Marking Time: Forming Spirituality through the Christian Year

Ses s i on 3: Keep i ng the Rhy thm of the Sp i r i t 65

7. The Eastern Orthodox theology of Sunday: “a little Easter”!

8. Athanasius of Alexandria: The 50 days of the Easter season is “one great Sunday.”

B. The beginnings of the Church Year: the observance of Easter

1. For believers, the person of Christ has become our Passover: “Christ our Passover has been sacrificed for us” (1 Cor. 5.7; cf. 13.1, 15.36).

2. Earliest Christian Pascha , “a unitary commemoration and celebration of Christ’s death and resurrection” (George Wainwright)

3. Asian churches, Nisan 14, in Rome, on the following Sunday

4. By the 3rd or 4th century, Rome’s date was adopted.

5. Early Christian remembrances

a. Vigil kept from Easter night of Saturday to Sunday

b. The Old Testament prophecies read as the core of the service

c. Good Friday was celebrated with greater formality (around events of Holy Week) in the latter 4th century around Jerusalem venues.