Quartodecimanism
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Quartodecimanism ("fourteenism") was the practice of fixing the date of Easter (in the Bible called Pesach) to the 14th day of Nisan in the Bible's Hebrew Calendar which, according to the Gospels, was the time Jesus was crucified in Jerusalem. It was one of several methods of fixing the date of the Easter holiday. Since the Bible's calendar is lunisolar and the Roman/Western calendar is only solar, it is difficult to calculate Nisan 14 in the western calendar without knowledge of how a lunisolar calendar system works. Quartodecimanism was popular among Christians in Asia Minor and it is generally believed that this was the method specifically preferred by the followers of the Apostle John, since it was advocated by St Polycarp, a student of the Apostle.
In the second century AD a dispute arose over the churches of the East in Asia Minor and the Church of Rome. The churches of the East celebrated Easter on the 14th of Nisan in observance of the Bible while the Church of Rome celebrated on the first day of the week, which was on Sunday and of supposedly pagan origin, as some alleged, due to its similarities to Ishtar and Sol Invictus. According to the New Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 4, page 227, Sol Invictus had been adopted by the Church of Rome as evidenced by Christ as Apollo-Helios in a musoleum discovered under St. Peter's Basilica and dated to 250 and from volume 3, page 656, from the beginning of the third century "Sun of Justice" was used as a title of Christ. This difference resulted in the Apostolic Father Polycarp visiting Rome to settle the matter with Pope Anicetus. In addition Polycrates and Irenaeus wrote in support of the Quartodecimans. It was agreed that both should not interfere in how they celebrate Easter. However in 190 Anicetus' successor Pope Victor I, the first Latin Pope, excommunicated the Quartodecimans for not adhering to the Easter practices of Rome thereby causing a schism between the Church of Rome and those Orthodox churches that observed the Quartodeciman. Despite this schism, the Quartodecimans Melito of Sardis and Polycarp, for example, are both recognized as Saints by both the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches. In 325CE, the First Council of Nicaea came to a decision that the Church as a whole should use a unified system, which was the Roman one. However, to this day, the controversy remains unsettled.