Páscoa

                                                     
The Passover (Pesach in Hebrew, meaning pass through the Greek Πάσχα) is a Christian religious event, normally considered by the churches connected with this religious group as the largest and most important feast of Christianity. At Easter Christians celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus Christ after his death by crucifixion (see Good Friday) that would have occurred at this time of year at 30 or 33 of the Common Era. The term can also refer to the period of the canonical year that lasts about two months, from Easter Sunday until Pentecost.
The events of the Passover would have occurred during Passover, when Jews commemorate the liberation and escape from his enslaved people in Egypt.
The word Easter comes, just the name in Hebrew of the Jewish feast to which the Christian Easter is intimately linked not only by the symbolic meaning of "passage", common to pagan celebrations (transition from winter to spring) and Jewish (from slavery in Egypt to freedom in the Promised Land), but also by the position of Easter in the calendar, according to calculations set forth below.
The Christian Easter celebrates the resurrection of Jesus Christ. After dying on the cross, his body was placed in a tomb where he remained for three days, until his resurrection. It is the most important day of the Christian religion. Many Easter customs related to the stem of the pagan spring festivals. Others come to the conclusion of Pesach, or Passover, the Jewish Passover, which is one of the most important festivals of the Jewish calendar, celebrated for eight days is celebrated and where the Israelites' exodus from Egypt, from slavery to freedom. A rite of passage, like the "passing" of Christ from death to life.
The Last Supper shared by Jesus Christ and his disciples is told in the Gospels and is generally considered a "seder pesach's" - the ritual meal that accompanies the holiday Jewish, if we stick to the timeline proposed by the synoptic Gospels. The Gospel of John offers a different chronology, by placing Christ's death by the time the carnage of the Passover lamb. Thus, the last supper would have happened a little before that holiday.
In Portuguese, as in many other languages, the word Easter comes from the Hebrew Passover. The Spaniards called the feast of Easter, the Italian Pasqua and French Pâques.
The party traditionally associated with the image of the rabbit, a symbol of fertility, eggs and painted with bright colors, representing the sun, given as gifts. In fact, to understand the Christian meaning of Easter today, it is necessary to return to the Middle Ages and the pagan people remember the old Europeans, this time of year, honored Ostera or Esther - in English, Easter means Easter. Ostera (or Ostara) is the goddess of spring, which holds an egg in his hand and he sees a rabbit, a symbol of fertility, skipping merrily around her bare feet. The goddess and the egg are symbols that carries the arrival of a new life. Ostara is equivalent, in Greek mythology, Demeter. In Roman mythology, Ceres is. [1]
The terms "Easter" (Ishtar) and "Ostern" (in English and German, respectively) appear to have no etymological relationship with Pesach (Passover). The most accepted hypotheses relating to the terms Estremonat, name of an ancient Germanic months, or Eostre, a Germanic goddess associated with spring he was honored every year in the month of Eostremonat, according to the Venerable Bede, English historian of seventh century.