In light of English Heritages new children’s booklet, George Lapshynov debunks the common claim that Easter originated as a pagan festival. 15/04/2025
The controversy sparked by English Heritage’s recent claim that Easter has pagan roots has once again reignited an enduring myth: that it began as a celebration of spring and of the pagan Anglo–Saxon goddess Eostre. Published in a new children’s booklet on the origins of Easter, English Heritage’s false claim typifies a growing trend not only towards de–Christianisation but also towards the rewriting of Christian – and by extension, British – history. Yet no matter how unserious and unscholarly these claims may be, they somehow stick.
This familiar narrative that Easter celebrations trace back to pre–Christian pagan rites is often founded on the linguistic similarity between the names of the fertility goddess Eostre, and of the Christian celebration. While English Heritage might have rightly claimed that both share a semantic root in the older Proto–Indo–European word meaning ‘spring’, the historical record simply does not support the assertion that the goddess – if she existed at all, more on this below – gave her name to the Christian celebration.
In fact, the idea of Easter as pagan in origin can in all likelihood be traced back to the influential but fundamentally flawed and thoroughly debunked work of Alexander Hislop, particularly his book “The Two Babylons”. Hislop, a rabid anti–Catholic fundamentalist Presbyterian minister, contended that all Catholic traditions – and therefore all Christian traditions predating the Reformation – had pagan origins. Ironically, though largely dismissed by historians as speculative and ungrounded, his theories continue to resonate in anti–Christian and neo–pagan circles, where they are used to frame Christianity as derivative or inauthentic.
In reality, the Christian celebration of Easter is deeply related to the Jewish Passover festival. In the Gospels, we read that Christ was crucified on the day before the Passover, and rose again on the third day after the beginning of Passover. The chronology, rituals, and theological emphases of Easter therefore clearly align with this Jewish origin rather than any pre–existing pagan rites. What is more, early Christian writings explicitly and extensively connect Easter with Passover, framing the Easter story as a continuation of Jewish tradition, celebrating Christ as the new Paschal lamb. No pagan customs here.
Moreover, historical scholars today widely agree that the supposed pagan goddess Eostre, from whom Easter is allegedly derived, appears remarkably rarely in historical sources. In fact, she is only explicitly mentioned by the Venerable Bede in the 8th century, who is thought to have speculated that the Paschal season was renamed after Eostre – and even then, without sufficient evidence to confirm the widespread existence of her cult or influence. Modern linguistic scholarship, however, tends to regard Bede’s etymological speculation as not only questionable, but mistranslated: Eostre was in all likelihood not even a goddess, but simply the word for spring and the name of the month of April.
The persistence of this myth, and the complete disregard for historical accuracy, reflects wider cultural and intellectual currents. In an increasingly secularised society, where traditional religious narrative is often met with suspicion or scepticism, the appeal of pagan origin stories lies partly in their ability to diminish or relativise the distinctiveness of Christianity. It is a paganism of convenience that fits well with contemporary secular narratives and the commercialisation of religious festivals, recasting them as cultural rather than religious events. Easter eggs (which come from the Christian tradition of abstaining from eggs during Lent and eating them in large quantities on Easter Sunday), Easter bunnies (stemming from the Christian German tradition of the Easter Hare) and spring imagery are easier to commodify and market when they can be conveniently detached from their specifically Christian theological context. No one wants to think of Christ bloodied on the cross while enjoying a Scrummy Bunny Munch Loaded Egg.
However, accepting historically dubious narratives does a disservice not only to Christianity but to the intellectual integrity of public discourse. We have a responsibility to distinguish our actual (English) heritage from Victorian–era myth, particularly when influential cultural institutions such as English Heritage have the power to crystalise these simplified, obscuring narratives, and give them public credibility.
We can, of course, recognise that this de–Christianisation of Easter (an oxymoron if ever there was one) is in many cases driven by a genuine desire to promote inclusivity and make holidays such as Easter more culturally accessible. But surely this need not be at the expense of historical accuracy, or even at the expense of invalidating the Christian tradition, which is rich in theological symbolism and integral to the history of these British Isles. Especially when the Christian celebration of Easter is genuinely inclusive on its own terms, without the need for any (re–)paganisation. It invites all, in the words of St John Chrysostom, to receive the riches of loving–kindness and to feast sumptuously on Resurrection Sunday. (Read my Easter reflection on this theme here).
The pagan myth of Easter is not an isolated incident; it is part of the ever–increasing commercialisation and secularisation of religious holidays and traditions, often to the detriment of both historical accuracy and genuine cultural understanding. As we celebrate Easter – the resurrection of Christ – later this week, perhaps we should be more critical of the history lessons we receive from our major cultural institutions. And perhaps we should not take the words of a debunked Victorian fundamentalist book at face value.
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