The purpose of this study is to investigate the meeting, intersection and osmosis of the Christian and Greco -Roman feasts during the late Antiquity as the Greek and Christian worldviews met, focusing on the feasts of Christmas, Easter and the Birth of St. John the Baptist.
In the Eastern Mediterranean the peoples of Antiquity had natural, polytheistic religions (except for the Jews). They worshiped gods, who represented the circles of nature, such as Adonis, who was the personification of vegetation and his death signified the extinction of plant life during the winter while his resurrection was a symbol of nature’s rebirth.
With the advent of Christianity began Sunday’s celebration as well as Easter or a little later the Epiphany, a celebration in remembrance of various events in Christ’s life, such as the Nativity and the Baptism. In the 4th century Nativity’s feast was celebrated on the 25th of December (Christmas), on the pagan feast of the invincible god Helios’ birthday.
In the spring after the vernal equinox the Easter’s feast took and still takes place. The ancient natural religion’s ritual, which had to do with the ‘death’- extinction of plant-life during the winter and its ‘resurrection’-rebirth in spring, was largely incorporated in the Christian Easter festivities.
Near the summer solstice, i.e. on the 24th of June, takes place St. John Baptist’s Birthday celebration, during which the custom of the cult fires was preserved until recently.
In any case the replacement of important pagan feasts with Christian ones, raises questions on how this replacement happened.