CHECK Name of moon, Passover and Eastern Orthodox dates
Wednesday (31 March) marks the occurrence of a full moon at 2249
Z. (Check about the name of moon ---The April full moon
is variously called the "Grass Moon" or "Egg Moon").
Since this marks the first full moon following the vernal equinox,
it is also called the "Pascal Moon", an event that is
important to the timing of important religious observances in
both the Jewish and Christian religions.
Passover, an important Jewish festival, begins at sundown on Thursday 1 April 1999. (CHECK!!) Celebration of this holiday traditionally begins after sundown of the evening of the full moon (or the 14th day) of Nisan, the seventh month of the Jewish ecclesiastical year, which is based upon a lunar calendar. Consequently, Passover falls following the time of the vernal equinox.
The Christian festival of Easter will be observed next Sunday, 4 April 1999 and Palm Sunday was observed last Sunday. Since Easter has its origin in Passover, it is celebrated on the first Sunday after the first Pascal Full Moon following the spring equinox. The Pascal Moon is defined as the first moon whose 14th day comes on or after 21 March. This Pascal Full Moon is used for computational purposes and may not always coincide with the actual full moon. Easter is a movable feast, occurring as early as 22 March and as late as 25 April. The concerns for fixing a correct date of Easter lead to astronomical studies and various calendrical reforms, including adaptation of the current Gregorian calendar. The U.S. Naval Observatory has an interactive program where you can determine the date of Easter for any year since 1582, the first year following the present Gregorian calendar reform.
The Eastern Orthodox Churches celebrate Easter later than the Western Christian Churches because the churches as well as many of the governments in Eastern Europe did not incorporate the Gregorian Calendar reform that Western countries had instituted in the 17th and 18th Centuries. This year the Eastern Orthodox Easter falls on Sunday XX April 1999. (CHECK!) The difference between Easter (as well as other religious feasts, such as Christmas) in the Western and Eastern churches represents the accumulating departure between the older Julian calendar scheme, which essentially considers a year of 365.25 days, and the newer Gregorian calendar scheme that produces a year of 365.24 days.
As the result of the lunar orbit about the earth, the moonrise for this full moon closest the spring equinox is quite different from the moonrise of its counterpart, the autumnal Harvest Moon. Unlike the slow change in the night to night time of moonrise during the week surrounding the Harvest Moon (on the order of 30 minutes), the spring full moon rises approximately one hour later each night.