2013-05-11

May 11, 2013: Anti-corruption Action Center

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Today,  #450UA  on
KONTAKT UKRAINIAN TELEVISION
featured host ANDRIJ HOLOVATYJ
and his guest DARIA KALENIUK from AntAC,
the Anti-Corruption Action Center
in Kyiv, Ukraine.



Also, check out the Kontakt TV preview segment ...




Welcome to #450UA ... THIS WEEK, I talked to DARIA KALENIUK from the Anti-Corruption Action Center in Kyiv, Ukraine.  AntAC is a non-governmental organization (NGO) in Ukraine that brings together experts from the legal, media and political sectors, who have set a goal to reduce the level of political corruption in Ukraine.  AntAC believes that a key obstacle to Ukraine's development is political corruption, which has all but taken over most government processes.  Political corruption has a paralyzing effect on the work of law enforcement agencies and judicial authorities, turning them into instruments by which public officials can gain through personal enrichment.

AntAC has found that one of the key factors for the growth of corruption in Ukraine is the lack of consequences faced by people responsible for committing corruption.  Among AntAC's goals are not only to expose cases of outright corruption and to have these instances reversed, but also to bring to justice all that are involved in cases of corruption: private individuals and public officials who organize such schemes, as well as law enforcement officers and members of the judiciary that cover up corruption.

For more information about AntAC please check out these links …

Website:

Facebook:

Twitter:

Na vse dobre = All the best,
Andrij Holovatyj
(aka Andy Holowaty)

#450UA ... pronounced HASHTAG - FOUR - FIFTY - U - A ... is a unique approach to broadcasting, available as a special segment on KONTAKT Ukrainian Television and a new online media project - right here at 450ua.blogspot.com ... for an overview of this project, watch the backgrounder segment on Kontakt TV by clicking here ...


… also, please read the backgrounder transcript here


2013-05-04

May 4, 2013: Khrystos Voskres!


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Today, #450UA on
KONTAKT UKRAINIAN TELEVISION
took a break from producing and broadcasting
a regular segment.  KONTAKT featured
its annual programming dedicated to Easter,
which a large majority of Ukrainian Christians celebrate
according to the Eastern Orthodox calendar.


Христос Воскрес !!!
Khrystos Voskres !!!
Christ Has Risen !!!


By the way, have you ever wondered: WHY does the date for Easter change every year why do Eastern Orthodox churches celebrate Easter on a different day than Western churches?  Perhaps these excerpts from ABOUT.COM will provide some insight ...


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1. Why does the date for Easter change every year?

Have you ever wondered why Easter Sunday can fall anywhere between March 22 and April 25? And why do Eastern Orthodox churches celebrate Easter on a different day than Western churches? These are all good questions with answers that require a bit of explanation. In fact, there are as many misunderstandings about the calculation of Easter dates, as there are reasons for the confusion. What follows is an attempt to clear up at least some of the confusion.

The Short Answer

At the heart of the matter lies a very simple explanation. The early church fathers wished to keep the observance of Easter in correlation to the Jewish Passover. Because the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ happened after the Passover, they wanted Easter to always be celebrated subsequent to the Passover. And, since the Jewish holiday calendar is based on solar and lunar cycles, each feast day is movable, with dates shifting from year to year. Now, from here the explanation grows more complicated.

The Long Answer

Today in Western Christianity, Easter is always celebrated on the Sunday immediately following the Paschal Full Moon date of the year. I had previously, and somewhat erroneously stated, "Easter is always celebrated on the Sunday immediately following the first full moon after the vernal (spring) equinox." This statement was true prior to 325 A.D.; however, over the course of history (beginning in 325 A.D. with the Council of Nicea), the Western Church decided to established a more standardized system for determining the date of Easter.

In actuality, the date of the Paschal Full Moon is determined from historical tables, and has no correspondence to lunar events.

As astronomers were able to approximate the dates of all the full moons in future years, the Western Christian Church used these calculations to establish a table of Ecclesiastical Full Moon dates. These dates would determine the Holy Days on the Ecclesiastical calendar.

Though modified slightly from its original form, by 1583 A.D. the table for determining the Ecclesiastical Full Moon dates was permanently established and has been used ever since to determine the date of Easter. Thus, according to the Ecclesiastical tables, the Paschal Full Moon is the first Ecclesiastical Full Moon date after March 20 (which happened to be the vernal equinox date in 325 A.D.). So, in Western Christianity, Easter is always celebrated on the Sunday immediately following the Paschal Full Moon.

The Paschal Full Moon can vary as much as two days from the date of the actual full moon, with dates ranging from March 21 to April 18. As a result, Easter dates can range from March 22 through April 25 in Western Christianity.

Eastern vs. Western Easter Dates

Historically, Western churches used the Gregorian Calendar to calculate the date of Easter and Eastern Orthodox churches used the Julian Calendar. This was partly why the dates were seldom the same.

Easter and its related holidays do not fall on a fixed date in either the Gregorian or Julian calendars, making them movable holidays. The dates, instead, are based on a lunar calendar very similar to the Hebrew Calendar.

While some Eastern Orthodox Churches not only maintain the date of Easter based on the Julian Calendar which was in use during the First Ecumenical Council of Nicea in 325 A.D., they also use the actual, astronomical full moon and the actual vernal equinox as observed along the meridian of Jerusalem. This complicates the matter, due to the inaccuracy of the Julian calendar, and the 13 days that have accrued since A.D. 325. This means, in order to stay in line with the originally established (325 A.D.) vernal equinox, Orthodox Easter cannot be celebrated before April 3 (present day Gregorian calendar), which was March 21 in A.D. 325.

Additionally, in keeping with the rule established by the First Ecumenical Council of Nicea, the Eastern Orthodox Church adhered to the tradition that Easter must always fall after the Jewish Passover, since the resurrection of Christ happened after the celebration of Passover. Eventually the Orthodox Church came up with an alternative to calculating Easter based on the Gregorian calendar and Passover, and developed a 19-year cycle, as opposed to the Western Church 84-year cycle.

Since the days of early church history, determining the precise date of Easter has been a matter for continued argument. For one, the followers of Christ neglected to record the exact date of Jesus' resurrection. From then on the matter grew increasingly complex.

source … http://christianity.about.com/od/faqhelpdesk/qt/whyeasterchange.htm

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2. Question: How Is the Date of Easter Calculated?

Easter is a moveable feast, which means that it does not occur on the same date every year. How is the date of Easter determined each year?

Answer: The Council of Nicaea (A.D. 325) set the date of Easter as the Sunday following the paschal full moon, which is the full moon that falls on or after the vernal (spring) equinox.

We know that Easter must always occur on a Sunday, because Sunday was the day of Christ's Resurrection. But why the paschal full moon? Because that was the date of Passover in the Jewish calendar, and the Last Supper (Holy Thursday) occurred on the Passover. Therefore, Easter was the Sunday after Passover.

The Church does not use the exact date of the paschal full moon but an approximation, because the paschal full moon can fall on different days in different time zones, which would mean that the date of Easter would be different depending on which time zone you live in. For calculation purposes, the full moon is always set at the 14th day of the lunar month (the lunar month begins with the new moon). Likewise, the Church sets the date of the vernal equinox at March 21, even though it can occur on March 20. Both approximations allow the Church to set a universal date for Easter.

Still, Easter isn't celebrated universally on that date. While Western Christians use the Gregorian calendar (the calendar that's used throughout the West today, in both the secular and religious worlds) to calculate the date of Easter, the Eastern Orthodox continue to use the older, astronomically inaccurate Julian calendar. Currently, March 21 on the Julian calendar falls on April 3 in the Gregorian calendar. Therefore, for the Orthodox, the Sunday following the 14th day of the paschal full moon has to fall after April 3, hence the discrepancy in the date of Easter.

source … http://catholicism.about.com/od/holydaysandholidays/f/Calculate_Date.htm

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3. Video: Why do Easter Dates Change Each Year?

source … http://video.about.com/gospain/Why-do-Easter-Dates-Change-Each-Year-.htm

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