Featured image: ICONIC HOLIDAY SYMBOL Russel Brand lends his voice to the iconic holiday symbol in the 2011 film Hop

By Poch Eulalia

While growing up, I’d often hear some priests spout a common rant during mass throughout their sermons for the Lenten season about the Easter Bunny.
The Easter Bunny was often chastised for making people forget about Easter Sunday’s true meaning, the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Much like Santa Claus at Christmas, they argued that the Easter Bunny and its chocolate eggs were proof of the over-commercialization of the sacred holiday. Some even claimed that the innocent tale of the rabbit was made by heretics, with the rabbit and eggs being pagan symbols of lust.

It’s been considered the “new mascot” for Easter Sunday, but the Easter Bunny has no clear origin, much of its existence shrouded in mystery.
Even the word Easter has no clear origin, with most sources citing the English monk St. Bede the Venerable for its first mention in 725A.D. through his book, De Temporum Ratione(The Reckoning of Time).

According to St. Bede, Easter is derived from an Anglo-Saxon goddess of spring and fertility, “Eostre” (meaning “from the East”). He wrote that the pagans would celebrate throughout the month of “Eosturmonath” (April), with winter coming to an end, giving way to spring. St. Bede goes on to claim that the old pagan traditions were dying out during his time and that they had begun celebrating it as the “Paschal month.” Some historians argue that Eostre was also attributed to rabbits and eggs as a fertility symbol, but there aren’t any records that could verify this claim. St. Bede is considered the sole source of the account of Eostre, leading many scholars to debate if Eostre is even a real deity as no other historic records seem to support his writing.

THE TRUE EASTER? St. Bede the Venerable was the first to associate Easter with pagans, after claiming the Easter holiday was formerly a time pagans paid tribute to the Anglo-Saxon goddess of spring and fertility Eostre The Bible has no mention whatsoever of the Easter Bunny. In fact, the only mentions of rabbits within the Bible are in the Old Testament books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy, where they are described as “unclean” and thus not meant for consumption. So where do the colored eggs and the Easter Bunny fit in with all of this?

During the medieval age, Christians followed stricter fasting rules throughout the Lenten season. Much of the byproducts of animals, such as eggs, cheese, and dairy, were forbidden for consumption on the 40 days of Lent.

The egg became a popular choice among early Christians as the meal to break their fast during Easter Sunday. It was easier to stockpile and it was more accessible compared to meats and cheeses at the time. Like the pagans who would decorate eggs and present them as gifts on arrival of spring, it became a custom to decorate the eggs in anticipation of Easter Sunday when they would take the eggs to church to have them blessed before eating them. Other accounts from Eastern Orthodox claim that the decorating of eggs was inspired by a legend wherein eggs were placed under Jesus’ cross by either Mary or Mary Magdalene and the eggs turned red from the blood of Christ. Another legend recounts how Mary Magdalene declared to the Roman Emperor Tiberias about Jesus’ rise from the grave while holding an egg. The egg miraculously turned red after Tiberias dismissed the chances of Jesus rising as that of an egg turning red.

BREAKING THE FAST Early Christians decorated eggs in anticipation of Easter Sunday when they would break the fast and eat the eggs after having them blessed The Easter Bunny, however, has no clear origin.  Most scholars pinpoint that the Easter Bunny came about in early Protestant Europe, with most adopting their own version of the holiday. According to History.com, the Easter Bunny was first brought to the US in the 1700s after German Protestant immigrants settled in Pennsylvania and brought along with them the story of an egg-laying hare known as the “Oschter Haws (Easter Hare).” Parents would tell their kids that the Easter Hare would give its decorative eggs to nice children, with the children creating nests for the hare to leave its eggs in. This would later spread in the US to become the modern-day Easter Egg hunt, with baskets rather than nests and the Easter Bunny replacing its German character. The sale of chocolate rabbits, chocolate eggs, and jelly beans marketed as “tiny eggs” would then follow suit.

Ultimately, whether or not the egg-laying Easter Bunny should be considered sacrilegious or a staple of modern Christianity, the choice to believe whichever relies on our discretion.