Five Facts Inspired By Easter
Easter is here, but do you know the meaning of this celebration and its symbols? Let’s read the following lines to discover some anecdotes!
Why does the date of Easter change every year?
Every year we find ourselves wondering when it will take place, but there is a scientific way of knowing and a historical reason for it too.
The calculation of Easter’s date is named with the Latin word ‘computus’. There were many arguments about Easter’s date at the origins of Christianity. This is in contrast with Christmas, which has a date that is universally recognised at the end of December close to the longest night of the year. In early times, Jewish Easter was celebrated the same day, relating the date to the moon cycle. But the Christian calendar is solar so this caused a lot of confusion.
In 325 AD the Nicaea Council finally established that Easter would take place on the first Sunday after the first spring full moon. Problems didn’t end here as the Catholic and Protestant calendar is different to the Orthodox Church’s. This is why Easter is still celebrated on different dates (this year, Greeks will be having Easter on April 12th).
What is the best Easter egg in the world?
All of us had a chocolate egg waiting for us this morning, but some people take this tradition very seriously. According to Guinness World Records, the biggest Easter egg was made in Italy in 2011. It “measured 10.39 m (34 ft 1.05 in) in height and… weighed 7,200 kg (15,873) and had a circumference of 19.6 m (64 ft 3.65 in) at its widest point”. They are probably still eating it!
The most precious eggs were created in Russia in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries by Peter Fabergè as presents for the Tsar. The inspirational idea was taken from the matrioshka dolls, with more than one surprise to discover inside different shells. They were made of gold and covered in gemstones. Many of these jeweled eggs are now exhibited in museums or secretly hidden in private collections.
Are you triskaidecaphobic?
During the Last Supper on Good Friday, Jesus was betrayed by the thirteenth Apostle, Judas. This is one of the reasons why number 13 is often considered unlucky. Some people are really scared of it, apparently suffering of a specific phobia, called this unpronounceable Greek word. Because of this superstition, airplanes and airports prevent the use of the number 13, probably because there are already a lot of fears related to flying.
Easter Island
It is the most mysterious and remote land in the world, standing almost 4,000 km from Chile. A lot of unsolved questions encircle the coasts of this island, discovered by the Dutch explorer Jakob Roggeveen on Easter in 1722. A number of researchers have tried to understand the origin of the locals and the reason why they suddenly died out, leaving just colossal faces of stone erected in front of the sea.
The Easter Rising
For Irish people Easter is synonymous with rebellion. In 1916 for one week the rising spread through the streets of Dublin and the other cities of the future Republic of Ireland. The symbolic place of the revolution is Dublin’s General Post Office which was occupied.
Next year will be the centenary of that event. And, if you want to be informed ahead of time, Easter 2016 will take place on March 27th.
Photos by: Gerbil, Sotakeit and Bjørn Christian Tørrissen
