{"id":222,"date":"2004-07-08T02:26:00","date_gmt":"2004-07-08T02:26:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=222"},"modified":"2004-07-08T02:26:00","modified_gmt":"2004-07-08T02:26:00","slug":"222","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=222","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Greek Pagans rile church<\/strong><\/p>\n

Followers of revived Greek Pagan (or Ethnic) religion are indeed able to gain more publicity, thanks to this summer’s Olympic Games in Greece. <\/p>\n

On a green meadow at the foot of Mt Olympus, famous in mythical literature as the home of the Zeus and the Hellenic gods, a group of men and women stand dressed in togas in a circle, heads covered with wreaths of leaves, right hands held up as they repeat lines in Classical Greek.<\/p>\n

A ritual of baptism has begun, at the end of which about a dozen members of the group will formally cast aside their old Christian beliefs and accept new Hellenic, pagan names. <\/em><\/p>\n

Read entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Update:<\/strong> A couple of people have questioned the word “toga” in the article, rightly pointing out that togas were worn by upper-class Roman men, not by ancient Greeks. (A toga was the Roman equivalent of a man’s three-piece suit, you might say.) Not having seen photos, I cannot be sure, but I suspect that the reporter used “toga” ignorantly to mean “ancient garment.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Greek Pagans rile church Followers of revived Greek Pagan (or Ethnic) religion are indeed able to gain more publicity, thanks to this summer’s Olympic Games in Greece. On a green meadow at the foot of Mt Olympus, famous in mythical literature as the home of the Zeus and the Hellenic gods, a group of men […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s6xQTg-222","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5657,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=5657","url_meta":{"origin":222,"position":0},"title":"A Country “Under Christian Occupation”","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 19, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"The BBC profiles some Hellenes \u2014 modern Greek Pagans \u2014 with minimal snark. [The summer solstice is] the most important annual festival for followers of The Return of the Hellenes - a movement trying to bring back the religion, values, philosophy and way of life of ancient Greece, more than\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Christianity\"","block_context":{"text":"Christianity","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=christianity"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/news.bbcimg.co.uk\/media\/images\/68270000\/jpg\/_68270161_dsc_0476%281%29credit_eranlivni.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":796,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=796","url_meta":{"origin":222,"position":1},"title":"Greek Pagans Press for Temple Access","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 20, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"After a long struggle and some victories in their quest for religious freedom, contemporary Greek Pagans continue to seek the right to worship the old gods in the temples that were built for them.Now it is the turn of the Temple of Zeus in Athens.\"These are our temples and they\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Greece\"","block_context":{"text":"Greece","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=greece"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":799,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=799","url_meta":{"origin":222,"position":2},"title":"New Paganism is not Old Paganism","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 27, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Mary Beard, noted Classics scholar from Cambridge University, writes that today's Greek Pagans are not practicing exactly what their Hellenic ancestors did.It isn\u2019t entirely clear what this group (\u201cEllenais\u201d) believes; but it is clear that, whatever they say, it bears very little relationship to ancient Greek religion. You can tell\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Greece\"","block_context":{"text":"Greece","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=greece"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":254,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=254","url_meta":{"origin":222,"position":3},"title":"Greek Pagans in the Sun\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 1, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Greek Pagans in the Sun The Web site of the Supreme Council of the Gentile Hellenes, a Greek Reconstructionist Pagan group in Greece, has posted video clips of a NBC news feature about Greek Pagans--tied to the Olympics coverage, of course. (The compressed clips total about 30 megabytes.) Coverage includes\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":185,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=185","url_meta":{"origin":222,"position":4},"title":"Greek Pagans battle for their\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 11, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Greek Pagans battle for their rites Followers of traditional Hellenic religion are becoming more visible, notes The Independent in this story. Georgios, a distinguished lawyer with a turquoise ribbon in his hair to signify the circle of life, cannot see where the credibility problem lies. \"The ancient Greeks invented logic,\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6023,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6023","url_meta":{"origin":222,"position":5},"title":"Why Pagans Did Not Fight for Their Gods","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 17, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Things Fall Apart, by the Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe, published in 1958, is often labeled as the \"archetypal modern African novel.\" Set in the 1890s, at the beginning of British colonial rule, its protagonist is a hard-driving Igbo yam farmer, warrior, and village leader named Okonkwo, who holds himself, his\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Africa\"","block_context":{"text":"Africa","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=africa"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/en\/thumb\/6\/65\/ThingsFallApart.jpg\/201px-ThingsFallApart.jpg","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=222"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}