Many people today claim to believe in Jesus Christ, but we can hardly find any Christians who keep the Passover of the New Covenant that Jesus established through His blood. It is because the Passover was abolished at the Council of Nicaea in AD 325. The Council was convened by Emperor Constantine as the first world council of the Christian church, which marked an important turning point in the church history and in world history as well.
Jesus established the Passover as the New Covenant, saying, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer,” but this truth disappeared from history. Let’s review the church history.
Change of the New Covenant Passover
Jesus had the Holy Supper on the Passover (Thursday evening on the 14th day of the first month by the sacred calendar) and died on the cross the next day, the Feast of Unleavened Bread (Friday, 15th day of the first month by the sacred calendar). He was resurrected on the first day (Sunday) after the Sabbath following the Feast of Unleavened Bread. The Resurrection Day is the first Sunday after the Feast of Unleavened Bread; it is totally different from the Passover that Jesus kept before He suffered on the cross (Lk 22:15).
So the early Church had the Holy Supper of the Passover to commemorate Christ’s death, in the evening of the 14th day of the first month by the sacred calendar according to the will of Christ (1 Co 5:7; 11:23–26). The next day, on the 15th day, they kept the Feast of Unleavened Bread by fasting (Mk 2:19–20); and on the first Sunday after the Feast of Unleavened Bread, they celebrated the Resurrection Day by breaking bread (Ac 20:6–7; Lk 24:30–31). However, after the apostles left this world, the New Covenant truth was gradually changed.
At that time, the church in Rome, the capital of the world, began to wield influence over the other churches because the middle-class people and even noble families entered the church of which the majority was slaves and people of lower classes at first. However, the church in Rome left the teachings of Christ and got sidetracked; they refused to have the Holy Supper on the Passover, and had it on Sunday [Resurrection Day] after the Passover.
The Holy Supper is a ceremony to commemorate Christ’s death, not His resurrection (1 Co 11:26). Nevertheless, the church in Rome mixed the two feasts—the Passover and the Resurrection Day—which are completely distinct.
The 1st Controversy Over the Passover
The new custom of the Western churches, with the church in Rome as the center, clashed with the Eastern churches which had been having the Holy Supper in the evening of the 14th day of the first month by the sacred calendar since the time of Jesus. In AD 155, a controversy arose between Anicetus who was the leader of the church in Rome, and Polycarp who was the bishop of the church in Smyrna. Polycarp, who was taught directly by John, emphasized that having the Holy Supper on the Passover was a tradition handed down from Jesus, and said that he had been keeping the Passover—the 14th day of Nisan the first month by the sacred calendar—every year with many other apostles. However, the two were unable to come to an agreement.
“But a difference had arisen between East and West. In Asia the all-important date was the 14th Nisan . . . and then celebrate the Eucharist. In the West, however, the fast was maintained until the Sunday following the 14th Nisan and then only was the paschal Eucharist celebrated . . . In 155 Polycarp argued the question with the Pope Anicetus, but as neither could persuade the other they agreed to differ.” J. W. C. Wand, A History of the Early Church to A.D. 500, pp. 82–83
The 2nd Controversy Over the Passover
In AD 197, the Passover controversy arose again. Victor, bishop of Rome (present-day pope), forced many churches to celebrate the Holy Supper on the first Sunday [Resurrection Day] after the Passover, not on the Passover (in the evening of the 14th day of the first month by the sacred calendar), calling it the Dominical Rule [Lord’s Rule], which led them to controversy. Although Jesus celebrated the Holy Supper on the 14th day of Nisan, Victor persisted in his opinion that the Roman custom of having the Holy Supper on Sunday after the Passover was Jesus’ Rule.
“A more important stage of the controversy took place in 197 at Rome. There the Pope Victor, a man of much more dominating temper than Anicetus, determined to put a stop to all confusion and to compel the whole Church to accept the Dominical rule, i.e. observe the feast on the Sunday. Conferences were held at various places in East and West, with the result that the Dominical rule was accepted everywhere except in Asia. Victor thereupon pursued his advantage and excommunicated the recalcitrant churches. This, however, raised a storm of protest.” J. W. C. Wand, A History of the Early Church to A.D. 500, p. 83
The Western churches agreed to follow the decision of the church in Rome, while the Asian churches, which had celebrated the Holy Supper of the Passover on the 14th day of the first month by the sacred calendar since the Apostolic Age, disagreed with that decision. Polycrates, bishop of Ephesus, sent a letter to Victor. In the letter, he strongly insisted on observing the Passover on its correct date. He stated that Apostle Philip, Apostle John, and many martyrs observed the Passover on the 14th day of the first month, and that he himself, the eighth bishop, was also observing the Passover on the 14th day according to the tradition. Victor tried to excommunicate the Asian Churches on the charge of unorthodoxy, but he had to withhold his action because of the persuasion of many leaders of the churches.
“The bishops, however, of Asia, persevering in observing the custom handed down to them from their fathers, were headed by Polycrates. He, indeed, had also set forth the tradition handed down to them, in a letter which he addressed to Victor and the church of Rome, ‘We,’ said he, ‘therefore, observe the genuine day; neither adding thereto nor taking therefrom. For in Asia great lights have fallen asleep . . . Philip, one of the twelve apostles, . . . John, . . . is buried in Ephesus . . . All these observed the fourteenth day of the Passover according to the gospel, deviating in no respect, but following the rule of faith. Moreover, I, Polycrates, who am the least of all of you, according to the tradition of my relatives, some of whom I have followed. . . .’ Upon this, Victor, the bishop of the church of Rome, forthwith endeavoured to cut off the churches of all Asia, together with the neighbouring churches, as heterodox, from the common unity. And he publishes abroad by letters, and proclaims, that all the brethren there are wholly excommunicated. But this was not the opinion of all the bishops.” Eusebius Pamphilus, Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History, Chap. 24, pp. 208–209
Abolition of the Passover at the Council of Nicaea
The popes in Rome such as Anicetus and Victor kept trying to abolish the Passover, but they failed. The controversy arose again in the 4th century, and Satan finally abolished the truth of life at the Council of Nicaea, which was convened by Constantine the emperor of Rome. This ecclesiastical council, which was held in Nicaea in AD 325, decided in the favor of the church of Rome that they would abolish the Passover and celebrate the Holy Supper on the Resurrection Day.
The Council also decided to keep the Resurrection Day on the first Sunday coming after the full moon following the vernal equinox. Because they removed biblical standards—the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread, they had to make the “full moon following the vernal equinox” as a new standard, which is not from the Bible, and appointed the Sunday coming after it to be the Resurrection Day.
“The Easter controversy arose about the middle of the second century over the question of what was the proper date to celebrate Easter. The Church in the East held that Easter should be celebrated on the fourteenth day of Nisan, the date of the Passover according to the Jewish calendar, no matter what day of the week it fell upon. Polycarp of Asia was opposed in this view by the Roman bishop Anicetus, who believed that Easter should be celebrated on the Sunday following the fourteenth of Nisan. The Eastern and Western segments of the Church could not arrive at any agreement until the Council of Nicaea in 325, when the viewpoint of the Western Church was adopted.” Earle E. Cairns, Christianity Through the Centuries, p. 112
After that, the churches which kept the Passover on the 14th day of the first month, not yielding to the authority of the church of Rome, were branded as heretics and got persecuted. The saints who wanted to live according to the word of God had to keep the Passover, moving out into huts, deserts, or caves. (See A History of the Early Church to A.D. 500, p. 193).
Thus, the Passover of the New Covenant disappeared from history. As God had prophesied, Satan changed God’s set times and laws and temporarily won a victory over the saints (Da 7:25). Afterwards, false doctrines and idols, which are not in the Bible, were continually brought into the church, and the truth of life that Jesus taught and that the saints of the early Church kept disappeared completely during the Dark Ages.