thinking it worthy of adoption. And I myself have undertaken that this decision should meet with the approval of your good judgment, in the hope that all you wise men will cheerfully accept that practice which is already observed with such complete unanimity of sentiment in the city of Rome, and in Africa, throughout Italy, Egypt, Spain, the Gauls, Britain, Libya, and the whole of Greece, in the dioceses of Asia and Pontus, and in Cilicia [note how he uses the argument of majority - instead of deciding whether what is done by most is true - and note that all these are pagan nations that are observing a different day - he argues they should follow their example because everyone else is doing it that way]. And you will consider not only that the number of churches is far greater in the regions I have enumerated than in any other, but also that it is most fitting that all should unite in desiring that which sound reason appears to demand, and in avoiding all participation in the wicked conduct of the Jews.

3.19.2 To briefly sum up these matters, it has been determined by the common consent of all that the most holy festival of Passover should be observed on one and the same day. For on the one hand a discrepancy of opinion on so sacred a question is not proper, and on the other it is surely best to adopt an option which has nothing to do with any strange errors, nor deviates from what is right. [How smoothly he casts doubt on the original way of keeping Passover].

3.20.1 Therefore receive with all willingness this heavenly gift and truly divine command. For whatever is decided in the holy assemblies of the bishops is to be regarded as indicative of the divine will.

3.20.2 Therefore as soon as you have communicated what is written above to all our beloved brothers, you are bound from that time forward to adopt them for yourselves and to lead others to adopt the arrangement mentioned above, and the due observance of this most sacred day. In this way, when I come into the presence of your love (which I have long desired to do), I will be able to celebrate the holy festival with you on the same day, and I may rejoice with you on all matters, as I see that the cruel power of Satan has been removed through divine power and through our efforts, while your faith, and peace, and concord are flourishing everywhere.

[This new day of Passover does not follow scripture and completely overlooks the Feast of Unleavened bread, as the Catholic church made their own calendar so that the Catholic church's version of the holy days would never fall on the same days as the Biblical holy days followed by the Jews].

Below is an excerpt from www.catholic.com:

Question:

How is Easter Sunday determined? Palm Sunday? Ash Wednesday?

Answer:

Jesus rose from the dead on the first Sunday following the feast of Passover. (Technically, he may have risen Saturday night, but that still counts as Sunday on the Jewish reckoning, which begins each day at sunset instead of at midnight.)

The date of Passover is a complicated thing. Theoretically, the date should be the 14th of the Jewish month of Nisan, and it should correspond to a full moon (the Jewish calendar being partly lunar). In practice, it didn’t always work out that way. The month-moon cycles got out of synch, and sometimes feasts would be held on a “liturgical” full moon even when it was not an astronomical full moon. As a result, rabbis periodically had to announce when Passover would be celebrated.

Christians didn’t like being dependent on the pronouncements of rabbis for how to celebrate Christian feasts, so they came up with another way of determining the date. They decided that Easter would be celebrated on the first Sunday after (never on) the Paschal full moon.

Theoretically, the Paschal full moon is the first full moon occurring on or after the spring equinox. However, this day can be reckoned in different ways. One way is by looking at the sky, which yields the astronomical spring equinox. But since this shifts from year to year, most people follow the calendrical spring equinox, which is reckoned as March 21.

On the Gregorian calendar (the one that we use), Easter is the first Sunday after the Paschal full moon, which is the first full moon on or after March 21. Easter thus always falls between March 22 and April 25.

Now, to find Palm Sunday (the sixth Sunday of Lent) you start with the date of Easter and back up one week: It is the Sunday before Easter Sunday." End Quote

So, instead of depending on scripture to tell us when Passover is, we are to depend on the Catholic church to tell us when Easter is - and I doubt even one regular Protestant Christian will question the date of Easter on the Gregorian calendar and go and calculate it for themselves.