Easter Traditions... Exposed!

Unknown to many Christians, the icons and traditions of most of the celebrations of Easter are from a pagan or non-Christian origin. According to the gospel, Easter is the celebration of Christ's resurrection and ascension into Heaven. It is a day of prayer, feasting and penitent worship. Most of the treasured and valued traditions of Easter celebrations, though, are the work of a much older pagan religions and simply have been adopted by first the Catholic church and then subsequently by the splinter groups, most prominently the Protestant sects.

The dating of the Easter holiday was originally intended as a celebration of the Spring Equinox. The Council of Nicaea in 325 A.D. set the date as the first Sunday following the first full moon after the Equinox as the day of celebration. The early Church followed suit and promoted that day as Easter. According to a Venerable Bede, an English historian from the 8th Century, the name of Easter, like the names of the days of the week, are derived from old Teutonic mythology. According to Bede, it is derived from the Norse Ostara or Eostre, the Anglo-Saxon goddess of spring, to whom the month of April is dedicated. Originally called Eostur-monath, April became a integral month in religious celebrations. The Greek myth of Detemer and Persephone (along with it's Latin counterpart Ceres and Persephone) detailed the idea of the goddess returning yearly from Hades to the light of day. Timing was very important and the legend converges with the Spring Equinox. In order to draw more converts into Christianity, Christ's resurrection was timed to match with the resurrection of nature from winter.