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suggestion: that there should be a fixed date for Easter, for instance, the second
Sunday of April. I cannot believe that this would ever be acceptable to the
Orthodox, for it would break completely with the tradition, decreed at Nicaea
I, that sees the Christian Pascha as uniting the three cosmic cycles: the solar,
the lunar, the weekly. A date, traditionally decided in accordance with the
movement of the cosmos—and placing Christ at the centre or conjunction of
these cosmic cycles—would be decided according to the convenience of
modern Western society—to fit in with the spring school holiday!
All I have said so far, about the Christian calendar as an attempt to
accommodate the cycles of the cosmos, and the importance of these cycles for
our understanding of who we are in relation to the cosmos, and also as a means
of giving the drama of redemption cosmic and not merely human significance:
all this, I hope, shows what is at stake in considering severing the link between
Pascha and the cosmic cycles, symbolized in the way determining the date of
Easter engages with the cycles of the sun, the moon, and the week, the cycle
closest to our human life. I want to illustrate this by what might at first sight
seem an erudite matter, but in the light of what I have said so far, is of direct,
though symbolic, significance.
Byzantine Chronicles began with creation, and went through the six
days in which God created heaven and earth, before embarking on human
history. The chroniclers were perfectly clear that the days of creation were not
ordinary days, but symbolic of the seven days of the week, ending with God’s
day of rest. Nevertheless they were keen to identify these days at the beginning
of the Chronicle. They followed certain principles, which is all we need
concern ourselves with, as in details the chroniclers differed among themselves
(and the most accessible, The Chronography of George Synkelos, is confessedly
8
unusual in taking a line of its own). Creation must have been at the spring
equinox: the creation of plants and trees on the third day would only make
sense in springtime. On the fourth day sun and moon were created; the moon
must have been created full (it could hardly be created only partial!), so the
fourth day of creation must have been on the middle of a lunar month, the
month the Jews called Nisan, and therefore on 14 Nisan. 14 Nisan is the date of
the Jewish Passover, which already aligns the redemption of the Jewish people
at the Exodus with the creation of the world. If the first day of creation was
the Spring Equinox, 20 March, then the creation of man would have been on

8 See The Chronography of George Synkelos, trans. with introduction and notes by William Adler and
Paul Tuffin (Oxford University Press, 2002).

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