Sunrise Services on Easter Morning

The Easter Vigil from the rise of the Antiochan church forward was the central most important religious service of the ancient church. Before that time, the Patriarchs of Jerusalem, all brethren of Yeshua (Jesus) and Ya'akov (James), kept the church pure from the celebration of non-biblical feasts. The Antiochan church was free to take control of the incipient Paulinism after 135 C.E. with the destruction of the Nasorean Church. The Easter Vigil was the climax of a long period of preparation for baptism. 

Around A.D. 150 Christians generally agreed that becoming a Christian involved three stages. The first stage was an initial assent to the faith—what we would call today "accepting Christ as your personal Savior." The second stage was a probationary period during which the new believer was expected to show the sincerity of his or her new faith by a real change in life patterns. Justin Martyr delineates three requirements for this stage: sorrow for sin, learning and accepting the church's teachings, and transforming one's life. The third stage was the baptismal period: believers were required to fast and pray for several days before Easter and were baptized on Easter morning. Through baptism on Easter the new convert participated in the consummation of the Lord's passion and entered into the new life as a Christian sealed in Jesus' resurrection.

By the early third century this pattern had become firmly established. The first stage of coming to faith involved an examination of the circumstances under which the convert came to faith, the testimony of sponsors, and the convert's promise to live as a believer. The second stage involved a full three years of catechetical training. And the third stage, beginning with another examination to determine whether the candidate had lived piously and done good works, took the form of a full week of daily exorcisms, services, prayers, fasting on the final Friday and Saturday, and an all-night vigil of prayer and Scripture reading leading to baptism at Easter dawn.

However, with the rise of protestantism many of the most ancient traditions of the Church were set aside. The Moravians in the United States originated a new tradition of a sunrise celebration in a cemetery to remember the resurrection of Yeshua.