his book, The Church and the Jew – The Biblical Relationship notes: Jesus had celebrated Passover on the fourteenth day of Nisan because that is the Biblical date. He observed all the Levitical holy days on the days when God had decreed and designed them to be observed. The Apostles and the First century Church did much the same. At first, the Christian Passover was celebrated at the same time as the Jewish. This simultaneous observance was preserving the Jewish ritual in the Christian festival and strengthening the bonds between Christianity and Judaism. The date must be changed. In some quarters the Church attempted to restrict the celebration to a single day – 14 Nisan and this became the prevailing custom – she had Holy Week the week in which fell 14 Nisan (the day when the Jewish feast began), and removed the festival, which had already changed its character, to the Sunday following Holy Week. In all these cases there was a dependence on the Jewish calendar, a humiliating subjection to the Synagogue which irked the Church ….. The issue…was finally settled by the Council of Nicea in 325 A.D. There it was decided that all the churches should celebrate Passover, or actually Easter, on the ecclesiastically chosen Sunday rather than the Biblical date. All the churches were thus informed. The Emperor Constantine sent his personal exhortation to all the churches concerning the decision of the Council ….. In this letter, Constantine officially establishes an antiJudaic foundation for the doctrine and practice of the Church, and declares that contempt for the Jews and separation from them is the only proper Christian attitude.”23
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THE CHURCH AND THE JEWS, The Biblical Relationship, pages 25-31
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