So what about Easter?

Easter Paganism explained Pagan roots of Easter Everybody loves Easter – whether it’s the chocolate bunnies or egg hunts – but did you ever stop to think where these traditions came from? How did a celebration of Christ’s resurrection come to be celebrated with rabbits and chocolate eggs? Well, we have these traditions because Easter was originally a pagan festival – much like Christmas. As Christianity gained popularity, a lot of pagan customs and rituals were integrated into Christian festivals like Easter. Let’s take a closer look at the pagan origins of Easter and the different foods eaten on Easter around the world today. THE PAGAN ORIGINS OF EASTER While Christmas was a celebration of the winter solstice, Easter was a celebration of the spring equinox for the pagans. Pagans lived their lives in strong accordance with nature’s rhythms and patterns, and solstices and equinoxes were considered to be sacred times. A solstice marks the longest or shortest day of the year, while an equinox symbolises the day when there is balance between daylight and darkness. This shows the end of one season and the beginning of another. In the northern hemisphere, Easter falls on the spring equinox, when winter is coming to an end and nature is experiencing a rebirth and renewal. This is naturally a cause for festivities and celebrations, as the darkness comes to an end and plants and leaves start to regrow after the cold winter. HOW EASTER WAS ADOPTED INTO CHRISTIANITY Around mid-300AD, Christianity was increasing in popularity in Rome, then the centre of the world. In 312, the Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity and put an end to the ongoing persecution of Christians. However, he knew that just because he had converted, it didn’t mean that pagans would stop following their rituals and traditions. So he slowly started to adopt existing pagan rituals into Christian festivities. In 325 AD, the church council – known as the Council of Nicaea – first decided that Easter’s celebration should fall on the Sunday after the first full moon of the spring equinox. And thus Easter Sunday was born, and symbols associated with nature’s rebirth and renewal came to be associated with the rebirth or resurrection of Christ. WHERE DOES EASTER GET ITS NAME FROM? In most of Europe, the Easter celebration gets its name from the Jewish festival of Passover, which occurs at a similar time to the spring equinox. So in Greece, Easter is called Pascha, in Italy it is Pasqua, in France it is Paques, and in Denmark it is Paaske. But in Germany and English-speaking countries like England, Easter took its name from the pagan goddess Eostre – the goddess of spring and fertility.