Hi, I'm Emil Muzz and I'm a Pagan
Posted on 01/24/2007 9:42:30 AM PST by presidio9
A clutch of modern pagans honored Zeus at a 1,800-year-old temple in the heart of Athens on Sunday — the first known ceremony of its kind held there since the ancient Greek religion was outlawed by the Roman empire in the late 4th century.
Watched by curious onlookers, some 20 worshippers gathered next to the ruins of the temple for a celebration organized by Ellinais, a year-old Athens-based group that is campaigning to revive old religious practices from the era when Greece was a fount of education and philosophy.
The group ignored a ban by the Culture Ministry, which declared the site off limits to any kind of organized activity to protect the monument. But participants did not try to enter the temple itself, which is closed to everyone, and no officials sought to stop the ceremony.
Dressed in ancient costumes, worshippers standing near the temple's imposing Corinthian columns recited hymns calling on the Olympian Zeus, "King of the gods and the mover of things," to bring peace to the world.
"Our message is world peace and an ecological way of life in which everyone has the right to education," said Kostas Stathopoulos, one of three "high priests" overseeing the event, which celebrated the nuptials of Zeus and Hera, the goddess of love and marriage.
To the Greeks, ecological awareness was fundamental, Stathopoulos said after a priestess, with arms raised to the sky, called on Zeus "to bring rain to the planet."
A herald holding a metal staff topped with two snake heads proclaimed the beginning of the ceremony before priests in blue and red robes released two white doves as symbols of peace. A priest poured libations of wine and incense burned on a tiny copper tripod while a choir of men and women chanted hymns.
"Our hymns stress the brotherhood of man and do not single out nations," said priest Giorgos Alexelis.
For the organizers, who follow a calendar marking time from the first Olympiad in 776 B.C., the ceremony was far more than a simple recreation.
"We are Greeks and we demand from the government the right to use our temples," said high priestess Doreta Peppa.
Ellinais was founded last year and has 34 official members, mainly academics, lawyers and other professionals. It won a court battle for state recognition of the ancient Greek religion and is demanding the government register its offices as a place of worship, a move that could allow the group to perform weddings and other rites.
Christianity rose to prominence in Greece in the 4th century after Roman Emperor Constantine's conversion. Emperor Theodosius wiped out the last vestige of the Olympian gods when he abolished the Olympic Games in A.D. 394. Several isolated pockets of pagan worship lingered as late as the 9th century.
"The Christians shut down our schools and destroyed our temples," said Yiannis Panagidis, a 36-year-old accountant at the ceremony.
Most Greeks are baptized Orthodox Christians, and the church rejects ancient religious practices as pagan. Church officials have refused to attend flame ceremony re-enactments at Olympia before the Olympic Games because Apollo, the ancient god of light, is invoked.
Unlike the monotheistic religions of Christianity, Judaism and Islam, the old religion lacked written ethical guidelines, but its gods were said to strike down mortals who displayed excessive pride or "hubris" — a recurring theme in the tragedies of Euripides and other ancient writers.
"We do not believe in dogmas and decrees, as the other religions do. We believe in freedom of thought," Stathopoulos said.
As C.S. Lewis said, I would like to see these jokers try to sacrifice a white bull . . .
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
I doubt they sacrifice animals.
Was Emil Muzz there? How about Pep Streebeck?
Pah, they didn't even slaughter a few bulls in his honor? Please! To pray to a pagan god with no sacrifice offerings is an insult, much more likely to bring down the lightning than anything else.
Hi, I'm Emil Muzz and I'm a Pagan
All of us. Those who don't are hereby discommunicated and have to leave. Heretics!
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They sound like most of the moonbats from Cambridge, Massachusetts.
How so?
Valid? It's more something, but is valid what it is more of?
They aren't real pagans, any more than the Wiccans are. They are moderns, picking and choosing what they think is attractive about what they have read about ancient Greek religion.
In other words, "Cafeteria Pagans."
This sounds very greek.
I bet they spend most of their time together drinking and fighting about sports and politics.
They are sitting on a pile of history and a heap of national pride, and they are romantics. Not liberals, extreme nationalist rightwingers.
Harmless.
Merely challenging the stranglehold that the orthodox religion has on greek society.
Maybe they're just their own kind of pagans. They really don't have to follow any rules, do they?
As if there wasn't any education and philosophy going on in the Byzantine period?
Fluffy-headed nonsense. There was very little "peace" in most of the old religions. Trying to shoehorn the old beliefs into their mushy-brained liberalism is an insult.
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LOL!
Come on. If you are going to be a Pagan then do it right. What is the world coming to when you release doves rather then carve out livers?
How are you going to know when the rains will come without reading the entrails?
This is not paganism, this is tree huggin hippy dippy crap. Greeks never hugged trees. Except for Sunshine Boy, but he was a little strange.
What a sad display. Time to grow up, folks.
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