CONCERNING HALLOWEEN

I found this article very clear:

Lest anyone think that the Orthodox Church endorses
the “celebration” of Halloween, consider, please, the following
homily from the web site of the Russian Orthodox Cathedral of St.
John the Baptist (ROCOR) in Washington, DC:

http://www.stjohndc.org/russian/Homilies/e_HOMHALWN.HTM

Concerning Halloween

… Because most of us are either newly Orthodox or newly aware of
our Orthodoxy, we must carefully examine every aspect of our
involvement in the world – its activities, festivals, associations,
and societies – to be certain whether or not these involvements are
compatible with our Holy Orthodox Faith. This difficult task can
lead to some pain when we realize that we cannot take part in some
popular organizations and activities.

Most of our schools, local community organizations, and
entertainments in television, radio and the press will share in and
capitalize upon the festival of Halloween. But Orthodox Christians
cannot participate in this event at any level. The simple issue –
Fidelity to God and the Holy Orthodox Christian Faith. Halloween has
its roots in paganism, and it continues as a form of idolatry to
worship Satan, the angel of death. As we know, the very foundation
of our Holy Church is build upon the blood of martyrs who refused
despite painful penalties to worship, venerate, or pay obeisance in
any way to the idols who are Satan’s angels. Because of the
faithfulness, obedience, and self-sacrifice of the Holy Martyrs, God
poured out abundant Grace upon His Holy Church, whose numbers
increased daily. The persecution did not stem the spread of faith.
Differing from the world’s values, humble faithfulness and obedience
to God were the very strength of their life in Christ, Who gave them
true spiritual peace, love and joy, and participation in the
miraculous workings of His Holy Spirit. Therefore, the Holy Church
calls us to faithfulness by our turning away from falsehood toward
Truth and eternal life.

We can stay away from the pagan festival of Halloween if we
understand the spiritual danger and history of this anti-Christian
feast.

The feast of Halloween began in pre-Christian times among the Celtic
peoples who lived more than 2,000 years ago in what is no United
Kingdom, Ireland, and northern France. These pagan peoples believed
that physical life was born from death. Therefore, they celebrated
the beginning of the “new year” in the fall (on the eve of October
31 and into the day of November 1), when, as they believed, the
season of cold, darkness, decay and death began. The Celts believed
that a certain deity, whom they called Samhain, was the lord of
death. To him they gave honor at their New Year’s festival.

From an Orthodox Christian point of view, many diabolical beliefs
and practices were associated with this feast, which have endured to
this current time. On the eve of the New Year’s festival, the
Druids, who were the priests of the Celtic cult, instructed their
people to extinguish all hearth fires and lights. On the evening of
the festival they ignited a huge bonfire built from oak branches,
which they believed to be sacred. Upon this fire, they offered burnt
sacrifices of crops, animals, and even human beings to appease and
cajole Samhain, the lord of death. They also believed that Samhain,
being pleased by their faithful offerings, allowed the souls of the
dead to return to homes for a festal visit on this day. This belief
led to the ritual practice of wandering about in the dark dressed in
costumes indicating ghosts, witches, hobgoblins, fairies and demons.
The living entered into fellowship and communion with their dead by
this ritual act of imitation, through costume and the wandering
about in the darkness, even as the souls of the dead were believed
to wander.

The dialogue of “trick-or-treat” is integral to Halloween beliefs
and practices. The souls of the dead had – by Celtic tradition –
entered into the world of darkness, decay, and death, and made total
communion with and submission to Samhain, the lord of death. They
bore the affliction of great hunger on their festal visit. This
belief brought about the practice of begging as another Celtic
ritual imitation of the activities of the souls of the dead on their
festal visit. The implication was that any souls of the dead and
their imitators who are not appeased with “treats”, i.e. offerings,
will provoke the wrath of Samhain, whose angels and servants (the
souls and human imitators) could retaliate through a system
of “tricks” or curses.

The Orthodox Christian must understand that taking part in these
practices at any level is an idolatrous betrayal of our God and our
Holy Faith. For if we imitate the dead by dressing up in or
wandering about in the dark, or by begging with them, then we have
willfully sought fellowship with the dead, whose Lord is not a
Celtic Samhain, but is Satan the Evil One, who stands against God.
Further, if we submit to the dialogue of “trick-or-treat,” our
offering goes not to innocent children, but rather to Samhain, the
Lord of Death whom they have come to serve as imitators of the dead,
wandering in the darkness.

We must stay away from other practices associated with Halloween,
the eve of the Celtic New Year festival. The Druid priests used to
instruct their faithful to extinguish their hearth fires and lights
and to gather around the fire of sacrifice to make their offerings
and to pay homage to the Lord of Death. This sacred fire was the
fire of the new year, to be taken home to rekindle lights and hearth
fires. The sacred New Year’s fire developed into the practice of the
Jack-o’-lantern (in the U.S.A. a pumpkin, in older days other
vegetables were used), which was carved in imitation of the dead and
used to convey the new light and fire to the home, where the lantern
was left burning throughout the night. Even the use and display of
the Jack-o’-lantern honors the Samhain, the Celtic god of death.
Orthodox Christians cannot share in this Celtic activity, but must
counter the secular customs by instead burning candles to the
Savior, the Most Holy Mother of God, and to all the Holy Saints.

Divination was also part of this ancient Celtic festival. After the
fire had died out the Druids examined the remains of the main
sacrifices, hoping to foretell the coming years events. The
Halloween festival was the proper night for sorcery, fortune
telling, divination, games of chance, and Satan worship and
witchcraft in the later Middle Ages.

In the strictly Orthodox early Celtic Church, the holy Fathers tried
to counteract this pagan new year festival that honored the Lord of
Death, by establishing the Feast of All Saints on the same day. (It
differs in the East, where the Feast of All Saints is celebrated on
the Sunday following Pentecost). The custom of the Celtic Church was
for the faithful Christians to attend a vigil service and a morning
celebration of the Holy Eucharist. This custom created the term
Halloween. The Old English of All Hallow e’en, i.e., the eve
commemorating all those who were hallowed (sanctified) became
Halloween.

The remaining pagan and therefore anti-Christian people, whose
paganism had become deeply intertwined with the Occult, Satanism and
Magic, reacted to the Church’s attempt to supplant their festival by
increased fervor on this evening. The early medieval Halloween
became the supreme feast of the Occult, a night and day witchcraft,
demonism, sorcery and Satanism of all kinds. Many practices involved
desecration and mockery of Christian practices and beliefs. Costumes
of skeletons developed as a mockery of the Church’s reverence for
Holy Relics; Holy things were stolen, such as crosses and the
Reserved Sacrament, and used perversely in sacrilegious ways. The
practice of begging became a system of persecution to harass
Christians who were, by their beliefs, unable to participate with
offerings to those who served the Lord of Death. The Western
Church’s attempt failed, to supplant this pagan festival with the
Feast of All Saints.

The ancient Slavic counterpart to Halloween in ancient Russia was
Navy Dien’ (Old Slavonic for the dead “nav”), which was also called
Radunitsa and celebrated in the spring. To supplant it, the Eastern
Church attached this feast to Easter, for celebration on Tuesday of
Saint Thomas’ Week (second week after Easter). The Church also
changed the name of the feast into Radonitsa, from Russian “radost” -
joy, of Easter and of the resurrection from the dead of the whole
manhood of Jesus Christ. Gradually Radonitsa yielded to Easter’s
greater importance and became less popular. And many dark practice
from old Russian pagan feasts (Semik, Kupalo, Rusalia and some
aspects of the Maslennitsa) still survived till the beginning of our
century. Now they are gone, but the atheist authorities used to try
to reanimate them. Another “harmless” feast – May 1, proclaimed “the
international worker’s day” is a simple renaming the old satanic
feast of Walpurgis Night (night of April 30 into the day of May 1),
the yearly demonic Sabbath during which all participants united
in “a fellowship of Satan”.

Paganism, idolatry and Satan worship–How then did things so
contradictory to the Holy Orthodox Faith gain acceptance among
Christian people? The answers are spiritual apathy and listlessness,
which are the spiritual roots of atheism and turning away from God.
In society today, one is urged to disregard the spiritual roots and
origins of secular practices when the outward practices or forms
seem ordinary, entertaining, and harmless. The dogma of atheism
underlies many of these practices and forms, denying the existence
of both God and Satan. Practices and forms of obvious pagan and
idolatrous origin are neither harmless nor of little consequence.
The Holy Church stand against them because we are taught by Christ
that God stands in judgment over everything we do and believe, and
that our actions are either for God or against God. Therefore, the
customs of Halloween are not innocent, but are demonic, precisely as
their origins prove.

There are evil spirits. Devils do exist. Christ came into the world
so that, through death, He might destroy him that had the dominion
of death, that is, the Devil (Hebrews 2:14). Christians must see
that our greatest foe is the Evil One who inspires nations and
individuals to sin, and who keeps them from coming to the truth.
Until we know that Satan is our real enemy, we can make little
spiritual progress. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood,
but against principalities, against powers, against the world rulers
of the darkness of this age, against the spiritual hosts of
wickedness in the heavenly places (Ephesians 6:12).

Today we witness a revival of satanist cults and special satanic
ceremonies on Halloween night. Everywhere Satan reaches out to
ensnare more innocent people with spiritualism, supernatural
phenomena, seances, prophesies and all sorts of demonically inspired
works.

Divine Providence ensured that St. John of Kronstadt, that physician
of our souls and bodies, should have his feast day on the very day
of Halloween, a day the world dedicated to the destroyer, corrupter,
and deceiver of humanity. God has provided us with this powerful
counterpoise and weapon against the snares of Satan, and we should
take full advantage of this gift, for truly God is wonderful in His
Saints.

Archpriest Victor Potapov