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Does Easter Have Pagan Origins?

...o with “paganism”. The dispute was over which day to hold the festival! Yep, the controversy really is as mundane as that. In fact, it was one of the issues raised at the Council of Nicea to be discussed and hopefully settled, and is officially known as the Quartodeciman (lit. Fourteenth) controversy/dispute. It’s called this due to the issue being over whether the Easter celebration should follow the Jewish pattern of Passover on the 14 Nisan or not, and simply follow the days of the week (Friday and Sunday). It became a bigger issue when not only the Jewish community of believers wanted to follow this method, but when the Gentile Asian communities also...

Great Lent: The Season of Fasting

...o do with paganism! The beginning of the fast of forty days is on the fifth of the month Phamenoth [Ash Wednesday]; and when, as I have said, we have first been purified and prepared by those days, we begin the holy week of the great Easter on the tenth of the month Pharmuthi [Palm Sunday], in which, my beloved brethren, we should use more prolonged prayers, and fastings... –Athanasius, Letter III I won't go into much more detail on the history of Lent and Easter (or pascha), but I hope you can see from this brief intro that the practice has been well established in the historical Church since the beginning, and isn't a "new" or invented thing merged fr...

Evidence of the Trinity in the Hebrew Scriptures

...pped into paganism when they hold to the fact that Jesus is the divine Son of God. He is the same one of whom Moses wrote when he said: “Behold, I send an Angel before you, to keep you in the way, and to bring you into the place which I have prepared. Beware of Him and obey His voice; do not provoke Him, for He will not pardon your transgressions; for My name is in Him. But if you indeed obey His voice and do all that I speak, then I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries. For My Angel will go before you and bring you in to the Amorites and the Hittites and the Perizzites and the Canaanites and the Hivites and the Jebusites; a...

Is Halloween a Pagan Holiday?

...ed by neo-paganism and claimed to be the older and ancient practices. In conclusion If you're going to church on Oct 31st and/or Nov 1st to light candles in remembrance of the dead and to celebrate the lives of martyrs who gave their lives for the Faith, then great — you are keeping within the ancient Christian tradition. But if you are dressing up as ghouls and depictions of evil and darkness, celebrating death over life, then you are partaking in something contrary to Christ and wholly secular, with possible pagan undertones. If we are to have anything to do with the modern/secular version of Hallowe’en, then it should be as an opportunity to share the...

Ancient Amulet Rewrites History Of Christianity In Europe

...wish, and paganism all blended together. The important aspect of this inscription is that there is a noticeable lack of reference to Yahweh, angels, or any local pagan deities, highlighting the exclusive Christian nature of this amulet. This not only underscores the devotion of the wearer but raises a lot of questions about Christianity in what was once the cultural and administrative hub of Roman Germania. As scholars continue to study this artefact, it serves as a tangible testament to the early presence and enduring legacy of Christianity in Europe, rewriting known history, and showing that all of those myths about Jesus’ deity being an invention of Consta...