Tag: pagan

Priye S. Torulagha

Quite often, members of the global religious community, especially Christians and Muslims, tend to stereotype traditional/indigenous religions as paganistic and idol worshipping without realizing that every religion in the world is a product of its culture.

When the Roman Empire adopted Christianity as the official religion of the empire in 380 CE through the Edict of Thessalonica, the Christians worked frantically to persuade Europeans to convert to Christianity. At that time, many Europeans viewed the religion as a foreign religion that was culturally not palatable to their religious taste. Hence, the Europeans rebuffed the effort and continued their pre-Christian religious practices.

Therefore, to spread Christianity, the Catholic Church adopted various strategies, including incorporating pre-Christian pagan traditions. It seems that Pope Gregory I was the first church leader to encourage the adoption of pagan ways. But Pope Gregory III was the leader who decisively adopted pre-Christian practices. As a result, apart from Christmas Day on December 25, Easter was also adopted.

Easter originated from a pre-Christian Sumerian/Jewish religious tradition of Passover that was modified. The word “Easter” is derived from the Babylonian pagan goddess Astarte or Ishtar (goddess of heaven or of fertility). The Greeks had a goddess known as Demeter with a spring festival to honor her. The ancient Anglo-Saxons referred to her as Eastre or Eostre, the goddess of dawn and new beginning/fertility which reflected change in season from winter to spring (Aust, 2006, April 2). A festival was held in her honor during the vernal equinox (the point where the sun passes above the earth’s equator from the south to the north) as a way to celebrate the coming of spring, around April. It should be noted that the Anglo-Saxons referred to the month of April as Easter month (Eosturmonath).

The Christians adopted the paganistic spring festival to celebrate the spiritual rebirth of Jesus Christ after the Good Friday (Robinson, 2012, March 26). It was a tactical move to increase conversion, and it was effective in attracting converts. Today, Christianity is the major religion in Europe, but some Europeans continue to celebrate the pre-Christian religious festivals by honoring Eostre which is also referred to as Ostara.

There are some Christian scholars who do not agree with the view that there was a goddess named Eostre, instead, maintain that Eostre refer to the sun rise rather than a goddess (Bennett, 2025, April 19). Despite the opposition, the similarity between the Christian celebration of Easter and the pre-Christian celebration of either Astarte or Ishtar in the Mediterranean region and Eostre of the Anglo-Saxons is profound. Likewise, the pre-Christians used egg as a symbol to represent fertility, resurrection, and renewal or new beginning during the celebration of Eostre and the early Christian used it as symbol to represent Jesus’s resurrection during Easter. This shows that the Christians adopted the pre-Christian tradition from pre-Christian religious traditions.

References

Aust, J. (2006, April 2). What are the real origins of Easter? Beyond Today. Retrieved May 3, 2017. from https://www.ucg.org/ the-good-news/what-are-the-real-origins-of-easter.

Bennett, J. (2025, April 19). Eostre: Is the pagan origin of Easter a fabrication? Viking Herald. https://thevikingherald.com/article/eostre-is-the-pagan-origin-of-easter-a-complete-fabrication/1166.

Robinson, B. A. (2012, March 26). Easter: Its pagan origins. Religious Tolerance. Retrieved April 1, 2015, from http://www.religioustol- erance.org/easter1.htm.

The Archeologist. (2023, August 24. Uncovering the Origins of Easter: From Pagan Tradiions to Christian Beliefs. https://www.thearchaeologist.org/blog/uncovering-the-origins-of-easter-from-pagan-traditions-to-christian-beliefs.