Halloween - How it Started?

Halloween Trick ot Treat Illustration

Are you curious about Halloween?
How it started? When and why it started?
Is there any secret religious meaning behind the celebration?
You will find out reading the article below.


Have you read the first article for Halloween? There you will find interesting statistics about how much money do the consumer spend for Halloween. And what exactly do they spend them for. Is it the costumes or the candy, or the decorations?


Halloween celebration occurs in pre-Christian times among the Celtic tribes inhabiting the territories of modern Britain, Ireland and northern France. The Celts believed that life arose from the dead. So start the new year, they celebrated in the autumn (the night of 31 October to 1 November), according to their beliefs when the time comes the cold, darkness, decay and death. That night glorified pagan Celtic god of death Sauin. 


On the eve of new year Druids (priests of Celtic tribes) ordered the people to extinguish all the fires in their houses. Then ignited a bonfire of oak branches, which according to their beliefs sacrificed - fruits, animals and even humans, to please the god of death Sauin. Afterwards originated the tradiotion to walk in the dark dressed in costumes of ghosts, witches, gnomes and all evil spirits. Following this custom, live enter into union and communion with the afterlife.


Although the festival has Christian roots - today they are lost. Around 800 AD. Christianity became the dominant religion where early Druids did their rituals. In 853 AD. Pope Boniface IV established the November 1 as All Saints Day, ie the day the glory of all Christian saints and martyrs. So the Catholic Church replaced the pagan festival of death with something very similar.


English name of the holiday sounds like All Saint's Day, or Hallowmas, or All Hallows. But people continued to celebrate the eve of the Feast of All Saints, lit bonfires and celebrations Samheyn day and help. In medieval English holiday called All Hallows' Eve or the shorter - Halloween.

All Saint's Day Illustration

Later, in 1000, the Church announced on November 2 All Souls' Day - All Souls Day, which should be no memorial saints and but the ordinary dead. After years of these three tradition celebrations merged into one - Hallowe'en, later called Halloween.


Naturally, the Christian churches in the world, not only the Orthodox are against the celebration in the U.S. version and sucking with dark forces, and they were understood only as mythology. 


However, Halloween is an indisputable reality of the annual holiday calendar in most countries, so many churches are trying to "elevate". For example, this year the Anglican Church made a major campaign against the "sinister Halloween" and announced the creation of a "a smiling Halloween". As a result, most stores were not offered sinister and scary masks, but friendly and smiling. And all children participating in carnivals were urged to be more careful with the elderly and young children. 


In recent years, Halloween began to be celebrated in Orthodox countries, of course, as a secular holiday, no Christian basis, mainly because of the scary carnivals. The Orthodox Church does not encourage the spread of this American holiday, because it considered that, although devoid of religious content today, lighter evil, making it an object of fun and laughter confuses spiritual criteria of the people.