We wish all readers of this website a very Happy Easter, even though not all of our bells are ringing at present. We hope to restart ringing as and when COVID-19 restrictions allow us to do so.
If you miss the sound of bells then please do check out our bell recordings and even our videos!
If you also miss the familiar Easter hymn tunes, due to restrictions on congregational singing, then we have an Easter composition specifically for this time
I will sing unto the LORD, for he hath triumphed gloriously: the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea (Exodus 15.1)
Easter has its roots in the Jewish Festival of Passover, an eight-day feast; which commemorates the journey of the Israelites, out of slavery in Egypt and to the Promised Land. We will hear this account (Exodus 14) at the Easter Vigil. In order to facilitate their remarkable escape across the Red Sea, they would no doubt have depended on the light of a full moon. They would have also needed to harvest barley to bake bread, the earliest possible opportunity being spring, of which they consumed in haste unleavened. Passover therefore was celebrated on the coming of the first full moon after the spring equinox (14th day of the month Nisan of the Hebrew calendar).
The early Christians continued to use the Jewish method for determining the date of the Passover, placing the Crucifixion on the 15th day of Nisan (see John 19:14), meaning that Easter would not necessarily be celebrated on a Sunday!; however a diversity of local practice evolved with the evangelisation of the Gentiles.
The Council of Nicaea, A.D. 325 attempted to resolve this controversy, by ruling that Easter should be celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full moon following the spring equinox and the calculation would be carried out independently from the Hebrew calendar. Indeed it took centuries for calculations to converge; indeed Celtic Christians continued to follow their own method for determining Easter as late as the 7th Century and did not adopt the method used by the Latin Church until the Synod of Whitby in A.D. 664.
A further controversy occurred in 1582 when it was realised that the earth doesn’t quite take 365 1⁄4 days to orbit the sun as was previously assumed. Pope Gregory XIII therefore reformed the Julian calendar as a result by making the century years non-leap years (unless divisible by 400). Due to the political and religious turmoil at that time, the new calendar took many centuries to be accepted. Britain did not adopt the Gregorian Calendar until 1752 and even today the Eastern Orthodox Churches continue to use the original Julian Calendar.
When Great Britain finally adopted the Gregorian Calendar, the then Astronomer Royal, the Rev’d James Bradley simplified the tables produced in 1582 and his method is used to compile the tables in the Book of Common Prayer.
Calculating the date of Easter is rather complicated because calendars have to work in whole numbers of days and the number of days taken for the Earth to go round the Sun and for the Moon to go round the Earth most certainly are not! For those readers who enjoy playing around with numbers and are armed with a pocket calculator (or a knowledge of long division!) we present a simplified method of calculation.
This simplification is reliable for the remainder of this century (the number 575 in step 3 actually contains minor solar and lunar corrections which periodically need adjusting but not before then!). The calculations are shown in full on-line on http://almanac.oremus.org/easter/bradley.html
This article was written by Jonathan Wilson and was originally published in St Wilfrid’s parish magazine, Network, in April 2011. The steps in the calculation have been amended to bring it up to date!
Bell View is an interactive method explorer software application for church bell ringers. It may be downloaded here.
Due to advice of HM Government to avoid unnecessary social contact during this phase of the Coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic, it is with much regret that we are having to suspend all bell ringing activities.
We will be keeping this web site active, in order to promote interest in bell ringing for when bells are to be heard in Harrogate again.
A statement on suspension of bell ringing activities from the Central Council of Church Bell Ringers (CCCBR) may be found here.
If you want to see what bell ringing is like, then watch our bell ringers in action by clicking arrow below!
