Catholic scholar and apologist Scott Hahn wrote the following about the early Christian celebration of Easter:
It was the first Christian holiday to be observed each year. We don’t know when that custom began, but we see the first evidence of it very early in the second century—and the Fathers of that time insisted that their tradition went back to the Apostles. The Christian rite was not a seder but rather a reading of the story of Jesus’ Passion and resurrection, interspersed with preaching and conferral of the sacraments of initiation: Baptism, Confirmation (Chrismation), and Eucharist . . . Many Christians in the East kept the custom-which they attributed to the Apostle John—of observing the Resurrection on the date of the Passover each year. Since Passover falls on the fourteenth day of the Hebrew month of Nisan, these Christians were called Quartodecimans, which literally means “Fourteeners.”
In the West, however, the Church always marked the feast on the Sunday after Passover (unless Passover felt on a Sunday), thus emphasizing the importance of the Lord’s Day as the day of the Resurrection.
The popes in the West threatened the churches in the East with excommunication. Bishops (notably Polycarp and Irenaeus), in turn, made pleas for mutual tolerance. And both customs coexisted uneasily for centuries. But Passover mattered too much at the Church ultimately could not live with the strain. In 325 the Council of Nicea settled the matter definitely by imposing the Sunday observance of Pascha on the whole Church. (Scott W. Hahn, The Fourth Cup: Unveiling the Mystery of the Last Supper and the Cross [New York: Image, 2018], 158-60)
The mention of Polycarp and Roman Bishop Ani shows that Polycarp did not know of papal primacy in his interaction with Anicetus, the bishop of Rome. As Eusebius wrote:
And when the blessed Polycarp was at Rome in the time of Anicetus, and they disagreed a little about certain other things, they immediately made peace with one another, not caring to quarrel over this matter. For neither could Anicetus persuade Polycarp not to observe what he had always observed with John the disciple of our Lord, and the other apostles with whom he had associated; neither could Polycarp persuade Anicetus to observe it as he said that he ought to follow the customs of the presbyters that had preceded him.
But though matters were in this shape, they communed together, and Anicetus conceded the administration of the eucharist in the church to Polycarp, manifestly as a mark of respect.1 And they parted from each other in peace, both those who observed, and those who did not, maintaining the peace of the whole church." (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, 5.24.16-17)
Polycarp rejected the practice of Anicetus but he also tried to persuade Anicetus of his theological view. Such is contrary to the teachings of various councsil of Catholicism, including the Council of Lyons II from 1274:
466 [DS 861] Also this same holy Roman Church holds the highest and complete primacy and spiritual power over the universal Catholic Church which she truly and humbly recognizes herself to have received with fullness of power from the Lord Himself in Blessed Peter, the chief or head of the Apostles whose successor is the Roman Pontiff. And just as to defend the truth of Faith she is held before all other things, so if any questions shall arise regarding faith they ought to be defined by her judgment. And to her anyone burdened with affairs pertaining to the ecclesiastical world can appeal; and in all cases looking forward to an ecclesiastical examination, recourse can be had to her judgment, and all churches are subject to her; their prelates give obedience and reverence to her. In her, moreover, such a plentitude of power rests that she receives the other churches to a share of her solicitude, of which many patriarchal churches the same Roman Church has honored in a special way by different privileges—its own prerogative always being observed and preserved both in general Councils and in other places.
Polycarp's attitude also contracts the Vatican II document, Lumen Gentium. In section 25 of this text, we read that:
[R]eligious submission of mind and will must be shown in a special way to the authentic magisterium of the Roman Pontiff, even when he is not speaking ex cathedra; that is, it must be shown in such a way that his supreme magisterium is acknowledged with reverence, the judgments made by him are sincerely adhered to, according to his manifest mind and will. His mind and will in the matter may be known either from the character of the documents, from his frequent repetition of the same doctrine, or from his manner of speaking.
To get around the implications of Polycarp and his dispute with Anicetus, Catholic apologists are forced to argue from silence and question-begging, as seen in the following:
Polycarp, able bishop of Smyrna, tried to urge the latter usage on Rome but Anicetus remained steadfast to the custom that had begun with Peter. Great controversy was waged between bishop and pope but the pope did not make it a question of papal authority and the bishop had the good sense not to suggest or cause a schismatic break. The argument was to continue until finally settled, in favor of the Western Church [Rome], at the Council of Nicea. (John Farrow, Pageant of the Popes, p. 20 as cited by Stephen K. Ray, Upon This Rock: St. Peter and the Primacy of Rome in Scripture and the Early Church [San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1999], p. 155 n. 15)
