Pagan Festivities And Cristes Maesse
This allowed for a smooth socio-cultural transition, where ingrained calendrical rituals could be maintained, whilst the meanings of those rituals could be transformed. A clear example of this in Celtic and Germanic countries is the transformation of
Samhain (October 31) into All Hallow’s Eve and All Saints’ Day on November 1. Samhain was a European-wide, pre-Christian celebration and commemoration of ancestors, but by the eighth century the Church had requisitioned the date to mark its own
special ancestors - the martyred saints.
Mosaic of Jesus as Christus Sol (Christ the Sun) in Mausoleum M in the pre-fourth-century necropolis under St Peter s Basilica in Rome (