by Bishop [now Archbishop] Kyrill
It is that time of the year when
the secular society in which we live is preparing for the festival of
Halloween. Many do not know its spiritual roots and history, and why it
contradicts the teachings of the Church. The feast of Halloween began in
pre-Christian times among the Celtic peoples of Great
Britain, Ireland
and northern France.
These pagan peoples believed that life was born from death. Therefore they
celebrated the beginning of the "new year" in the fall (on the eye of
October 31 and into the day of November 1) when, as they believed, the season
of cold, darkness, decay and death began. A certain deity whom they called Samhain
was believed by the Celts to be the Prince of Death and it was he whom they
honored at their New Year's festival*.
From an Orthodox Christian point
of view, we can see many diabolical beliefs and practices associated with this
feast which have endured to this time. On the eve of the New Year's festival,
the Druids, who were the priests of the Celtic cult, instructed their people to
extinguish all hearth fires and lights. On the evening of the festival, a huge
bonfire built from oak branches (oak was regarded by the Celts as sacred) was
ignited. Upon this fire sacrifices were burned as an offering in order to
appease and cajole Samhain, the Prince of Death. It was also believed that
Samhain, being pleased by the offerings, allowed the souls of the dead to
return to their homes for a festal visit on this day. It is from this belief
that the practice of wandering about in the dark dressed up in costumes
imitating ghosts, witches, hobgoblins, fairies, etc. grew up. For the living
entered into fellowship and communion with the dead by what was, and still is,
a ritual act of imitation, through costume and the activity of wandering around
in the dark of night, even as the souls of the dead were believed to wander.
The dialogue of trick or treat is
also an integral part of this system of beliefs and practices. It was believed
that the souls of the dead who had entered into the world of darkness, decay
and death, and therefore into total communion with and submission to Samhain,
bore the affliction of great hunger on their festal visit. Out of this grew the
practice of begging, which was a further ritual enactment and imitation of what
the Celts believed to be the activities of the souls of the dead on their
festal visit. Associated with this is the still further implication that if the
souls of the dead and their imitators were not appeased with
"treats", i.e., offerings, then the wrath and anger of
Samhain would be unleashed through a system of "tricks", i.e. curses.
Such is the true meaning of this pagan feast. It is then evident that for an
Orthodox Christian participation at any level is impossible and idolatrous,
resulting in a genuine betrayal of God and Church. If we participate in the
ritual activity of imitating the dead and wandering in the dark asking for
treats or offering them to children, we then have willfully sought
fellowship with the dead, whose Lord is not Samhain, but rather Satan. It is to
Satan then that these treats are offered, not to children.
There are other practices
associated with Halloween from which we must stay away, such as sorcery,
fortune telling, divination, games of chance, witchcraft and the carving of an
ugly face upon a pumpkin and then placing a lit candle within the infamous Jack
O' Lantern. The pumpkin (in older days other vegetables were used) was carved
by the Celts in imitation of the dead and used to convey the new light (from
the sacred oak fire) to the home where the lantern was left burning through the
night. This "holy lantern" is no other than an imitation of the truly
holy votive light (lampada) offered before an icon of Christ and the saints.
Even the use and display of the Jack O'Lantern involves participation in this
"death" festival honoring Satan.
The Holy Fathers of the first
millennium (a time when the Church was one and strictly Orthodox) counteracted
this Celtic pagan feast by introducing the Feast of All Saints. It is from this
that the term Halloween developed. The word Halloween has its roots in the Old
English of All Hallow E'en, i.e., the Eve commemorating all those who were
hallowed (sanctified), i.e. Halloween Unfortunately, either due to lack of
knowledge or understanding, the Celtic pagan feast being celebrated on the same
day as the Christian feast of All Saints (in western Christiandom) came to be known
as Halloween.
The people who remained pagan and
therefore anti-Christian reacted to the Church's attempt to supplant their
festival by celebrating this evening with increased fervor. Many of these
practices involved desecration and mockery of the Church's reverence for Holy
Relics. Holy things, such as crosses and the Reserved Sacrament, were stolen
and used in perverse and sacrilegious ways. The practice of begging became a
system of persecution designed to harass Christians who were, by their beliefs,
unable to participate by making offerings to those who served the Lord of
Death.
One can see in contemporary
Western society that the Western
Church's attempt to
supplant this pagan festival with a Christian feast failed. How then did
something that is so obviously contradictory to the Holy Orthodox faith gain
such acceptance among Christian people?
The answer is spiritual apathy
and listlessness which are the spiritual roots of atheism and turning away from
God. Today's society urges one that Halloween and other such festivities,
notwithstanding their apparent pagan and idolatrous origin, are nonetheless
harmless and of no consequence. Upon closer consideration these pagan festivals
are the source for destroying any kind of spiritual foundation and lead to
disbelief and outright atheism.
Halloween undermines the very
basis of the Church which was founded on the blood of martyrs who had refused,
by giving up their lives, to partake in any form of idolatry
Holy Mother Church
must take a firm stand in counteracting any such (pagan) events. Christ taught
us that God is the judge in all our actions and beliefs and that we are either
FOR GOD or AGAINST GOD. There is no neutral or middle of the road approach.
Today we witness a revival of
satanist cults; we hear of satanic services conducted on Halloween night.
Children are kidnapped by satanists for their ritualistic sacrifices. Orthodox
clergy are ritualistically killed as has happened more than once in California. Everywhere
Satan reaches out to ensnare as many innocent people as possible. The
newsstands are filled with material on spiritualism, supernatural phenomena,
seances, prophesies and all sorts of demonically inspired works. These works
all serve Satan, for they are not the fruit of the Holy Spirit, but the fruit
of the spirit of this world.
* Webmaster Note: A
ROCOR Priest of Irish descent has questioned this assertion. He writes:
"There was no deity called Samhain who was the Lord of Death. Samhain is
pronounced 'sow-in' (where 'ow' rhymes with 'cow'). Samhain is simply Irish
Gaelic for the period of the year which is now called the month of November.
The god Samhain myth first appears in the year 1770 when Col. Charles Vallency
wrote a 6 volume set of books which attempted to prove that the Irish people
once came from Armenia!
Geoffrey Higgins Samhain then promoted this error of a supposed god in a book
in 1827 when he attempted to prove that the Druids originally came from India. The
error might have originated in confusion over the name of Samana, an ancient
Vedic/Hindu deity. According to one Web site I found, 'Samhain was in general a
bright & joyous celebration for the Celts. The people celebrated through
the night and they were out in the open air. They were not huddled at home in
terror of ghosties. On Samhain they had finished gathering in the harvest and
they had slaughtered some of the cattle for food to see them through the
winter. It was with the fresh bones of these cattle that they fed the great
bonfires (bone-fires) which burnt through the night to welcome the New
Year.'"
From a parish bulletin at St.
Nicholas Cathedral. John Sanidopoulos wrote a thought-provoking, albeit
controversial, article entitled "Orthodoxy
and Halloween: Separating Fact from Fiction", which offers a different
point of view worth considering. Let each Orthodox Christian come to their own
conclusions if they do not have specific guidance from their Priest or
Spiritual Father. Also, consider Steve
Lammert's great idea: "Every year, on Hallowe’en, I sit on the front
porch of my house with a bowl of candy, a box of beeswax candles, and a large
icon for the Feast of All Saints."
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