As discussed in the novel, the nascent Christian Church often adopted pagan imagery and places of worship as its own when suppressing or extirpating these earlier faiths wasn’t an option.  This ‘rebranding’ (the Queen of Heaven to replace Mother Nature, etc.) was articulated best in 601 when Pope Gregory the First exhorted his clergy not to destroy places of pagan worship when instead they could ‘bless and convert them from the worship of devils to the service of the true God.’    In Ireland, this practice resulted in the establishment of Saint Gobban’s monastery in Old Leighlin, County Carlow where a centuries-old debate within the Church would be put to rest.  At issue was a most fundamental question:  When is Easter?

Following the death of Jesus, a split arose in the Christian community concerning the date on which the resurrection was to be observed.  One faction held that it should fall on the Jewish Passover (a date determined by the lunar calendar) as it was at the Passover meal that Jesus revealed to his disciples his role as the sacrificial lamb.  Another faction within the Church held that the date must always fall on a Sunday regardless of the lunar calendar.  The argument was that on that day the tomb was found empty; thus, Sunday was sanctified above all other days and celebrating the resurrection on a weekday would diminish Easter’s significance.  By 325 C.E., the Sunday proponents had won the day, so to speak, but splits in the Church remained as Eastern Christians were still guided by the Jewish, lunar calendar regarding when Easter Sunday should be observed.   Constantine urged Church leaders to fix a date specific for all of Christendom and the Council of Nicaea, convened in that same year, agreed with him that all Christians should observe the SAME Sunday, but which one?  That question was answered five years later when the pope sent Saint Laserian to St. Gobban’s Monastery in Old Leighlin, County Carlow, Ireland.   Saint Laserian oversaw a conference that eventually fixed the date of Easter as the first Sunday after the first full moon following the vernal equinox.   He stayed on in Ireland as abbot of the monastery which grew to 1500 monks.  By the 13th Century, the site had been transformed into the Cathedral of Saint Laserian, parts of which survive to the present (albeit under the control of the Anglican Church).