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Revision as of 23:00, 7 November 2005 by 65.182.172.113 (talk)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)In theory, Greek reconstructionism is an attempt to revive Ancient Greek religion, in whole or part. In practice, the revival can only be partial, at best. Much of the relevant material needed for a full reconstruction did not survive the ravages of the Middle Ages, and some of what is described (such as the sacrifice of the pharmakos) is as morally abhorrent in the eyes of modern worshippers of the Greek gods, as a return to execution by stoning for marital infidelity would be to contemporary Jews, or burning a religious dissident at the stake for heresy would be to a modern Christian. It is a part of a largely otherwise treasured past long due for burial, in the eyes of the vast majority of today's faithful; the desire for recreation of the past is tempered by a respect for reason and what is understood to be common decency, and the progress that these inspire.
More commonly called "Hellenic Reconstructionism"; practitioners are called "Hellenic Reconstructionists", "Hellenic Recons", "Hellenists" and sometimes "Hellenes", though this latter usage has been criticised on the basis that it creates an unnecessary confusion between the ethnic Greeks (who have been known by the name by far longer than contemporary Hellenic Pagan movements have been in existence) and those worshipping the ancient Greek gods, in a rather presumptuous fashion. As if, for example, one were to start a group honoring the Aztec gods, and on this basis call oneself and one's followers "Mexicans", without asking the pre-existing Mexicans what they thought about this idea, borrowing their identity without their consent.
"Greek Reconstructionist" or "Greek Recon", while not inaccurate, are terms seldom used.
Not everybody who worships, honors or invokes the ancient Greek gods is a Greek or Hellenic Reconstructionist or Recon, though some will term themselves (or be termed) Hellenists (or the more controversial "Hellenes"), "Hellenist" being a more of an "umbrella" usage, covering a wider class of practitioners.
The use of the word "invoke" is deliberate; not all of these practitioners approach the gods in a worshipful or even a respectful way, raising complaints regarding "hubris", "the overweening pride that goeth before a fall". A rebuttal offered to this criticism seems to focus on a postmodern view that rights are but a social construct which are binding on one only if one accepts the construct as part of one's world view, and thus one can't do a disservice to the gods if, in one's view, one is doing right. A rebuttal to this rebuttal poses the question of how one distinguishes that view of morality from that of a sociopath. What, perhaps, lies at the root of this dispute (and gives it much of its hostile tone) is a pair of differing views regarding the nature of the Divine, leading to differing notions of what an ethical relationship with the gods might be, as illustrated in the section below, where Hellenic Wicca is discussed.
A term sometimes used to describe of the faith of some Hellenic Reconstructionists is Hellenismos.
Other Hellenic Pagan Faiths
Hellenic Wicca: There are those who choose to worship the Greek gods within a traditional Wiccan framework. The substantial differences between Wiccan and ancient Greek theology, with Wiccans frequently adhering to the view that the gods are Jungian archetypes dwelling in the collective subconscious of humanity, often brings Hellenic Wiccans into conflict with Reconstructionists who are hard polytheists. Bringing Wiccan magical practices into a Hellenic context also raises some concerns, and is seen by some as coming into conflict with the Hellenic dictum "Know thyself" (ie. "Know thou art not God"), or as a hubristic attempt by humans to command the obedience of the Divine.
These fundamental theological differences often lead to conflict between Hard Reconstructionists and Wiccans of all stripes within pan-Pagan organizations. Views such as ethical subjectivism or the frequently cited "All Gods are one God; all Goddesses are one Goddess" that are central to the religious beliefs of many Wiccans are considered questionable or even blasphemous by Reconstructionists who view the gods as being objectively existing beings living outside of human consciousness and even outside any sort of collective subconscious and emphasise the importance of piety. Because of this, some Greek Reconstructionists choose not to participate in religious gatherings with Hellenic Wiccans.
Christo-Hellenism: Something of a curiosity in a number of respects, not the least of which are a collective refusal to establish or recognize any sort of clergy or hierarchy, and the political conservatism often associated with its followers, running quite contrary to the liberalism found in most of the rest of modern Paganism. This faith should not be confused with Hellenismos, though it does share a number of features in common, leading to a certain level of confusion. The Olympian gods and chthonic deities are honored, and regarded as distinct, objectively-existing divine beings. In many cases, much the same observances are carried out, reconstructed based on what is known about ancient practice. However, there are serious points of divergence.
As its name would suggest, Christo-Hellenism is a syncretic religion, in which Jesus is added to the pantheon as a secondary, non-supreme divinity, suggestive of a combination between Classical Paganism and something akin to the Arian heresy of early Christendom. Further, there is an admixture of Roman material on the ritual level. Christo-Hellenism is a "demipagan", as opposed to a "neopagan" religion, created in an attempt to repaganize existing religious cultures in an evolutionary (as opposed to a revolutionary) way, with the result, its proponents argue, that the entanglement of the Greek and Roman strains in modern Southern European cultures compels a certain amount of synchretism in their practice. Hard Reconstructionists, especially those of Elaion, do not tend to accept this argument, leveling a charge of "Eclecticism".
The Christo-Hellenes, at best, seem to occupy a position on the margin of the Hellenic community in their online dealings, drawing fire from the Hard Reconstructionists for being too "eclectic" and from the Neo-Pagans for being not inclusive enough. In terms of classification, they do pose a challenge, in that the inclusion of a non-pagan deity in their pantheon would seem to remove them from the category of Reconstructionism, but their insistence on Historically sanctioned practices in the worship of the Pagan divinities, in some cases stricter than that accepted by some of the Reconstructionists themselves, would seem to put them back in. Arguably, they are even a rough fit into the "Christo-Pagan" category, as placing Jesus into the role of a secondary divinity and viewing the other deities as being servants of a shadowy and distant supreme being, identified with the God of Israel, and their rejection of the concept of vicarious salvation might leave them in a position to be viewed as being more Jewish than Christian.
All of this tends to produce a collective shrug on the part of the Christohellenists, who point out that given the absence of any recruiting effort on their part (membership in their community being gainable only by encountering one of their households in the real world and persuading its host to informally invite one to drop by), that anybody who needs to know what is going on, already does, and that given this reality, categories are beside the point.
The Hard Recon controversy
At the far end of the Hellenic Pagan political spectrum from the more activist Hellenic Wiccans, who have been known to demand admission to the Hellenic observances and groups of their choice, viewing this sort of "radical inclusiveness" as being a matter of basic civil rights (even though they, themselves, do not generally extend an analogous consideration to those who are not their initiates), one finds the "Hard Recons" of Elaion, often associated with the mailing list "Hellenic Recons" and the Temple of Demeter.
Elaion and its supporters took issue with the big tent policies of Hellenion and groups like it, under which (in a manner reminiscent of the Congregation of Unitarian Universalist Pagans) all "demoi" (groups of local Hellenic Pagans) were to be expected to welcome all comers and govern themselves democratically. This had already seen criticism during the days before the establishment of Christo-Hellenism as a distinct tradition, by the then Hellenic Reconstructionist Shrine of the Sleeping Gods as being more than slightly impractical, as it left the demoi too vulnerable to disruptive behavior on the part of visitors whose intentions might prove less than honorable. In particular, it would leave a small group, one which dissented ideologically or theologically with the larger, more established groups in its midst, vulnerable to a "flood attack", in which it would be swamped and taken over by the membership of a larger and older group before it ever had a chance to establish itself. This, the argument went, would be anything but an affirmation of religious freedom, in that religious freedom would be limited to whichever faction had organized first.
Elaion took that criticism one step further, in a manner some have taken issue with. Rather than simply seeking to have the occasionally troublesome Hellenic Wiccan community excluded from Hellenic Reconstructionist observances, these so-called "Hard Recons" sought to have everybody excluded, who enaged in any practices not "historically sanctioned"; ie. rooted in historical practice in ancient Greek religion, arguing that those who diluted the purity of Hellenic Pagan tradition were "unworthy" of attendance. This notion has been criticised on a number of bases:
1. That it is indiscriminate, in that it lumps together non-recons
who have no history of behaving in an evangelistic or aggressive
fashion toward the Reonstructionist wing of Hellenism, and, indeed,
in some cases, have suffered greatly because of their support
for that branch of the community, rendering the proposed exclusion
an exercise in gross ingratitude.
2. That there is little need for the exclusion because, unlike the
Hellenic Wiccans around whom the controversy first arose, many
of the other non-quite-recons practiced what might be called a
"parallel" or "dual faith", maintaining orthopraxy in all
observances involving the Hellenic gods. Thus, their presence
at an observance would not pose a risk of disruption.
3. That, far from being evangelistic, directly or indirectly, that
most of the non-recon Hellenists seemed reluctant to even
discuss their beliefs with others, and thus were most unlikely
to be in attendance with the intention of winning converts
away from Hellenic Reconstructionism.
4. That this practice of excluding participants from Hellenic Pagan
observances because of non-Hellenic Pagan observances on their
part would, itself, be a non-historically sanctioned religious
practice in a Hellenic Reconstructionist context, and thus the
first thing that a true "Hard Recon" would have to do, on his
entrance into a community set up according to his terms, would
be for him to drive himself from it! This, as some have pointed
out, might present difficulties in the area of membership retention.
The ancient Greek gods were never seen as being "jealous deities"
in the sense that the God of Israel is, in the Old Testament of
Christianity. Foreign gods and their cults made frequent
appearances in ancient Greece, some of them even eventually
going on to be added to the Hellenic pantheon, Ares originally
being a Thracian god, and the worship of Aphrodite entering
Greece from Western Asia. Far from being forbidden, the worship
of these divinities was embraced. Nor was the worship of foreign
gods seen as being a bar to participation in the festivals held
in honor of the gods, which was seen as being a duty incumbent
on all citizens, regardless of their own personal beliefs. The
notion of exclusiveness and exclusion based on the unworthiness
of the dual faithed, proposed by Elaion, is, therefore, arguably an
import into Hellenic Paganism from Christianity, itself.
5. That it is ultimately destructive of any attempt to establish
Hellenic Reconstructionism as a viable, continuing religious presence,
because it represents a dysfunctional grafting of a Protestant,
Northern European (specifically, Anglo-Saxon) cultural perspective
onto a culturally specific, Mediterranean religious tradition.
The very notion that a religion or a culture is to evolve through
sudden, revolutionary breaks with the past is said to be one alien
to Southern European tradition in general, and with Greek in
particular, and one hateful to the sensibilities of a tradition
loving people. If one wishes to see Hellenic Paganism grow into
something more significant than the observances of small, isolated
pockets of people, one has to look at where growth is likely to
occur, goes the argument, and in the case of a culturally specific
religion, that is likeliest to be among those whose culture bears
at least a family relationship to that of the Pagan religion
being revived. In this case, those from a Greek cultural background,
or at least from a Southern European background, given the deep
cultural impact Greece has had on the cultures of the Romance
speaking cultures of Southwestern Europe.
The author cited above goes on to add that the evolutionary approach of some of the syncretists is the only one likely to appeal to the very population that one would be trying to reach, because anything other than a syncretic approach would require the jettisoning of large amounts of pre-existing tradition, hateful to the aforementioned sensibilities of the people in question. It is the approach of a Fundamentalist Protestant missionary, being applied to peoples from traditionally Catholic areas of the world (with their concept of 'nonimpediments to faith') and Eastern Orthodox area; one would be imitating some of the forms of another civilization while discarding the spirit.
A more genuinely Hellenic approach, some (such as the above author)
would argue, would consist of an acceptance of the give and take
of community life, at the very least accepting syncretism as a
necessary practical reality at the beginning, and then nudging the
revived tradition back in the direction one wishes it to be over
the centuries. Elaion's "Hard Recon or nothing" approach, these
critics sometimes say, represents an attempt to change another
civilization through an act of will, as if it were a boulder to
be dislodged, instead of through gradual persuasion, as is more
appropriate when dealing with the living thing that a tradition is.
The founder of Elaion, known only by his (or her) Yahoo login, has countered by stating that he (or she) isn't interested in maximizing the popular appeal of Hellenism, but rather in honoring its spirit as best he (or she) can. This, according to the above author, sidesteps the criticism offered as that wasn't quite the point being made by some of Elaion's critics - the issue they raised was one of the long term growth of Hellenism as a religious movement over the centuries, not one of immediate crowd support, as the suggestion of pandering would imply.
No reconciliation between the factions in question is expected in the forseeable future, by almost anybody in the community. This, however, may not bode as ill for the future of the community as it might seem to, at first glance. One might note that the groups already mentioned, however much they may have interacted with each other online, are seperated from each other by hundreds of miles at a minimum, Hellenion being primarily a coastal affair in the United States, Elaion apparently being mostly British and Australian, and the marginalized Christohellenists being almost entirely located in the Midwestern United States. These people are unlikely to encounter each other in person, and however interesting their disputes may be on a conceptual level, they are unlikely to produce the warlike atmosphere which might be perceived, from afar.
Hellenism outside of the English speaking world
As mentioned in the article "Ongoing Persecution of Pagans in Modern Greece", two laws, though of dubious constitutionality in Greece, have created difficulties for the Pagan community there. First,
"Greek Law No 1363/38, with amendment Law No. 1672/39 states: "Anyone
engaging in proselytism shall be liable to imprisonment and a fine
between 1,000 and 50,000 drachmas; he shall, moreover be subject to
police supervision for a period of between six months and one year
to be fixed by the court when convicting the offender."
rather limiting efforts to build groups. Further,
"The second law requires anybody that is not Orthodox to obtain church
licenses from both the Ministry of Education and Religious Affairs and
the local Orthodox bishops. However, the Ministry defines different
religions under different laws. According to the law, only the
Orthodox Church, Judaism and Islam are recognized as 'legal persons
of public law,' and are therefore recognized. The 'legal persons of
private law" category includes all other religious groups, including
Protestants, Jehovah's Witnesses and pagans.
Because the minorities are considered private and not public, they
cannot own joint property -- making it difficult for them to establish
a church -- or represent themselves corporately in court
The use of the word "persecution" in the title of the article might be argued to be hyperbole; certainly, nobody is being killed under these laws. But there is no denying that these laws do establish a preferential place in Greek society for the first three religions, while others are limited in their freedom to meet and grow. According to the producer of the film "I still worship Zeus", some get around these laws by meeting in homes, and by holding gatherings whose significance is disguised by giving them pretexts that might not seem essentially Pagan, at first glance. In response to a query as to how Pagans manage to find each other in Greece despite the restrictions, the maker of the film wrote:
"Most people find each other through word of mouth as Greece really
does have a small community vibe to it. Since it is still a very
male-dominated culture, wives I met automatically convert if their
husband is a believer and they raise their kids with the religion
as well. Also, groups do advertize events such as lectures and field
trips (which they take once a month to different archaeological sites)
I met one person who found out over the Internet and read magazines
published by a group. He said he was never satisfied with the Greece
he was raised with and said he felt there was something more out there.
So I guess it's a mix of advertizing, word of mouth, and marriage."
The Greek government has defended at least some of its actions on the basis of its duty to protect antiquities; some of the groups apparently wished to meet among the ruins of some of the ancient temples, where, in fact, nobody would be allowed to gather for a religious observance or anything else other than a tour, Pagan or otherwise. This does not, however, help explain the criminal penalties which attach to the act of conversion, which would seem to be at odds with phrase two of the Greek constitution, which according to the cited article states
"There shall be freedom to practice any known religion; individuals
shall be free to perform their rites of worship without hindrance
and under protection of the law. The performance of rites of worship
must not prejudice public order or public morals."
What sort of public morals would be prejudiced by the throwing of some barley into a fire is a question which might seem to present itself. The European Court of Human Rights has already fined the Greek government 1 million drachmas for its actions in a proselytism case. The law in question, however, upon which the case rested, apparently still remains on the books, in Greece.
Olympic mascot controversy
At the time of the 2004 Olympic Games, some Greeks objected to the use, as official mascots of the games, of cartoon figures called Fivos (Phoebus) and Athina (Athena), as being disrespectful to the ancient deities that they represented.
Outside Links
- The School of Hellenic Wicca, in the Internet Archive (the original site no longer exists)
- Sponde - Hellenismos 101 primer - excellent for beginners
- Temenos Theon - a website devoted to discussing the different types of emerging Greek reconstructionism and their methods
- The Almond Jar - Homepage for Christo-Hellenism
- The Temple of Demeter - associated with Elaion
- Hellenic Pagan Midwest Homepage - includes criticisms of ideas advanced by Elaion, without specifying Elaion by name
- Sannion's Sanctuary - homepage of one of Elaion's gentler critics
- Elaion's homepage - those who brought us the Hard Recon controversy
- Ta Hiera - Hellenic Polytheist Association
- Ongoing Persecution of Pagans in Modern Greece - Article from Widdershins magazine
- The Stele - Hellenic Pagan links