Who or what determines the dates for Mardi Gras?

The date for Mardi Gras — the culmination of the Carnival season, which begins 12 days after Christmas — depends on the date for Ash Wednesday, which marks the beginning of Lent, a period of fasting and penitence in the Christian church.

The date for Ash Wednesday depends on the date for Easter, which falls on the first Sunday after the first ecclesiastical full moon — that is, a fictitious calendar moon, not the real moon — on or after the vernal equinox.

In short, Mardi Gras is always 47 days before Easter.

The First Council of Nicaea, convened by the Roman Emperor Constantine in 325, a year after his conversion to Christianity, fixed the celebration of Easter, which until then had been marked on different dates by different churches.

The church leaders created tables to determine the feast’s date. The church further standardized its method 200 years later, and it revised the tables in 1582 when Pope Gregory XIII instituted a new calendar.

Easter falls between March 22 and April 25, so Mardi Gras falls between Feb. 3 and March 9.

Future Mardi Gras dates:

2018 — Feb. 13.

2019 — March 5.

2020 — Feb. 25.

2021 — Feb. 16.

2022 — March 1.

2023 — Feb. 21.

2024 — Feb. 13.

2025 — March 4.

2026 — Feb. 17.

2027 — Feb. 9.

2028 — Feb. 29.

2029 — Feb. 13.

2030 — March 5.

2031 — Feb. 25.

2032 — Feb. 10.

Origin of holiday not known for sure

How did Valentine’s Day originate?

No one knows for sure.

One popular theory says the holiday originated with the ancient Roman fertility festival Lupercalia, which Pope Gelasius I co-opted — dedicating Feb. 14 to a saint who was beheaded for defying a law that banned Roman soldiers from getting married.

Another theory, advanced by University of Kansas English professor Jack B. Oruch, who died in 2013, traces the modern idea of the holiday’s namesake to poet Geoffrey Chaucer.

From a New York Times article posted online Feb. 14:

In a 1981 academic article, “St. Valentine, Chaucer, and Spring in February,” Mr. Oruch argued there was no documented evidence of a romantic tradition linked to St. Valentine before Chaucer wrote the poems “Parlement of Foules” and “The Complaint of Mars” in the late 14th century.

Chaucer may have connected St. Valentine to romance because it was convenient: His saint’s day, on Feb. 14, took place at a time when Britons in the 14th century thought spring began, with birds starting to mate and plants beginning to bloom, Mr. Oruch wrote.

From Chaucer’s perspective, an added perk was that Europeans at the time thought “Valentine” was a nice-sounding name. Other saints who were celebrated in mid-February had names with less poetic appeal: St. Scholastica, St. Austrebertha, St. Eulalia and St. Eormenhild.

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The Informer answers questions from readers each Sunday, Monday and Wednesday. It is researched and written by Andrew Perzo, an American Press staff writer. To ask a question, call 494-4098 and leave voice mail, or email informer@americanpress.com.