In recent years, we have become accustomed to the new autumn holiday. Halloween (All Hallows Evening - the evening on the eve of All Saints Day) is gradually taking its place in Slavic reality, although the attitude towards it is ambiguous.
Scaring people and hiding their faces under the masks of evil spirits is clearly not in the traditions of Orthodoxy. And not only Orthodoxy. Thus, the Mongolian authorities, fearing a weakening of the local nomadic and Buddhist tradition, banned the celebration of Halloween in schools, Reuters reports.
It is believed that the roots of Halloween can be traced to the Celtic-Irish festival of Samhain (the arrival of winter), when large fires were made to scare away evil spirits. Subsequently, Catholics made their contribution (for example, a pumpkin with slots seems to symbolize a soul in a sanctuary or … just a restless soul). However, Catholics do not celebrate Halloween everywhere either.
In the USA and Canada, the holiday began to be widely celebrated in the 19th century, it was brought with them by settlers from Ireland and Scotland.
It would seem that we have something to do with all this? But advertising, the sympathetic attitude of the media, advising to choose a more terrible image and offering a list of horror films, do their job - they get used to the holiday.
The fact that tradition is literally imposed on us should not be surprising if you ask yourself a simple question: who benefits? There is no need to look for beneficiaries for a long time: Halloween brings billions in income to merchants. According to media reports, Americans alone spend $ 7 billion annually on a "terrible" night, half of which is spent on "equipment", on frightening masks and costumes. How much is spent on these purposes in Russia and Ukraine is difficult to calculate, but it can be assumed that we are talking about significant amounts.
The business is not limited to costumes, masks and lamps - technical progress makes its own amendments. Among the innovations for Halloween, the Sostav.ru resource points out, for example, the site DiedInHouse.com, which "offers to lose peace forever and find out who and when died in your home or in the house that you intend to buy."
“The service was created in 2013 by software engineer Roy Condry. This idea of the specialist was led by people who rented the programmer's property. They asked Condry if there were ghosts in his houses,”Sostav.ru notes.
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The Airbnb rental service offers to spend the night in the catacombs of Paris, where the remains of almost six million people rest, and Wargaming, on the eve of All Saints' Day, offers players of the online simulator World of Tanks to play a battle with ghost tanks …
Examples can be multiplied, but even without that it is clear that Halloween is a grandiose commercial project that is being developed, promoted, and protected by all the rules. This partly explains the "export" of Halloween, the market needs to be expanded, the American market is oversaturated.
But it's not just about commerce. Many believe that we are talking about a technology for processing mass consciousness, about purposeful actions directed against the system of traditional values, and this technology is aimed primarily at young people.
“It is no coincidence that the American Church of Satan, which in the United States enjoys strong support from Congress, has openly secured this holiday for itself,” said Orthodox psychologist Nikita Yanochkin in an interview with Tsargrad.
According to him, "Russia is also actively satanizing society through the popularization of Halloween and similar events."
The Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) does not bless participation in the pagan Halloween in any form.
“This is a holiday for Christians who have ceased to be Christians,” states Archpriest Fyodor Borodin, whose words are quoted by the portal Pravoslavie.ru.
He gave an analogy: the statues of chimeras and demons on the famous Gothic cathedrals symbolize that the temple is closed to them.
“… If suddenly people are only interested in demons, it means that something has changed in them. And if all the emphasis and all the interest, as in Halloween, shifted from all the saints to those who hated these saints and fought with them, then, apparently, the demons won in the souls of the celebrating. Therefore, for us, Christians, participation in this holiday is a betrayal of our faith,”the priest emphasized.
Priest Valery Dukhanin noted that the main symbols of Halloween "capture horror, fear", costumes and masks depict all kinds of evil spirits, which is unacceptable for an Orthodox person.
“By and large, Halloween is imposed on Russia, alien to our culture and incomprehensible to the vast majority of people. In many ways, it is of a commercial nature, because by this day the stores sell the corresponding attributes. We can easily do without this "holiday". We will try to turn our attention to what elevates, purifies and nourishes our soul,”the priest emphasized.
Archpriest Andrei Tkachev considers Halloween rituals sacrilegious, since "death is not a topic for ridicule."
“A person who laughs at death will sooner or later stop laughing … when the chill of real death blows over him,” the priest noted, adding that “death is ridiculous only for idiots, and for an intelligent person it is an object of religious contemplation, a kind of reverential horror and prayer.
He added that it is necessary to pray for people celebrating Halloween, and an Orthodox person needs to have strength and strength to resist what the world imposes. I think the believers will listen to these words.
As for the atheists, it is up to them to decide whether to support the producers of "horror films" with the ruble and the hryvnia, or spend their money and time more productively.
