The Surprising History of the Easter Egg Hunt
Contributed by Tyler Ray
There’s a question many in the Christian community wrestle with each year as winter gives way to spring: Why do we celebrate Easter with egg hunts?
Are the popular statements true? Is it a celebration of a pagan holiday? Is it okay to let my kids partake in this event on the most sacred day of Christianity?
You wrestle with the question. You talk it over with friends. If you’re truly desperate, you seek answers online. Each one of those giving you strikingly different opinions and even downright judgement that would make the most pious among us feel shame. In the end we’re still left with our questions unanswered. What’s with the eggs and bunnies?
I took this question, and I went on a historical hunt of my own, and I did it with open hands willing to accept whatever truths I uncovered.
The first thing I needed to do was this: Search the beginning of Easter egg hunts in America.
This took me back to the 1700s, when German settlers arriving in Pennsylvania brought the tradition of “Osterhase”. Translated to English, this means “Easter Bunny” who was known as the bringer of Easter eggs. Much like today’s practice, the children would go out hunting in their yard to collect hidden eggs. It would appear that for over 250 years, this tradition has remained largely unchanged.
But how far back does this tradition actually go? To truly find its origins, I’d have to look even farther back before the Germans crossed the ocean to the New World.
The first known record of Easter egg hunts, or Osterhase, was written about in 1682 by Georg Franck Von Franckenau, in his work “On the Easter Eggs”. Franckenau, a doctor by trade, documented the cultural moment and the practice of Easter egg hunts. Children would build nests, and a “bunny” would then hide colorful eggs within those nests and gardens, and then the children would all go out and search for them.
I found that after nearly 350 years, the tradition of Easter egg hunts remains largely unchanged from when it was first documented. In a period where the world changed dramatically, this practice did not.
That still didn’t answer my biggest question. Is Easter a pagan holiday?
A popular claim is that Easter and egg hunts originate from rituals honoring the pagan goddess “Eostre.” Hares supposedly represent fertility and eggs new birth, symbolizing life emerging in spring.
Hearing each year on social media that Easter was simply a pagan celebration, I wondered why Christians celebrated it. I came to learn that the origin of the word “Easter” is debated among scholars, with evidence suggesting it may come from an old Germanic word connected to dawn or the east.
And Franckenau tells us these early practices were cultural, not religious. Furthermore, instead of using the Germanic word for Easter, he uses the Christian Latin term, “Pashca.”
This was my first hint that this tradition may have had Christian origin.
But why a bunny? Why an egg? These questions still loomed at the forefront of my mind. I’m never satisfied with dead ends, so I kept searching, and what I found took me back to the Middle Ages.
I discovered in roughly 1200 AD, Thomas Aquinas wrote in Summa Theologiae that the Roman Catholic Church declared eggs forbidden to consume during the time of Lent, a roughly 40-day fast.
At the end of the fast on Easter, those eggs were allowed to be consumed during the celebration feasts. Because of their value, some eggs were brought to the church and blessed by the priest and then consumed as one of the first items to break their fast.
When I started this journey, I was fully prepared to concede that Easter egg hunts were historically pagan. But what I found next made the truth so clear to me.
As part of the Christian celebration, eggs would be boiled, dyed, and decorated and then given out as gifts.
While this finding doesn’t mention egg hunts or hares, likely
Germanic folk additions, I think it shines light on the real historical connection between Easter and eggs passed down for nearly a millennium. One of sacrifice and celebration.
Over 800 years ago people were boiling, dyeing, and gifting eggs just as we do today, but in celebration of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, rejoicing that He conquered sin and death once and for all.
Next time someone asks why we celebrate Easter with egg hunts, you can point them to the rich history of celebrating our Savior.
Summit Worship Center invites you to a traditional egg hunt on Easter Sunday at 10:30AM as we celebrate our Savior’s sacrifice and the gifts He gives us.