Some Easter history

 

                                                             Kilsby United Church (formerly Congregational)

When thought about objectively, the traditions around Easter are a confusing mixed bag. There is a reason for that. In common with many Christian festivals, more than one old tradition has been combined. There's the celebration of spring, at least in the Northern Hemisphere. That accounts for the eggs and rabbits. The reawakening of the earth feeds handily into the Christian doctrine of the resurrection. So the date when that was supposed to have happened was fudged in order for the two events to be observed together.

But did all Christian sects celebrate Easter? I have a more than passing interest in this question as I've delved into the history of nonconformity in the Christian church due to my own family history. My 5 x great grandfather, Reverend Thomas Strange, was a congregational minister. He was the first minister at the congregational church in Kilsby, Northamptonshire. In those days people took their religion seriously. I found some of the Reverend Strange's sermons in a book at Dr Williams Library in London. They were pages and pages long. As interested as I was in the man, I couldn't read through them. I can't imagine sitting on a hard wooden pew for hours listening to him deliver one.

A quick Google survey of websites leads me to believe that the Congregationalists also celebrated Easter, even in the early days. The Puritans, of course, were another story. Weren't they always? They banned Christmas, Easter and a whole host of other holidays. Early Quakers were also unlikely to think of Easter as a more holy time than any other. There were more flavours of Christianity than these among those dissenting from the established church in England but I looked at the ones which I have reason to believe that some of my ancestors joined. I haven't begun to untangle which sects my Scottish ancestors cycled through. That's something for another day. 

Sources:

Memorials of Nonconformity in Herts, Google Books p668 https://books.google.ca/books?id=7PkPAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA643&lpg=PA643&dq=dissenters+and+easter&source=bl&ots=QRHnWuaTb6&sig=ACfU3U18IpIG8SenyhTGQcGXUbTMgj0hJw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjH5K7fv5T3AhXBN30KHaksDYYQ6AF6BAgSEAM#v=onepage&q=dissenters%20and%20easter&f=false

Origins of Easter with an Australian slant https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-04-15/the-origins-of-easter-from-pagan-roots-to-chocolate-eggs/8440134

Puritans and Easter https://www.newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/puritan-easter-devils-holiday/

What Did Easter Mean to Early Quakers? https://www.friendsjournal.org/what-did-easter-mean-to-early-quakers/