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EASTER
ORIGINS
The celebration of the Spring Equinox, in the pre-Christian times, and even
today has been known by many names: Ostra, Ostrara, Ostara, Eostre and Eastre.
Long before organized religion, humans celebrated the victory of spring over
winter, of life over death, with rituals to the Gods and Goddesses. From
celebrating the revival of nature and the return of the sun's warmth,
Easter became the Christianized rebirth of
mankind through Christ's death and resurrection. Early missionaries hoped to
convert the Pagan celebrants to Christianity. They chose to spread their message
of faith throughout the populations by taking many of the traditions of the
Christian observance of the Resurrection of Christ, which occurred at roughly
the same time of year, and folding it into the Pagan feast of Eostre.
To the Pagan community, Eostre begins the time of preparing the garden and
selecting the seeds for planting. The earth is plowed and prepared to receive
the seed, a ritual act of fertility as well.
For the Strega community, Spring Equinox
or Primeira or Equinozio della Primavera celebrates the beginning of the
Goddess' ascent from the hidden Realm of Shadows. Longing for her children and
the light of the Sun, She emerges. As She returns, the Earth awakens, and her
children rejoice. This is a time of great fertility. It is also the time that
the God Lupercus is slain.
In A.D. 325, the First Church Council of Nicaea decided that Easter would be
celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full moon on, or after, the
spring equinox of March 21. (The Pagans would be celebrating the first full moon
of Spring, so the Church made their celebration as the first Sunday, in essence
during that full moon.)
Easter is a 'moveable' holiday. Because of
their decision, the date of the Easter holiday differs from year to year. It can
be celebrated as early as March twenty-second or as late as April twenty-fifth.
'Modern' religions like Christianity are supposed to have dispensed with these
beliefs, but in many households around the world,
Christians and secularists alike honor
Easter with a pagan practice so old that it predates human history. Easter
morning, the Christians unknowingly honor the the ancient deity Eostre, goddess
of spring.
EASTER CELEBRATED AROUND THE WORLD
In Germany on Easter Eve, young people continue a centuries-old ritual of
setting large straw wheels on fire and rolling them down hillsides. The blazing
wheel represents the sun.
In Sweden, Easter or 'Påsk' bonfires are the custom in the western provinces,
where villages vie to see who can make the biggest one.
When St. Patrick came to Ireland in the fifth century, the Irish participated in
a pagan spring fire rite that they wanted to keep. St. Patrick gave the Irish a
new ceremony -- huge bonfires outside churches. The custom of blessing a fire
spread throughout Europe, becoming part of Easter services.
In the Ukraine and Slavic countries, eggs are still decorated by hand in 'pin
art'. The game of "Pohrebenije Kostrubon'ka", played on Easter Sunday afternoon
by the girls in some of the Carpatho-Rusyn villages, has been handed down from
the pagan times when it was a religious ceremony for the festival of the spring
sun.
Another game played by the Carpatho-Rusyn
youth is the one in which the girls hide the dyed eggs in their hands while the
fellows try to take the eggs away from them. The victory of a fellow over a girl
signified in pagan times, the victory of the spring sun over winter.
In Slovakia, about a week prior to Palm/Flower Sunday, the older school children
would begin preparing a Maypole to be carried thru the streets in the village.
The children gather in homes throughout the village making wreaths of straw and
colored cloth. Many wreaths, including one for the Maypole, were made 20 to 24
inches in diameter and suspended from a pole by a thin cord.
Also, 6 to 8 eggs were 'blown' clean,
decorated and strung along the cord. So that their Maypole would have variegated
colors, colored paper was bought and cut into strips and suspended from the
pole. Pussy-willows are handed out at Church services much like the Christian
churches use psalm branches.
EASTER SYMBOLS
Eggs and other symbols pre-date Christianity but, in the church's earliest days,
these symbols were converted or Christianized to help teach lessons of
redemption and rebirth.
Easter bunnies and Easter eggs are believed to be derived from Pagan culture
where the egg and hare were both symbols of fertility and new life. They were
first colored by the pagans to resemble the returning sunlight as well as the
northern lights in the sky.
Ancient Egyptian, Persian and Chinese civilizations used the egg as the icon of
fertility, of new life, centuries before it became a symbol of Christ's
resurrection.
Faberge eggs are probably the most widely-recognized ornamental eggs. They began
when the Russian Czar Alexander had the famous goldsmith named Peter Faberge
create a special Easter egg for his wife, the Empress Marie.
The bunny connection with Easter probably was brought to England by Anglos and
Saxons. They considered the hare/rabbit, an animal with many offspring, a symbol
of fertility, according to the Venerable Bede, an eighth century Benedictine
monk.
The custom of eating hot cross buns is also said to have Pagan origins. The
Saxons ate buns that were marked with a cross in honour of Eostre. The ancient
Greeks also consumed these types of buns in their celebrations of Artemis,
Goddess of the hunt (known as Diana to the Romans). And the Egyptians ate a
similar cake in their worship of the Goddess Isis.
There are conflicting ideas as to what the cross symbol represents. One
suggestion is that horn symbols were stamped on cakes to represent an ox, which
used to be sacrificed at the time of the Spring Equinox. Another theory is that
the cross marks on the bun relates to moon worship, whereby the bun represented
the full moon, and the cross represents its four quarters. |
