Happy Easter!
AKA: He is risen!
Every year around this time, the “Easter is just a repurposed pagan ritual” claim comes hopping down the bunny trail: smug social media posts, YouTube explainers with ominous music, and confident declarations that Christianity just stole the spring equinox and rebranded it. But none of it holds up.
The idea doesn’t come from serious history or theology. It comes from a modern worldview that assumes ancient people were too dumb to mean what they said, and that Christianity must have borrowed its deepest truths from more “natural” religions. In truth, the “pagan Easter” trope says more about postmodern cynicism than it does about early Christianity.
Refuting the "Pagan Easter" Myth
1. Etymology Doesn’t Equal Theology
The English word “Easter” may trace back to Eostre, a speculative Germanic goddess referenced once by Bede, or it may derive from the Old High German word ōstar, meaning “east,” i.e., the direction of the rising sun. Either way, this tells us precisely nothing about the theological content of the feast.
In nearly every other language, Easter is called a variant of Pascha, from the Hebrew Pesach (Passover). Greek, Latin, Spanish, French, Italian, Arabic; all of them refer to Christ’s Passion and Resurrection through the lens of Passover. Only English and German are linguistic outliers.
To claim Easter is pagan because of the English word is like arguing Christianity must be Viking in origin because we say “Thursday (Thor’s Day).” It’s linguistic imperialism disguised as skepticism.
2. Spring Festivals Are Solar, Not Lunar
Ancient pagan festivals: Ostara, Beltane, and Saturnalia track the solar calendar, tied to equinoxes, solstices, and the agricultural cycle.
Easter is set using a lunisolar method: it follows Passover, which is anchored to spring but dated using lunar cycles. Easter is the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox. In other words, it’s not about moon worship. It’s about calibrating liturgical time to salvation history.
Lunar calendars, like the Islamic and Jewish ones, track months, not seasons. The moon gives you tides and fasting cycles, but not spring. Pagan spring festivals were tied to solar timing, not lunar. Easter’s date tracks the moon because the Passion occurred at Passover, not because the moon was being honored.
3. Fertility Symbols Don’t Define Theology
Yes, bunnies and eggs were pre-Christian symbols of fertility. That tells us nothing about the Resurrection of the Christ.
American consumerism has been far more influential in merging plastic baskets, chocolate rabbits, and Hallmark kitsch with Easter than any druid or Norse farmer ever was.
Oh, and if you’re mad about toys, candy, and pastel grass, blame the current crop of consumerist pagans. That’s never been part of Easter, nor of any other spring ritual.
4. Christianity Didn’t “Borrow” Anything
The early Church didn’t need to pilfer fertility rites to establish a calendar. It already had one: the Jewish liturgical year.
Christ’s Passion occurred during Passover. His death is the new Exodus, His blood the new covenant, His Resurrection the final deliverance. There is no analog for this in any pagan spring rituals.1
Easter was celebrated by Christians before most Germanic tribes had even heard the Gospel, let alone offered a rabbit to Eostre.
Ok, So What Is Easter About?
Easter is not about nature’s rebirth or the changing of seasons. It’s about the Resurrection of Jesus Christ: a definitive, historical event that changed the cosmos. The Resurrection is not a metaphor. It is the hinge upon which all of Christian belief turns. Without it, as St. Paul says, our faith is in vain.
Through the Resurrection, Christ conquers death and reveals the triumph of divine mercy and opens the door to eternal life. That promise is extended to us in the Sacraments of Initiation: Baptism, Confirmation, and the Eucharist, which join us to His death and resurrection.
The Sacraments of Healing: Reconciliation and Anointing of the Sick, restore and strengthen us along the way. The Sacraments of Service: Holy Orders and Matrimony, bind us to the life of the Church and the mission of love that flows from the Cross.
This is the framework by which we live out the Resurrection: not a recycled myth, but the living reality of a new creation.
Pagan figures like Adonis and Tammuz were seasonal fertility symbols whose deaths and partial returns mirrored crop cycles. Osiris is often grouped with them, but incorrectly. He was not “resurrected” in the sense of returning to life; his myth ends with him enthroned in the underworld as judge of the dead. None of these figures died for the sake of others, and none rose to bring salvation. Their stories are symbolic, cyclical, and impersonal. Christ’s Passion and Resurrection are historical, voluntary, and for our salvation; utterly without precedent.
I can’t worship chocolate?!
𝙍𝘼𝙏 𝙁𝘼𝙍𝙏𝙎!
He is risen indeed! The chocolate crosses are ok, right? Or is that a sacrilege to eat the cross?