[expand]Christianity transformed Užgavėnės into Shrove Tuesday—the day before Lenten fasting began, the final opportunity for indulgence before forty days of abstinence. The timing was nearly identical to pre-Christian winter farewell, allowing easy adaptation. The excess feasting, the pancake consumption, the licensed transgression all fit conveniently into Christian framework explaining them as preparation for upcoming sacrifice rather than celebration of seasonal transition.
But the Morė burning, the masked mockery, the noise-making processions had no direct Christian equivalent. These elements were reinterpreted as “folk customs”—harmless traditional practices tolerated by Church because their suppression would provoke resistance, their continuation was relatively harmless compared to other pre-Christian survivals. The priests preached against the sexual license and drunkenness while accepting the festival’s basic structure.
The folk practice preserved deeper continuity. The songs still addressed winter directly, commanding it to depart. The Morė figure was still recognizably winter personification rather than Christian allegorical figure. The rituals still functioned according to pre-Christian logic—using chaos to drive away cold, employing excess to ensure abundance, harnessing community energy to accomplish collective goal of seasonal transition.
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