Easter lillies. Courtesy photo

COMMUNITY News:

Happy Easter from the news team at the Los Alamos Daily Post.

Easter, which also is called Resurrection Day and Pascha, is a Christian holiday celebrating Jesus Christ returning from the dead.

Christians believe that it is the holiest day in the year. Some people who are not Christians celebrate it as a cultural holiday.

Easter is not held on the same date every year. This is called a moveable feast. Western churches, like the Roman Catholic Church, use the Gregorian calendar, while Eastern churches, like the Eastern Orthodox Church, use the Julian calendar. Because of this, the date of Easter celebrations is different for these two types of churches even though the way they calculate the date is similar. In 2015 Easter was celebrated April 5 for both the Gregorian calendar and Julian calendar.

The word Easter is derived from Eastra, the name of the ancient German Goddess of Spring. Her festival occurred at the vernal equinox. The French word for Easter, Pâcques, comes from the Greek word for Passover, which is the Jewish holiday celebrated at about the same time of the year.

Source: wikipedia