Paganism

[123everton]

Reading about Armenia at the moment and there was talk of some of their ancient festivals that are Christianised but pagan in origin.
They have their own version of April fools day and also (this is the significant bit) they use eggs symbolically.
How did paganism spread so widely and stay so similar from the far east western europe?
I find it quite remarkable.

[Octavius]

The Roman Empire.
Probably.

[Octavius]

Some info here:

http://www.tacentral.com/echmiadzin/efs-4c.htm

[123everton]

I've got a rough idea of the advance of Christianity into Armenia (St. Gregory the illuminator etc) although I'm not reading the religious history of the region what I find surprising is the use of the same symbols all the way over there as we used over here.
Did we not use the egg as a symbol before the Roman conquest?
Is the egg a Roman pagan object?

[jno]

easter is pretty much a remade spring festival, I think (Eostre was a spring goddess, wasn't she?) - the time when the earth starts to renew itself - so it fitted in with the Christian notion of Jesus's death bringing new hope for mankind. Eggs are also a symbol of new life. Armenia was the first state to adopt Christianity (even before Rome) but I imagine paganism clung on there much as it's done here.

[Octavius]

�The egg symbol appears in many cultures. In the Laws of Manu, for instance, it is stated that the Self-existent Lord, becoming manifest, created water alone; in that he cast seed which became a golden egg (hiranyagarbha); having dwelt in that egg for a divine year, Brahma splits it, forming heaven and earth. Brahma thus both fructifies the egg and is produced from it. Again, the female evolver or emanator is first a germ, a drop of heavenly dew, a pearl, and then an egg; the egg gives birth to the four elements with the fifth (akasa); it splits, the shell being heaven, the meat earth, and the white the waters of both space and earth. Vishnu, too, emerges from the egg. In Egypt, Osiris is born from an egg, like Brahma; the egg was sacred to Isis and therefore the priests never ate eggs.�

There are some claims that the original Easter eggs are Pagan symbols from Europe, but there is little evidence to support this. The word easter is more likely to have evolved from the Babylonian Astarte or Ishtar.

�The egg was a sacred symbol among the Babylonians. They believed an old fable about an egg of wondrous size which was supposed to have fallen from heaven into the Euphrates River. From this marvelous egg - according to the ancient story - the Goddess Astarte [Semiramis], was hatched. And so the egg came to symbolize the Goddess.�

The idea of a mystic egg spread from Babylon to many parts of the world. In Rome, the mystic egg preceded processions in honour of the Mother Goddess Roman. The egg was part of the sacred ceremonies of the Mysteries of Bacchus. The Druids used the egg as their sacred emblem. In Northern Europe, China and Japan the eggs were coloured for their sacred festivals.

[123everton]

The Babylonian egg probably explains Armenia's fascination with it, although I think Armenia was Zororastrian before conversion.
Were the Babylonians Zororastrians?

[Octavius]

Yes, Zoroastrian fire worship is mentioned in my link above.

[Octavius]

Sorry, misunderstood your q.

Zoroastrianism was virtually the state religion of Babylon in the 6thC BC.