Правило 7 Святых Апостолов

If anyone, a bishop, or a presbyter, or a deacon, celebrates the holy day of Easter before the vernal equinox with the Jews, let him be expelled from the sacred rank. (Ap. 64, 70, 71; Trul. 11; Antioch. 1; Laod. 37, 38; Carth. 51, 73, 106). We speak about the time at which the feast of the Resurrection of Christ should be celebrated annually, as established at the First Ecumenical Council, in the interpretation of the 1st rule of the Antioch Council. In the time before the First Ecumenical Council, when this rule was issued, different local churches had completely different customs, which gave rise to many discords and to the convening of frequent councils. And only the fathers of the First Ecumenical Council approved a general law regarding this for the entire church. First of all, this rule points to the astronomical moment for determining the day on which Christians should celebrate the Resurrection of Christ, taking the vernal equinox as the measure, and then prescribes that the celebration of the Resurrection should never coincide with the time of the Jews celebrating their Easter. The same is prescribed by the Apostolic Decrees (V, 17). The reason for the publication of this rule was, in all likelihood, the Judeo-Christian sect of the Ebionites, which asserted, among other things, that the remembrance of Christ’s Resurrection should be celebrated on the 14th day of the Jewish month of Nisan, when the Jewish Passover is also celebrated, since not a single law, according to the teachings of this sect, abolished for Christians the decree on the day of celebration of Passover of the Old Testament Church 139 . But the Jews used the lunar rather than the solar year to calculate time, and the month of Nisan began with the new moon closest to the spring equinox. Since the lunar year is several days shorter than the solar year, with this calculation it most often happened that the Jews celebrated their Passover before the spring equinox. To indicate the difference between the Old Testament and New Testament Easter, which have nothing in common, and to eliminate any commonality in sacred rites between Christians and Jews, moreover, to condemn the custom that penetrated from the Ebionites to some Orthodox priests, the rule orders everyone to observe the vernal equinox and only after it celebrate the remembrance of Christ’s Resurrection, and not at all together with Jews. A clergyman who violates this is subject, according to the rule, to expulsion from the priesthood 140. For evionites, see Ch. W. F. Walch, “Historie der Ketzereien”. Leipzig, 1762. Bd. I, pp. 110–124; about the disputes over the celebration of Easter in the first three centuries, S. 666–685; Wed Hefele, “Conciliengeschichte,” I, 86–101. Wed. Synth. Vlastara, II, 7 (Af. Synth., VI, 404–428). Beveregii, “Annotat.in h.can.” (page 19). And for more details about the celebration of Easter, see J. Ch. W. Augusti, “Denkwurdigkeitenaus derchristl”. Archaologie. (Leipzig, 1817 et seq.), II, 3 et seq. You might be interested in: