The Archbishop of Canterbury is just one of the many who hopes Easter will get a fixed date: he has said he hopes it will happen “in between five and ten years’ time”. A subject of perennial annoyance, both to Christians avid for unity and non-Christians irked by shifting calendars, the debate was shifted into a higher gear by the Coptic Pope Tawadros II’s 2014 letter to Pope Francis arguing for standardisation.

The debate was the subject of this week’s Beyond Belief (21 March), that ever-serviceable series with the Revd Ernie Rea. He presided over a lively inquiry into the moves to get the date of Easter set in stone. But when should be it? The second Sunday in April? The third? If picking a date and sticking to it sounded simple, then ancient cultural traditions, not to mention school term times, suggested otherwise.