1.22.2007
Covering the Greek Pagans
As hinted at two days ago, the Greek Pagan group Ellinais have defied the law and held a ceremony at the Temple of Olympian Zeus despite the lack of permission from Greece's Culture Ministry. Unexpectedly, this has been picked up by the Associated Press and the BBC and made international news.
Greek Pagans dressed as ancient warriors.
Photo: Reuters/Yannis Behrakis
Looking at the pull-quotes used in AP and BBC articles, many seem to parallel sentiments from the beginnings of the modern Pagan movement in England and America.
"I feel very emotional. We have been persecuted for 16-and-a-half centuries but now we are here. This is our human right. And we shall carry on worshiping at our temples. They have now been put to proper use...We want to be able to hold ceremonies at ancient temples ... This obsession of treating them as mere monuments must stop." - High Priestess Doretta Peppa
"If we really want to say that we are democratic and we have freedom, then we have to be allowed to practice our religion." - 12 Gods follower "Artemis"
"Our hymns stress the brotherhood of man and do not single out nations." - High Priest Giorgos Alexelis
"Our message is world peace and an ecological way of life in which everyone has the right to education. To the Greeks, ecological awareness was fundamental." - High Priest Kostas Stathopoulos
It should be interesting to track the future growth of the Greek Pagans, Greece's Culture Ministry wasn't happy at the outcome of this "illegal" meeting and has promised that they will crack down on future illegal meetings. Obviously, officials from the Greek Orthodox Church were apoplectic.
"They are a handful of miserable resuscitators of a degenerate dead religion who wish to return to the monstrous dark delusions of the past" - Father Efstathios Kollas, the President of Greek Clergymen.
So it won't be smooth sailing as Ellinais tries to obtain legal permission to perform marriages and other clergy functions. In a culture that is dominated by the Greek Orthodox Church, attitudes towards a growing Pagan religion could easily shift from scorn and ridicule to outright oppression.
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