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Academic literature on the topic 'European Religions - pre-Christian'
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Journal articles on the topic "European Religions - pre-Christian"
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Cooper, Michael. "Missiological Reflections On Celtic Christianity." Mission Studies 20, no. 1 (2003): 35–55. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/157338303x00142.
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AbstractThe cultural context of contemporary western culture suggests that people continue to demonstrate strong religious and superstitious beliefs. Many suggest that pre-Christian religions such as Druidry, Asatru and Wicca (although debatable as a pre-Christian religion) are successfully confronting the west European context. With ideals of egalitarianism and environmental responsibility, Paganism criticizes western Christianity for its oppressive nature. While western culture has benefitted from modernization, however, it does not seem all that dissimilar from the religious climate of the Middle Ages. This article suggests that Celtic Christianity between 400-800 might provide an example of a Christianity that related to the culture in an effective manner. From Patrick to the wandering monks of Ireland, Celtic Christianity sought to evangelize a Pagan culture and re-evangelize a one-time "Christianized" western Europe that had been invaded by religious others.
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Lagervall, Rickard. "Representations of religion in secular states: the Muslim communities in Sweden†." Contemporary Arab Affairs 6, no. 4 (October 1, 2013): 524–38. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17550912.2013.856081.
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The presence of Muslim populations in Western European societies is a relatively new phenomenon which is raising questions about how these societies treat religious minorities. This article considers the situation in Sweden, beginning with a brief history of the development of the Swedish state from one based on the Lutheran faith to today's secular society in which state and religion are officially separated. It moves on to discuss the emergence of a sizable Muslim population in the latter part of the 20th century and considers the ways in which the secular character and religious neutrality of the state offer such religious minorities space to practise their religions. However, as Swedish society, politics and law are still premised on certain Christian notions of what religion should be, Muslims and more particularly Islamic organizations in the country have to find ways to adapt themselves to these pre-existing religious structures. Thus the presence of a large Muslim minority has affected the mindset of the members of this minority as well as the Swedish host society.
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Ferlat, Anne. "Rediscovering Old Gaul: Within or Beyond the Nation-State?" Religions 10, no. 5 (May 16, 2019): 331. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/rel10050331.
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Paganism is an umbrella term which, along with Wicca and various eclectic Pagan paths, encompasses European native faiths or, in other words, autochthonous pre-Christian religions. Thus at the intersection of Paganism and indigenous religions the contemporary return of European native faiths arguably constitutes an example of European indigenism on the model of autochthonous peoples’ liberation movements. This paper furthers my previous analysis which addressed the theme of European native faiths and ethnopsychiatry (Ferlat 2014), where I began to explore the idea that European native faiths might offer a route for healing traumas resulting from waves of acculturation which, throughout history, have undermined specific groups in Europe nowadays labelled “ethnocultural”. Such traumas are the object of study in ethnopsychiatry and cross-cultural psychology among people who face the consequences of violent acculturation. Considering the role played by the revitalization of cultures on other continents, I continue here my reflection about the way that European indigeneity and indigenism might be incarnated by European native faiths. I focus in particular on a reconstructionist Druidic group in France, the Druidic Assembly of the Oak and the Boar (ADCS). I introduce the concept of “internal colonialism” as an analytical tool to understand the meaning of one of its rituals which relates to Old Gaul and epitomizes a decolonizing stance. I conclude that the ADCS embodies a specific native project: an internal decolonization and peaceful indigenization process at work within a nation-state. However given a context where internal colonization is not officially recognized, the potential resilience of such a process remains uncertain.
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Kolodnyi, Anatolii. "Nature and manifestations of Ukrainian religious plurality." Ukrainian Religious Studies, no. 92 (January 3, 2021): 89–116. http://dx.doi.org/10.32420/2020.92.2174.
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The article reveals the nature and manifestations of Ukrainian religious pluralism. Despite the constant interest in the topic - the plurality of religious life in Ukraine, science has not yet clarified the causes and roots of this phenomenon. The author analyzes the historical, psychological, socio-political factors that caused the religious diversity of Ukraine. The presence of many religious traditions within one ethnic and state territory promotes tolerant relations between bearers of different religious beliefs. Ukraine's religious plurality distinguishes Ukrainians from other nations. This gives grounds to consider Ukraine a unique religious phenomenon of the European level (Casanova). Religious plurality is a condition for the establishment of the principles of freedom of religion, freedom of choice.
The author derives worldview plurality and polydenominationalism in Ukraine from the history of the Ukrainian people, looking for their origins in the pre-Christian and later early Christian era. The presence of heresy in Ukraine as a generalized form of coexistence of different worldviews explains the current richness of religious traditions, their syncretization.
The article makes an intermediate conclusion that the history itself, living conditions, national character of the people formed Ukraine denominationally plural.
Based on such a historical foundation, since gaining state independence in 1991, Ukraine has been self-determined in its priorities regarding the country's spiritual / religious development. The Law “On Freedom of Conscience and Religious Organizations” adopted by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine created a legal basis for the equal existence and development of different religions in Ukraine. The plurality of Ukrainian society is enshrined in law.
The basic principles of the plurality of religious life are confirmed by specific digital data that illustrate the richness of religious traditions in Ukraine quantitatively and qualitatively. The author provides statistics on all religions and denominations that exist in Ukraine, giving the number of communities, monasteries, schools, priests, publications and more. Detailed information seeks to form a holistic picture of the religious life of Ukraine.
The analyzed data give grounds to single out the factors that determine the religious plurality of Ukraine.
According to the author, at the beginning of the XXI century the denominational network of Ukraine has largely already formed. The mass emergence of new religious movements is unlikely. Nevertheless, Ukraine has not yet exhausted all the possibilities of religious pluralism. It can grow not only due to the emergence of some exotic, technological, syncretic religions, but also because of intra-confessional division or unity of communities.
In Ukraine, there are structures (public, scientific, state, educational, and interreligious) that cultivate interreligious tolerance, which will ensure a high level of religious freedom. However, religious pluralism in Ukraine is periodically threatened by various circumstances - internal and external, general and local, collective and personal.
In conclusion, religious pluralism is determined as a guarantor of religious freedom, the right of everyone to profess his chosen system of spiritual values.
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Willoughby, Jay. "Jewish Revival and Respect for Islam in Nineteenth-Century Europe." American Journal of Islam and Society 30, no. 3 (July 1, 2013): 150–53. http://dx.doi.org/10.35632/ajis.v30i3.1111.
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On May 17, 2013, Joseph V. Montville, director of the Esalen Institute’s “Toward
the Abrahamic Family Reunion” project (http://abrahamicfamilyreunion.
org), addressed a select audience at the IIIT headquarters on pre-Zionist
Jewish scholarly interest in Islam.
He began by recalling how German and Austro-Hungarian Jewish scholars
discovered remarkable similarities in the Torah, the Talmud, and the
Qur’an. While hardly a surprise to Muslims, this was a “major revelation and
surprise” to European Christian philologists and historians of religions. This
new interest emerged as Europe was losing its fear of the Ottoman Empire,
and of Muslims in general, because the now militarily inferior empire was in
retreat and anti-Semitism was on the rise. Jewish intellectuals sought to blunt
this latter trend by combating Christian disdain, if not hostility, of Jews and
Judaism. They therefore played a major role in this scholarship, for, quoting
from Bernard Lewis [“The State of Middle Eastern Studies,” American
Scholar 48, no. 3 (summer 1979: 369-70)]: ...
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Alybina, Tatiana. "Vernacular Beliefs and Official Traditional Religion: The position and meaning of Mari worldview in the current context." Approaching Religion 4, no. 1 (May 7, 2014): 89–100. http://dx.doi.org/10.30664/ar.67541.
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Vernacular religion connected with the clan was expected to adapt in the context of globalisation and the vanishing ideals of traditional (tribal) societies. But at the turn of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries a revival of European ‘paganism’ has appeared. A return to vernacular beliefs is not only happening in the mass religious mind of some Eastern European and Asian people, but also in the romantic mythologemes which are being created by national elites. Lithuanians, who were Christianised in the fourteenth century – the last nation in the Baltic region to undergo this process – recall their heathen roots; Ukrainians revive their rodnoverie – indigenous beliefs – in an attempt to resist the Orthodox and Catholic Churches. Apart from this there are other pre-Christian faith organisations in Latvia, Estonia, Germany and England. The traditions of the pre-Christian societies attract people through their apparent proximity to communal peasant culture. Followers of some of these beliefs are interested in popularising Viking mythology. The activities of druids and adherents of the Northern European Asatru religion revive ancient festivals and ceremonies. The popularisation of these movements can be seen as an attempt to resist an encroachment of the modern, globalised, urbane society.
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Topolski, Anya. "Unsettling Man in Europe: Wynter and the Race–Religion Constellation." Religions 15, no. 1 (December 27, 2023): 43. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/rel15010043.
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Sylvia Wynter brings to light a structural entanglement between race and religion that is fundamental to identifying racism’s logic. This logic is continuous albeit often masked in particular in European race–religion constellations such as antisemitism and islamophobia. Focusing on the Americas, Wynter reveals a structural epistemic continuity between ‘religious’, rational and scientific racism. Nonetheless, Wynter marks a discontinuity between pre- and post-1492, by distinguishing between the Christian subject and Man, the overrepresentation of the human. In this essay, which focuses on European entanglements of race and religion, a process of dehumanization and its historical and geographic continuities is more discernible. As such, I question Wynter’s discontinuity, arguing that the Christian subject was conceived of as the only full conception of the human (although not without debate or inconsistencies), which meant that non-Christians were de-facto and de-jure excluded from the political community and suffered degrees of dehumanization. Within the concept of dehumanization, I focus on the entanglement of race and religion, or more specifically Whiteness and Christianity, as distinct markers of supremacy/difference and show that the Church had, and asserted, the power to produce both lesser and non-humans.
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Rogatin, V. N. "Activity of Neo-Pagan Organizations in Ukraine in 2014–2021." Orthodoxia, no. 3 (September 29, 2023): 155–74. http://dx.doi.org/10.53822/2712-9276-2022-3-155-174.
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This article examines the phenomenon of neo-paganism, which manifested itself during the socio-political confl ict in Ukraine in 2014. Neo-paganism is a heterogeneous and dynamic phenomenon that takes many forms in interaction with right-wing radical and extremist organizations. Its inherent opposition to universalist religions and, accordingly, to the established social order would lead to the exploitation of neo-pagan ideas and symbols in protests and violent actions by right-wing radical organizations. The legitimization of violence in such organizations was based precisely on romanticized images of pagans represented as fearless and ruthless fi ghters. We also present a classifi cation of neo-pagan organizations operating on the territory of Ukraine in 2014–2022. This classifi cation assumes the division of neo-pagan organizations into groups based on the cultural layer reproduced by them, i.e. Slavic pre-Christian culture, ancient “knowledge” of the Cossacks, Western European forms of paganism and neo-pagan ideological choices (musicians, poets, etc.). Forms of interaction between right-wing radical organizations and neo-pagans during the Euromaidan and in the subsequent so-called anti-terrorist operation are also investigated. Examples of the participation of neopagans in political actions and cult practices adopted by them during Euromaidan are provided. The number of persons who consider themselves to be neo-pagans increased in 2000, 2013, 2018 and 2021. The peak of the development of neo-paganism falls on 2021, when the percentage of neo-pagans amounted to 0.2 per cent for the fi rst time. Ukrainian statistical studies see an infl ux of young people aged 18–29 years to these groups. We touch upon the problem of changes in neo-pagan ideas during the socio-political confl ict in Ukraine and their integration into nationalist and neoNazi rhetoric. The factors that caused the popularity, social recognition and attractiveness of neo-paganism in diff erent social groups of Ukraine in 2021 are outlined. The most recognizable Ukrainian organization exploiting neo-pagan practices, ideas, and symbols is the Azov Regiment (recognized by the court as a terrorist organization and banned on the territory of the Russian Federation).
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Harkovschenko, Yevgen. "Sofianess and filosofization of Kyivan christianity theology." Ukrainian Religious Studies, no. 73 (January 13, 2015): 84–91. http://dx.doi.org/10.32420/2015.73.463.
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The basis of Kiev Christian theological method is Sophian tradition in European philosophical and religious art. Sophian tradition was elaborated in the pre-Christian period (Plato). It reflected in the works of prominent Christian theoreticians (Athanasius, Gregory of Nyssa, Macarius the Great, Gregory the Theologian) and Old Slavic (Cyril, Methodius) and ancient teachers of Christianity (Hilarion, Klim Smolyatich).
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Jackson, Peter. "LIGHT FROM DISTANT ASTERISKS TOWARDS A DESCRIPTION OF THE INDO-EUROPEAN RELIGIOUS HERITAGE." Numen 49, no. 1 (2002): 61–102. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/15685270252772777.
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AbstractAn attempt is made to summarize and synthesize new and old evidence regarding the religious heritage among peoples speaking Indo-European languages in pre-Christian and pre-Islamic Eurasia. Initial stress is put on the methodological, theoretical and ideological problems of such an undertaking. The rest of the paper discusses how the transmission of heritage was conceptualized (with examples from Vedic and Greek literature), to what extent we are able to discern the outlines of an Indo-European pantheon, the possibility of tracing the realizations of hereditary, mythical motifs in the oldest Indo-European literatures, and the prospects for a comparative Indo-European ritualistics.
Books on the topic "European Religions - pre-Christian"
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Zaidman, Louise Bruit. Religion in the ancient Greek city. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
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Zaidman, Louise Bruit. Religion in the ancient Greek city. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
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Orr, Emma Restall. Spirits of the Sacred Grove: The world of a Druid Pristess. London: Thorsons, 1999.
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hÓgáin, Dáithí Ó. The sacred isle: Belief and religion in pre-Christian Ireland. Doughcloyne, Wilton, Cork: Collins Press, 1999.
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In search of god the mother: The cult of Anatolian Cybele. Berkeley, Calif: University of California Press, 1999.
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Roller, Lynn E. In Search of God the Mother: The Cult of Anatolian Cybele. University of California Press, 1999.
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Matthews, Caitlin. The Celtic Tradition ("Elements of ... " Series). Element Books, 1996.
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Pre-Christian Religions of the North: History and Structures. Brepols Publishers, 2020.
Find full textBook chapters on the topic "European Religions - pre-Christian"
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Schjødt, Jens Peter. "11- Continuity and Break: Indo-European." In The Pre-Christian Religions of the North, 223–46. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols Publishers, 2020. http://dx.doi.org/10.1484/m.pcrn-eb.5.116938.
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Zernack, Julia. "4.5. A Key Work for the Reception History of Norse Mythology and Poetry: Paul Henri Mallet’s History of the Danish Empire and its European Impact." In The Pre-Christian Religions of the North, 281–313. Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1484/m.pcrn-eb.5.115260.
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Morris, Benny, and Dror Ze’evi. "The Genocide of the Christians, Turkey 1894–1924." In Documenting the Armenian Genocide, 251–72. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2023. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36753-3_13.
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AbstractWe set out in 2010 to look afresh at the massacre of Turkey’s Armenians in 1915. While most of the world’s historians accepted the narrative that the Ottoman Turkish government had carried out a deliberate, pre-planned, systematic “genocide,” there were some—especially in Turkey—who disputed this. So, having no real knowledge or opinion either way, we decided to take a look at the vast, accessible documentation, in Turkey, the United States and Western Europe, and make up our own minds.What we discovered was that the story was much deeper and wider. The campaign of mass murder and ethnic cleansing was carried out, in staggered fashion, over a thirty-year period, between 1894 and 1924. It encompassed not only Turkey’s Armenians but also all the other Christian communities in the country, primarily the Greeks, but also the various Assyrian sects. The process of ethnic-religious cleansing was characterized by rounds of deliberate large-scale massacre, alongside systematic expulsions, forced conversions, and cultural annihilation that together amounted to genocide. At the beginning of this period, Christians had constituted about 20 percent of the population of Asia Minor; by 1924 the proportion of Christians in Turkey had fallen to 2 percent.The destruction of the Christian communities was the result of the deliberate policy of three successive Ottoman and Turkish governments –Abdülhamid II in 1894–1896, the CUP (the Young Turks) from 1914–1918, and the Nationalist regime under Ataturk during 1919–1924 –a policy that most of the country’s Muslim inhabitants did not oppose, and many enthusiastically supported. The murders, expulsions, and forced conversions were ordered by government officials and carried out by other officials, soldiers, gendarmes, policemen and, often, tribesmen and the civilian inhabitants of towns and villages. All of this occurred with the active participation of Muslim clerics and the encouragement of the Turkish-language press. This, we believe, is the inescapable conclusion to be drawn from the massive documentation we consulted, some of it seen and used for the first time.
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Russell, James C. "Sociohistorical Aspects of Religious Transformation." In The Germanization of Early Medieval Christianity, 45–79. Oxford University PressNew York, NY, 1994. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780195076967.003.0004.
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Abstract To better understand the religious transformation which resulted from the encounter of the Germanic peoples with Christianity, it is useful to be come familiar with other instances of pre-Christian and non-Christian religious transformation, particularly those in which a folk-religious society encountered a universal religious movement. Of special interest is the religious transformation which occurred when the folk-religious Indo European societies of ancient Greece and Rome encountered “proto Christian” mystery cults during the Hellenistic age. An examination of Hellenistic and Jewish religious and philosophical currents should con tribute toward the development of a general model of the interaction between folk-religious societies and universal religions, and of the religious transformation which stems from it. This model will then be applied to the encounter of the Germanic peoples with Christianity.
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"Pre- Christian Anglo- Saxon religion." In The Handbook of Religions in Ancient Europe, 319–37. Routledge, 2014. http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9781315728971-31.
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Fanning, Bryan. "European Christian democracy." In Three Roads to the Welfare State, 183–202. Policy Press, 2021. http://dx.doi.org/10.1332/policypress/9781447360322.003.0009.
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This chapter examines the convergence of religious, political, and economic responses to pre-1945 totalitarianism that came to constitute a distinct world of welfare capitalism. The influence of religious ideas is examined through a focus on the intellectual journey of Jacques Maritain, the most prominent Catholic theologian, and political philosopher prior to the Second World War and during its aftermath. The chapter also explores how political champions of Christian democracy and of what would become the European Union, like Konrad Adenauer, combined Catholic ideas with liberal economics to create a distinct Christian democratic antidote to what were perceived as the causes of totalitarianism. Christian democracy very quickly became a prominent political force in several European countries with large Catholic populations, other than Spain and Portugal where totalitarian regimes remained in control. By 1948, Christian democrat political parties had become dominant or politically prominent in Austria, Belgium, France, Italy, the Netherlands, and in the Federal Republic of Germany following its establishment in 1949.
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Sommer, Petr. "Stopy pohanství v raně středověkých Čechách." In Studia monastica et mediaevalia: Opuscula Marco Derwich dedicata, 487–99. Ksiegarnia Akademicka Publishing, 2022. http://dx.doi.org/10.12797/9788381387989.24.
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There is fragmentary evidence of the form of pagan religion and its rituals in early medieval Bohemiafrom domestic and foreign legendists, canonists and chroniclers. These texts indicate that thisreligious system resembled the European pre-Christian systems in many respects. Its appearancehas to be reconstructed, because most of the surviving testimonies speak predominantly of pre--Christian rituals that have survived in the form of superstitious practices. The „theology“ of thisreligion is based on polytheism, the cult of animate and inanimate nature (animism) and the cult ofdeceased ancestors (manism). Archaeological documents bear witness to religious traces in burials, testify to the existence of cult objects, but specifically we learn about rituals that the church forbids as superstition. These are especially practices that are supposed to give an insight into the future (vaticinatio with exploitation of characteres, sortes) and apotropaic action that serve to protect the individual as well as society. This area is associated with protective means such as amulets (phylacteries, ligatures). Magical action is also supposed to bring protection and help. Evidence of this can be found in preserved incantations and spells (incantationes). For Czech conditions, a comparison is offered of a Merseburg „incantation“ preserved in a ninth century Fulda sacramentary (Merseburg, Cathedral Library, Cod. I, 136, fol. 84r). Its principle of freeing prisoners is strongly related to the „magic“ Kosmas mentions in connection with the Lučan War, which is also said to unleash handcuffs. This is probably one of the examples that pre-Christian Europe shared a fundamentally similar religion (Karol Modzelewski). Overall, the Christianisation of (Central) Europe was a very complex and lengthy process in which the old religiosity was slowly displaced, but its rudiments made themselves felt in the spiritual culture of society throughout the Middle Ages. Traditional agrarian society very slowly accepted the Christian worldview, which required the abandonment of traditional agrarian culture, the world of its gods, but also of traditional social ties.
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Kling, David W. "Late Antiquity and Early Medieval Europe (500–1000)." In A History of Christian Conversion, 103–26. Oxford University Press, 2020. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780195320923.003.0005.
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This chapter examines the varieties and methods of Christian conversion in early medieval Europe. Christians made repeated attempts to adjust Christian convictions to the realities of people who practiced a variety of nature religions. Two cultural worlds interacted in a reciprocal process of adding and subtracting, creating and destroying. One way to understand the perspective of missionaries and the conundrum they faced is to think in terms of a sliding scale, varying in time and place; some aspects of pre-Christian beliefs were deemed incompatible whereas other pre-Christian rituals were accepted by absorption and adoption. At the bare minimum, conversion meant a transfer of loyalty or allegiance, confirmed by baptism. If there was rudimentary instruction, conversion meant familiarity with the Apostles’ Creed and the Lord’s Prayer and the acceptance of church authority. Methods of conversion varied, from “words” (proclamation of the word) to “deeds” (conversion through miracles and profaning paganism).
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Cohen, Naomi W. "From Toleration to Freedom." In Jews in Christian America, 11–36. Oxford University PressNew York, NY, 1992. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780195065374.003.0002.
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Abstract Until the French Revolution the identity and status of European Jews remained fixed within a medieval context. The workings of a society where religion mixed freely with the secular and where the primacy of the group eclipsed the individual still underlay both Christian and Jewish perceptions of the Jews. Those notions were part of the cultural baggage of the Jews who landed in the British colonies before 1776. To the Jews, a pre Enlightenment people, the concepts of the individual’s right to freedom of religion and the separation of church and state were at direct variance with their personal experience.
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Strmiska, Michael, Gatis Ozoliņš, Odeta Rudling, and Digne Ūdre. "Sacred Songs, Seasonal Rites, and National Identities in the Religious Folklore of Latvia and Lithuania." In The Oxford Handbook of Slavic and East European Folklore, C27P1—C27P305. Oxford University Press, 2023. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190080778.013.27.
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Abstract This chapter examines the enduring presence of pre-Christian, Pagan religious elements in Baltic folklore—the related but distinct folk traditions of Lithuania and Latvia—and the purposes these remnants of Baltic Paganism serve as expressions of ethnic and/or national identity. Particular attention is paid to a genre of folk songs known as dainasin Latvia and dainos in Lithuania, solstice celebrations, ancestral rites, and folk symbols. The Indo-European background of Baltic languages and mythology is also discussed along with the utilization of Pagan gods, symbols, and traditions in national independence movements and their continuing resonance in post-Soviet Baltic society and culture.