“These contentions had agitated the churches of Asia since the time of the Roman bishop Victor, who had persecuted the churches of Asia for following the ’14th-day heresy’ as they called it, in reference to the Passover. . . . The future Easter observance was to be rendered independent of Jewish calculation.” (Grace Amadon, Report of Committee, Part V, Sec. B., p. 17.)
Polycrates of Ephesus (130 – 196) was an Early Church bishop wrote to Victor of Rome:
“We observe the genuine day (Passover) neither adding to nor taking from… For in Asia great lights have fallen asleep, which will rise again in the day of the Lord’s appearing… Philip, one of the twelve, John, who rested upon the bosom of the Lord, Polycarp of Smyrna… All these observed the 14th day of the Passover, according to the Gospel, deviating in no respect but following the rule of faith… I am not threatened or intimidated, for those greater than I have said – ‘We ought to obey God rather than men.” (Historian Eusebius xxvi)
Emperor Constantine wrote “… it appeared an unworthy thing that in the celebration of this most holy feast we should follow the practice of the Jews, who have impiously defiled their hands with enormous sin, and are, therefore, deservedly afflicted with blindness of soul. … Let us then have nothing in common with the detestable Jewish crowd; for we have received from our Saviour a different way.” (Eusebius’ Life of Constantine, Book 3 chapter 18)