{"id":797,"date":"2007-01-22T15:20:00","date_gmt":"2007-01-22T15:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=797"},"modified":"2007-01-22T15:20:00","modified_gmt":"2007-01-22T15:20:00","slug":"greek-pagans-worship-publicly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=797","title":{"rendered":"Greek Pagans Worship Publicly"},"content":{"rendered":"

Members of a Greek Pagan group were able to perform a ritual at the temple of Zeus in Athens yesterday<\/a>.<\/p>\n

One of its leaders, Doretta Peppa, a writer who calls herself a high priestess<\/em> [sic], told the BBC the temples were built to respect the gods and now they were going to be put to their proper use.<\/p>\n

Ms Peppa said she had been given official permission to use the temple, but there were fears that the culture ministry, which administers the site, might give way to pressure from the church. <\/em><\/p>\n

According to the longer CNN report<\/a>,<\/p>\n

[The group] 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.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Members of a Greek Pagan group were able to perform a ritual at the temple of Zeus in Athens yesterday. One of its leaders, Doretta Peppa, a writer who calls herself a high priestess [sic], told the BBC the temples were built to respect the gods and now they were going to be put to […]<\/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":[],"tags":[33,5],"class_list":["post-797","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-greece","tag-paganism"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-cR","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":796,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=796","url_meta":{"origin":797,"position":0},"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":371,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=371","url_meta":{"origin":797,"position":1},"title":"Helenic Paganism on DVD","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 2, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Contemporary followers of traditional Greek religion got some attention during the recent Athens Olympics, and a new documentary film (made before the games) should help more. (For my earlier posts, see also here and here.)I Still Worship Zeus, a recently released feature-length documentary film directed by Jamil Said, includes footage\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":9649,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=9649","url_meta":{"origin":797,"position":2},"title":"How Do You Say “Ziggurat” in Icelandic?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 6, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Icelandic Pagan religion \u2014\u00a0 Norse gods and the \"Hidden Folk,\" right? Um, there is more. \"Iceland's pagan Zuist religion hopes to build temple.\" Zuist leader \u00c1gust Arnar \u00c1g\u00fastsson told the paper that the group had always planned to have a place of worship for its followers, but given the movement's\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Iceland\"","block_context":{"text":"Iceland","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=iceland"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":803,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=803","url_meta":{"origin":797,"position":3},"title":"Gallimaufry","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 2, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"\u2022 A federal judge won't let the Veterans Administration wriggle out of the lawsuit over grave markers for Wiccan veterans.\u2022 The Guardian, a British newspaper, covers the Greek Pagan renaissance.For years, Orthodox clerics believed that they had defeated Greeks wishing to embrace the customs and beliefs of the ancient past.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"blogging\"","block_context":{"text":"blogging","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=blogging"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":222,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=222","url_meta":{"origin":797,"position":4},"title":"Greek Pagans rile church Followers\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 8, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"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\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":14050,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=14050","url_meta":{"origin":797,"position":5},"title":"Will Christians Fulfill a Pagan Emperor’s Plan?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 15, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Julian \"The Philosopher,\" Rome's last Pagan emperor (mid-360s), would get chuckle out of this. (Although to me he comes across as super-serious, he must have found some things funny. I hope.) While he was force-fed Christian theology by bishops, growing up in a royal Christian household, he later studied ancient\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Christianity\"","block_context":{"text":"Christianity","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=christianity"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Julian_antioch-mint-bull.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/797","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=797"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/797\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}