For over a thousand years, the peoples of Europe¹ had only one religion: official Christianity. Their beliefs and practices, even their calendar, were decided by authorities who arranged the stories to benefit the ruling classes. But a few times a year, at Christmas and just before Lent, and maybe around May Day, the unwashed masses put in their oar.

Christmas carols tell us what they felt.

Guess what? They were more interested in the fact that the Creator of Heaven showed up in a barn, and didn't belong to the One Percent, than in all the fancy theology of St Thomas Aquinas.

In the 'Coventry Carol', the carolers also mourn the innocent children of the Bible account, who died because of a paranoid king who feared the power of an idea. Does that sound familiar? Does this carol sort of mark the day of mourning for ethnic cleansing, everywhere, anytime?

Dmitri Gheorgheni

14.12.15 Front Page

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