Ari Belenkiy

Easter 414 in Alexandria: Hypatia’s Murder Case Reopened

Abstract

Belenkiy (2010) proposed that the murder of Alexandrian philosopher Hypatia by a clique of Bishop Cyril’s zealots resulted from her involvement in the conflict between Roman and Alexandrian Churches about the date for Easter 417. Hypatia passed an unfortunate astronomical judgment that supported the Roman date over the Alexandrian one. The argument favors the murder occurring in March 416. However, this version has several problems. Therefore we suggest here another scenario, where an unorthodox position of the Novatian Church on the time of Easter celebrations and early Passover celebration in 414 triggered the chain of events leading to Hypatia’s murder. This scenario offers a unique chronological slot for all the events related to the murder and, in particular, places the murder in March 415. According to this scenario, Hypatia displayed astronomical skills that adequately match her subsequent esteemed historic reputation.

Biography

Ari Belenkiy is a mathematician and science historian. He received his M.Sc. in Mathematics from Donetsk State University (Ukraine) and his Ph.D. in Mathematics is from University California at Irvine (1995). For a number of years, he has been teaching Mathematics and Statistics at Bar-Ilan University (Israel). Currently, he is teaching statistics at Simon Fraser University (British Columbia, Canada). His most recent works are on Isaac Newton’s unpublished universal calendar (Notes & Records Royal Soc, 2005), the murder of Hypatia of Alexandria (Astronomy & Geophysics, 2010), Alexander Friedman’s contribution to the modern cosmology (Physics Today, 2012) and Isaac Newton’s work at the Royal Mint (Journal Royal Statistical Soc A, 2013). He has been living in Vancouver (British Columbia, Canada) since 2010.