Why Are Both Easter Week And April Fools Day In The Same Month?

Easter

Easter (Old English: Ēostre; Greek: Πάσχα, Paskha; Aramaic: פֶּסחא‎ Pasḥa; from Hebrew: פֶּסַח‎ Pesaḥ) is the central feast in the Christian liturgical year.[1] According to the Canonical gospels, Jesus rose from the dead on the third day after his crucifixion. His resurrection is celebrated on Easter Day or Easter Sunday[2] (also Resurrection Day or Resurrection Sunday). The chronology of his death and resurrection is variously interpreted to have occurred between AD 26 and 36.

Easter marks the end of Lent, a forty-day period of fasting, prayer, and penance. The last week of the Lent is called Holy Week, and it contains Good Friday, commemorating the crucifixion and death of Jesus. Easter is followed by a fifty-day period called Eastertide or the Easter Season, ending with Pentecost Sunday.

Easter is a moveable feast, meaning it is not fixed in relation to the civil calendar. The First Council of Nicaea (325) established the date of Easter as the first Sunday after the full moon (the Paschal Full Moon) following the northern hemisphere’s vernal equinox.[3] Ecclesiastically, the equinox is reckoned to be on March 21 (even though the equinox occurs, astronomically speaking, on March 20 in most years), and the “Full Moon” is not necessarily the astronomically correct date. The date of Easter therefore varies between March 22 and April 25. Eastern Christianity bases its calculations on the Julian Calendar whose March 21 corresponds, during the 21st century, to April 3 in the Gregorian Calendar, in which calendar their celebration of Easter therefore varies between April 4 and May 8.

Easter is linked to the Jewish Passover by much of its symbolism, as well as by its position in the calendar. In many languages, the words for “Easter” and “Passover” are etymologically related or homonymous.[4]

Easter customs vary across the Christian world, but decorating Easter eggs is a common motif. In the Western world, customs such as egg hunting and the Easter Bunny extend from the domain of church, and often have a secular character.

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter

 

April Fools’ Day

Precursors of April Fools’ Day include the Roman festival of Hilaria, held March 25,[1] and the Medieval Feast of Fools, held December 28,[2] still a day on which pranks are played in Spanish-speaking countries.

In Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (1392), the “Nun’s Priest’s Tale” is set Syn March bigan thritty dayes and two.[3] Modern scholars believe that there is a copying error in the extant manuscripts and that Chaucer actually wrote, Syn March was gon.[4] Thus the passage originally meant 32 days after April, i.e. May 2,[5] the anniversary of the engagement of King Richard II of England to Anne of Bohemia, which took place in 1381. Readers apparently misunderstood this line to mean “March 32”, i.e. April 1.[6] In Chaucer’s tale, the vain cock Chauntecleer is tricked by a fox.

April Fools’ Day is celebrated in different countries on April 1 every year. Sometimes referred to as All Fools’ Day, April 1 is not a national holiday, but is widely recognized and celebrated as a day when many people play all kinds of jokes and foolishness. The day is marked by the commission of good-humoured or otherwise funny jokes, hoaxes, and other practical jokes of varying sophistication on friends, family members, teachers, neighbors, work associates, etc.

In France and Italy children (and adults, when appropriate) traditionally tack paper fish on each other’s back as a trick and shout “april fish!” in their local language (“poisson d’avril!” and “pesce d’aprile!” in French and Italian respectively). In some countries, such as the UK, Australia, and South Africa the jokes only last until noon, and someone who plays a trick after noon is called an “April Fool.”

The earliest recorded association between April 1 and foolishness can be found in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (1392). Many writers suggest that the restoration of January 1 as New Year’s Day in the 16th century was responsible for the creation of the holiday, but this theory does not explain earlier references.

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_Fools’_Day

Wellness, even yours truly does not possess a solid answer for this question yet know enough to bring the subject up for thought and discussion in order to continue having this online publication act as a resource of elightenment.

If I had to guesstimate, I would say that any belief system in order to catch on with the public, especially in the western world, would need to have some fun and entertaining elements added into the storyline in order for women and children to invest their belief into it, women and children as the individuals who give birth to and sustain all belief systems that have ever been introduced by men since the beginning of time.