What holiday did the Slavs celebrate at Easter? Pagan Easter. Where did the tradition of celebrating Easter come from?
Heaps of works have been written about how Christian Easter (both Catholic and Orthodox) is calculated. I just want to follow up on EvK’s post by writing how I tried to comprehend all these calculations of Easter days and what Easter is all about. This question has interested me for a long time, but there is very little literature on this issue, there is a lot about Christian Easter, but there is almost no literature about the holiday itself, so to speak, the pagan origin of Easter...
I hope it will not be a revelation to anyone that Easter is an ancient rite that was celebrated by cattle breeders and farmers in ancient times, even before the Coming of Jesus Christ. By the way, even Bulgakov wrote about this in “The Master and Margarita.” It’s just that Christianity absorbed these customs and gave them its own interpretation, because it’s easier not to get rid of the old, but to adapt it to your needs. So it happened with Easter.
So. What are these pagan beliefs and holidays that were absorbed by Christianity and at the same time left a big imprint on Christian Easter? Undoubtedly, these are the cults of agricultural plant gods, patrons of field cultivation. vegetable gardening, horticulture, viticulture, etc.
As is known, the deities of these cults were: among the Egyptians - OSIRIS, among the Greeks - Dionysus, among the Phoenicians - Adonis, among the Phrygians - Attis, etc. Having miraculously been born (plant shoots) and having reached maturity, these deities were sacrificed (harvest) in order to ensure the life of people by their death, being buried (sowing) they miraculously resurrected (new shoots), (here is the corresponding formula).
The most characteristic of these cults is the cult of Osiris; I would like to pay attention to the myth of Osiris and the spring holiday in his honor.
I will not cite here one of the myths about this god in detail, I mean his litigation with Set, respectively, Osiris was a good king who gave people the science of agriculture, etc. Osiris rose from the dead, became the king of the underworld and the judge of the dead, provided those who believe in him with immortality and afterlife bliss. The holiday rites in honor of the Phoenician deity Adonis also had a lot in common with the holiday in honor of Osiris. In this cult, the mournful part of the holiday lasted 7 days and on the 8th Adonis was sung as resurrected; the holiday was celebrated in the summer.
The Phrygian holiday of the death and resurrection of the god Atis was celebrated in March and was close in its rituals to the holidays in honor of Osiris and Adonis. All these multi-day holidays took place in general terms like this: in the first days, strict fasting was observed, believers repented of their sins, and performed cleansing rituals. The service was of a gloomy nature; the rituals depicted the martyrdom of the deity, and the service took place over the shroud - the image of the deity in the coffin.
On a certain day, the shroud was carried around the temple and at midnight the next day the nature of the service changed dramatically, the priests dressed in light clothes, sad chants and the theme of the holiday were replaced by cheerful ones, the main priest announced to the believers about the resurrection of the deity from the dead!!! The believers put on festive clothes, feasted, had fun and when they met, greeted each other with the words “The Lord is risen.”
In our Mother Rus', Holy Week and Easter merged with the ancient Slavic multi-day spring holiday, the main content of which was honoring the spirits of ancestors, sacrifices to field and plant deities, and cleansing magical rites. The original meaning of these holidays was forgotten, but the church tried to give them its own explanation and interpretation.
Early Christian communities initially adopted Easter in the form in which it was celebrated by the ancient Jews! The ancient Jewish holiday of Passover originated approximately 3,500 years ago, when Jews were engaged in cattle breeding, wandering with their herds through the Arabian desert. Initially, it was a pastoral holiday. Since spring was an important moment in the life of pastoralists, it was in spring that a massive birth of livestock took place, etc.
According to the beliefs of the ancient Jews, it was at this time that it was necessary to appease the spirits, especially the so-called destroying spirit, which wandered in the spring hungry, thirsty for blood, so that it would not touch the weak young animals and fragile queens.
As we all know well, many primitive peoples believed that life lies in blood and therefore blood is the best sacrifice for the spirit! (The corresponding lines from the Book of the Law immediately come to mind:)).
Jewish pastoralists held a communal ritual feast in the spring, during which they slaughtered lambs and smeared their blood on their tents and cattle pens. Thus, this feast was like a sacrifice to the spirits. At that time, a firm date for the holiday had not yet been established. He celebrated in the spring and the day was set by priests or tribal leaders.
Later, having moved from the Arabian desert to Palestine with its agricultural indigenous population, the Jewish tribes eventually began to switch to a sedentary lifestyle and, accordingly, began to engage in agriculture. With the change in the economic life of the Jews, their social status, religion and way of life began to change. Holidays also underwent corresponding changes, in particular, the Easter holiday lost its previous meaning, it merged with an agricultural holiday in which bread occupied the main place. It was the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Feast of the Mafios. He coped with the days of the beginning of the barley harvest, which was the first of the grains to ripen.
Further economic and political development of the Jewish people ultimately led to the formation of a Jewish national state centered in the city of Jerusalem. All these socio-economic changes gave rise to a new national religion - the religion of the god Yahweh. At the same time, the priesthood of the capital's Jerusalem Temple acquired great influence. Pursuing the goal of strengthening the national state and, accordingly, the influence of religion in it, the priests connected the Easter holiday with the “exodus of the Jews from Egypt” and created a version that this holiday was established by the god Yahweh himself.
The new “version” of the holiday turned out to use the rituals of both the pastoral Passover and the agricultural holiday of unleavened bread, as well as some rituals borrowed by the Jews from neighboring peoples.
The course of historical development led to the death of the independent national Jewish state and it found itself under the heel of the Roman Empire.
In this current situation, the messianic sentiments that arose somewhat earlier became widespread among all layers of the Jewish people. (They expected that the gloomy present would be replaced by a “new age”, a “future kingdom” that would give universal happiness and prosperity, all power would belong to the Jews, under the scepter of the wonderful king of the Messiah, i.e. the anointed one... - N.M. Nikolsky . Origin of Jewish holidays and cult. M.. 1931, p. 32). The Passover holiday became the culmination of reactionary preaching and hope for the miraculous deliverance of the Jewish people with the help of a divine messianic savior.
This is exactly how it was perceived by early Christian communities in the 1st and 2nd centuries. But they did not accept it purely mechanically, but radically changed its theological and ideological content, meaning; Easter was connected with one of the episodes in the biography of Jesus Christ, well known to all of us. In early Christian communities, it was associated with the atoning death of Christ and it was a holiday of sorrow and suffering; it is no coincidence that the holiday is preceded by a long fast.
The first Christian communities included not only Jews but also pagans, worshipers of various eastern and Greco-Roman deities who inhabited the multinational Roman empire. Thus, the pagans transferred to Christianity the rituals of their major spring holiday in honor of the death and resurrection of the pagan gods of vegetation. On the other hand, the Christian communities themselves, at that moment, especially when they were already a centralized church organization, were themselves interested in eliminating and eradicating old pagan traditions and rituals, and as practice has shown, it was easier to do this by absorbing these same rituals and holidays giving them a new Christian content and interpretation.
Christians first celebrated both Easters - the Easter of suffering and the Easter of resurrection. It was later that these two holidays merged into one multi-day holiday. The merger process continued for the second half of the 2nd century and throughout the 3rd century. In the end, the church developed exactly the holiday that exists today. Only suffering turned out to be assigned to Holy Week, and Easter, as a holiday of resurrection, was assigned to the so-called Bright Resurrection.
In the new Christian holiday, everything adopted by the Christian church from other pre-Christian religions turned out to be reworked and associated with Jesus Christ and was now dedicated to him. In this form, Easter became widespread in all Christian churches and became their most important and most important holiday.
Another interesting fact is that in the first Christian communities the holiday was celebrated at different times, but it was mainly celebrated simultaneously with the Jewish Passover. Over time, having thrown out all the Jewish content from the holiday, the church tried to tear it away from the Jewish date of the celebration.
In the second half of the 2nd century. A long dispute and struggle broke out between Christian churches over the issue of the day to celebrate Easter. But this was consolidated by the decisions of the first ecumenical council of Nicaea in 325, based on the existing “apostolic traditions” which indicated that Easter should be celebrated after the vernal equinox and not at the same hour with the Jews, the council established the time of its celebration - the first resurrection after the first vernal equinox and full moon. Thus, Easter kept the date of the celebration wandering. The date of Easter ranges within 35 days from March 22 to April 25 according to the so-called old style. In 341, a local council was held in Antichonia, which decreed: “All those who dare to violate the definition of the Council of Nicea on the day of Easter celebration shall be excommunicated from the church.”
And in I found something interesting in another source:
Why was Easter moved to Sunday? According to legend, Jesus Christ took part in Jewish holidays during his earthly life and his example was followed by the apostles after the Ascension. Therefore, the most ancient liturgical custom was that Christians celebrated Easter on the 14th day of Nisan, i.e. on the same day that the Jews celebrated their holiday. This practice was continued to be followed for a long time by Christians of the Roman province of Asia, who received the scientific name of the fourteeners (from the word “fourteen,” i.e. the 14th day of the lunar month). Their practice was not just “Judaizing”, but had a deep theological justification, because On this day, both Jews and the first Christians expected the coming of the Messiah. The fast of the Asians had the character of a “fast for the lost brothers of the people” (i.e., the Jews), who at that time celebrated their holiday. In the rest of the Church, the first important Easter “reform” was carried out: it was decided to celebrate the Easter holiday on the first Sunday after the 14th of Nisan. This change also had a theological basis, but a more “historical” one: according to the Gospels, Christ rose “on the first day after Sabbath,” i.e. on Sunday, and the previous post on Friday and Saturday was dedicated here to the memory of his Death on the Cross. Both practices certainly had the right to exist, but such a situation caused temptation among believers.
For the first time, the difference in celebration became a topic of discussion when visiting St. Polycarp of Smyrna, Bishop of Rome. Aniketa ok. 155, however, uniformity in practice was not achieved, because both sides wanted to preserve their tradition. Nevertheless, church communion was not interrupted - both bishops celebrated the Eucharist in confirmation of their unity in Christ, thereby testifying that the issue of the Easter date is not dogmatic and cannot serve as a reason for church division.
However, such peaceful coexistence of the two practices did not last long and soon a serious conflict arose, initiated by Rome. The Roman Bishop Victor (189-198) in 195, under threat of excommunication, demanded that the people of Asia Minor celebrate Easter together with the rest of the Church. Polycrates of Ephesus wrote a letter to him, where he explained the validity of his tradition, tracing it back to the apostles. Roman practice from the point of view of the Asia Minor people was obviously an “innovation”, a “reform”, but Victor nevertheless excommunicated them from Eucharistic communion.
Such a harsh position of the Roman bishop caused protest even among those who celebrated Easter according to Roman custom. Yes, St. Irenaeus of Lyon wrote a letter to Bishop. Victor, in which he recommended that he remain in peace with those who celebrate Passover on the 14th of Nisan. The difference in the celebration of Easter, according to the saint, has always existed; the people of Asia Minor preserve a very ancient tradition, and it is impossible to interrupt Eucharistic communion on a ritual issue.
Reform of the Jewish calendar and the date of the vernal equinox
A distinctive feature of all Easter disputes in the 2nd century. is the fact that the actual date of the 14th of Nisan, or the Passover full moon, did not play any role in them. All parties to the conflict - both the fourteeners and Rome in the person of Bishop. Victor, they agreed that it was necessary to follow the Jewish calculation in this matter. However, in the II-IV centuries. An important event occurred in Judaism - a reform of the calendar was carried out.
So far we have been talking about the solar calendar, but the Jewish calendar was based on the movement of the Moon. The length of a lunar month is about 29.5 days, and the lunar year was designed to alternate months of 29 and 39 days, giving a total of 354 days. It is not a multiple of the solar year (the solar year contains approximately 12.4 lunar months), therefore, in order to include the lunar months in the solar year without breaking them up, every few years another one was added to the 12 lunar months, thereby bringing the lunar years closer to the solar ones. Such extended leap years contained i.e. 13 lunar months. This is the main idea of the lunosolar (lunar-solar) calendar, which was a combination of lunar months with solar years.
In During the existence of the second Temple, the day of the new moon was determined empirically, by observing people specially appointed for this, and then the Sanhedrin solemnly proclaimed the “sanctification” of this day. An additional month was inserted as needed, and many factors were taken into account - whether the barley that was needed for the sheaf offering on the second day of the holiday was ripe, whether the lambs were ready for sacrifice, etc.
After the destruction of the Temple and the dispersion of the Jews as a result of the suppression of the Bar Kokhba revolt (132-135), the situation changed. As documents that have reached us show, the Jews of the diaspora stopped celebrating Passover uniformly on the same day, but began to introduce various calendar systems, correlated with the calendars of the areas in which they lived. The rabbis, realizing the need to preserve the unity of the people, decided to introduce a new lunar-solar calendar, mandatory for all Jews, in which additional months were inserted not as needed, but according to a certain pattern. This process took place during the 2nd-4th centuries. and was probably completed by Hillell II, who in 344 introduced a universally binding Jewish calendar.
It would seem that this event had nothing to do with the date of the Christian Passover, but as a result of the Jewish calendar reform, a new problem arose: the Jewish holiday, calculated according to the new calendar, occurred from time to time before the spring equinox. This date was considered the beginning of spring in the ancient world and was often viewed in the popular mind as the "unofficial" start of the new year. In this case, Christians who celebrated Easter in a certain year after the vernal equinox, and in the next year before this date, celebrated it twice in one year in such a time system. Although such a construction may seem artificial, nevertheless, the Christian reaction to this situation was the creation of their own Easter tables, in which Easter was always celebrated after the equinox.
The writings of Josephus and Philo of Alexandria mention that the Jewish Passover is celebrated depending on the date of the vernal equinox, and many Christian writers testify that the Jews changed their calendar system, which caused a contradiction with this ancient rule. Among them we can name Anatoly of Laodicea, St. Peter of Alexandria, Apostolic Constitutions, Socrates and Sozomen. So, failure to take into account the vernal equinox, a date that is not found in Holy Scripture, became the impetus that resulted in the Christian Easter.
The emergence of Christian Easter tables
The creation of an independent Christian Easter meant a fundamental refusal to take into account the date of the Jewish 14th Nisan, which, according to Christian Easterists, was calculated incorrectly. The two main Christian sees - Rome and Alexandria - began to compile their own Easter tables independently of each other. They were based on astronomical data of that era. Everything that has been said about the relationship between accuracy and simplicity in relation to the calendar is also true in relation to Easter. The problem in this case was that the duration of the solar and lunar year are not multiples. To coordinate their duration, already in the ancient world two cycles were in use - 8-year and 19-year.
The first of them, more ancient, is based on the observation that eight solar years in terms of the number of days are approximately equal to 99 lunar months. Its shift in the phases of the Moon is about 1.53 days in eight years, which is quite noticeable. The 19-year lunisolar cycle was created by the famous ancient astronomer Meton in 432 BC. It is more accurate, especially in the form of improvements by Calippus and Ipparchus, converting it to 76-year and 304-year periods respectively.
Interestingly, both Rome and Alexandria began by using a simpler 8-year cycle. In Alexandria, St. based his Paschal on it. Dionysius of Alexandria (247-264). It was also used in Western Easter prayers for St. Hippolytus of Rome (this 112-year-old table is the earliest that has come down to us), and the creators of the 84-year-old Roman Paschal, which was in use for several centuries. The Alexandrians soon realized the great inaccuracy that the 8-year cycle carried with it, and switched to using a 19-year cycle, while the Romans continued to adhere to their practice. Initially, the Alexandrian Easter was a period of 95 years, i.e. was a five-fold repetition of the 19-year cycle, while the 532-year form was first mentioned in the 5th century. monk Anian.
I Ecumenical Council and the Easter Question
However, some Christians in the Patriarchate of Antioch (Syria, Mesopotamia and Cilicia) continued to adhere to the tradition of celebrating Easter on the Sunday following the 14th Nisan of the Jews, i.e. that practice, for refusing to follow which bishop. Victor excommunicated the Asia Minor people. But in changed conditions, when the rest of the Church already had their own Easter tables, independent of the Jewish date, the Antiochians sometimes celebrated their holiday before the spring equinox, and the difference in the celebration of Easter with the rest of the Christian world could reach 5 weeks. Due to this very early date, they received the name “protopaschyta” in science. It was precisely against this following of the Jewish tradition that the activities of the First Ecumenical Council were directed. The Fathers of the Council did not leave any canon regarding Easter, however, as follows from the message of the Emperor. Constantine to the bishops who were not present at the Council, it was decided that all Christians should celebrate Easter on the same day, and the Antiochians abandoned their dependence on the Jewish 14th of Nisan.
It is in this sense that one should understand the 7th Apostolic Canon, which prohibits celebrating Easter “before the vernal equinox with the Jews,” as well as 1 Rights. Antioch Council. They are directed precisely against dependencies Christians from the date of the Jewish Passover, and not against them celebrating the holiday on the same day as the Jews, as is now often misinterpreted. Indeed, if these rules prohibited celebrating Passover on the same day as a Jewish holiday, then it would be impossible to explain the dates of the end of III - beginning. IV centuries, when, according to the Alexandrian Paschal, the Christian Easter coincided with the Jewish one, namely in 289, 296, 316, 319, 323, 343, 347, 367, 370, 374 and 394. In the 5th century such a coincidence happened 9 times, and the last time it happened in 783, after which such a thing became impossible due to the inaccuracy of the Julian calendar. If the currently widespread interpretation were correct, St. the fathers of the period of all seven Ecumenical Councils, because from time to time they celebrated Passover on the same day as the Jews. However, at the forefront of both the Alexandrian and Roman Easter was its independence from the Jewish 14th Nisan, so the compilers deliberately did not pay attention to cases of possible coincidence. Of all the variety of Easter tables that have come down to us, we do not have a single one where, if it coincided with a Jewish holiday, Christians would move their Easter a week ahead; they simply did not pay attention to such coincidences, considering Jewish dates as fundamentally “incorrect.” St. clearly testifies to this understanding. Epiphanius of Cyprus: “Easter cannot be celebrated unless the equinox has passed, which is not observed by the Jews... We celebrate Easter after the equinox, even if they did, since they often celebrate it with us (!). And when do they If they celebrate Easter before the onset of the equinox, they do it alone."
Differences in the celebration of Easter after the First Ecumenical Council
It is widely believed that the Council of Nicea completely resolved the Easter question and introduced the Alexandrian Paschal into use or even compiled it. The fathers of the Council of Nicea cannot be considered as the “compilers” of the 19-year cycle, if only because it was used by the Church in the East until 325. The activities of the Council were directed against the Antiochian Paschal practice, so Rome and Alexandria forgot for a while about the difference in their tables . Although both Paschals were based on the principle that Easter should be celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full moon following the vernal equinox, the difference lay in the date of the vernal equinox (March 18 and 21 in Rome Alexandria, respectively), the cycle that underlay the Paschal (8- and 19-year cycle) and Easter boundaries, i.e. limit dates for celebrating Easter. Therefore, it could take place in the West during the period from March 20 to April 21, and in the East - within 35 days from March 22 to April 25. At first glance, these discrepancies are insignificant, but in practice they were very noticeable. Thus, a year after the First Ecumenical Council, Alexandria and Rome celebrated Easter on different days, namely April 3 and April 10, respectively. No one wanted to give up their tables, so they tried to achieve unity through mutual concessions.
St. played a huge role here. Athanasius of Alexandria. At the Council of Serdica in 342, he and the Romans worked out a “compromise” Paschal for 50 years, in which the date of each year was specified separately and was the result of an agreement between the two parties. The fundamental importance of this decision lies in the fact that the Church conciliarly recognized the possibility of parallel coexistence of two Easter cycles when agreeing on controversial dates, albeit for a short period of time. Church unity t.o. was placed above adherence to the Easter rules of one of the departments. Paschal was considered not only by the Roman, but also by the Alexandrian primate, not as a dogmatic given, but as a technical means for determining the date of the holiday, which, if necessary, could not be followed. Both sees were not bound by any immutable canonical norms regarding the Easter tables of their Church and sacrificed the date for the sake of higher church goals.
The goal of both East and West at that time was not some personal ambition, not a desire to find out whose cycle is “better” or “more correct,” but a fraternal Christian desire to ensure that in different parts of the empire the Christian Church, “with one heart and one mouth" while celebrating its main holiday, clearly and visibly demonstrated that it truly is a united and catholic Church, imbued with the spirit of mutual love and trust. During these 50 years, Rome and Alexandria were supposed to celebrate Easter on different days as many as 12 times, but as a result of a compromise, common dates were found for all these cases. Interestingly, Alexandria accepted the Roman date, abandoning its Paschal, in 346 and 349.
However, after the end of the Serdic Easter, the Alexandrians stopped paying attention to what day Easter was celebrated in the West and simply followed their tables. This led to Rome gradually adopting "Eastern" dates more and more often, and this steadily destroyed the 84-year cycle. It was obvious that East and West could continue to celebrate Easter differently indefinitely unless one side simply adopted the practice of the other. The Roman abbot Dionysius the Lesser played a decisive role here, proposing the Alexandrian Easter in the West in such a way that it was accepted there, as a result of which, finally, a single celebration of Easter was realized in Rome and Alexandria. However, the Roman 84-year cycle continued to exist in various parts of the empire even during the reign of Charlemagne (742-814).
The parallel coexistence of two Paschalia for almost 500 years (!) after the First Ecumenical Council indicates that it did not introduce one Alexandrian Paschalia as generally binding. It is remarkable that the Alexandrians themselves, during all their disputes with the Romans, never asserted the truth of their tables, based on the authority of the Council. The parallel coexistence of the two cycles for decades and even centuries would directly contradict the Nicene decree, if it existed. The fact that Roman practice was eventually supplanted by Alexandrian practice is explained not by the decision of the First Ecumenical Council, but by the inaccuracy of the Roman Paschal. Several centuries passed after the Council before the Alexandrians, with numerous exhortations, evidence of their righteousness, and church-political measures, were able to convince the West of the need to accept their Easter system.
So, the process of separating Christianity from Judaism in the celebration of Easter proceeded gradually, in several stages. Fourteenth Easter, Easter “with the Jews,” and independent Christian Easter are the three main points of this process. None of the previous practices gave way to the subsequent one “peacefully”; the process of transition to a new stage of Easter development was accompanied by friction, disputes and even splits. Particularly interesting in this process is the fact that the criterion of antiquity was never decisive - more ancient practices were often branded as schismatic and heretical, giving way to new ones. It is also characteristic that the arguments during these debates were not so much theological as ecclesiological: the tradition that was accepted by the majority won, mainly due to the fact that it arose in large liturgical centers like Rome and Alexandria.
Gregorian reform of the Paschal. The unity of the celebration of Easter, which was the result of the long development discussed, was disrupted in 1582 by the reform of Pope Gregory XIII. Speaking about it, it is necessary to remember that it was, first of all, a reform of Easter, while the change in the calendar is only a consequence, although it is precisely this that is most noticeable in our everyday life. The Papal Commission decided to restore the astronomical realities that underlay the Alexandrian Easter - March 21 as the date of the vernal equinox and the Easter boundaries March 22 - April 25. However, for this, changes were made that destroyed the structure of the 532-year-old Alexandrian Easter: the introduction of an additional epact system, an increase in the calendar cycle to 400 years, etc. All this has led to the fact that the period of Western Easter is now so long (approx. 5,700,000 years) that it is not cyclical, but rather linear. This change further illustrates the point that precision comes at the expense of simplicity.
The Gregorian calendar and Easter initially caused sharp hostility in the Protestant world, but gradually became widespread in the West. The Orthodox also sharply condemned this innovation, anathematizing at the Council of 1583 all those who follow the Gregorian calendar and Easter. You can often hear that European universities and astronomers criticized this reform. This is true, but if we look at their reviews before and after the reform, then the proposals for change were even more radical; with regard to Easter, they can be reduced to two: 1. celebrate Easter on the last Sunday in March or on the first Sunday in April 2. celebrate it on the first Sunday after the first full moon following March 21, and all components were to be determined astronomically.
New Julian reform of 1923 As for this last proposal, it was once again voiced, oddly enough, at the Constantinople Conference of the Orthodox Churches in 1923. Along with the introduction of the New Julian calendar, it was decided to celebrate Easter according to the formula “the first Sunday after the first full moon after the equinox,” where all components should were determined not according to the data of the Alexandrian Paschal, but purely astronomically at the latitude of Jerusalem. However, this decision has not yet been implemented, so the New Julian reform remained half-hearted: the majority of autocephalous Churches celebrate Easter according to the Alexandrian Paschal, based on the Julian calendar, and the fixed holidays - according to the New Julian calendar (the only exception is the Finnish Orthodox Church, which celebrates Easter according to the Gregorian Paschal ). This practice is based on the official decree of the Moscow Conference of Orthodox Churches in 1948, according to which all Orthodox Christians must celebrate Easter according to the Alexandrian Paschal and the Julian calendar, and for fixed holidays each Autocephalous Church can use the calendar existing in this Church. Clergy and laity are required to follow the calendar style of that Local Church. in the territory in which they live. As a result of such “dualism”, statutory inconsistencies are inevitable: for example, if Easter is too late (as, for example, this year), Peter’s Fast completely disappears, and difficulties also arise in relation to Mark’s chapters.
Something like that))) Whoever read to the end - well done! :)))) Something happened a lot.
Where did the tradition of celebrating Easter come from?
According to one version, the origin of the word “Easter” is closely related to the Jewish holiday of Passover, which the Jewish people annually celebrate as the day of liberation from slavery by the Egyptians. According to another version, this holiday was artificially imposed by the Church on the Slavs, just to knock pagan mythology out of their heads. Finally, the third version says that the word “Easter” (from the English “Easter”) takes its roots from the name of Ostara, the goddess of spring (written as “Eostre”), whose arrival marked the day of the vernal equinox. Thus, three sources were closely intertwined together, giving the world one of the most revered religious holidays of our time. But let's dive even deeper into history to understand the true origin of sacred symbolism.
Pagan rituals of Western Europe: the awakening of the goddess Ostara
The ancient Celts had a custom on the 20th of March to celebrate the arrival of Ostara, which also marked the day when the lengths of night and day were identical to each other. Pagan celebrations were accompanied by the obligatory ritual of exchanging colored eggs and wheat buns, which celebrated the awakening of nature from hibernation. Dyed eggs and wine were sacrificed to the land to ensure good livestock production and a rich harvest season. Over time, when Christianity appeared, the Church did not displace the holidays familiar to the people, but wrapped them in a new wrapper called “Annunciation” and “Easter”.
Spring festivals of the ancient Slavs: Red Hill and the arrival of Yarila
Since the climate of harsh Rus' is many times colder than the weather in Europe, by the end of March our ancestors celebrated farewell to winter, which the church later dedicated to Maslenitsa. But Easter itself directly absorbed the traditions and rituals of the pagan holiday of Red Hill, which took place in mid-April. It was in Lelnik (this is its second name) that the Slavs celebrated the arrival of spring and the appearance of the first warmth, and also honored the gods of fertility and reproduction - Yarila and Lada. People lit bonfires, organized mass celebrations and, of course, prepared totemic dishes. What was served at the table?
It was a special elongated pastry, the top of which was coated with whipped egg whites and sprinkled with wheat grains - now called “Kulich”. And a round curd pie with a hole in the middle as a sign of the feminine principle - now Easter. The image of phallic symbols was supposed to appease the gods of fertility and ensure a rich harvest of grain crops, as well as the offspring of livestock. Well, the Church simply compromised after the baptism of the Russian lands, renaming the Red Hill holiday Easter, and giving the dishes a new sacred meaning - the body, blood and tomb of Jesus Christ.
Painted eggs and Easter eggs: where did the tradition of painting eggs for Easter come from?
The tradition of dyeing eggs existed long before the advent of the Christian religion. It arose from the immature beliefs of our ancestors, who in all seriousness believed that the world emerged from an egg. According to one legend, at first there was only a vast ocean, and then a duck flew over it, which dropped an egg into the water, as a result of which the earth and sky appeared from it. The legend of the creation of the world encouraged people to color eggs in order to give them to each other on major holidays, sharing the joy of the rebirth of nature with the next arrival of spring. This is where many rituals involving gifting, rolling or beating eggs originate.
Why were eggs always colored using different roots? Because bright colors symbolized spring. It was also possible to draw sacred amulets or write prayers on the shell, with the help of which the gods were asked for protection and protection for crops and livestock. Such eggs were buried in the fields to protect the harvest, buried next to pastures to protect animals from illness, and they also cajoled deceased ancestors with dyes, asking for help and protection for the happiness and health of the family.
No matter how the Orthodox Church fought against all pagan habits, it could not wean people from the rituals they revered. Then a new myth about Mary Magdalene and Emperor Tiberius was introduced into the consciousness of the people, where a different meaning was attributed to the egg - the messenger of the resurrection of the Son of God. Thus, the Slavic tradition of painting eggs was preserved, but received a new interpretation, and the holiday of welcoming spring was now called the holiday of the resurrection of Christ or Easter.
Our Easter holiday turned out to be not so Christian, but rather the opposite - not at all. The traditions that people celebrate on Easter are rooted in the distant past of our civilization, and most importantly, there was nothing similar in the traditions of other peoples of the world. In addition, the official strongly denies that these traditions belong to Christian customs.
It has been the custom since ancient times that Easter is considered a Christian holiday, and Jesus is celebrated on this day, i.e. the so-called “descent from the cross.” At the same time, it is customary for Easter people to bake Easter cakes or Easter eggs, paint eggs, clean up the house, clean the graves of the dead, visit deceased ancestors in cemeteries, and also beat colored eggs.
One thing is not clear: what does all these rituals and traditions have to do with the resurrection of a human savior, subsequently appointed by God? And most importantly: why every year date"resurrection of Jesus" is changing?
Let's try to understand these interesting and, at first glance, illogical traditions, taking into account the fact that they are Christian. And first, let's remember how various small Slavic peoples call this very holiday - Easter?
Even the well-known Wikipedia, when searching for “Easter”, for some reason talks about Velikodne, for this is exactly what the Slavic peoples have called this holiday since ancient times, which Christianity passes off as the celebration of the resurrection of the crucified god Jesus.
It turns out that the word GREAT DAY(Great Day) is the popular name for Easter among the Eastern and some Southern Slavs. On Easter, the rituals of welcoming spring moved to the day. This day used to end Great Night- came from the day of the autumnal equinox, and came Great day- began on the day of the spring equinox. The mythology and rituals of the day contain plots and motifs characteristic of the folk calendar of spring and early summer (funeral, wedding, meteorological, agricultural, and many others). A large place in the folk Easter holidays is occupied by the motifs of the resurrection of the SUN, renewal and prosperity of nature.
The pre-Christian agricultural calendar was oriented according to the sun, and the church calendar was oriented according to the moon (if anyone doesn’t know, the lunar cult is a cult of death). As a result of the arrival of Dionysius to our lands with her cult, the name of which was later (in the 17th century AD) changed to Christianity, calendars were combined, and two types of holidays arose. The first have been celebrated at the same time every year since ancient times (permanent or enduring holidays); the second - celebrate on different days every year (fickle, moving holidays - these are all Jewish holidays, because their calendar is tied exclusively to lunar cycles). The latter also includes the holiday.
Great Day in Rus' is also a holiday of spring resurrection, the renewal of nature, which was celebrated with the advent of the vernal equinox back in pre-Christian times.
As a result, we get that even Wikipedia, despite its total deceit and severe censorship, Great day(Easter) relates to the day spring equinox, and with holidays dedicated to him, but not to the Christian god. This interpretation looks absolutely logical, and our Slavic peoples still remember this and honor ancient traditions, organizing holidays to see off Winter and welcome Spring. For example, the well-known holiday, today called Maslenitsa, which is now celebrated at a completely illogical time in nature - at the end of the calendar winter.
Real Spring comes in our latitudes (and this has been observed for thousands of years, and personal observations confirm this from year to year) only starting from a turning point in the Earth’s movement around the Sun, when daylight begins to increase and night begins to decrease. Nowadays, the spring equinox falls on March 20-21 at different times of the day, according to the solar cycle. Our ancestors have always celebrated Maslenitsa as second day of the spring equinox, which nowadays falls on March 21 (less often on March 22). On Maslenitsa they said goodbye to Winter.
By the way, as recently discovered, March 22, from ancient times among the Slavic-Aryans, was the day of spring, the day of the goddess Vesta and Women's Day! Details regarding this true Slavic Women's Day can be read in my article.
So, in Germany, on the night of the first day of the holiday in the 19th century, large bonfires were lit on the mountains and hills Ostara (Osterfeuer- fire of Ostara), folding them from firewood, turf and straw; they attached a tar barrel, entwined with straw, to a spruce tree and, lighting it at night, danced around the fire, and when the flame went out, they collected brands and coals and carried them home. There was also a custom of lighting wooden arrows coated with resin at night and throwing them upward so that the fired arrow described a fiery arc in the air.
On Easter, mass celebrations were held almost everywhere with singing, round dances and games, “bride fairs”, swings and other amusements. The same thing sometimes happened at the Annunciation: “...You can also sing songs at the Annunciation,” they said recently in the Sumy region. – You could drive a tank. It was already considered Easter...”
In Russia, at the end of the 19th century, on Bright Night, bonfires were lit throughout the empire near Orthodox churches, and in villages in the north, bonfires were lit on the tops of hills. On this day, Belarusians and Ukrainians baked pigs and piglets and placed them on the table with horseradish in their teeth (for Russians and Ukrainians, a piglet is a symbol of fertility, and was obligatory under).
Whatever you say, our traditions are very similar to those of the Slavs and the Germans - as they say: “one people, same traditions”! And as you may have guessed, the traditions described above represent nothing more than our Maslenitsa! But the real, not modern Maslenitsa, was celebrated with the arrival of Spring, after the vernal equinox. It was this that was replaced by Church Easter, and Maslenitsa itself was pushed back to the end of Winter.
Do not think that I am entertaining you by mentioning various Slavic holidays. There is nothing inappropriate here, all the holidays mentioned are directly related to the topic of this study - the holiday Easter. For those customs and traditions that we, the descendants of the great Slavic-Aryans, still celebrate - all of them, one way or another, are connected with the holiday that Christianity calls the holiday, or the resurrection of the crucified god Jesus Christ (know the truth that the word Jesus began to be written with two letters “and” only in 1666, by decision of the Moscow Church Council; before that it was written as Isus, and the word “Christ” is not a name or surname at all, but is translated from Greek as Isus. Messiah or anointed).
To understand the full depth of the ancient roots of our holidays, to understand how everything is interconnected, and how this whole tangle of, at first glance, incomprehensible traditions and rituals, and even scattered among different nations, but previously a single Slavic-Aryan people, can easily be unraveled, if you know and understand the cause-and-effect relationships, it is simply necessary to consider all the above examples, because they all point to the same holiday - to Day of spring equinox! This is what we celebrate at Easter! And this has been happening for thousands of years, and the church, despite all its attempts, has not been able to erase these undying traditions from the people.
Easter was celebrated as a day of great joy. The people call Bright Week the Great Day, Glorious, Great, Joyful, Christmastide of Reds. In folk tradition, Great Day was celebrated as a holiday of renewal and life. It was supposed to make new clothes for all family members and wash in the bathhouse. On Great Day, a person had to discard all bad, unclean thoughts, forget evil and insults, not sin, not enter into marital relations, which on this day were perceived as sin.
Easter(Velik-den, Velika-noch) is the most significant and important spring holiday in the calendar of the Eastern and Western Slavs, while among the Southern Slavs it is St. George’s Day (Among the Lusatian Serbs, the name of the holiday comes from the word “morning” ( jutry - Easter, jutrowny - Easter, jutro - morning. This is where Yuriev (Mornings) day came from!). Traditionally, Easter was celebrated for three days; however, Easter motifs are widely represented in the rituals of the entire Bright Week, the Passion week preceding it (when preparations for the holiday were made) and the St. Thomas week following it.
Similarly, for the Germans and British at Easter (German - Ostern, English – Easter) became the name of the ancient German holiday in honor of Ostara (Ostare, Ostara, Eastre, Eostre)- goddess of the morning dawn and spring (Ostara - fits perfectly with Vesta - the same roots, only “B” has changed to “O” and instead of Vesta it has become Osta (Vesta) + Ra (sun), in the end we get the same our goddess Vesta, which brought the news of the coming of spring), bringing from the east the resurrecting sun (rising from a winter night's sleep).
Now it becomes clear to you where the Germans and British got such strange names for Easter?! But, if you think about it a little, there is nothing strange in them, you just need know, what all European languages– derivatives from Russian language! If you are interested in the details, I recommend reading the books by A.S. Shishkova “Slavic Russian Korneslov” and A.N. Dragunkin "5 sensations". This is precisely what can explain the large number of clearly non-Christian rituals at Easter. And not only for Bright Resurrection itself, but also for the entire week-long holiday complex. A Ukrainian proverb directly connects this day with Annunciation Day - “Like the weather on Annunciation Day, so is the weather on Great Day.”
Other sayings about Great Day
- If the sky is cloudy or raining on this day, there will be a harvest.
- If it rains on this holiday, then until Semik we have to wait for more rain than weather, and then a cold summer; calm and warm weather foreshadowed the same summer (Belarusian).
- From Bright Week (after Easter) round dances begin to be performed everywhere.
- If the sun “plays”, “quivers” - this means a good and healthy life, a rich harvest and happy weddings, and if it only plays a little or does not “play” at all, it will be a bad year.
Where are the origins of many Easter traditions?
In the ancient books of our ancestors, which are over 40,000 years old - “Slavic-Aryan Vedas”, there is information about the ancient and great holiday of our ancestors Paskhet or according to the new grammar of the Russian language, just Paschet.
Paschet is an abbreviation that stands for: The Path of Asami Walking Is Solid Creation. The Easter holiday, further shortened to Easter, was celebrated in honor of the completion of the 15-year migration of the Slavic-Aryans from Daariya, the ancestral home of our ancestors, which was located at the north pole of Midgard-earth (Midgard is a proper name, this is what our ancient ancestors called our planet, just like Yarilo-sun, moon Lelya, moon Fatta and moon Month), to Rasseniya and Belovodye. Holiday Paschet(Easter) is a memory of how our Slavic-Aryan ancestors in the 16th summer praised all the gods and the priest of the Savior for salvation from the Great Flood.
After the Great Flood, our great ancestors settled a large island in the Eastern Sea called Buyan. Nowadays this is the territory of Western and Eastern Siberia. From here began the settlement of our Slavic-Aryan ancestors to the nine cardinal directions. The fertile land of Asia or the Land of the Holy Race is the territory of modern Western and Eastern Siberia from the Riphean Mountains (Ural) to the Aryan Sea (Lake Baikal). This territory was called Belorechye, Pyatirechye, Semirechye.
Name Belorechye comes from the name of the Iriy River (formed by the merger of the words Iriy Quiet, Ir-tish, Irtysh), which was considered the White, Pure, Sacred River and along which our ancestors first settled. After the retreat of the Western and Eastern Seas, the Clans of the Great Race settled the lands that were previously the seabed. Pyatirechye- land washed by the Irtysh, Ob, Yenisei, Angara and Lena rivers, where they gradually settled. Later, when warming occurred after the First Great Cooling and the glacier retreated, the Clans of the Great Race also settled along the Ishim and Tobol rivers. Since then, Pyatirechye has turned into Semirechye.
As the lands east of the Ural Mountains were developed, each of them received an appropriate name. In the north, in the lower reaches of the Ob, between the Ob and the Ural Mountains - (formed by merging the words North and Ob). To the south, along the banks of the Irtysh, is located, in fact, Belovodye. East of Siberia, on the other side of the Ob, is Lukomorye. South of Lukomorye is located Ugorye, which reaches the Irian Mountains (Mongolian Altai).
The city became the capital of our Ancestors at this time Asgard Irian(AS is a god living on Earth, GARD is a city, which meant the city of the Gods), which was founded 106,790 years ago (as of 2012 AD). Asgard of Iria lasted more than 100,000 years, and was destroyed in 1530 AD. Dzungars (ancestors of modern Kalmyks) - immigrants from the northern provinces of Arimia (China). Today, on the site of Asgard is the city of Omsk. Excavations carried out in Omsk discovered the remains of an ancient city under the new city of Omsk. Analysis of the fossil remains showed that they are more than 100,000 years old, which confirms the information described in the Slavic-Aryan Vedas.
In memory of the salvation from the flood and the great migration of the Clans of the Great Race in the 16th year and the holiday of EASTER appeared(Easter) and a peculiar ritual. This ritual is well known to everyone. At Easter, colored eggs are struck against each other to see whose egg is stronger. The broken egg was called the egg of the Koshcheev, i.e. the destroyed moon Lelei with the bases of the Koshchei (servants of the Dark Forces), and the whole egg was called the Power of Tarkh Dazhdbog. A fairy tale also appeared among the people about Koshchei the Immortal, whose death was in an egg (on the moon Lele), somewhere on the top of a tall oak tree (i.e., actually in the heavens).
For those who don’t know, let me explain that eggs differ in . Pysanka is a Slavic painting on an unboiled egg, and krashenki on a boiled one. They have ancient ritual and protective significance. They were placed in the cradle of a baby, and given to newlyweds for a wedding, and they were also used to commemorate ancestors. Therefore, colored eggs can be covered with hundreds of amulet symbols, each of which protected from various misfortunes - from illness, hex, separation, envy, etc.
Easter is not a Christian holiday of the resurrection of Christ!
This is our holiday - Slavic. It was always like this before!
The roots go back to our ancestors, to their traditions,
That they only pass by, And are not significant to others.
Our Great Day is called the Festival of Fertility,
And Christians are left with a pathetic parody.
They changed our holiday to the Day of the Crucified Christ,
Everything was “blessed” with water... So what? "BEAUTY"!
Our ancestors celebrated the Day of Great Joy -
The women cleaned the whole house of unnecessary filth,
Everything around was washed and cleaned - Clean!..
All the details confirm - This is NOT THE DAY OF CHRIST!
It was celebrated by our ancestors and was a great day for them!
Easter! That’s what it was called (we find out in the books of the ancients).
This holiday was celebrated in honor of the resettlement
(On the sixteenth summer) of the ancestors of the population.
There is no sign of Jesus here! This holiday is NOT CHRISTIAN!
You've read it. From now on, know that the holiday is ours, Slavs!
And now that you have found out, it’s up to you to decide for yourself,
How did you celebrate the holiday, and how to continue to celebrate!
Let life be warmed in clear, righteous warmth!
Health, kindness and light! Happiness on our native land!
Ksenia Misharina, 04/1/2012
In the modern world, it is believed that Easter is a holiday in honor of the Resurrection of Jesus and his descent from the cross. On this day, the Crucified Savior left the bosom of his tomb and was reborn again to the joy of everyone. At the same time, on Easter it is customary to bake Easter cakes and Easter cakes, as well as paint eggs.
Personally, even in my early childhood, I began to be interested in the question “why?” Have you ever thought about it? Is Easter a pagan or Orthodox holiday? And I think many of you asked it too, and never received a clear answer. Subsequently, before this holiday, I even used to inquire with the clergy and ask them about the origin of the tradition of celebrating Easter in this way, but again, I never received a single coherent answer that did not contradict itself or confirm the symbolism of the event. Instead, I simply heard a free retelling of several legends with the meaning very distorted in my favor.
Since ancient times, as the Vedas say, the Slavs had a great holiday “PASKHET” (The Path of Asami Walking Is Firmly Creation), which was celebrated in honor of the completion of the 15-year exodus of Slavic-Aryan clans from Daariya, the ancestral home of our ancestors (approximate date April 5 , 36 days). The legends and traditions of the Vedas tell us the following about this event. 111,812 years ago, the Koschei Creatures captured one of the satellites of Midgard-Earth (planet Earth), Luna Leia, and built their nest on it. From there they descended to Earth and terrorized the peoples who inhabited it. And then the great Tarkh Dazhdbog, the patron saint of the Aryan clans, Destroyed the Moon, and it fell to Earth as a rain of fire. Due to the fall of debris from the Moon on the Earth and a change in the magnetic influence, the Earth's rotation axis shifted, and it began its pendulum oscillations. As a result of all this, the Great Flood began (described in the same way in the Bible, but with great distortion), plunging the great Daaria into the abyss of the oceans. But many of the Aryan clans managed to escape and cross the stone isthmus (Eripaean mountains) to the continent. This exodus lasted 15 years and on the 16th summer the great city of Asgard of Iria (present-day Omsk) was founded, and the great settlement of the Aryans throughout Midgard-Earth began.
In honor of this event, the holiday Paschet (Easter) appeared, which carries the memory of what happened. Since then, on Easter, it has been customary to paint eggs and beat them against each other when they meet, and then the broken egg was considered the egg of the Koschei (destroyed by the Moon Leia), and the whole one was considered Dazhdbozhim (that is, by the power of Tarkh Dazhdbog, who destroyed the refuge of the Koschei). The coloring of the eggs itself was caused by the events of the fall of the debris of the Moon Leia to the Earth, which, like a fiery (meteor) rain, poured onto the earth and caused disturbance in the atmosphere akin to the northern lights (a truly beautiful sight caused by a very tragic event. The sky at that time shimmered with fire and colors of all light spectrum). Subsequently, fairy tales even appeared about a certain evil Koshchei who stole beauties, burned cities and lands and was almost immortal, since his true death was hidden in an egg.
So, we’ve dealt with one holiday, now let’s move on to the second. Unfortunately, I’m afraid that at least those who are younger won’t get along without humor here, but still.
Around April 16 (if translated into the modern calendar), the Slavs celebrated the completion of the wedding of heaven and earth, the onset of spring, the holiday of the opening of the earth and its readiness for sowing, in other words, the Festival of Fertility. This holiday symbolized the beginning of a new Life, the beginning of nature and the beginning of crops. On the days of the holiday, round dances were held in the fields, which energetically helped the earth to recharge with positive energy and bring more harvest. On this holiday, it was also customary to bake Kulich, as a symbol of male strength and fertility (that is why it has an elongated shape and it is customary to pour white cream from beaten eggs on top) and a cottage cheese pie, which is now called Easter, as a symbol of female fertility. And there is nothing surprising in the use of phallic symbols and the cult of fertility here. Although it is easier for us to attribute all this to the alien civilizations of the East, in which the phallic cult still flourishes to this day, than to believe that this cult came to them from our culture. But that's exactly how it is. And the fertility holiday is a clear confirmation of this. For reference: The symbol of male strength and fertility among the Slavs is denoted by the word “Kol” (direct translation as rod), female strength - by the word “Kolo” (circle), hence the form of the treats.
In ancient times, eggs were given deep mystical meaning. The egg is an esoteric symbol meaning the material Universe, which is a prison for the spiritual soul. The soul needs to go beyond this egg-universe in order to return to God. The Vedas say: “A person without insight is like a frog caught in a well. Just as a frog in a well does not know what is good for it and what is bad, and therefore dies because of its ignorance in this well, and people, born in vain in the brahmanda (the egg of Brahma, i.e. in the material universe), do not know what is good for them and what is bad, and are born only to then die in ignorance." Man must develop his consciousness and spiritual vision to the extent that he can see the spiritual world, the spiritual sky, which is beyond the brahmanda. The material creation constitutes only 1/4 of the entire Creation and is like a cloud in the endless self-luminous sky of the Vaikuntha world. There are an infinite number of material universes and they are interconnected in this cloud like bubbles in sea foam. Each egg-shaped bubble is just one of the universes. And Rama is the Creator of them all and the spiritual world (the world of Vaikuntha) as a whole.
In graves, mounds, and ancient burials dating back to the pre-Christian era, scientists find eggs, both natural and made from various materials (marble, clay, etc.). During excavations in Etruscan tombs, carved and natural eggs, sometimes painted, were discovered. All the mythologies of the world keep legends associated with the egg as a symbol of life, renewal, as the source of origin of everything that exists in this world.
Why did the egg become one of the proofs of the Resurrection of the Son of God? According to Christian legend, the first Easter egg was presented to the Roman Emperor Tiberius by Holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Mary Magdalene. Soon after the ascension of Christ the Savior into heaven, Mary Magdalene appeared for the Gospel sermon in Rome. In those days, it was customary to bring gifts to the emperor when visiting the emperor. The wealthy brought jewelry, and the poor brought what they could. (Here the question arises, who allowed all these poor people there with all their incomprehensible gifts?) Therefore, Mary Magdalene, who had nothing but faith in Jesus, handed Emperor Tiberius a chicken egg with the exclamation: “Christ is Risen!” The emperor, doubting what was said, noted that no one can rise from the dead and this is as difficult to believe as the fact that a white egg can turn red. Tiberius did not have time to finish these words, and the egg began to turn from white to bright red. The red color of the egg symbolized the blood of Christ and at the same time confirmed His Resurrection. Therefore, according to existing legend, it was the egg that became a symbol and one of the proofs of the Resurrection of the Son of God.
Perhaps everything, according to legend, actually happened, and if it happened, it was very good and no one was against it. But, to be honest, this story resembles a rather unsuccessful, in terms of the imagination of its authors, attempt to artificially include a pagan ritual into the mythological plot of Christianity.
The Easter holiday, borrowed from the Jews, fell (according to the lunar calendar) at a time when the Slavs celebrated their “pagan” holidays. One of the many rituals of so-called “paganism” was the offering of eggs to the gods. Not only eggs were brought, but also other edible products. On the one hand, the egg was a minimal gift to the gods, and on the other, it performed a symbolic function. Since ancient times, the egg among the people has been a symbol of the spring sun, bringing with it life, joy, warmth, light, the revival of nature, deliverance from the shackles of frost and snow, the transition from non-existence to existence. It was customary to give eggs to friends and benefactors on New Year's Day and birthdays. The rich, instead of painted, painted eggs, often offered gold or gilded eggs, symbolizing the sun. Later, Christians, faced with this “pagan” ritual, came up with this rather implausible story about the egg that Mary presented to the emperor.
The first written evidence of colored eggs for Holy Easter, according to scientists, is found in a Christian manuscript made on parchment and dating back to the 10th century, from the library of the monastery of St. Anastasia, near Thessaloniki in Greece. At the end of the church charter given in the manuscript, after the prayers for Easter, a prayer was also to be read for the blessing of eggs, cheese, and the abbot, kissing the brethren, was to distribute eggs to them with the words: “Christ is Risen!” According to the manuscript “Nomocanon Photius” (XIII century), the abbot can punish a monk who does not eat a red egg on Easter Day, because he is opposed to the apostolic traditions.
The custom of painting and painting eggs has existed on earth since Vedic times. One of the most common elements of painting was the image of the sun in the form of 4, 6, 8-bladed crosses and stars. The curved edges of the crosses symbolized the sun in motion (solstice). On pysanky, towels, and carpets, one of the most common ornamental elements has always been the “Tree of Life.” His cult is also lost in the mists of time. In paintings, our ancestors used the law of tree development: at the tips of the main branches there are three buds as a symbol of the triune nature of the human race - father-mother-child. Pysanky brought to us two main images of the “Tree of Life”. The most common is a realistic one, less often - an openwork trident, an ancient sign of our Aryan ancestors. A simple ornament (a branch with solid needles on both sides) is called a “sapling,” just like the bright green grass (horsetail), which is one of the first to awaken in the spring.
Even the ancient Egyptians, every spring, when the Nile flooded, exchanged painted eggs and hung them in their sanctuaries and temples. In Egyptian mythology, the egg represents the potential for life and immortality - the seed of existence and its secret. The egg, a universal symbol of the creation of the world and creation, is mentioned in the Vedas as the “Golden Egg of Creation.”
The Byzantine Christian theologian and philosopher John of Damascus said something similar to the Vedic idea - that “heaven and earth are like an egg in everything: the shell is the sky, the chaff is the clouds, the white is water, and the yolk is the earth. From the dead matter of the egg life arises; it contains possibility, idea, movement and development.” In this case, for some reason he forgets about the egg as a Christian symbol and its semantic content in accordance with Christian traditions.
The same applies to Easter cake (Easter). The ancient Slavs glorified the phallus and baked round, tall bread with a “cap” in its honor. The head was highlighted with a range of colors, smeared with egg white and malt, placed on a plate and covered with colored eggs. With the adoption of Christianity, such a tall loaf of bread began to be called Easter. In Russia, Easter cakes are called Easter cakes; they are baked wide and large. (Most Christian peoples do not bake anything for Easter.) Women and girls danced around the table, then the head of the family broke off a piece of this symbolic bread, ate it himself and gave it first to his sons, and then to other family members. This is the story of the appearance of Easter cake on our table.
Roerich A.V., http://www.knlife.ru/
Jesus has resurrected!
I believe in the prophet JESUS!
I also believe that HE is Risen!
I believe - HE comes from the Rus!
HIS light comes from Heaven!
According to legend, HE comes three times!
The length of HIS life cannot be comprehended!
What appeared in the lines of books
It can only be accepted conditionally.
HE is alive, without a doubt, to this day,
Contrary to the demons who fight against God!
In our Orthodoxy "IN THE NAME"
Write grateful poems!
I believe that HE finds in us too
New disciples in the flesh.
And he just comes into every house,
To those who love Him, to the first call.
He is brown-haired, blue-eyed
- this is how you should always know HIM!
He trampled death, HE eradicated the infection,
Paved the road to BRIGHT PARADISE!
IN TRUTH IS RISEN!
Easter is a pagan holiday. But if Easter doesn't really have to do with Jesus, then what are we celebrating? Today [...] religious culture celebrates the resurrection of their dead. Meanwhile, the first Christians took a rather pragmatic step and adopted ancient pagan practices, most of which we still observe to one degree or another at Easter. The symbolic story of the death of a son (the sun) on a cross (the Southern Cross constellation) and his rebirth after defeating the forces of darkness was widespread in the ancient world. In ancient mythology there are many legends about the resurrection from the dead.
The Sumerian goddess Inanna - or Ishtar - was hanged on a stake, but then she was reborn and returned from the underworld. One of the oldest myths about the resurrection is the myth of Horus. Born on December 25, Horus, who sacrificed his eye to resurrect his father, became a symbol of life and rebirth. The sun god Mithras was born on what we now celebrate as Christmas, and his followers celebrated the vernal equinox. In the 4th century AD, the cult of Sol Invictus (Invincible Sun), associated with Mithras, became the last powerful pagan cult that the church had to fight. Dionysus was the son of the gods who was resurrected by his grandmother. And Dionysus himself brought his mother, Semele, back to life.
Ironically, the cult of Cybele once flourished in what is now Vatican Hill. Cybele's lover Attis was born of a virgin, died and was resurrected. This spring holiday began on Black Friday and reached its climax three days later, when people celebrated its rebirth. At the very beginning of the Christian era, a violent conflict occurred on the Vatincan Hill between the followers of Jesus and the pagans, who argued about whose god was true and whose was only an imitation. It is worth noting here that in the ancient world, in those places where myths about resurrected gods were popular, Christianity gained many new followers. Thus, in the end, Christianity found some kind of compromise with the pagan spring holiday. Although we find no mention of Easter in the New Testament, the early church fathers celebrated it, and many churches today hold “dawn services” on Easter, an obvious echo of the ancient pagan sun cult. The date of Easter is not fixed and is determined by the phases of the moon - isn't this an indicator of its pagan roots?
Many attributes of Easter are also of pagan origin. Rabbits are an attribute that we inherited from the pagan holiday in honor of the northern goddess Eostre (Teutonic goddess of the dawn, analogue of the Greek Aeon and Roman Aurora, - approx. edit.), whose symbols were the rabbit or the hare. Egg exchange is also an ancient tradition that is present in many cultures. Hot cross buns also have ancient roots. In the Old Testament we read about the Israelites baking sweet buns for their idol, and the religious leaders tried to put a stop to it. The first clergy of the Christian Church also tried to put an end to the tradition of baking sacred bread at Easter. In the end, they had to give in to the women, who stubbornly observed pagan traditions, and bless this bread.
Easter is, in essence, a pagan holiday during which we give cards, gifts and surround ourselves with Easter symbols because it gives us pleasure and the ancient symbols have not lost their relevance. It has always amazed me that the power of nature and the increasing length of the day are most acutely felt in cities, where we suddenly stop turning on low beam headlights when leaving for work in the morning, and where street lighting is already turned off by the time the alarm clock rings.
I can't think of a better way to celebrate this holiday than by taking a bite of the Easter bunny, attending a sunrise service, getting a fluffy Easter chick and sticking it on your TV while cutting yourself a sizable chunk of pagan Easter cake. Happy Easter to you!
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