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Amoveable feast is an observance in a Christianliturgical calendar which occurs on different dates in different years.[1] It is the complement of afixed feast, an annual celebration that is held on the same calendar date every year, such asChristmas.
Often considered the most important Christian observance, Spring paschal feasts are a fixed number of days before or afterEaster Sunday, whichvaries by 35 days since it depends partly on thephase of the moon and must becomputed each year. In theHebrew calendar, the new moon ofAviv, spring, is fixed as theLunar New Year, and the month is calledNisan. The 14 of Nisan is thepaschal full moon, the day of thePesach seder, a ritual mealtelling the story ofthe Exodus from Egypt. It is one of thethree pilgrimage festivals incumbent on all Jewish males living in the land of Israel. For this observance of thismitzvah, commandment, Jesus and the disciples went to Jerusalem, and held a festive meal known as theLast Supper on Passover night according to thegospel of John (or the day before according to thesynoptic gospels).
Quartodeciman Christians continued to end theLenten fast in time to observe thePassover (Christian), which occurs before theLord's day, as the two are not mutually exclusive. However, due to intense persecution fromNicene Christianity after theEaster controversy, the practice had mostly died out by the 5th or 6th century, and only re-emerged in the 20th century.
InEastern Christianity (including the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Oriental Orthodox Churches, the Assyrian Church of the East, and the Eastern Catholic Churches), these moveable feasts form what is called thePaschal cycle, which stands in contrast to the approach taken byCatholic and Protestant Christianity.
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Not all observances are feasts, and among those that are moveable is theLenten fast, which is held for the 40 days prior to Easter.
Most otherfeast days, such as those of particularsaints, arefixed feasts, held on the same date every year. However, some observances are always held on the sameday of the week, and thus occur on a range of days without depending on the date of Easter. For example, the start ofAdvent is the Sunday nearest November 30. In addition, the observance of some fixed feasts may move a few days in a particular year to not clash with that year's date for a more important moveable feast. There are rare examples of saints with genuinely moveable feast days, such asSaint Sarkis the Warrior in the calendar of the Armenian Church.
TheRoman calendar possessed a number of moveable feasts (feriae conceptivae, "proclaimed festivals") like theSementivae or Paganalia honoringCeres andTellus that varied to allow them to occur in the proper season and conditions.Michels has argued that such moveable feasts were probably universal before the adoption of the lunar-basednundinal cycle, the earliest Italian calendars most likely beingobservational and based on natural cycles likevernation andripening.[2]
The traditionalChinese calendar islunisolar, as are others inEast Asia based on it. This causes the timing of theChinese New Year, theMid-Autumn Festival, andseveral other holidays—all traditionally associated with variousrituals and offerings—to vary within the Gregorian calendar, usually within a space of two months.
InJudaism,all holidays fixed to the lunisolartraditional calendar move relative to the Gregorian calendar, again usually within a space of two months. In addition, there are two observances that are moveable within both systems, being based on the Shmuelian tekufot approximations of the equinoxes and solstices established bySamuel of Nehardea. Samuel fixed them to theJulian calendar, which slowly slips out of alignment with the Gregorian over a span of several centuries. The first is the annual commencement of thesh'elah period during whichdiaspora Jews add a petition for rain to theirdaily prayers, which occurs on 23 November (Julian) in most years and on 24 November (Julian) when the following year will be a Julianleap year. The second is theBirkat Hachama ("Blessing of the Sun"), a ceremony performed once every 28 years, which always occurs on Wednesday, 26 March (Julian), in a Julian year of the form 28n+21.[citation needed]
InIslam,all holidays fixed to thelunarIslamic calendar vary completely within the Gregorian calendar, shifting by 10 or 11 days each year and moving through the entire Gregorian year over the course of about 33 years (making 34 Islamic years).
