Easter is based on a pagan festival in honor of the born again sun and fertility. Nowadays, children look forward to chocolate Easter bunnies and the traditional Easter egg hunt every year. Easter, which emerged from the Jewish Passover week, is considered the oldest Christian holiday and the main festival in the church year. The death and resurrection of Jesus is commemorated. The customs around Easter are anything but Christian and go back much further in time.

According to tradition, a kind of Easter was already celebrated among the ancient Germans and Celts. At that time, this took place around March 21st, the date of the equinox and was a spring festival in honor of the sun that returned after the cold season. Even the term Easter is derived from the old Germanic Austro, which stands for the dawn and thus the new awakening of light and is related to the Old English Eastre and Greek Eos. Often a Germanic spring and fertility goddess named Ostara is mentioned by neo-pagans and other modern pagan cults, who is often equated with Venus, Freya or Ishtar. The tradition of the Ostara festival based on it, however, can only be documented since the 17th century and the existence of this goddess and the Anglo-Saxon Eostre is largely doubted. The fact is, however, that many centuries before the emergence of Christianity, the rebirth of the sun was worshiped in many cultures as a giver of light and a divine source of fertility.

Between March 22nd and April 25th, the Sunday after the first full moon in spring, the death and resurrection of Christ has been commemorated since the second century. In the Christian faith, Easter is derived from the direction of the east, in which the sun rises as a symbol of the risen Lord. Christian Easter bonfires were lit from the eleventh century. The fire should represent the divine light and warmth. Originally, the Easter bonfires were mainly intended to replace the popular pagan spring fire, which was supposed to drive away the spirits of winter, and to give it a Christian thought.

The Easter bunny, or more precisely the bunny itself, has always stood for life and fertility and was assigned as a sacred animal to the goddess of love Aphrodite and the controversial Ostara. There is first evidence of the Easter bunny from the Reformation period, when it was given the task of laying, painting and hiding eggs, which it has kept to this day. In Judaism, however, the hare is one of the unclean animals and the church also had a long time with the hare.

The egg symbolizes the origin of life. It is often seen as a victory sign of life over death, used as a sacrifice and gift of love and revered as a symbol of fertility. Almost every culture knows the tradition of egg coloring. For example, colored eggs were used as grave accessories in Sumerian and Roman graves. In addition, in Hindu, Egyptian and Greek myths a world egg is mentioned, which carries all life in itself. This is also mentioned in other countries such as Japan, China, Finland and the Fiji Islands. The Christianized Easter egg has been documented since the 12th century. At that time these were consecrated and dyed red to commemorate the blood of Christ.

Many other Easter customs also have a pagan origin. Even today, the Easter witches are chased away in Sweden, while violets are being sown for the goddess Persephone in Brittany, who at this point rises from the underworld and brings new life. In Iceland, however, you are safe from trolls and wild animals during Easter.


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