SNIP:
Interesting, how deep and pervasive symbolism can be:-

I've been reading the ever reliable Wikipedia :-) entries regarding the
Paschal Lamb,  "Lamb of God",  "Agnus Dei" the symbol appears to have
masonic connections as
well as connections to jewish passover.

END SNIP

Agree fully.  The Easter/Passover connection is essentially that Christians
believe that the Passover lamb whose blood on the door lintel preserved the
firstborn of the Children of Israel from death in the final Egyptian plague
was a foreshadowing of the Christ, whose blood preserves believers from
eternal death.

Agnus Dei is simply "Lamb of God" in Latin.  I used to say it every day as
part of a longer prayer as an altar boy in the days of yore.  Paschal Lamb
is a little different, making the explicit connection to Easter/Passover.

I don't know but would guess that the carrying of national banners is an
artifact of Christendom, when the more or less Christian monarchs for better
or worse held themselves out to be defenders of the faith.  Whether they
lived up to it personally or publically is another matter, but the
iconography survives if not the theory.

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