EASTER, a festival of the christian church, observed in
memory of our Saviour's resurrection.
The Greeks call it pascha, the Latins pascha, an He-
brew word signifying passage, applied to the Jewish feast
of the passover. It is called easter in the English, from
the goddess Eostre, worshipped by the Saxons with pe-
culiar ceremonies in the month of April.
The Asiatic churches kept their easter upon the very
same day the Jews observed their passover; and o-
thers, on the first Sunday after the first full moon in the
new year. This controversy was determined in the
council of Nice, when it was ordained that easter should
be kept upon one and the same day, which should al-
ways be a Sunday, in all christian Churches in the world.
For the method of finding easter by calculation, see
Vol. I. p. 492.