Easter has its roots in Passover, the most important Jewish holiday of the year. Passover is celebrated in remembrance of the Israelites? exodus from Egypt, but it probably originated as a harvest festival in the 9th century BC. After the Israelites arrived in Canaan, they started celebrating two more harvest festivals, Shavuot and Sukkot, which slowly lost their agricultural importance and took on a historical meaning.
The seven-day celebration of Passover is preceded by the slaughter of a one-year-old unblemished lamb, which is roasted without breaking any of its bones. The Passover meal is shared between ten and twenty people, and eaten with unleavened bread, or matzo, and bitter herbs, or maror. During the supper, the oldest participant retells the story of the Israelites flight out of Egypt.
Easter is the most important Christian holiday, but contains both Jewish and pagan elements. Christians in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD made connections between Christ?s death and resurrection and the Jewish Passover. They even celebrated Easter on the 14th day of the month of Nisan, the same day as Passover. In the Middle Ages, however, Easter started to be observed on the Sunday after the first full moon on or after the day of the vernal equinox.
The pagan elements in Easter were suggested by the Venerable Bede in his 'De Temporum Ratione'. He wrote that the month Eostremonat, from which the name Easter is derived, was named after the goddess Eostre, who was earlier worshipped during that month, thus showing Easter?s pagan influences.
Bede also supplied an historical explanation for the Easter Bunny: the goddess Eostre transformed her favourite bird into a rabbit in order to entertain children. The bird transformed into a rabbit then began to lay coloured eggs which the goddess then gave to children.
This explanation, written in the 13th century, took on an element of heritage. The first record of coloured Easter eggs comes from Strasbourg, in 1615. While Western Europeans painted their Easter eggs red, Eastern Europeans preferred the colour gold. Multi-coloured eggs did not become popular until the 17th century.
Source: Múlt-kor
