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ON HALLOWEEN
By Saint Nicholai Velimirovic.
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 in¬volvements 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 Ist, when, as they believed the season of
cold, darkness, decay and death began.
Instructed by their priests, the Druids, the people
extin-guished 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 be¬fore 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 at¬tempt 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
mock¬ery 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 per¬secution, 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.
Vol. 18, Issue 09-10 Orthodox - Heritage,
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