| VT: How did the Roman emperor get involved in Christianity? Didn\'t the Romans persecute Christians?
RW: At first, many Christians were killed for refusing to worship the emperor. Later, Constantine saw Christianity as something that could bring unity to his far-flung empire. But to do so, the disputes that divided Christianity had to be resolved. He called for a meeting of all bishops at Nicaea [in what is now northwestern Turkey] in A.D. 325 to discuss these issues.
After heated debate at the Council of Nicaea, Constantine made several declarations, one of which established Sunday as the official day of worship. It is noteworthy that Constantine\'s stated motive for introducing this custom was respect for the sun. He was not aware of any mutual exclusiveness between Christianity and his faith in the sun. The transition from solar monotheism (the most popular form of contemporary paganism) to Christianity was not difficult.
Constantine also decreed that Christians would observe Easter, and it would be forbidden to keep Passover. In fact, he stated that Christians were to stay away from anything that was "Jewish."
VT: Is that why other observances listed in the Bible, like Passover, the Days of Unleavened Bread and Pentecost, disappeared from modern Christianity?
RW: Yes. The Romans turned to persecuting all things Jewish, and Christians often had to decide whether to hold what appeared to be Jewish beliefs and likely suffer persecution or to worship on different dates and avoid that persecution.
Easter definitely replaced Passover. Wiccans claim Christians stole Easter from them. One text I use in class, Phyllis Curott\'s Book of Shadows, explains that the name Easter comes from the name of the German fertility goddess Eostre. Eggs and rabbits—commonly associated with the holiday—are symbols of fertility.
The Catholic Church timed Easter to coincide with the first Sunday after the first full moon following the spring equinox, another remnant of the old (pagan) religion just below the surface of the new.
VT: Did this happen with other modern Christian holidays?
RW: Other holidays were adopted to add numbers to the church without requiring people to give up their cherished practices. There are letters between bishops that discuss ways to convert pagans. The answer was to attempt to eliminate the worst of the practices and put the others under the umbrella of Christianity. They simply changed the name of who was being worshiped. Christmas, originally the birthday of the sun god, became the day to worship the Son of God.
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