Date of Easter
According to Christian tradition, Jesus died at the ninth hour (that is, the canonical hour of nona—3:00 pm) of the first full day of Pesach, when that day fell on a Friday; and arose from the dead at or by the first (canonical) hour of the next Sunday. The day of Pesach (Pascha or Passover, 14 Nisan), is always at the first full moon following the northern vernal equinox. At the First Ecumenical Council, held in 325 at Nicaea, it was decided to celebrate Easter on the Sunday following the so-called Paschal Full Moon, as for the Christian church to differentiate itself from their Jewish counterparts.
At the Council of Nicaea, it became one of the duties of the patriarch of Alexandria to determine the dates of the Easter and to announce it to the other Christian churches. This duty fell on this officiate because of the erudition at Alexandria he could draw on. The rules to determine this are complex, but Easter is the first Sunday after a full moon occurring after the northern vernal equinox, which falls on or after 21 March, which was its nominal date at the time of the First Council of Nicaea. Shortly after Julius Caesar reformed the calendar, the northern vernal equinox was occurring on the nominal date of 25 March. This was abandoned shortly after Nicaea, but the reason for the observed discrepancy was all but ignored (the actual tropical year is not quite equal to the Julian year of 365¼ days, so the date of the equinox keeps creeping back in the Julian calendar).
Read more about this topic: Coptic Calendar
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