04/05/2026
Why is today called Easter? Or is "Resurrection Day" Better?
In the majority of European countries, the holiday of Easter is named after Passover, the Jewish festival. Hence, in Greece, it’s called Pascha, in France it’s referred to as Paques, and in Italy, Pasqua.
The origins of the English word, Easter, are a little more complicated. Some argue that it is named after the Anglo-Saxon goddess of spring, ‘Eostre’. If this were the case, it would suggest that Christians subsumed pagan celebrations into their own springtime holidays. But scholars increasingly reject this theory.
Instead, the word Easter is thought to have derived from the Latin word for dawn, ‘alba’, which became ‘eostarum’ in medieval Germany. Hence, in Germany, Easter is known as Ostern, a parallel to the English term, Easter.
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Easter is a springtime Christian celebration dedicated to the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, three days after his Crucifixion. Easter follows Lent,...