As Orthodox Christians we must
carefully examine every aspect of our involvement in the world, its activities,
holidays and festivals, to be certain whether or not these involvements are
compatible with our Holy Orthodox Faith. For a while now everything in the
outside world is reminding us that Halloween is near: at school our children
are busy painting pumpkins, cutting and pasting bats, ghosts and witches and
planning the ideal costume in which to go trick-or-treating.
Most of our schools, local community
organizations and entertainment on television, radio and press will share in
and capitalize upon the festival of Halloween. Many of us will participate in
this festival by going to costume parties, or by taking our children
trick-or-treating in our neighborhood after dark on October 31st. Most of us
will take part in the Halloween festivities believing that it has no deeper
meaning than fun and excitement for the children. Most of us do not know the
historical background of the festival of Halloween and its customs.
The feast of Halloween began in
pre-Christian times among the Celtic peoples of Britain, Ireland and Northern
France. These pagan peoples believed that physical life was born from death.
Therefore, they celebrated the beginning of the “new year” in the fall, on the
eve of October 31st and into the day of November 1st, when, as they believed
the season of cold, darkness, decay and death began. Instructed by their
priests, the Druids, the people extinguished all hearth fires and lights and darkness
prevailed.
According to pagan Celtic tradition,
the souls of the dead had entered into the world of darkness, decay and death
and made total communion with Samhain, the Lord of death, who could be appeased
and cajoled by burnt offerings to allow the souls of the dead to return home
for a festal visit on this day. The belief led to the ritual practice of
wandering about in the dark dressed in costumes indicating witches, hobgoblins,
fairies and demons. The living entered into fellowship and communion with the
dead by this ritual act of imitation, through costume and the wandering about
in the darkness. They also believed that the souls of the dead bore the
affliction of great hunger on this festal visit. This belief brought about the
practice of begging as another ritual imitation of the activities of the souls
of the dead on their festal visit. The implication was that any souls of the
dead and their imitators who are not appeased with “treats”, i.e. offerings,
will provoke the wrath of Samhain, whose angels and servants could retaliate
through a system of “tricks”, or curses.
In the strictly Orthodox early Celtic
Church, the Holy Fathers tried to counteract this pagan new year festival by
establishing the feast of All Saints on that same day (in the East, this feast
is celebrated on another day). The night before the feast (on “All Hallows
Eve”), a vigil service was held and a morning celebration of the Eucharist.
This custom created the term Halloween. But the remaining pagan and therefore
anti-Christian people reacted to the Church’s attempt to supplant their
festival by increased fervor on this evening, so that the night before the
Christian feast of All Saints became a night of sorcery, witchcraft and other
occult practices, many of which involved desecration and mockery of Christian
practices and beliefs. Costumes of skeletons, for example, developed as a
mockery of the Church’s reverence for holy relics. Holy things were stolen and
used in sacrilegious rituals. The practice of begging became a system of
persecution of Christians who refused to take part in these festivities. And so
the Church’s attempt to counteract this unholy festival failed. This is just a
brief explanation of the history and meaning of the festival of Halloween. It
is clear that we, as Orthodox Christians, cannot participate in this event at
any level (even if we only label it as “fun”), and that our involvement in it
is an idolatrous betrayal of our God and our Holy Faith. For if we imitate the
dead by dressing up or wandering about in the dark, or by begging with them,
then we have willfully sought fellowship with the dead, whose Lord is not a
Celtic Samhain, but Satan, the evil one, who stands against God. Further, if we
submit to the dialogue of “trick or treat,” our offering does not go to
innocent children, but rather to Satan himself.
Let us remember our ancestors, the
Holy Christian Martyrs of the early Church, as well as our Serbian New Martyrs,
who refused, despite painful penalties and horrendous persecution, to worship,
venerate or pay obeisance in any way to idols who are angels of Satan. The
foundation of our Holy Church is built upon their very blood. In today’s world
of spiritual apathy and listlessness, which are the roots of atheism and
turning away from God, one is urged to disregard the spiritual roots and
origins of secular practices when their outward forms seem ordinary,
entertaining and harmless. The dogma of atheism underlies many of these
practices, denying the existence of both God and Satan.
Our Holy Church, through Jesus Christ,
teaches that God alone stands in judgment over everything we do and believe and
that our actions are either for God or against God. No one can serve two
masters. Therefore, let us not, as the pagan Celts did, put out our hearth
fires and wander about in the dark imitating dead souls. Let us light vigil
lamps in front of our Slava icons, and together with our families, ask God to
grant us faith and courage to preserve as Orthodox Christians in these very
difficult times, and to deliver us from the Evil One.
-St. Nikolaj (Velimirovic)
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