Easter

Easter

Easter is the central feast in the Christian liturgical year. It is the most important Christian festival. It celebrates Jesus Christ's resurrection from the dead, three days after he was executed. Easter is the principal feast of the ecclesiastical year. Leo I (Sermo xlvii in Exodum) calls it the greatest feast (festum festorum), and says that Christmas is only the preparation of Easter Celebrations.

Easter, which celebrates Jesus Christ's resurrection from the dead, is Christianity's most important holiday. It has been called a moveable feast because it doesn't fall on a set date every year, as most holidays do. Instead, Christian churches in the West celebrate Easter on the first Sunday following the full moon after the vernal equinox on March 21. Therefore, Easter is observed anywhere between March 22 and April 25 every year. Orthodox Christians use the Julian calendar to calculate when Easter will occur and typically celebrate the holiday a week or two after the Western churches, which follow the Gregorian calendar.

Easter marks the end of Lent, a forty-day period of fasting, prayer, and penance. The last week of the Lent is called Holy Week, and it contains Good Friday, commemorating the crucifixion and death of Jesus. Easter is followed by a fifty-day period called Eastertide or the Easter Season, ending with Pentecost Sunday. Easter Sunday is the Sunday immediately following the first full moon after the vernal (spring) equinox, unless that coincides with the Jewish Feast of Passover. In Christianity Easter is a time to have fun together, do family activities and travel away on holidays.

Easter

Easter

Easter

Easter

Easter

Easter

Easter