How is the date of Easter calculated or does some guy just decide on a suitable date?

Always 6 weeks after Mardi Gras!

Easter falls on the first Sunday on or after the first full moon of the spring equinox. Spring started on March 20th, today is the first full moon of spring, and this Sunday is Easter. Next year, look up when the first full moon will be after March 20th, and you'll know when Easter is for 2009.

It is an astrological/ mathematical method related to the commencement of spring [March 21] and the phases of moon [the first Sunday after the first full moon of the Spring]. There is a circle of 19 years that dates are repeated. This is valid for the east Orthodox Church and very similar should be for the Catholic Church.

That is a good question i have often wondered about

It is set by the first full moon after the vernal equinox. This is the one day in the year when day and night are roughly equal! It varies by more than a month over the years and so it simply cannot represent the date of anyone's death!!! It is in fact a combination of several pagan festivals most notably the spring festival. Fun to watch the Christians worshiping a pagan festival though - makes it just like Christmas when they do the same thing!!!

Jesus was crucified the day before the Jewish Sabbath. Jewish People have kept very good track of the day of Sabbath. The day Jesus rose was the day after the Sabbath. --------------------------------------… Q. How Is the Date of Easter Calculated? From Scott P. Richert, Your Guide to Catholicism. FREE Newsletter. Sign Up Now! 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? A. The Council of Nicaea (A.D. 325) set the date of Easter as the Sunday following the 14th day of the paschal full moon, which is the full moon whose 14th day 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 14th day of 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. 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. http://catholicism.about.com/od/holydaysandholidays/f/Calculate_Date.htm