My mind wanders, I know, but know that there was a time, the seventh century A.D., when there were different competing dates for Easter. The Celtic Church in northern England, Ireland, and parts of Scotland used a dating system based on an eighty-four year cycle. In Rome this had been accepted until a different system based on a nineteen year cycle was introduced. The differing Roman and Celtic Easters also meant differing Roman and Celtic Lents. Within the royal household of Oswiu, King of Bernicia and Northumberland, both Celtic and Roman Easter and Lent observances meshed awkwardly, with one group eating Easter dinner with the King, while his Queen Eanflæd, a Roman Catholic, fasted with her fellow believers. I imagine some of the Queen's gossipy courtiers and fellow Roman Catholics, hungry, mouths watering from the smell of roast mountain hare, woodcock, wild boar, and red deer.
"Oh, those gluttonous Celtic Rite sinners!"
Northumberland then was divided between two kingdoms, Bernicia ruled by Oswiu, and Deira ruled by his son, Prince Alchfrith. Alchfrith sponsored a Roman Rite priest, Wilfrid, who'd been to Rome, giving him a monastery to run, evicting the place's Celtic monks. This increased Wilfrid's power and influence to the extent that he argued the Easter case from the Roman side at the Synod of Whitby in 664.
King Oswiu, who had murdered a rival monarch, Oswine of Deira, and was feeling a need to atone before Hellfire could claim his soul, ordered the Synod, taking place probably in the first months of 664 in a monastery in Yorkshire called, get ready for Old English--Streanæshalch.
Colmán, Bishop of Northumbria, argued the Celtic Rite case for the eighty-four year cycle. Wilfrid (Alchfrith's man) argued for the nineteen year cycle. King Oswiu presided and would decide the issue.
Colmán relied on tradition, going back to the authority of John the Evangelist, who, I guess, happened to endorse the Easter dating method preferred by later Celtic Christians. Since the eighty-four year cycle had been practiced for so long, why change something with the background authority of Christ's Beloved Disciple? What's more, Colmán argued, many countries in Europe used the eighty-four year cycle.
Wilfrid talked about five times longer than Colmán. He said that Saint Columba of the Celtic Rite was by no means as important as St. Peter, whom Our Lord made his rock upon which to build His Church. Mention of Peter, keeper of the keys to Heaven, Heaven's Doorman, swayed King Oswiu in favor of the Roman Rite, even though he had supported the Celtic Rite.
A political decision as well as a religious one? The result of this Synod was the expulsion of the Irish (thus Celtic Rite) monks and Colmán from their stronghold at Lindisfarne. Their return to Iona, to Ireland, left the Celtic Church weakened in Northumbria, the Roman Church strengthened.
Easter represents rebirth. It could be a moment in your life when you feel different, your perspective has changed. A seventh century king you've never heard of has decided on the dating method of a Sunday in early Spring when you get to look for jelly beans hidden the night before by your mother, along with an Easter basket filled with goodies and fake grass,
664, year of the Synod of Whitby, was a time of plague. A solar eclipse on May 1 of that year preceded the plague and was regarded as an omen. The plague devastated the peoples of southern Britain and wiped out many Northumbrians, including a few prominent churchmen. In the southeast of Britain, the plague claimed the life of King Eorcenberht of Kent.
Oswiu's motives in choosing against his Celtic Rite bias may have been due to his guilt over ordering the execution of King Oswine of Deira in 651. Oswiu in the Synod was persuaded by the Petrine argument, that St. Peter, as Christ's Rock and the Keeper of the Keys to Heaven has authority over who gets in and who stays out. Oswiu sought forgiveness from God for his heinous act, or so the idea goes. His son Alchfrith wanted to assert the Roman Rite and his own man, Wilfrid, over the Celtic, which may have had the position of the old-fashioned religion, and definitely the minority faith. Most of England followed the Roman Rite by then. Eanflæd, Oswiu's Queen, backed the Roman side. She, Wilfrid, and Colmán were all beatified, Alchfrith "vanished from history," and the Celtic Church lost some of its power in the north, while Mediterranean Christianity grew in influence and strength.
When is Easter? The fact that some obscure (to us) personages in seventh century Northumbria cared about that means they impact to this day our calendars with the roving date commemorating a day regarded by Jesus as two days after he was executed, but for me, Easter was sugar.
Vic Neptune
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