Today would be Easter for the other Christians. Since I’m in that sect — Greek Orthodox, although don’t test me on devoutness — I’ll be spending time with the extended family, chiefly in the form of eating. The highlight for me will be doling out the chocolate Easter bunnies and Peeps to the little niece and nephews; I’ve been stockpiling that sugary goodness for a month, so the payoff will be nice.

Not to play a game of one-upmanship with the Western observance of this holiday, but I’ll point out that the Orthodox method of determining the date of Christ’s comeback is a bit more straightforward: Basically, Easter should fall on the first Sunday after Jewish Passover, based on the acknowledgment that Jesus celebrated Passover a few days before his crucifixion and resurrection.

Simple, although linkage with Jewish ritual is pretty much the root of this East-West schism:

The belief gradually grew that the phrase “with the Jews” was to be understood literally and that the Holy Fathers at Nicea had decreed that the Christian Easter must not, even accidentally, occur on the same day as the Passover; rather, it must be celebrated later. As a matter of fact, however, such an interpretation was not only inaccurate but contrary to the spirit of what was decreed at Nicea, considering that acceptance of this interpretation necessitates a chronological relationship between the Christian Easter and the Jewish Passover, the very undesirable connection the Great Council sought to abolish.

Contrast that with the hoops that Catholics and Protestants have to jump through to determine their annual Easter Sunday calendar spot. The lunar-calendar calculations are so complex that they had to come up with something called Computus, basically an ecumenical math algorithm.

All told, I’d rather stick “with the Jews”.