Easter

Pascha, the Resurrection of the Lord

A Sunday in March or April, set by the church's calendar of the moon; the Orthodox churches usually keep it later, on the Julian reckoning

Irenaeus, writing about 190, reports that Polycarp, a bishop from Asia, visited Rome in the time of Anicetus. The Asian churches kept the feast on the fourteenth day of the month, whatever the weekday, and Polycarp said he had always kept it so with John and the other apostles. Anicetus said he followed the elders of Rome before him, who had not kept the fourteenth day. Neither could move the other, and they stayed in communion. Irenaeus traces the difference back to Xystus of Rome (about 120). This is the earliest surviving record of a yearly Easter, and it is a record of two practices at odds over the day, each claiming those who went before. Britannica dates the visit about 154/155; the Catholic Encyclopedia says about 150.

In a letter to Victor of Rome he defends the fourteenth day. He names Philip, one of the twelve, and John, with Polycarp and others, as “great lights” of Asia whose practice his churches keep. Irenaeus reports the same kind of claim for Polycarp and John (H1). These are traditions reported more than a century after the apostles, and Rome answered with its own tradition. No first-century text records a yearly feast, and the New Testament shows none.

Victor moves to cut off the churches of Asia over the date. Irenaeus, who keeps the Sunday practice himself, writes to rebuke him, citing Polycarp and Anicetus, who had kept peace. The dispute shows that the churches kept the feast on two different days, with no apostolic rule to settle it.

the disagreement in regard to the fast confirms the agreement in the faith.

The council settles that all churches keep the feast on one Sunday, apart from the Jewish reckoning. The text of its decree has not survived, so its details come from later writers. The familiar rule (the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox) is a later summary. Constantine’s letter to the churches after the council, which Eusebius preserves (Life of Constantine 3.18), urges every church to keep the one day and to stop reckoning it by the Jewish calendar. The date was settled by a council and an emperor three centuries after the apostles, not by any word of theirs.

Writing to Januarius, he names the yearly keeping of the Lord’s passion, resurrection and ascension among customs held “throughout the whole world”. He says they rest on tradition, not on Scripture, and that they may be understood as set either by the apostles themselves or by councils. He is a leading defender of the feast, and he does not claim a command for it.

other things which we hold on the authority, not of Scripture, but of tradition, and which are observed throughout the whole world

The church of Northumbria, taught by Irish missionaries, accepts the Roman reckoning of Easter at the urging of Bishop Wilfrid, with King Oswy’s support. The date of Easter was the main matter. The British side appealed to John and the Roman side to Peter, and the Catholic Encyclopedia says neither had much reason.

In The Reckoning of Time he writes of an English month, Eosturmonath, and a goddess Eostre. He is the only source for her. This explains the English and German name of the feast at most; nearly every other language calls it by a form of Pascha, from Passover. Scholars debate whether Bede reported a real goddess or the lore of his own day.

In the Summa he says the Lenten fast forbids eggs and milk foods. This is the root of the egg at Easter: hens kept laying through Lent, and the eggs were kept, blessed and eaten when the fast ended.

the Lenten fast lays a general prohibition even on eggs and milk foods.

Its Directory for the Publick Worship of God says festival days, commonly called holy days, have no warrant in the word of God and are not to be continued. The Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland and other strict bodies keep to this today.

His Latin essay De ovis paschalibus (About Easter Eggs) is the first clear record of the Easter hare. In Upper Germany and Westphalia, he writes, children were told that a hare laid the eggs. German settlers brought the hare to Pennsylvania, where it became the Easter rabbit.

In Deutsche Mythologie he proposes that Bede’s Eostre was a local form of a wider German goddess, whom he calls Ostara. The Library of Congress says it is impossible to tell whether an Ostara existed outside Grimm’s proposal. In 1874 Adolf Holtzmann guessed the hare was her sacred animal. No old source ties Eostre to a hare or to eggs.

In The Two Babylons this minister of the Free Church of Scotland writes that “Easter” is Astarte, a title of Beltis, the queen of heaven, whose name on the Assyrian monuments is Ishtar, and that the church’s customs came from Babylon. AAP FactCheck traces the modern “Easter comes from Ishtar” meme to his book. “Ishtar” is an Akkadian name and “Easter” an English one, from unrelated languages; the likeness is one of sound only, and most languages call the feast by a form of Pascha. The church historian Peter Lineham, asked about the claim, says there is no link at all. The claim does not hold as history.

there is zero connection with Ishtar

Fry’s of Bristol makes the first hollow molded chocolate Easter eggs in 1873. Cadbury follows in 1875, filling its eggs with sugared almonds.

Congress restricts the Capitol grounds in 1876 to protect the lawn, ending the children’s Easter Monday egg rolling there. In 1878 President Hayes opens the White House South Lawn to the egg rollers, and the White House Easter Egg Roll begins.

Writing in a paper read in the Churches of Christ, he answers brethren unsure whether a Christian, or the church, should keep Easter and Christmas. The Supper, he says, was kept on the first day of the week, and the church may not add feasts that the Scriptures do not authorize. He grants that individuals may do some things at home that the church may not do as part of its worship. It is one writer’s view, not a church statement.

And we are told that the early disciples did this regularly, upon the first day of the week.

He reports that members and elders of two congregations in White County, Arkansas, which the editor names as the College Church and the Downtown Church in Searcy, joined the denominations’ Easter sunrise service, and that most members of the other congregations there protested. The editor calls the practice compromising. The article shows that some Churches of Christ congregations did join community Easter services, and that others in the same churches objected.

churches of Christ have always remembered Christ's death and resurrection EVERY first day of the week.

Its magazine article on the observance of Easter states the church’s principle: only what God requires in His Word is to be observed in His worship. It adds that the word “Easter” in the King James Version of Acts 12:4 is a mistranslation of the word for Passover, which the American Standard Version renders “the Passover”.

There is no divine command to observe Easter.

Projects a record $24.9 billion in United States Easter spending for 2026, including $3.5 billion on candy, with 80 percent of consumers planning to celebrate.

Christ was crucified at the Passover, and Paul calls Him “our passover” (1 Corinthians 5:7). The feast’s Greek and Latin name, Pascha, comes from the Hebrew word for Passover. In the 2nd century the churches kept a yearly feast on two different days (H1, H3): the Asian churches on the fourteenth day of the month, and Rome and most others on the Sunday that followed. Historians divide on which practice is older, and no first-century text settles it. After the Council of Nicaea (H4) the Sunday reckoning became the rule.

The English name is another matter. It comes from Bede’s one sentence about a goddess (H7), and it explains only the English and German word. Claims that Easter, the egg or the hare come from Ishtar or Ostara trace to 19th-century writers (H11, H12), not to any old text. The documented egg is a Lenten one (H8). The Catholic Encyclopedia allows that the egg may have older roots, but the record gathered here shows only the Lenten one.

The Asian Passover date came first

The Sunday feast grew from the Lord’s Day

Roman Catholics

The Eastern Orthodox churches

Anglicans and Lutherans

Methodists, Baptists, Pentecostals and most evangelicals

The Seventh-day Adventist Church

The Churches of Christ

The Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland

Jehovah’s Witnesses

The Churches of God in the Armstrong tradition

Quakers (the Religious Society of Friends)

The Easter Vigil

Catholics, Anglicans and Lutherans gather after dark on Holy Saturday for new fire, the paschal candle, readings and baptisms. It is the high point of the Catholic year.

Orthodox Pascha

A procession around the church at midnight with candles, the greeting “Christ is risen! Truly he is risen!”, Paschal Matins and the Divine Liturgy. Baskets of food are blessed to break the fast.

Sunrise and Easter Sunday services

Many Protestant churches hold a sunrise service and a special Easter service with music, and baptize on the day. Some Churches of Christ congregations joined community sunrise services in the 1950s, and writers in their own papers objected (H16).

Dyed and blessed eggs

Lent kept eggs from the table (H8), so they were blessed and eaten at Easter. Orthodox Christians dye them red, for Christ’s blood or for joy. Whether eggs had older meanings is not shown; the documented root is the Lenten fast.

The Easter hare and the bunny

First clearly recorded in Germany in 1682 (H10), and brought to Pennsylvania by German settlers, who called it the Oschter Haws. Children built nests for the hare’s eggs. The claim that it began with a goddess has no old evidence (H11).

Egg hunts and egg rolling

Children roll eggs down hills in Britain and Germany. The White House has held an Easter Monday egg roll since 1878 (H14).

Candy, baskets and cards

Chocolate eggs date from 1873 (H13). In 2026 the National Retail Federation projected a record $24.9 billion in United States Easter spending, with $3.5 billion on candy (H18).

Every Lord’s Day already proclaims the resurrection

The risen Lord met His church on the first day, and the church gathered on it to break bread (S1, S2).

Jesus rose on the first day of the week, and on that evening He came and stood among His disciples (S1). Years later the church at Troas was “gathered together to break bread” on the same day, and Luke, who was with Paul, records it as the reason the church came together (S2). That is the New Testament’s answer to the question of how the church remembers the resurrection: every week, on the day it happened. Apostolic example binds, and the pattern the apostles set is the weekly first day.

The church that keeps Easter agrees that the resurrection is the center of the gospel. The question is not whether to celebrate it but whether a yearly feast was given to the church’s worship. The New Testament shows no church keeping one, and no surviving record of one comes before the 2nd century (H1).

The Supper looks to the cross and the coming; baptism shows the resurrection

The Lord’s Supper proclaims His death till he come, and baptism is the likeness of His resurrection (S3, S4).

The Lord gave one memorial, the Supper, and Paul says what it proclaims: “the Lord’s death till he come” (S3). Each Lord’s Day, then, the church remembers the cross and looks for His return. The resurrection has its own sign in Romans 6, where the believer is buried with Christ in baptism and raised to walk in newness of life (S4). So the New Testament already holds the resurrection before the church in the day it meets, and in the act by which a person is joined to Christ. A specific appointment excludes other kinds: the church has no warrant to add a second, yearly memorial of its own.

This is also why a yearly Memorial of Christ’s death, kept by Jehovah’s Witnesses, and the yearly Passover of the Armstrong churches, depart from the pattern. The text speaks of “as often as ye eat this bread”, and Acts 20:7 puts the breaking of bread on the first day. Weekly is the apostolic example; yearly is not.

Days are a matter of conscience for each believer, not a law for the church

Romans 14 leaves one believer free to regard a day and another free not to; Colossians 2 says no one may judge over it (S5, S6).

Paul writes of believers who differed over days: “One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let each man be fully assured in his own mind” (S5). The days at Rome were most likely Jewish days and fasts, so the passage does not set out to approve a Christian feast. It does give the rule for a Christian’s own regard for a day: it is between the believer and the Lord. Colossians 2:16-17 says no one may judge a believer “in respect of a feast day or a new moon or a sabbath day”, which are “a shadow of the things to come; but the body is Christ’s” (S6). Scholars differ on what the Colossian teaching was, but the list of feast, new moon and sabbath matches the days of Israel’s law. Some read Romans 14 and Colossians 2 as concerning Jewish days only, so that they neither forbid nor permit a Christian feast. Others read them as a rule that no day may be required of a believer. On either reading, no one may bind a day on a brother.

So a Christian may keep Easter at home, give thanks for the resurrection and enjoy the family meal. What they may not do is make that day binding on others, judge a brother who does not keep it, or bring it into the church’s worship as a holy day (A1, A2).

Paul rebukes those who “observe days, and months, and seasons, and years”, and fears his labor was in vain. Easter is such a day.

The Galatians were Gentiles who had worshiped no gods (verse 8) and were now taking up the law’s calendar as a way to stand right with God (verse 21 and 5:4). Scholars differ whether their days were pagan or Jewish; Paul calls what they were turning to “weak and beggarly rudiments”. The text strikes at days made necessary for standing with God, which fits a feast imposed on the church as a duty. It does not name Easter, and it does not by itself forbid a believer’s private regard for a day, which Romans 14 allows (S5). The case against a yearly Easter in the church’s worship rests on the pattern (A1, A2), not on this passage alone.

A feast the Lord never gave, taught as a duty, is worship by the precepts of men. Jehovah’s Witnesses argue from this chapter (verse 3), and the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland makes the same charge, that Easter is worship devised by man (H17).

This is a right use for the part that matters. Jesus condemns setting aside a command of God for a human tradition (verses 3-6) and teaching human rules as God’s doctrine. A church that makes Easter a day of obligation, or a required part of its worship, does just that. It does not reach a family that keeps the day at home without calling it God’s command (A3).

Easter takes over a pagan feast and its symbols, and the Lord told Israel not to inquire how the nations served their gods and do likewise, nor to add to what He commanded.

Verses 30-31 forbid Israel to copy the nations’ rites and to serve the Lord in the way they served their gods, with their abominations. Whether Easter does that is the question, and the evidence does not show it: the feast’s name in most languages is Passover (H7), and the goddess is a 19th-century guess (H11). Verse 32 is a sound principle for the Lord’s worship: God’s commands are neither added to nor diminished. It weighs against a yearly feast added to the church’s worship (A1). It was said to Israel about the law God gave them, and its application to the church is by the pattern of the New Testament.

Hislop and those who follow him say the “queen of heaven” is Ishtar, and that Easter’s cakes and eggs are her rites.

The text condemns Judah for making cakes to a goddess and pouring out offerings to other gods. It names no Easter, no egg and no hare. The link to Ishtar and to the English name rests on Hislop’s 1853 book (H12), which the fact-check names as the source of the claim, and not on the passage or on any old text. A faulty argument is not made sound by a sound conclusion. The case against the feast in the church’s worship stands on the New Testament pattern (A1), not on this text.

Paul says, “let us keep the feast”, and Christ is our passover. The church keeps the feast of His sacrifice and resurrection.

Paul may well have written near the Passover season, since he plans to stay at Ephesus until Pentecost (1 Corinthians 16:8), and the image may draw on it. But the image is of the church’s life: the leaven he means is “malice and wickedness”, and the unleavened bread is “sincerity and truth”. He is calling a congregation to put away open sin, and he names no date, no yearly rite and no Sunday. The verse shows that Christ fulfills the Passover, and that the church keeps the feast by a pure life. It does not appoint a yearly Easter.

The resurrection is “first of all” in the gospel, so it deserves a yearly feast to honor it.

The resurrection is central, and the church should preach it often. This is why it is preached every Lord’s Day (A1). That an event is central does not give the church a feast of it. Paul tells the Corinthians what to preach; he does not tell them to keep a day.

Heaven’s messenger announced the resurrection and told the women to go and tell. The church does well to announce it with a feast each year.

The women were sent to tell the disciples, and the church has told it ever since. The text gives the task of telling, not a yearly day for telling it. The church may announce the resurrection on any Lord’s Day, and it does (A1).

Study

• The earliest record of Easter is a quarrel over its date (H1, H3). What does it mean that two churches that both claimed the apostles kept it on different days?
• Augustine defends the yearly feast as a custom held “on the authority, not of Scripture, but of tradition” (H5). How should a Christian weigh a tradition its own defender says is not in Scripture?
• Acts 20:7 puts the church at the Lord’s table on the first day. If that is the weekly memorial of His death, what does a yearly one add or take away?
• Galatians 4:10 and Colossians 2:16-17 are often quoted against Easter. Read each in its chapter: whom was Paul writing to, and about what days?
• The claim that Easter comes from Ishtar is false as history (H12). Why does it matter to get the history right, even when one holds the same conclusion about the feast?

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