About Easter Sunday
Easter Sunday celebrates the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth on the third day after his crucifixion and is the highest feast of the Christian year — the reference point from which the entire liturgical calendar is calculated. The Council of Nicaea fixed the date in 325 as the Sunday after the first full moon on or after the spring equinox, which means in the Gregorian calendar it always falls between 22 March and 25 April. The English word Easter is commonly traced to the Anglo-Saxon spring goddess Eostre, mentioned by Bede; most Romance languages instead use derivatives of the Hebrew Pesach (Pâques, Pasqua, Pascua), pointing to the holiday's Jewish roots.
Easter Sunday begins for many with sunrise services or a vigil mass before dawn, when the Paschal candle is lit and the resurrection proclaimed. Families gather for a large midday meal — roast lamb across most of Europe, ham in much of central and eastern Europe, kid in parts of Italy and Spain. Easter eggs, painted or chocolate, are exchanged or hidden for children to find — a custom that fuses pre-Christian fertility symbols with the broken tomb of Christ. The Easter Bunny brings the eggs in much of the English- and German-speaking world. Bells silent since Holy Thursday ring again. In Greece and Russian Orthodoxy, the midnight Pascha service with candlelight processions and the greeting Christ is Risen is the central moment.