Eastern Orthodox Easter (Pascha)
Pascha means Passover. It is an Aramaic word used several times in the King James New Testament Greek Lexicon to describe items involved in the Passover. It refers to the paschal lamb or paschal sacrifice. In Exodus, God commanded the Israelites to sacrifice lambs and paint the doorways to their homes with the lambs’ blood, sparing them from the coming of the Angel of Death and allowing their firstborn sons to live. As a result of the Angel of Death killing the pharaoh’s firstborn son, he allowed the Israelites to leave Israel.
Pascha also refers to the Passover Feast, which the Israelites held to commemorate their rescue from slavery. In the early Christian church, Jesus was seen as the paschal lamb, which led to his death and resurrection being celebrated on the same day as Passover. While the Council of Nicaea established a new holiday to celebrate Jesus’s death and resurrection, Easter, the Julian and Gregorian churches still celebrate the traditional Pascha.