The Christmas Tree

In our last post I mentioned the fact that it was by a tree which Adam fell, and by a tree that Adam is restored. The former is the tree of knowledge, the latter is the tree of life, the cross.
I was asked by someone recently, why Orthodox Christians would be "ok" with bringing a tree into our house, when this was a pagan thing to do.

After giving some thought, I felt I should study this more fully:

Metropolitan Hierotheos Vlachos of Nafpaktos writes:

It is not unrelated to the prophecy of the Prophet Isaiah: "There shall come forth a Rod from the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots" (Is. 11:1). St. Cosmas the Poet had this prophecy in mind when he wrote of Christ as the blossom which rose up out of the Virgin stem from the stump of Jesse. The root is Jesse, David’s father, the rod is King David, the flower which came from the root and the rod is the Theotokos. And the fruit which came forth from the flower of the Panagia is Christ. Holy Scripture presents this wonderfully. Thus the Christmas tree can remind us of the genealogical tree of Christ as Man, the love of God, but also the successive purifications of the Forefathers of Christ. At the top is the star which is the God-Man (Theanthropos) Christ.

Then, the Christmas tree reminds us of the tree of knowledge as well as the tree of life, but especially the latter. It underlines clearly the truth that Christ is the tree of life and that we cannot live or fulfill the purpose of our existence unless we taste of this tree, "the producer of life". Christmas cannot be conceived without Holy Communion. And of course as for Holy Communion it is not possible to partake of deification in Christ without having conquered the devil when we found ourselves faced with temptation relative to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, where our freedom is tried. We rejoice and celebrate, because "the Tree of Life blossomed from the Virgin in the cave". (The Feasts of the Lord-1993)
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Again, I found that Fr. Daniel Daly writes:

The Christmas tree does not date from early Germanic times. Its origins are to be found in a tradition that has virtually disappeared from Christianity, the Liturgical Drama. In the Middle Ages liturgical plays or dramas were presented during or sometimes immediately after the services in the churches of Western Europe. The earliest of these plays were associated with the Mysteries of Holy Week and Easter. Initially they were dramatizations of the liturgical texts. The earliest recorded is the Quem quaeritis (“Whom do you seek?”) play of the Easter season. These plays later developed into the Miracle and Morality plays. Some were associated with events in the lives of well-known saints. The plays were presented on the porches of large churches. Although these liturgical dramas have now virtually disappeared, the Passion Play of Oberammergau, Germany is a recent revival of this dramatic form.

One mystery play was presented on Christmas Eve, the day which also commemorated the feast of Adam and Eve in the Western Church. The “Paradise Play” told the well-known story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Paradise. The central “prop” in the play was the Paradise Tree, or Tree of Knowledge. During the play this tree was brought in laden with apples.

The Paradise Tree became very popular with the German people. They soon began the practice of setting up a fir tree in their homes. Originally, the trees were decorated with bread wafers commemorating the Eucharist. Later, these were replaced with various kinds of sweets. Our Christmas tree is derived, not from the pagan yule tree, but from the paradise tree adorned with apples on December 24 in honor of Adam and Eve. The Christmas tree is completely biblical in origin.

The first Christmas tree dates from 1605 in Strasbourg. By the 1700s the custom of the Christmas tree was widespread among the German people. It was brought to America by early German immigrants, and it became popular in England through the influence of Prince Albert, the German husband of Queen Victoria.

The use of evergreens at Christmas may date from St. Boniface of the eighth century, who dedicated the fir tree to the Holy Child in order to replace the sacred oak tree of Odin; but the Christmas tree as we know it today does not appear to be so ancient a custom. It appears first in the Christian Mystery play commemorating the biblical story of Adam and Eve.

How legitimate is it to use a fir tree in the celebration of Christmas? From the very earliest days of the Church, Christians brought many things of God’s material creation into their life of faith and worship, e.g., water, bread, wine, oil, candles and incense. All these things are part of God’s creation. They are part of the world that Christ came to save. Man cannot reject the material creation without rejecting his own humanity. In Genesis man was given dominion over the material world.

Christmas celebrates the great mystery of the Incarnation. In that mystery God the Word became man. In order to redeem us, God became one of us. He became part of His own creation. The Incarnation affirms the importance of both man and the whole of creation. “For God so loved the world…”

A faith which would seek to divorce itself from all elements of the material world in search for an absolutely spiritual religion overlooks this most central mystery of Christmas, the mystery of God becoming man, the Incarnation."

“The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”
(Originally published in “The Word” magazine, December 2002. The Very Rev. Daniel Daly is pastor of St. Nicholas Orthodox Church, Grand Rapids, MI.)
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To be fair, the person who brought this subject to my attention told me I could find the pagan roots of this tradition in the book of Jeremiah, which would far predate the supposed Germanic pagan identity attributed to it.

We find in Jeremiah chapter 10 the following passage:

"Do not learn the ways of the Gentiles, and do not be afraid because of the signs of the sky, for they themselves reverence these. For the customs of the peoples are vain. This vanity is a tree cut from the forest, the work of a craftsman, or it is a molten image. They are embellished with silver and gold with a hammer, and they strengthen them with nails so they will not move. They will be taken up and carried for they can not walk by themselves."

Furthermore we read a little down the page...

"6 The silver overlays come from Tarshish, the gold from Ulysses. All the handiwork is the work of goldsmiths and craftsman, and they will dress them in hyacinth and purple. Thus you shall say to them, Let the gods that did not make heaven and earth perish from the earth and from under this heaven."

To comment on the above verse, it is my opinion that this style of craftsmanship is self evident. The scripture specifically speaks of creating idols, not Christmas trees. Dressing the final product, an image made of carved wood and embellished with hammered gold and silver, with hyacinth and purple (clothing the gods in fine fabrics) is the defining moment when the image takes on the likeness of an idol.

We find even further into the chapter the statement, "Every man is made foolish because of this knowledge, and every goldsmith is put to shame by his carved images; because they cast false gods that have no spirit in them."

Nearly the entire chapter speaks of the warning of false images, idols, created by Egypt, which as many scholars have attested created a large market for doing just this during this time.

Nothing else in the book of Jeremiah before or after speaks of trees again in such a way. We can ascertain then, that this verse is not speaking of a Christmas Tree and has been proof-texted out of context to make a point which is not there.

Studying further we find some mention in the Russian tradition about Christmas Trees (Yolka) which attributes the decoration of fir trees with apples to Czar Peter the Great who brought back this tradition from a visit to Europe. All of this would agree with Fr. Daniel Daly's own findings.

So what we have discovered is a Western tradition which developed out of Europe in respect and celebration of the story of Adam and Eve's fall in Genesis and further in remembrance of the suffering of our Lord, who was hung on a cross of wood, a tree which became the symbol for the redemption of mankind.
The cross is our salvation. It is our hope. And every year we have the opportunity to remember and act physically to take up our cross (tree) and follow Him.

Merry Christmas!

For understanding why we celebrate Christmas on Dec. 25th follow the link.