There is a resurgence of sorts for “alternative” religions, especially reviving old Wiccan or Celtic rites. I have to think it’s half joke, but the question is are there people who try to follow the old Greek and/or Roman rites?
…and when did classical paganism really die out? When
St. Benedict first visited the site of his Monte Cassino
montastery, in the mid-sixth century A.D., he found the local villagers all turned out for the annual festival in honor of Apollo. I believe the Church at that time would
usually coerce or persuade folks to substitute a saint for the god and then go ahead and continue having the festival
as always. But did any honest paganism persist far into
the middle ages? Not that I’m getting my historical education from “Xena The Warrior Princess”
OP: I still sacrifice a goat or two every now and again, and sometimes I even celebrate Lupercalia.
Javaman: this issue is still much contested. The evidence is difficult to interpret. Decide for yourself. Check out Averil Cameron’s The Later Roman Empire. She knows the material, and her bibliography is extremely useful.
MR
[Edited by CKDextHavn on 09-20-2000 at 08:10 AM]
(pounding right hand with left) no… Bacchus… jokes—
Back to the OP question…
Yes indeed there are. I myself was a member of one such group for several years. Very interesting stuff. It was basically formed as a sort of “mystery religion” in the classical Roman sense of the word. It’s unfortunately been quite a while, and many of the details are hazy at this point. There were fairly major festivals/feasts/performances spread out throughout the year, roughly one a season. We had several people who did quite a lot of research to recreate many of these as faithfully as possible. Had about 30 people in it. The group imploded a few years back, though the women’s side is still going, albeit in a much smaller form.
So I do indeed know actual Zeus worshippers. A good friend of mine considers herself a priestess of Demeter, and takes it pretty seriously.
My father is still complaining about the time I sprung fully grown out of his thigh.
For Celtic rites in the UK, one might look to the catholic liturgical calander.
When it comes to the celts, catholisism seems to have been Very successful.
The Catholic rites are so close to the Roman/Celtic rites those archaic faiths could be said to be operating still, but under a unified symbol and mythos. However, I’m sure that there are still groups who believe the old faiths. But keep this in mind: Plenty of the old mystery faiths are a mystery to even us. The rites were kept secret from the average person and not written down, and so they do not survive to modern times. One of the most famous is the Elisian Mystery, the worship of Dionysus (Latin Bacchus), the deity who was torn limb from limb and then boiled. There is reason to believe that the now-forgotten rituals involved something like that happening to a human, or at least an animal. Sadly, the priesthood who performed the rituals is long dead and the knowledge of the rituals died with them.
Nah, he got over that, Dy. He’s just upset that you turned into a drunk.
Manny: Glad somebody else knows the old ways. After all, you never know when a Meanad will drop by for a drink!
Derleth, are you thinking of the Eleusinian Mysteries? They were in honor of Demeter, an early agricultural goddess. The area around Eleusis is currently so polluted and industrialized that it is sadly ironic that it was sacred to an earth goddess.
Maybe I’ve gotten two faiths confused, mipsman. Thanks for the info.
In the 1970’s, there were reports of revived/continuing pagan/Norse practices starting up in Iceland.
Oh, Coldfire? About that “barbecue”? The one where you burned the bull. The whole bull?
**tshirts wrote:
There is a resurgence of sorts for “alternative” religions, especially reviving old Wiccan or Celtic rites. I have to think it’s half joke, but the question is are there people who try to follow the old Greek and/or Roman rites?**
Well, it’s not a joke. But it’s called Neo-Paganism. It’s a revival/reconstruction of the old Pagan faith of (mainly northern Europe) by people who have left their birth faith behind for various reasons. For a great read on the subject, I recommend Margot Alder’s Drawing Down the Moon.
A few points:
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as told before this posting, no one knows exactly what the Antique Pagan rites were about. They were mysteries that the people experienced directly and their is no written record of them. When the last priests of these faiths died, so did the mysteries.
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What we know as “mythology” are tales told about those mystery rites by outsiders passed by word of mouth over the ages 'til they were written down.
Think of it this way. Ever play the game “telephone”?? Get 10 people in a room. Person #1 tells a short story to person #2. They whisper it, so the others don’t have a chance of over hearing it. Make sure that the story is original and not something well known. After the 10th person has heard it, he tells the story aloud to the rest of the group to compare the story #1 told. You’ll be surprised how much it’s changed.
That’s essentially the way the Greek/Roman/Celtic myths started; a mystery rite that was passed along orally and told by people who weren’t initiates of the mystery rites.
Well, that’s the way my mentor explained it to me. 
- The last Antique Pagan temples fell in Uppsala, Sweden in the 12th century. However, by that time, most of Europe had been practicing Christianity for a while. Javaman from my reading there was no organised Pagan faith in Europe past the 12th century. The witchcraze dealt more with stealing people’s property by declaring them heretics than anything else. There’s no evidence it was an attempt by the Church to stamp out Paganism.
There are scattered fragments of old Pagan practices still about, but they’re totally devoid of meaning. An example of this would be the annual state fair, especially as practiced in agricultural states. Where everyone brings out their best wares and 4H clubs show off the prize livestock. They’re typically held in August. This is a remnant of part of the devotion to Lugh, an old Celtic god.
- As far as I know, no Neo-Pagans believe the mythology is literal. They try to reconstruct and, with divine inspiration, re-create old rites, but no one takes the old myths as literal truth/history. Think of it this way, how many people believe the old myth about George Washington and the cherry tree?
Might it simply be that August is close to the end of the growing season, when produce is abundant, the livestock have been well fed, and all societies have seen fit to celebrate?
Besides, the calendar is finite, and there have been a large number of past civilizations/societies. Just because we celebrate something at the same time that someone in the past celebrated something (perhaps even the same thing) does not necessarily mean the two are connected.
The people in Iceland who worship the old gods call their religion Asatru. I found this site about it. A book I have says they claim to really believe in the old gods. IIRC, it is a recognized religion in Iceland, and its priests can perform ceremonies like weddings. This would not be very unusual in the U.S., but European countries are generally much less tolerant of cults.
An important thing to remember about the old Celtic myths is that they rose out of the oral history that was passed down, verbatim, in rhyme from one generation of bards to the next. Many of the old myths are in fact some of the oldest historical accounts of any European society. So they’ve been embellished over the years - so what? Many historians have used them to piece together the earliest history of Ireland and Wales, and have come up with a fairly detailed picture. I recommend “The History of the Irish Race” by Seumas MacManus for a good example of this (and a darn fine book, too.)
Of course, some if it gets pretty fanciful once in a while, too…but that’s pretty easy to notice.
I think the trick is to find pockets of cultures that retain strong pagan beliefs and rituals in their lives, in spite of having been conquered by Christianity.
Let’s leave aside the fact that some Christian calendars are based largely on pagan dates, and so could be considered part Pagan and part Christian.
In small areas of North Italy, there are villages Pagan in nature but Christian in name, where witches and evil spirits of the woods are a reality. The same happens across the U.K., France, and probably others countries in Europe. Old pockets of civilization are extremely resistant to change.
There are, that I can tell, two types of Paganism. There are those who re-enact rituals as role-plays for whatever reasons, and there are the folks who actually believe this stuff. What goes through their mind I don’t know, but I have noticed that a lot of the type 2 Pagans tend to be fairly young (40 years or below), reasonably smart, and quite maladjusted. That’s just what I’ve noticed from my observations, I could be quite off the mark.
The simple answer is yes, Greek and Roman gods are still believed in and have an active following. The eclectic pagan group I belong to actually has several Greek/Roman traditionalists in it. I don’t see it as often though here since people who are Pagan tend to follow more of a religion that is based on their ancestors. On a side note there are a set of loopy people whom I know who follow the X-Men as archetypes of gods. Their religion is codified pretty well and their beleifs coincide with a Wiccan base. It was weird hearing an invocation with Professor X and Jean Gray being used to symbolize the cycle of the moon. Weird.
HUGS!
Sqrl
I have a friend whose religion is based on the Norse mythos, his dogtag in the Army said he was an ‘Odinist’ or something like that.