"Poland
Halloween is
getting more and more popular, but why Christians in Poland
There is one
drawback in such reasoning. It is an unpopular topic but lots of
Christian traditions and holidays has a pagan origin, for instance: Christmas,
Easter, Semik and All Souls' Day.
Christmas-
the date of this holiday 25th of December was chosen because of Roman holiday
called Saturnalia. Once it was a holiday of winter solstice. (The
Christmas Encyclopedia)
All Soul's Day - was
established as a counterweight to the pagan cult of the dead. So in fact it is
like a Christian equivalent.
Easter - "The
Westminster Dictionary of the Bible says that Easter was originally the spring
festival in honor of the Teutonic goddess of light and spring known in
Anglo-Saxon as Eastre, or Eostre. In any case, the Encyclopedia Britannica
(11th Edition) states: 'There is no indication of the observance of the Easter
festival in the New Testament.' " btw rabbit and eggs are pagan symbol of
fertility.
Semik - "is an ancient Slavic fertility festival celebrated in early June and
closely linked with the cult of the dead and the spring agricultural
rites." Wikipedia
It' s just a curiosity of
Christian history. I suppose there must be more causes for this religion not to
accept Halloween. I just hope those are better motivated. For me, as an agnostic,
there is no rational cause of forbidding it.
For all I know it comes not only to pagan orgin. The Church in Poland doesn't forbid celebrating halloween, but rather things like invoking ghosts or a divination. But you're right - most of Christians in Poland don't know about their's religion's orgin (or rather they "don't want" to know), but they still criticize halloween because of this reason.
ReplyDeleteChurch doesn't forbid it, it condemn Halloween. And Halloween involve ghosts. But what is interesting there are no objections against Andrzejki... And ghosts are in fact souls... and it is all really blurry for me. I would be happy to get some explanations ;)
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