The term seemingly derives from the Anglo-Saxon goddess of spring, Eostre, who was celebrated as she escaped Winter’s harsh clutches. But Eostre wasn’t quite the pagan deity who, we are commonly told, transformed a bird into an egg-laying hare companion, e.g. the forerunner to th...

The Last Supper was the final meal Jesus shared with his disciples before his Crucifixion, when the bread and goblet of wine were dispersed as elements of his own body on the day now known as Maundy Thursday, named from the Latin ‘commandment’ which Jesus gave to his disciples at the meal.

Easter is held on the Sunday after the first ecclesiastical full moon (which keeps, more or less, in step with the astronomical Moon) following the vernal (spring) equinox of the northern hemisphere, when the sun is exactly above the equator, and day and night ar...

• Emperor Constantine, the first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity, convened the Council of Nicaea and decreed that Christ's resurrection was far too important to be connected with the festival of another faith.
• Constantine ordained that Easter was to fall in close proximity t...

• Eggs were one of the foods forbidden during Lent, the 40-day fasting period of reflection and penitential preparation leading up to Easter.
• In the medieval period, any eggs laid during Lent were boiled for preservation so that when Easter Sunday rolled around, eggs were back on the...

• Hares became associated with Easter because of their powers of fertility.
• But the entire concept of the ‘Easter Bunny’ is much more recent. It likely became the large colourful rabbit we know and love today due to American influence, but 17th-centu...