The real origins of Easter

Notes From the Frontier.com; Pat Macpherson, Ashley Wells (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

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The Bunny, Easter chick, and Easter eggs

Christians stole Pagan Easter.

It may surprise Easter revelers that the traditions associated with Christian Easter -- which celebrate the resurrection of Christ -- first began with pagans, namely the pre-Christian Saxons in what is today the United Kingdom.

The Saxons had a spring goddess called “Eostre” or Esther. Her feast day was celebrated in the spring, the new year about March 21st. Her symbolic animal was the spring hare, the bunny known for fertility and prolific fecundity and procreation.

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The egg was also associated with her and the rebirth of the Earth at springtime. One of the ritual celebration children played during the spring feast honoring Eostre was egg rolling.

Many historians believe that Pope Gregory, who lived about 500 years after Christ, ordered Christian missionaries throughout Europe and what would later become the United Kingdom to “absorb” pagan holidays, festivals, and religious sites into Christian rituals.

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The pagan ritual of Eostre was perfectly suited for Christian adaptation as Easter because the Eostre concept of rebirth (spring) after death (winter) is very similar to the resurrection of Jesus.

The egg, in fact, became a Christian symbol for Easter and the resurrection of Christ. The egg represents the rock blocking his tomb, the egg’s shell his tomb, and the emerging chick Christ’s rebirth.

Throughout most of Christian Europe, pagan symbols such as the spring hare and the egg and chick were quickly adopted as symbols for Christian Easter.

The pet bunny Humper loves coloring eggs.

The colorful ritual of decorating eggs also has an intriguing origin. As part of Lent, the 40 days that leads up to Easter, early Christians abstained from eating animal foods as their Lenten fasting. More

Easter is for fertility.