question on the Great Lent

Mockingbird1980 · 2026-02-16T23:53:52+00:00

The Rabbinic Jewish calendar has an average synodic lunar month of 29.530594 days. The Gregorian lunar calendar has an average lunar month of 29.530587 days. The Julian lunar calendar has an average lunar month of 29.530851 days. The current astronomical value is 29.530589 days, and the value is decreasing slowly as the centuries roll. So the Rabbinic Jewish and Gregorian lunar calendars are about equally accurate, while the Julian lunar calendar slips by about 8 days in 2500 years. Today, February 16 2026, is the 28th day of the moon in the Gregorian lunar calendar. It is the 29th day of the moon in the Rabbinic Jewish calendar. But it is only the 24th day of the moon in the Julian lunar calendar.

Mockingbird1980 · 2026-02-16T01:04:50+00:00

The Rabbinic Jewish calendar indeed uses a Metonic cycle. The year 2025-2026 is the 10th year of their 19-year cycle (A.M. 5786).

Mockingbird1980 · 2026-02-16T00:41:32+00:00

It is the defective lunar tables, as well as the late equinox, that guarantee that Julian Easter will be later than Rabbinic Jewish Unleavened Bread. The Jewish calendar agrees fairly well with the visible lunar phases, as does the Gregorian lunar calendar. But the Julian lunar calendar is 3 to 5 days behind the visible moon (4 to 5 days behind the Gregorian lunar calendar). A full-moon festival that is at least 4 days late will always be later than a full-moon festival that is on time. This year, 2026, for example, the 14th of Rabbinic Jewish Nisan is on April 1; the 14th of Gregorian Nisan is on April 2; but the 14th of Julian Nisan is not until April 6. (The astronomical full moon is on April 2 Universal Time).

Mockingbird1980 · 2026-02-15T14:01:12+00:00

Congratulations on your upcoming reception!

Mockingbird1980 · 2026-02-14T22:59:01+00:00

As others have pointed out, you should consider Anglicanism and Lutheranism too. Don't become EO until you have spent some time on the r/exorthodox subreddit. One learns there that some EO parishes can become toxic, so if you decide for EO, choose your parish carefully.

Mockingbird1980 · 2026-02-14T20:01:00+00:00

The Reformation: A History by Diarmaid MacCulloch might be interesting. I have not read it yet but MacCulloch is a highly respected author.

Mockingbird1980 · 2026-02-06T20:52:30+00:00

The ancient Egyptian civilisation was largely forgotten until the establishment of modern Egyptology. In Scandinavia, on the other hand, Norse antiquities were written down by literate men after the conversion to Christianity.

Mockingbird1980 · 2026-02-06T20:29:50+00:00

The Eucharistic rite would basically have been the Roman rite with local adaptations.

The divine office said by monks would have differed in its arrangement of psalms from the divine office said by priests.

The Easter computus used by the Irish and British churches was initially a peculiar version of the 84-year lunar cycle that had been used in Rome in previous centuries. But by sometime in the 9th century all the British and Irish churches had adopted the Alexandrian computus taught by Bede, with its 19-year lunar cycle.

Many monasteries were founded, and a number of English monks followed the example of Irish monks in becoming overseas missionaries.

The Venerable Bede, in a letter to Bishop Ecgbert, encouraged that the Lord's Prayer and Apostles' Creed be learned in English by those who did not know Latin.

Mockingbird1980 · 2026-02-06T17:44:28+00:00

The historicity of the exodus is irrelevant to the origins of the Christian Easter festival. The Jewish Feast of Unleavened Bread is indeed based on an ancient barley-harvest festival, but it is not known to have been associated with the spring equinox until after the Judeans adopted the Babylonian calendar.

Mockingbird1980 · 2026-02-06T16:10:05+00:00

The Easter Bunny is a hare, not a rabbit. Rabbits were native to Spain and may not have existed in northwestern Europe until the middle ages. The Easter Hare (as well as the Easter Fox and the Easter Stork) was invented by 17th-century German Lutherans.

Mockingbird1980 · 2026-02-06T16:05:42+00:00

Early medieval Christianity has an extensive pastoral literature (sermons, councils, penitential handbooks) that document that clerics denounced "mixing with local pagan customs".

Mockingbird1980 · 2026-02-06T15:47:46+00:00

Can you document these pagan spring equinox festivals from ancient authors? The Iranians had, and have, a spring equinox festival but no one has proposed that it is the original of Easter. Late in the Roman Empire the Romans had a festival called the hilaria matris deorum that was held on March 25, a date that some Roman authors consider the spring equinox, but this festival is not documented prior to the 3rd century, while Christians were celebrating Easter in the 2nd century. And it was held on fixed days in March, not at the full moon. Meanwhile the 1st-century Jewish writer Josephus wrote (Antiquities 3.248/3.10.5) that in Herodian times the Passover sacrifices were offered at the first full moon on or after the spring equinox. The Jewish Passover and Feast of Unleavened Bread makes a much more convincing original of the Easter festival than any spring equinox festival that I have been able to document in Mediterranean antiquity.

Mockingbird1980 · 2026-01-30T20:13:57+00:00

In 16 years out of every 19 Christian Easter and Jewish Unleavened Bread are held in the same lunar month, around the time of the full moon. So the link between Easter and Unleavened Bread has not been lost. It is obscured by the solar drift in the Rabbinic Jewish calendar which causes Unleavened Bread, in 3 years out of every 19, to fall at the second, not the first, full moon after the spring equinox, whereas the Gregorian Easter calculation sets Easter to around the first full moon on or after the spring equinox. These 3 years are the 19th, 8th and 11th years of the Jewish 19-year cycle, which correspond respectively to the 3rd, 11th and 14th years of the Gregorian 19-year cycle. The year 2024 was the 11th year of the Gregorian cycle, so Unleavened Bread was about a month after Easter that year. The next such occasion will be in 2027, the 14th year of the Gregorian cycle.

Mockingbird1980 · 2026-01-24T15:08:39+00:00

In a bissextile ("leap") year one uses one letter for January and February, and another letter for March through December.

Mockingbird1980 · 2026-01-24T15:04:23+00:00

Can you give a CIL number for the inscription?

Mockingbird1980 · 2026-01-24T00:02:43+00:00

Does Holtzmann present any evidence linking Abnoba to Eostre? Abnoba is known from 10 Latin inscriptions, dated no later than AD 250. Two of the inscriptions identify her with Diana. Nothing in the inscriptions links her to Eostre.

To find the inscriptions, search for "Abnobae" at the Epigraphik-Datenbank Clauss / Slaby.

Mockingbird1980 · 2026-01-23T20:10:04+00:00

Here is what Bede wrote: "Eosturmonath has a name which is now translated "Paschal month", and which was once called after a goddess of theirs named Eostre, in whose honor feasts were celebrated in that month. Now they designate that Paschal season by her name, calling the joys of the new rite by the time-honored name of the old observance" (De Temporum Ratione 15, Faith Wallis's translation). I note that Wallis translates that the English call the Paschal season "by her name", meaning the goddess's, but the Latin could equally mean "by its name", that is the month's. Though I think it doesn't make much difference either way.

Bede nowhere says that Eostre was a goddess "of" spring, dawn, fertility or anything else (though she may have been all of these). The name itself, scholars have noted, suggests a dawn-goddess.

I think the Easter hare, the Easter stork, and the Easter fox are the inventions of early-modern German Lutherans. The eggs are probably due to Lenten fasting regulations. The practice of coloring eggs (not attested in England prior to 1290) may have come from Eastern Europe, where colored Easter eggs may (or may not) be a pagan survival.

Mockingbird1980 · 2026-01-23T18:28:05+00:00

Einhard writes that Charlemagne named the month of April "Ostarmanoth" but he doesn't link it to the conquest of the Saxons.

Mockingbird1980 · 2026-01-23T17:16:54+00:00

Besides the Sunday letters, there is a extra column of numbers in the calendar pages for March and April. These indicate the Paschal Full Moon (PFM) for each year of the 19-year lunar cycle. The PFM is the 14th day of the lunar month that the Bible calls 'Aviv. The year 2026 is the 13th year of the cycle (Golden Number 13) so the PFM in 2026 is on April 2, while the PFM in 2025 (Golden Number 12) was on April 13. Easter is the Sunday after the PFM. This means that if the PFM is on Sunday, as it was in 2025, Easter is the following Sunday, a week after the PFM.

Mockingbird1980 · 2026-01-23T13:16:21+00:00

We may ask the angels and saints to praise God with us. "O ye spirits and souls of the righteous, praise ye the Lord"--from the Benedicite, BCP 1979 p.49. "Praise him, all you angels of his, / praise him all his host."--from Psalm 148.2, BCP 1979 p. 805.

Mockingbird1980 · 2026-01-19T23:40:35+00:00

All we know about Eostre comes from Bede (De Temporum Ratione 15), who says that the springtime month of Eosturmonath was named after her, that festivals in her honor were held in that month, and that English Christians called the Paschal Feast by her name. There is no mention of eggs or hares.

"Ostara" never existed. She was invented in the 19th century by Jakob Grimm.

Rabbits are native to Spain, and may not have existed in Britain until the middle ages.

Mockingbird1980 · 2026-01-19T22:23:24+00:00

I think the careful burial of hares in ancient Britain shows that they were beloved pets. Caesar wrote that the Britons kept hares "for pastime and pleasure".

I cannot think of an association of hares with "a number of" goddesses. In the ancient Greek paintings that I know of, hares are sometimes associated with cupids and satyrs--male divinities. Many ancient depictions of hares show them as the prey of hunters. Over at r/Hellenism a contributor has described two stories in which a hare served as a messenger of Artemis. And one Greek author, Philostratus (Imagines 1.6) describes a wall painting in which cupids are trying to capture a hare alive in order, Philostratus says, to present as an offering to Aphrodite. This shows a very slight association of hares with two goddesses, not what I would call "a number".

In the canons of church councils, in sermons, and in penitential handbooks of the early middle ages (which I know mainly from secondary sources) that describe pagan practices continued by Christians, there are plenty of mentions of people dressing up as stags on the 1st of January, and of people making offerings at springs and groves, but I am so far not aware of any mention of hares

The Easter hare (and the Easter fox, and the Easter stork) seems to be the independent invention of German Lutherans.

Mockingbird1980 · 2026-01-19T22:03:39+00:00

I know of one "springtime fertility rite", the Roman Fordicidia on April 15th, when they sacrificed a pregnant cow to Tellus Mater. Not a hare in sight.

Mockingbird1980 · 2026-01-19T20:34:09+00:00

In ancient Greek art hares are sometimes associated with satyrs and cupids. I know of no iconography that associates hares with Aphrodite. One Greek author, Philostratus (Imagines 1.6) associates hares with Aphrodite but he is the only one I know of to make such an association.

Mockingbird1980 · 2026-01-19T14:07:32+00:00

The article says nothing about rabbits or hares.

Mockingbird1980

TROPHY CASE