Why Easter seems less celebrated than Christmas ?

[dzheremi]

Welllll then...

I see this thread is still full of...a certain lack of knowledge that I cannot sharply identify because we are in Lent.

Cool, cool.

Can I just point out, for those of you who are saying that Easter is tied to the celebration of preexisting Spring festivals in an attempt to paganize Christianity or whatever, as a person of the Church that set Easter's date for the entire world in the third century or so , thereby ending the quartodeciman controversy, you actually have it entirely backwards -- at least as concerns the 'Eastern' calculation of Easter/Pascha. (Maybe there's some Western pagan Spring festival that is more transparently taken over by Easter; I don't know anything about that, but I would say to that why don't you try to find some day on the calendar on which there was no preexisting pagan something or other already going on? It's probably not possible.)

This is so because in fact in Egypt to this day there is a preexisting pagan festival that is still celebrated as a national holiday among all Egyptians (Christian and Muslim alike) that marks the Spring. It is called Sham an-Nessim festival, and it has since the Christianization of Egypt been tied to the Monday after Easter Sunday -- in other words, the calculation of the pagan festival followed the calculation of Easter, not the other way around. Curiously, if you look at the traditions related to it and how it is celebrated today by Muslim Egyptians, it is a lot more like the Western secular celebration of Easter than the Eastern Pascha (with colored eggs and picnics and such), and that leaves the actual Pascha the day before to be a purely Christian holiday -- as it is meant to be. (Muslims do not celebrate Pascha, obviously.)

Sham Ennessim is found on the Coptic calendar, but of course we 'Christianized' the meaning it, but it's not really a "Church holiday" specifically, since it's celebrated by Muslims too; it's just that the Christians give it a certain Christian interpretation (which is not hard to do, since it's marked by fish, themes of rejuvenation, etc. -- things that are very easy to see within Christian symbolism), while the Muslims...I don't know...for them it's a nice day off and an excuse for a family picnic, maybe? I don't know. I've never asked one. I doubt many of them realize that its date has been dictated by the national Church since the third century or so, so they are essentially celebrating a Christianized pagan holiday.

The point is, if Pascha was pagan in origin due to its proximity to preexisting pagan Spring festivals, why would we not have taken the proper day itself and used that, which was already established among the Egyptians since 2700 BC? Instead, the Spring festival has been kept as its own separate day, Christianized (and remains so, but obviously only among the Christians), and has followed the date of Easter ever since Egypt's Christianization, and for some reason squeaked through the "no paganism anywhere" attitude of the Muslims to this day. It's kind of funny when you think about it: a nation that is 80-90% Muslim and it's fair to say legally and also socially is often extremely hostile to Christianity is celebrating a pagan festival according to its Christian dating, which is directly tied to the holiest day on the Christian calendar!

 

[GodLovesCats]

I have a feeling it will take all week to figure out the who/where/when/why of Easter's origins as a pagan, not Christian, holiday, if people want to argue there is no chance spring festivals began before 33 AD and Christians later changed the meaning of it. Keep an open mind and you should find the information in one day.

 

[truefiction1]

So idolatry is okay as long as we slap Jesus on it?

What's idolatrous about commemorating the death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ?

The real problem is that you have never partaken of Orthodox Christian spiritual and Liturgical Life, and so are easily mislead into ignorance of what is really happening in the deep spiritual lives of Orthodox Christians, who commemorate Christ's death and Resurrection every time they partake of the Eucharistic meal, but especially on the feast of all feasts -- Pascha. Orthodox Christians worship the Holy Trinity only. If that makes us guilty of idolatry, then go ahead and lock us up, because we're not going to stop glorifying our Holy God in our great holy day of all holy days!

 

[truefiction1]

I have a feeling it will take all week to figure out the who/where/when/why of Easter's origins as a pagan, not Christian, holiday, if people want to argue there is no chance spring festivals began before 33 AD and Christians later changed the meaning of it. Keep an open mind and you should find the information in one day.

No one is saying that there weren't spring festivals celebrated by pagans prior to Christianity. Actually, there were other religions wherein there are uncanny similarities with Christian elements and practices. There are, as a matter of fact, common elements in all religions, because all religions serve to provide answers to the important questions that human beings (and human communities) need answers for in order to have a way to order their lives within their respective communities and to provide them with meaning and purpose. Therefore, similarities in religious symbolism and motifs will always be found. But to insist that Christianity is something other than true Christianity just because similarities can be found between it and ancient pagan religions is to ignore very large chunks the historical and spiritual reality of the Christian faith, and results in the fabrication of false claims about God's saints.

 

[GodLovesCats]

I never said Easter is not a Christian holiday if that is what you mean.

 

[truefiction1]

I never said Easter is not a Christian holiday if that is what you mean.

I mean that Pascha never derived from paganism in any way, nor did it come into existence on account of any inclination towards paganism or synchronization with it. In Orthodox Christianity Pascha is strictly about the triumph of Jesus Christ over death (which means our triumph over it, by God's saving works). Once a person embarks on the spiritual journey towards Pascha, with prayer and fasting, then whatever claims are encountered about holy Pascha having pagan origins and aspects can be safely disregarded as rotten bologna, and promptly discarded. That's generally what people of faith do with such claims.

Many false teachers who wish to begin their own breed of sect often resort to making false claims about the origins of certain aspects of traditional Christian beliefs and practices so as to convince potential proselytes that they should refrain from participating in the alleged false religion of Christendom, and enter instead into membership of their own allegedly "enlightened" group of believers. People with itching ears, wanting to receive a sense of their own importance by belonging to the select group of elite enlightened ones will easily fall prey to such leaders. We've seen what happens with a lot of them. It's really unfortunate because they ultimately become so led astray that terrible things can and do happen to them, and they are not the sort of terrible things that lead to salvation by grace through faith.

I just thought that people should hear this, so I'm posting it. Whether or not you're one of those who need to hear it, I don't know.

 

[GodLovesCats]

You brought up your denomination in that reply, which is totally different from mine. I never heard of any "Pascha" celebrations, only Easter. Is that a difference between Catholics and Protestants?

 

[truefiction1]

You brought up your denomination in that reply, which is totally different from mine. I never heard of any "Pascha" celebrations, only Easter. Is that a difference between Catholics and Protestants?

Pascha is what we call the feast of Christ's Resurrection. Roman Catholics and Protestants call the same feast Easter.

 

[truefiction1]

... And sectarian groups, such as Jehovah's Witnesses or other offshoots of Protestant denominations, call Easter a pagan festival.

 

[GodLovesCats]

I only called Easter pagan because I read that on several different websites.

 

[truefiction1]

Oh, okay. Then I'm sorry (my apologies).

The people who created those web sites need to have some way of marketing their religion to people, so they need to devise a way to meaningfully differentiate themselves from the established, mainstream Churches in order to convince potential members that they are the only group of people who really do what the Bible commands, whereas all the other Churches have gone astray into false beliefs and practices. They prey upon people's fears and uncertainties in order to get them to succumb to their religious indoctrination, so as to gain control over them. This is why they make the absurdly false claims about the origins and nature of beliefs and practices of the ancient Church.

 

[Kerensa]

Pascha is what we call the feast of Christ's Resurrection. Roman Catholics and Protestants call the same feast Easter.

Only in English-speaking countries or German-speaking countries (and some countries that were Christianised by English-speaking missionaries). In nearly all Western European languages, including in the traditionally Catholic countries, the celebration of Christ's Resurrection is also called by some variant of the word Pascha.

 

[prodromos]

I only called Easter pagan because I read that on several different websites.

They all repeat the same falsehoods.

 

[GodLovesCats]

Do you choose to not believe "falsehoods" that are presented as facts with a flew clicks?

 

[prodromos]

Do you choose to not believe "falsehoods" that are presented as facts with a flew clicks?

I've checked the veracity of their 'facts'. They haven't become true since then.

 

[Ignatius the Kiwi]

Pagan Easter: Where Did the Modern Tradition Really Originate? | Historic Mysteries
Paganism and Easter | Origin of Easter

Primary source, not unsubstantiated opinions. Where's the evidence Easter predates Christianity itself?

 

[Ignatius the Kiwi]

I only called Easter pagan because I read that on several different websites.

Easter is the English name for the historic Christian feast celebrating the resurrection of Christ. Why should we distinguish between Easter and Pascha and assume the former was derived from a pagan spring festival while the better explanation is that only the name for the feast has English origins?

Let's put it this way, the Pope when he's speaking Italian will refer to the feast as Pascua and the other romance language countries will refer to it as the same. Are we to assume that Roman Catholics in New Zealand who call this feast Easter are celebrating a totally different feast at the exact same time as the Pope who will refer to it as Pascua? I don't think so, it's obviously the same feast.

So the fact that the feast is called Easter is utterly irrelevant to the origins of the feast itself, except in regards to the English name of it. The feast itself predates the first mentions of it by English writers (Bede is the first I believe to mention it). So we need go back and see what the earliest mentions of the feast which occur in the second and third centuries to determine Easter's (Pascha's) origin and I maintain they are Jewish in origin.

We can obviously see this by the name itself, Pascha is the Greek word for Passover and is used in the New Testament to describe that Jewish feast. When we look at the second century we see a dispute about the day the Paschal feast was supposed to take place by the Bishop of Rome and the eastern Christians. Ireneaus mediated and suggest both dates were acceptable because both were apostolic. We even have the works of Quatrodecimans like Melito of Sardis and we learn that the primary text read in his Church on that day was the Exodus account. Yet what Melito does with that is bring Christ to the forefront and makes him the center of their celebration. I highly recommend reading it. Then we see in the council of Nicaea the dispute about the dating for Easter resolved it is agreed how the feast ought be calculated. All this long before the first mentions of the feast before the English term Easter was even used (as far as I can tell).

I have never been able to understand why people desperately cling to this idea that Easter must be pagan and I can only conclude they look at the feast with English, Protestant eyes which blind them to historical reality of the feast itself. They think it makes intuitive sense because Easter sounds so odd a name for a Christian feast. They need to be less Anglo focused in this regard.

 

[prodromos]

Easter is the English name for the historic Christian feast celebrating the resurrection of Christ. Why should we distinguish between Easter and Pascha and assume the former was derived from a pagan spring festival while the better explanation is that only the name for the feast has English origins?

Let's put it this way, the Pope when he's speaking Italian will refer to the feast as Pascua and the other romance language countries will refer to it as the same. Are we to assume that Roman Catholics in New Zealand who call this feast Easter are celebrating a totally different feast at the exact same time as the Pope who will refer to it as Pascua? I don't think so, it's obviously the same feast.

So the fact that the feast is called Easter is utterly irrelevant to the origins of the feast itself, except in regards to the English name of it. The feast itself predates the first mentions of it by English writers (Bede is the first I believe to mention it). So we need go back and see what the earliest mentions of the feast which occur in the second and third centuries to determine Easter's (Pascha's) origin and I maintain they are Jewish in origin.

We can obviously see this by the name itself, Pascha is the Greek word for Passover and is used in the New Testament to describe that Jewish feast. When we look at the second century we see a dispute about the day the Paschal feast was supposed to take place by the Bishop of Rome and the eastern Christians. Ireneaus mediated and suggest both dates were acceptable because both were apostolic. We even have the works of Quatrodecimans like Melito of Sardis and we learn that the primary text read in his Church on that day was the Exodus account. Yet what Melito does with that is bring Christ to the forefront and makes him the center of their celebration. I highly recommend reading it. Then we see in the council of Nicaea the dispute about the dating for Easter resolved it is agreed how the feast ought be calculated. All this long before the first mentions of the feast before the English term Easter was even used (as far as I can tell).

I have never been able to understand why people desperately cling to this idea that Easter must be pagan and I can only conclude they look at the feast with English, Protestant eyes which blind them to historical reality of the feast itself. They think it makes intuitive sense because Easter sounds so odd a name for a Christian feast. They need to be less Anglo focused in this regard.

Just to add to your excellent post, some years ago I had access to a great library of primarily lexicons (dictionaries) for many European llanguages, and I found the German "ostara" (easter) was derived from the Old Teutonic German word for "resurrection". The fact that the word is similar to the alleged goddess Eostre, of whom scant details are recorded, is because they both have at their root the direction in which the sun rises. In many languages the sun is said to "east" in the morning and "west" in the evening, so that "east" becomes the root of words associated with "rising", or in the case of Old Teutonic German, "ost".
Because Spring coincides with the days becoming longer and the sun 'easting' earlier, that is probably how Eostre got her name. Both words get their etymology from the same root, but otherwise are completely unrelated.
The "Ishtar" link is of course completely bogus. No one has ever been able to demonstrate how a long forgotten ancient Babylonian deity came to migrate into the consciousness of Germanic tribes and from them to the Anglos. It is complete fiction.

 

[All4Christ]

I only called Easter pagan because I read that on several different websites.

I encourage you to look for sources that show the references to the claims or that are primary sources. When you see references, go check them out.

Also, searching for something like “is Easter pagan” will bring up all the sites stating that Easter is pagan. Certain searches direct the results to support a specific claim.

 

[tampasteve]

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