Your Christmas Trees |
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Everything you wanted to know about Christmas ... |
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The Origins of Christmas |
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In the first century B.C. Rome used to celebrate Mithra’s Cult well before celebrating Christmas. The 25th of December was winter solstice and represented the birth of Sun-God Mithra and a bull used to be sacrificed to honour his memory. For a time, Christmas Day was not as a Christian celebration. It was only from the second century that the Church started questioning the exact date of Christ’s birth as this information was not revealed in the Gospels. It is around 330 A.D. that the Emperor Constantine decided to set the 25th of December as the official date for Christmas Day. It was only in 353 A.D. under Pope Liberius that Christ’s date of birth was made official in Rome. For a while the Eastern church used to celebrate the birth of Christ on the 6th of January (on twelfth-night) and later adopted the 25th of December on the initiative of St. Gregory of Nyssa and thus celebrating the Savior’s coming on earth. In 425, Emperor Theodosius established officially Christmas ceremonies and thus Christmas became exclusively Christian. The agreement of Agde in 506 finally rendered the celebration obligatory and in 529 Emperor Justinius made it an official public holiday. Christmas day became progressively popular in Europe as we can trace its history back already in Ireland in the 5th century, in England in the 7th century and finally in Germany in the 8th century. Today, Christmas day is more widely accepted as a traditional institution instead of a religious institution. It is considered the perfect occasion for many families to get together and for children to receive some presents. I’m sure that a great many of us still hold wonderful memories of this magical day. |
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