The Word in Focus with Dr Larry Taylor

The Christian observance known as the Triduum (from the Latin triduum, “three days”) designates the most sacred period of the liturgical year, encompassing the commemoration of the Passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. While now structured as a sequence of distinct liturgical celebrations—Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Easter Vigil—the Triduum originated as a unified observance of the Paschal mystery and only gradually assumed its present form.

The earliest Christians did not celebrate separate feasts of Good Friday and Easter as later developed; rather, they observed a single, continuous Paschal celebration. By the second century, this observance already included fasting, a night vigil, and the proclamation of Christ’s death and resurrection as one indivisible salvific event. The Pascha was deeply rooted in Jewish Passover theology, yet reinterpreted christologically as the fulfillment of Israel’s deliverance.

A key witness to this early theological unity is Melito of Sardis (d. c. 180), whose Peri Pascha presents the Passion and Resurrection as a single redemptive act, inseparable in meaning and liturgical expression. In Melito’s typological reading, Christ is both the slain lamb and the one who brings deliverance, thus collapsing temporal distinctions into a single divine act of salvation.

By the third century, sources indicate that the Paschal celebration included an extended fast culminating in an all-night vigil (vigilia paschalis), during which catechumens were baptized and the Eucharist celebrated at dawn. This pattern underscores the fundamentally unified character of the observance: death, burial, and resurrection were experienced liturgically as one continuous mystery.

Polycarp (c. 69-155) was a disciple of the Apostle John and said that John and the other original apostles celebrated Pascha on the 14^th of Nissan, the same day the Jewish community celebrated Passover in accordance with Torah. The purpose of having Pascha on the same day was to maintain unity between Jewish and Gentile followers of Jesus and to maintain a connection of Christianity with its Jewish roots. 

By the end of the 2^nd century and into the third, the Bishop of Rome had developed the tradition of holding Pascha on the first Sunday after the Paschal full moon.

At first this was simply a not-so-vital disagreement. By the time of Constantine, however, the gloves were off. Constantine himself convened the Council of Nicaea in 325 and set the agenda to address (a) the Arian heresy (Jesus was not fully divine but was created by God) and (b) what day Pascha should be held. To us, it hardly seems like those two things are equally important, but they were to him.

Constantine’s reasons for pushing for a day different from the Jewish Passover were highly antisemitic, charging the Jews with deicide and ignoring the fact that Jesus and all his original followers were Jewish, as well as the fact that the Scriptures are Jewish. (You can read a translation of Constantine’s antisemitic rant here: https://www.fourthcentury.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Constantine-on-Easter-1.pdf)

The Nicaean Creed confirms the deity of Christ, which is good and proper, but the Council of Nicaea also separated Christianity from its Jewish roots by dictating that Easter had to be celebrated on the first Sunday after the Paschal full moon, which is the first full moon occurring on or after March 21, the date of the vernal equinox. This meant Easter could fall anywhere between March 22 and April 25 each year. By doing so, it planted poisonous seeds of antisemitism that bore murderous fruit in the Crusades, Inquisition, Germany’s Third Reich, and the Ku Klux Klan.

The idea was never for Christians to celebrate the Jewish Passover, but for the two celebrations to be on the same day to maintain connection. Constantine ensured that would not happen. 

While there’s no point in trying to change the church calendar, Christians today need to recall the Jewish roots of our faith and eschew antisemitism in all its forms.

Nor is the point for Gentile Christians to culturally appropriate Jewish feasts by celebrating them without any Jews present. We Gentile Christians can learn much by joining our Jewish friends and neighbors as they celebrate Passover (Pesach), the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Feast of First Fruits, Pentecost (Shavuot), the Feast of Trumpets (Rosh Hashanah), the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur), and the Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkot). Many synagogues welcome the public to these celebrations, as do Messianic communities.