Indictio Paschalis

Indictio Paschalis It was an old custom in the Christian Church of the early ages to announce on Epiphany (q.v.) the days on which Easter would fall, and this announcement was called the Indictio paschalis; but as on the appointment of the days on which Easter should be observed depended the appointment of the movable feasts, this announcement was called the Indictio festorurns mobilium. The first practices of this kind we find in the Alexandrian Church, but it soon became general throughout the Christian Church, even by ecclesiastical enactments. Thus the fourth Synod at Orleans (Concil. Aurelian. 4, c. 1) ordered its observance, and even the fifth Synod at Carthage (A.D. 401, Concil. Carthag. 5, can. 7) ordered a written announcement, which was called Epistola paschalis et heortastica. See Bingham, Antiquit. Ecclesiast. 9:85 sq.; Augusti, Handbuch der Christl. Archaöl. 1, 544; Riddle, Christian Antiquities, p. 687. (J. H. W.)