Though I certainly disagree with some of the Roman Catholic doctrines, adherents to Roman Catholicism do maintain a website named New Advent that seems to present an unbiased comprehensive presentation of church history. The below is taken from that site’s articles entitled “Easter Controversy” in which it states that the controversy proceeded in three phases.
The first phase has to do with whether Easter should be celebrated on the same day as the Mosiac Passover. It is unclear to me as to whether Easter was considered the same as the Mosaic Passover or a celebration to be held on the same day as the Mosaic Passover. Furthermore, if the latter it is unclear to me whether Easter was viewed as a replacement for the Mosaic Passover or in addition to the Mosaic Passover. Evern furthermore, it is unclear to me if a replacement for whether the replacement was for Gentile Christians only or Gentile Christians and Jewish/Israelite Christians.
In most places in the KJV the Greek Word Pascha (G3957) is translated Passover in reference to the Mosaic Passover; the exception is in Acts 12:4 where the Greek Word Pascha (G3957) is translated Easter. Perhaps the translation of Pascha in Acts 12:4 as Easter is related to this controversy. Nevertheless, in my view it would have been better to have translated the word as Passover instead of Easter given the content of the immediately preceding verse, Acts 12:3, speaking of feast of unleavened bread. Modern day translations including the New King James Version (NKJV) translates it as Passover; that is a feature of the NKJV I admire though I do not believe it is better than the KJV overall.
The conclusion of the first phase seems to have been that Easter should be on a Sunday rather than be designed to occur on the same day as the Mosaic Passover. I certainly believe that is a better decision. I believe it is totally disrespectful to fellow Jew/Israelite Christians for Gentile Christians or Christians in general to design a holyday/feast on the same day as a Jewish/Israelite Feast designated in Leviticus 23 or anywhere in the Bible except possibly in unusual circumstances.
The second and third phases had to do with which Sunday should be Easter Sunday. It seems some Christians chose the Sunday immediately after the Mosaic Passover. Yet, other Christians chose a Sunday not related to the Mosaic Passover.
This document only focuses on the first phase. Information on all the phases may be found in the New Advent article.
The following is an extract from the article concerning the first phase:
“The first was mainly concerned with the lawfulness of celebrating Easter on a weekday. We read in Eusebius (Church History V.23): “A question of no small importance arose at that time [i.e. the time of Pope Victor, about A.D. 190]. The dioceses of all Asia, as from an older tradition, held that the fourteenth day of the moon, on which day the Jews were commanded to sacrifice the lamb, should always be observed as the feast of the life-giving pasch contending that the fast ought to end on that day, whatever day of the week it might happen to be. However it was not the custom of the churches in the rest of the world to end it at this point, as they observed the practice, which from Apostolic tradition has prevailed to the present time, of terminating the fast on no other day than on that of the Resurrection of our Saviour. Synods and assemblies of bishops were held on this account, and all with one consent through mutual correspondence drew up an ecclesiastical decree that the mystery of the Resurrection of the Lord should be celebrated on no other day but the Sunday and that we should observe the close of the paschal fast on that day only…The question thus debated was therefore primarily whether Easter was to be kept on a Sunday, or whether Christians should observe the Holy Day of the Jews, the fourteenth of Nisan, which might occur on any day of the week. Those who kept Easter with the Jews were called Quartodecimans or terountes (observants); but even in the time of Pope Victor this usage hardly extended beyond the churches of Asia Minor. After the pope’s strong measures the Quartodecimans seem to have gradually dwindled away. Origen in the “Philosophumena” (VIII, xviii) seems to regard them as a mere handful of wrong-headed nonconformists.”
