My positive Easter mood, as conveyed in my last post, was quickly overshadowed by no less a person than the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Reverend Justin Welby.
Archbishop Justin was heard on the news programmes brightly announcing how, after more than a thousand years of Easter being a moveable feast, he had hopes of reaching agreement with the other churches to settle upon a fixed date for Easter. He said he would “love” to see Easter become a fixed date by the time he retires. But he added that it might take up to a decade for that to happen:
“I would expect between five and 10 years’ time – I wouldn’t expect it earlier than that not least because most people have probably printed their calendars for the next five years.”
Mr Welby said that he will consult with other authorities including Pope Francis and the Coptic Pope to negotiate a change to the date. It is very unlikely that any change will be made without the full assent of all those authorities.
Mr Welby did warn however that churches have been attempting since the tenth century to fix the date of the festival, which at the moment is set with reference to the moon and the sun. The legal foundation for changing the date of Easter has been in law since the Easter Act of 1928. But for it to be changed, churches need to assent to it — though the law allows the Government to simply decide to fix the date, authorities have deferred to churches since it was passed.
Since the fourth century, the date of Easter has fallen on the first Sunday, after the first full moon, after the spring equinox. That means that it can vary hugely from year-to-year. In 2017 for example, Easter Sunday will fall on April 16, and in 2018 it will be on April 1.
I wrote about this a year ago, in my post “Why Easter should remain a moveable feast” and there I set out details of some fascinating experiments done by the late Lili Kolisko, following indications given by Rudolf Steiner. These experiments demonstrate clearly that on the true date of Easter, there is an influx of cosmic energies of resurrection to the Earth. When worked with by priests and worshippers in Easter services, these energies have a hugely beneficial influence on all creation, whether the priests and congregations are aware of it or not. It will be yet another triumph for the oppositional forces if this energy is not used on the true Easter day.
Just before Easter, I decided to write to Justin Welby to ask him to re-consider. The reply I got from his correspondence secretary was very worrying:
“Dear Mr Smith – Archbishop Justin has now left London to spend Holy Week and Easter in Canterbury and so I have been asked to write thanking you for your message. The proposal to fix the date of Easter was made by the Coptic Pope Tawadros II, after discussions with Pope Francis and the Ecumenical Patriarch. The proposal is at an early stage of discussion between the main Christian denominations. The world-wide Anglican Communion is not leading on this but the Primates of the Communion, meeting in Canterbury recently, were supportive of the idea.”
How sad it is that these princes of the Christian church seem to have no knowledge of the true esoteric meaning and power of Easter. On March 25th, I sat with the farm team at Tablehurst Community Farm to listen to a reading of a passage from Emil Bock’s book, “The Three Years”, which described the real meaning of what was happening on that first Good Friday. It was a sobering thought to discover there was more true feeling and understanding of Easter in that simple gathering than exists among all the primates and popes of the Christian denominations.
Perhaps Archbishop Justin sees himself as a moderniser, in the mould of Tony Blair, bringing new thinking to fusty old institutions. But perhaps, also like Tony Blair, he hasn’t got the first idea of what it is he is tinkering with, and will bring disaster in his wake. Mr Welby would like to retire knowing that he has secured a fixed date for Easter – this would be his legacy. Instead, it will be another triumph for those who hate the spirit, if all the churches celebrate Easter on a day when none of the great Easter cosmic energies of resurrection is coming into the Earth. For anyone who cares about this, it’s time to start writing to these churchmen – we’ve got five years or so to get them to think again.
anthropopper 
Dear anthropopper,
I do not understand the issue since the western churches’ Easter celebration is a an arbitrary one as well.
It is not based on any real date of the crucifixion. As a matter of fact it is almost a fixed date since it using a fixed vernal equinox ( March 21st) and not the astronomical one.
Also the western churches have dissociate Easter from the Jewish Passover, which makes the celebration even more erroneous.
As I am trying to find more information about this issue, I came across this:
“Reconciling East and West
A meeting organized by the Council of World Churches (in Aleppo, Syria, March 5–10, 1997) proposed a solution thought to be favorable to both East and West: both methods of calculating the equinox and the paschal full moon would be replaced with the most advanced astronomically accurate calculations available, using the meridian of Jerusalem as the point of measure. Since that meeting, however, no further progress has been made and the problem remains.” from http://www.infoplease.com/spot/easter1.html
Thank you,
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Dear Ierotheos,
Thank you for your comment and thank you also for the link to the helpful article about the different dates for Easter used by the Eastern and Western churches.
Did you read my earlier article, “Why Easter should remain a moveable feast”?
https://anthropopper.wordpress.com/2015/03/09/why-easter-should-remain-a-moveable-feast/
The reason I ask is because the experiments carried out by Lili Kolisko indicate quite clearly that, on the true date of Easter, there is an extraordinary inrush of cosmic energy to the planet. This also happens on the true Whitsuntide, showing that both Easter and Whitsun are cosmic events. The Western method of calculating the date of Easter, as set out in that article, does give us the dates on which there is this change of energy, which is why I am suggesting that we should stick with it.
You can read more about Lili Kolisko’s experiments here:
http://borderlandresearch.com/book/spirit-in-matter
Best wishes,
Jeremy
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Dear Jeremy,
My question is: what is the real date of Easter?
Is it the Western Churches celebration or the Eastern Church’s one?
Have any body check the cosmic energies on the Eastern Church’s Easter celebration?
How can we base all that on one person’s observances?
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Dear Ierotheos,
If you read Lili Kolisko’s monograph, you will see that she carried out her experiments day-after-day. The energy changes she noted were on the Western Easter and the Western Whitsun, so the implication is that the Eastern Church’s methods of calculating Easter are not correct. She sets out her methods in that monograph and so it ought to be fairly simple for other researchers to check her findings.
Best wishes,
Jeremy
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The first Easter is said to have occurred on April 5, 33 AD, and if that is “the real date of Easter”, then that is likely what these ecclesiastical authorities would like to make a firm and fixed date, i.e., April 5, and regardless if it occurs on Sunday.
From an astronomical standpoint, the Vernal Equinox occurs at “the moment when the Sun’s ecliptic longitude reaches zero degrees.” This year that took place on March 20, at 0430 GMT. If you are familiar with Rudolf Steiner’s Calendar of the Soul, the Sun is in the sign of Pisces from March 9 to April 13, and therefore, zero degrees ecliptic longitude occurs at a point when the Sun is traversing this sign of Pisces; the sign of the Christ.
Bringing the Full Moon into consideration was an act of the ecclesiastical authorities for the specific purpose of denoting that the Spring-time season was one of ascent towards the Sun, and that Easter should be a moveable feast in which the date changed from year to year as a remembrance of this fact.
Apparently, the goal now is to demur to the ease and convenience of fixed and rigid conformity, which will simply make people happy that Easter can always be found to occur on April 5 of any year, and regardless of the day. You see, to retain the Sunday closest to April 5 would still be meaningful as denoting a moveable feast, and therefore, it appears to me that the goal is to eliminate the Full Moon element in the present calculation of Easter.
Steve
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The first Easter coincides with a Jewish Passover festival that had been occurring each year as a celebration of Moses leading the captive Hebrews to freedom across the Red sea, c. 1300 BC. Thus, Good Friday, April 3, 33 AD, in which Christ was crucified, was also the beginning of the Jewish Passover. That is why at the 12th hour of the day, c. 6:00 pm, when the Sabbath begins, and after the Christ had been lifeless on the cross since around the 9th hour, c. 3:00 pm, it is recorded that the two who were being crucified on either side of Christ had their leg bones broken and were brought down. Christ, appearing to have died, had His side pierced five times, and blood and water flowed out from the wounds. Then, He was also taken down.
Now, earlier it was reported that the sky darkened from the sixth to the ninth hour, i.e., noon to 3:00 pm, and according to what Rudolf Steiner says in his lectures on “The Fifth Gospel”, this was due to a solar eclipse occurring along with a wind and dust storm, which obscured the sky for three hours. Then, the heavens were opened and the veil torn in two, and a mighty earthquake shook and split the earth open. This is when the non-believers knew that the Son of God had actually been present on earth and had died.
In order for a solar eclipse to occur, the moon has to be in conjunction with the sun, which is the “new moon” condition. That means that the Jews had been celebrating their Passover festival based on this ‘new moon’, which is likely because that is when the tides are most retracted, and why the Red sea was parted in order for their escape some thirteen hundred years before.
So, at some point over time, this calculation was reversed and made to coincide with the Full Moon, which is the very day that the Jewish Passover festival begins, unless the Full Moon occurs on a Sunday, and then it begins on the following Monday at 6:00 pm, i.e., the 12th hour.
Thus, at the present time, the two festivals of Easter and the Jewish Passover are both based on the Full Moon, and this seems significant.
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Of course, it is not without due consideration that the largely unknown festival of Michael is presently celebrated on a fixed date, c. September 29, when it should also be recognized as a moveable feast. Don’t count on that calculation happening any time soon. Its advocacy here in the western church would only serve to cause inquiry into this mysterious figure of Michael, and who he might be in the Christian equation. That seems long off in the happening, and especially with the Welby initiative concerning Easter.
Steve
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Thanks for your interesting comments on this post, Steve. Archbishop Welby is in the news again today, for entirely different reasons:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/08/justin-welby-dna-test-reveals-my-secret-father-was-sir-winston-c/
Best wishes,
Jeremy
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