Monday, October 6, 2014

Halloween

I read that the early Catholics celebrated Halloween by making fun of death and the devil because they have been conquered. We have nothing to fear from them.

"That by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death--that is, the devil" Hebrews 2:14
For my household, it is a celebration of our freedom from fear and superstition.

I encourage everyone to look into the history of the holiday. Generally, churches that have the holiday on their liturgical calendar know the history of a holiday rather than relying on more recently written articles that rely on pagan sources that change history. In the case of Halloween, it was a Christian Holiday, All-Saints Day first.

In the year 609 or 610 Pope Boniface IV established a date for All Saints’ Day on May 13th. And later, in the early 700s AD, Pope Gregory III changed the date to November 1st. Decrees like this took some time to propagate from Rome to the more remote areas where the Church was found. But the change in date had nothing to do with any pagan practices. Pope Gregory IV extended the celebration on this day to the entire Western Church in the early 800s. And again, the change took time as it spread from Rome.
The point is this: a common day for commemorating the Saints has been around throughout the Christian Church from very early times. And the fact that it falls on November 1st today has nothing to do with paganism.
OK, so what does this have to do with Halloween? In the Bible the day begins at sundown or evening. This is why we have Christmas Eve. Halloween is All Hallows’ Eve‘, that is All Saints’ Evening. Halloween is the beginning of All Saints’ Day starting at sundown on October 31st.
These days we have “Trick or Treat,” costumes sometimes too gruesome to describe: witches, goblins, werewolves, vampires, zombies, Lady Gaga; Jack-O-Lanterns, skeletons, spooky sounds, grave stones, candy and a celebration of gore and all that is un-Holy.
Many of the Christian Churches in the Reformed traditions claim that Halloween is a pagan celebration. Very often they do this by referring to Neopagan and Wiccan writings. And there are many in the Neopagan and Wiccan communities who have tried hard to claim Halloween as an ancient pagan holiday that had been stolen by the Christian Church.
Don’t ever expect truth from Neopagans and Wiccans. They already live in a fantasy world created by their own fakelore. - http://steadfastlutherans.org/?p=23974


This article is also a good one considering that the Orthodox church does not have Halloween as part of their Liturgical calendar, and does not officially support the holiday: http://www.johnsanidopoulos.com/2009/10/orthodoxy-and-halloween-seperating-fact.html