The earliest Christian liturgical calendar centered on the annual Paschal feast, adapted from Jewish Passover but oriented toward Christ's resurrection. The Quartodeciman controversy — whether Easter should be celebrated on the fourteenth of Nisan (with Jewish Passover) or on the Sunday following — was the first great calendrical dispute in church history. Asian bishops, tracing their practice to the apostle John through figures like Polycarp and Polycrates, observed the exact 14th-day timing; Roman bishops insisted on Sunday. Irenaeus of Lyons mediated the dispute in the late second century, preserving both customs without schism. Nicaea (325 AD) eventually settled on the Sunday calculation. The developed liturgical calendar with Advent, Epiphany, Lent, Ascension, and Pentecost emerged gradually through the fourth and fifth centuries.
Documents the Quartodeciman controversy and the Easter dating dispute between Victor of Rome and the Asian churches — "We observe the exact day; neither adding, nor taking away" (Polycrates) — the first great liturgical conflict in the early Church, revealing both the importance of the calendar and the limits of Roman authority.
"All the bishops of Asia celebrated the Paschal feast, without question, every year, whenever the fourteenth day of the moon had come" — tracing the practice to John the Evangelist; also documents Irenaeus's mediation of the Victor/Polycrates dispute, allowing both traditions to continue without division.
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