Halloween

Yes, Handmaiden, I’m Orthodox and I don’t celebrate Halloween. However, this feeling about Halloween, and it’s being the “devil’s holiday,” is something I was never exposed to living in Chicago. It took moving to Kentucky at age 32 for me to meet Christians who were against Halloween. You might not know, but yes, Kentucky is the Bible Belt.

I was raised in a secular non-religious family, thus I do celebrate with the family. I think it largely depends on how one celebrates anyway on whether it's demonic or not. All I've been doing is handing out candy, watching movies, and eating pizza. Nothing demonic about that.

I find it interesting how people are so afraid of Halloween. I find it very Jehovah's Witnessish to have such fear. My own priest at my parish has a Halloween family fun night complete with Jack-o-lantern carving and Halloween activities. There is a carnival at my kids' private school (Lutheran) each year during Halloween.

If we take the ancient Samhein stuff or go fanatical about this stuff, it gets silly.

In the end, it's a goofy fantasy night where people dress up and leave reality a bit. They walk around in good cheer in costumes, eat too much candy, watch a Vincent Price movie or two, then call it a night. Nobody is walking around Stonehenge praying to pagan gods from The Wicker Man and dressed like druids drinking the blood of children.

I must say, OP, I do think Halloween is harmless. My kids have loved it since they were tiny and so have I yet never have I killed anyone, maimed anyone, worshipped Beelzebub, sacrificed any goats, prayed with runes, or gotten into Celtic alchemy. I think over-sheltering our kids from innocent holidays like this and locking them up like Puritans is more dangerous than letting them dress up like a mummy and get some Peanut Butter Cups.

I’d take a mid-position here. Gurney is right that there are definitely things we need not fear, and normal celebrations, even an autumn festival, are perfectly fine for us. But Handmaiden is right that as a common holiday, even saying “we celebrate Halloween” associates us in the minds of others with the things that, whether they understand that or not, are expressions of and glorification of evil.

One thing you really have no chance of doing is “reclaiming” Halloween together with its name.

So I think the most appropriate thing for us to do would be to establish an autumn harvest festival that rivals and replaces Halloween, and has a different name. Since our “All Saints Day” happens right after Pentecost, we could think of something else, but some kind of combo of a general saints’ day and a harvest festival would be great, as a ground-up laity-observed thing. Reject “Halloween”, and openly celebrate something else at the same time.

I don't celebrate Halloween. I was working tonight - a really easy night because so many were off doing other things.

But I also don't buy into a lot of the fake history concerning Halloween. It's really the eve of All Saints Day (western only, right?). Trick or treating traces its history back to some youthful vandals in the early 20th century, not to druids or devil-worshippers. But - a lot of folks have bought into the pseudo-history, so it can be associating us with "the appearance of evil" to get involved.

Or not. I suppose it depends on who is watching.

We do nothing. Ironically when I went to turn on the porch light (we normally keep it on all night every night) late tonight after trick-or-treating time (after I got home from work around 10pm), it had burned out I suppose. So it's not coming on at all tonight.

handmaiden64 said:

Are there any other Orthodox on this forum who, like myself, don't celebrate Halloween? I am very saddened to see so many individual posts on social media tonight of Orthodox friends of mine (families with kids) going all out for this, thinking that it is harmless.

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Hi
Not harmless. It is appalling! Great stupid mindless celebration of evil. I want nothing to do with it. Fools sleepwalking into something they think harmless. Appalling to involve children in the whole awful thing.
I am very worried at how Halloween, a pagan festival and totally about dark forces is happily celebrated.
I really would love to hear the reasons from any christians who take part.

I don't celebrate Halloween. if Halloween were simply the kids running around like Spider-Man or whatever and getting candy, that would be fine.

but when you have witches, demons, and ghosts being portrayed as cute or whatever, that's not so good.

plus adult costumes (especially for women nowadays) are often very sexualized.

Can you name anyone who has converted to Satanism and started a cult or joined the druid new age movement because of Halloween? What dark forces are "celebrated?" Being silly dressing up like a werewolf or mummy hardly is celebrating Lucifer Day. For one thing, werewolves don't exist and mummies are Egyptian and hardly related to Satanism. Or pretending you're Count Dracula? Really? A fictional character super loosely based on Vlad the Impaler in Romania? Or how about dressing up as a witch? Do real witches really have a wart on their nose, a long nose shaped like a pickle, a huge black crazy hat, green skin, and fly on a broom? Is anyone actually dumb enough to be inspired to join a local witch coven because they were 'inspired' from a Halloween costume? Is candycorn Satan's sacramental candy? Is "trick-or-treating" the liturgy of Old Nick? Is watching old Vincent Price movies steadily pushing me down a dark path to the infernal regions?

I submit it is insane fears and irrational anti-Halloween style stuff that actually pushes people into atheism. Christianity in the 1980's became this ugly evangelical hallelujah I've-been-saved give money to my ministry and support me, phony healings, anti-Satan fruit salad of weirdness. I know a lot of people who think Christians are stiff fuddy-duddy, boring oddballs. Thinking there is something diabolical at every turn, imho, isn't healthy. Quite the opposite. As a young boy, I went trick-or-treating, watched spook movies from Universal, and later on in my teens I went to horror movie conventions, met a lot of horror movie actors, and I always had fun on Halloween. Yet here I am....an Orthodox Christian.

If we want REAL Satanic horrors, look no further than your local "Gay Pride" parade....or your local abortion clinic, or the divorce marathon across our nation. Look at the greed. I would say the guy driving up into the parking lot at church driving a $90,000 Tesla has more of the diabolical in him than the kid dressed as Freddy Krueger walking down the street looking for chocolate.

Lilly54 said:

Hi
Not harmless. It is appalling! Great stupid mindless celebration of evil. I want nothing to do with it. Fools sleepwalking into something they think harmless. Appalling to involve children in the whole awful thing.
I am very worried at how Halloween, a pagan festival and totally about dark forces is happily celebrated.
I really would love to hear the reasons from any christians who take part.

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I find Secretary's Day and Earth Day to be the most terrifying holidays. We really should seek to organize and bring an end to these holidays. They put my soul in great turmoil...

gurneyhalleck1 said:

Can you name anyone who has converted to Satanism and started a cult or joined the druid new age movement because of Halloween? What dark forces are "celebrated?" Being silly dressing up like a werewolf or mummy hardly is celebrating Lucifer Day. For one thing, werewolves don't exist and mummies are Egyptian and hardly related to Satanism. Or pretending you're Count Dracula? Really? A fictional character super loosely based on Vlad the Impaler in Romania? Or how about dressing up as a witch? Do real witches really have a wart on their nose, a long nose shaped like a pickle, a huge black crazy hat, green skin, and fly on a broom? Is anyone actually dumb enough to be inspired to join a local witch coven because they were 'inspired' from a Halloween costume? Is candycorn Satan's sacramental candy? Is "trick-or-treating" the liturgy of Old Nick? Is watching old Vincent Price movies steadily pushing me down a dark path to the infernal regions?

I submit it is insane fears and irrational anti-Halloween style stuff that actually pushes people into atheism. Christianity in the 1980's became this ugly evangelical hallelujah I've-been-saved give money to my ministry and support me, phony healings, anti-Satan fruit salad of weirdness. I know a lot of people who think Christians are stiff fuddy-duddy, boring oddballs. Thinking there is something diabolical at every turn, imho, isn't healthy. Quite the opposite. As a young boy, I went trick-or-treating, watched spook movies from Universal, and later on in my teens I went to horror movie conventions, met a lot of horror movie actors, and I always had fun on Halloween. Yet here I am....an Orthodox Christian.

If we want REAL Satanic horrors, look no further than your local "Gay Pride" parade....or your local abortion clinic, or the divorce marathon across our nation. Look at the greed. I would say the guy driving up into the parking lot at church driving a $90,000 Tesla has more of the diabolical in him than the kid dressed as Freddy Krueger walking down the street looking for chocolate.

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Well, you have to admit, he does have a point about the gay Tesla stuff...

gurneyhalleck1 said:

Can you name anyone who has converted to Satanism and started a cult or joined the druid new age movement because of Halloween? What dark forces are "celebrated?" Being silly dressing up like a werewolf or mummy hardly is celebrating Lucifer Day. For one thing, werewolves don't exist and mummies are Egyptian and hardly related to Satanism. Or pretending you're Count Dracula? Really? A fictional character super loosely based on Vlad the Impaler in Romania? Or how about dressing up as a witch? Do real witches really have a wart on their nose, a long nose shaped like a pickle, a huge black crazy hat, green skin, and fly on a broom? Is anyone actually dumb enough to be inspired to join a local witch coven because they were 'inspired' from a Halloween costume? Is candycorn Satan's sacramental candy? Is "trick-or-treating" the liturgy of Old Nick? Is watching old Vincent Price movies steadily pushing me down a dark path to the infernal regions?

I submit it is insane fears and irrational anti-Halloween style stuff that actually pushes people into atheism. Christianity in the 1980's became this ugly evangelical hallelujah I've-been-saved give money to my ministry and support me, phony healings, anti-Satan fruit salad of weirdness. I know a lot of people who think Christians are stiff fuddy-duddy, boring oddballs. Thinking there is something diabolical at every turn, imho, isn't healthy. Quite the opposite. As a young boy, I went trick-or-treating, watched spook movies from Universal, and later on in my teens I went to horror movie conventions, met a lot of horror movie actors, and I always had fun on Halloween. Yet here I am....an Orthodox Christian.

If we want REAL Satanic horrors, look no further than your local "Gay Pride" parade....or your local abortion clinic, or the divorce marathon across our nation. Look at the greed. I would say the guy driving up into the parking lot at church driving a $90,000 Tesla has more of the diabolical in him than the kid dressed as Freddy Krueger walking down the street looking for chocolate.

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well, last year when I went for my morning run on Nov 1, I jogged by a cemetery where there were all kinds of makeshift ouija boards on the gravestones. those were not there the previous morning.

this year I got to see male private parts spray painted on signs.

We are new to Christianity and my older kids are already feeling stressed about us going to church, so I would never consider using it church as a reason to take away something they love. But in my experience, trick or treating is harmless and fun. It’s time spent as a family outside, the kids are thrilled, we see a lot of neighbors we don’t often see otherwise, and one of my favorite parts is how genuinely happy the older people are to see the kids, especially the baby. I got a workout carrying him up to so many doors, but he brought a smile to so many faces. Just imagine a toddler ninja turtle. Come on. One older lady was very clear that she hopes we will come by sometime so the kids can play with her dog. I think I’ll take her up on it! Plus, I loved seeing my pre-teen daughter, who is usually overly occupied with being cool, feel like she could just be one of the kids and run around laughing and having fun. So, maybe other people experience trick or treating differently but from where I’m standing it is a positive thing.

We’ve never been into Halloween parties, I’ve never been interested in dressing up myself so I’ve avoided the problem of how trashy a lot of women’s costumes are, etc. So for us Halloween equals just trick or treating.

I don't celebrate it for the same reasons given by others here.

The whole trashy women's costumes are not good. But I had a bit of a joke played on me this year. I was invited to a costume party and my first thought was that it would be fun to do a costume. I like the creative aspect, and would probably have chosen a literary character or an inanimate object with a fun twist - I never got to the decision stage because the invite was just a joke. But I used to think it would be fun if costume parties were something we just did from time to time - not necessarily associated with Halloween which has developed all sorts of negative connotations.

When my daughter was little we used to let her dress up and go trick or treating to neighbor's houses, or to parties. She dressed up as things like Minnie Mouse, a pumpkin, the Velveteen rabbit, an angel. She had an aunt who was a costumer (theatre) and sometimes made the most amazing costumes for her - other times it was my happy job. It was a lot of fun. We didn't do scary decorations either, but I used to really enjoy the intricate pumpkin carving - I liked using a jeweler's saw to create those detailed scenes that look so cool with candlelight shining through them.

gurneyhalleck1 said:

Is candycorn Satan's sacramental candy?

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Yes.

We drink some cider, get together with friends, visit neighbors, dress up like our favorite superhero, eat some candy. Nothing wrong with that.

I'm much more scandalized by "christian" participating in pro-choice marches and rationalizing that it's about "healthcare"/ This is much more up Wormwood's ally.

Kristos said:

I'm much more scandalized by "christian" participating in pro-choice marches and rationalizing that it's about "healthcare"/ This is much more up Wormwood's ally.

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I think I would agree here. if Halloween stuff was what you described earlier, I don't think there would be an issue. and while I don't think Halloween has converted anyone I know to the occult or whatever, it does allow those that are already there to come out of the woodwork.

in my hometown, there is a covered bridge known as the 666 Bridge. you go there, you park your car, and you will see a dark form in front of your car. they say it's a human shaped shadow that "looks" at you through the front windshield. well, I had a few friends growing up get messed up because they tried out the legend. always on Halloween. I remember in college getting approached as I was walking home from Church by a straight guy in a kinky female nurse costume who was looking for another dude to make out with because he had a $50 bet going. he was drunk out of his mind, as were his buddies. none of them were in a man's costume.

so yeah, if it were all about candy, cider, and dressing up like Captain America with friends, I probably would have no personal issue. but there is more than enough of the other stuff that makes me think there is something sinister behind it all.