Thread Rating:
  • 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
We almost got banned in Greece!?
#46
Quote:
hoplite14gr:2wub34d7 Wrote:1. Organizers who drugged many reenactors there without preparation.

I hope that is a typo for 'dragged'... !

I suppose it depends where you draw the line between 'freedom of speech' by the Press and religious discrimination
The Greek Constitution of 1975 guarantees freedom of conscience, belief and practice for people of "all known religions" except in the case of prosyletism. Which as far as I can make out is evangelism. So I assume the Hellenes are classed as 'evangelists' :?
------
[/b]

To proselytise is to seek to promote your religion, to convert others, as opposed to practising it in isolation. Angelos is Greek for "messenger" (Angels are messengers of God). Evangelists are messengers bringing good news. The members of the Hellenic Religion/Ancient Religion groups may be involved in proselytising; how else would their following grow?
Reply
#47
I'm all for reenactors having access to monuments. But this "religious" group's ostentatious efforts to gain entry smacks of a political agenda, in my view.

Quote: My prediction: minor friction will happen until people get used to the idea
that ancient religion is alive and well and it exists.

The people will probably roll over. As for ancient religion being "alive and well", a couple hundred aging hippies who apostatized from chrisitanity doesn't even sound like a firm base. So what if the law recognizes them ? "The law is a ass", to quote Dickens. The only real pagans I know of that continue to practice their faith from classical times are the few Zoroastrians that are persecuted in and around modern Iran.

Back to the monuments : as was said earlier, a better case can be made for the Church to have a legitimate claim over them since they were in its care for at least 1,000 years until the Turkish conquest. The Greek government is a twentieth century fabrication originally propped up by the British. Why should they get dibs on the monuments ? If I ran the Greek Church I'd press for full ownership over the sites. Of course, tourism is the the state's golden goose so they'll never relinquish it. As for the "all-powerful" Greek Church, what a joke. They couldn't even stop this little group from gaining access to the site. And a mosque is going to be built right in Athens. All-powerful ? If only it were true.

If the group was sincere about simply wanting to worship, they'd build their own temples, imo.

Theo
Jaime
Reply
#48
Not the Alexander article I mentioned...haven't found it yet...but I remembered this article and it does have a connection.....Glastonbury

Quote:As for ancient religion being "alive and well", a couple hundred aging hippies who apostatized from chrisitanity doesn't even sound like a firm base. So what if the law recognizes them ?
Many of the Greeks who follow the Hellene faith are described as middle aged professional people ...such as lawers!
As many children are baptised before they are old enough to make the decision for themselves as to what faith they feel drawn to, they have no choice but to apostatize... I did it as a teenager and was a devotee of the Hellenistic Pantheon for many years before changing to my current Pantheon, so still have respect for their Gods, Goddesses and cause. Smile
Cristina
The Hoplite Association
[url:n2diviuq]http://www.hoplites.org[/url]
The enemy is less likely to get wind of an advance of cavalry, if the orders for march were passed from mouth to mouth rather than announced by voice of herald, or public notice. Xenophon
-
Reply
#49
Quote:I'm all for reenactors having access to monuments. But this "religious" group's ostentatious efforts to gain entry smacks of a political agenda, in my view.
The only agenda mentioned so far was religious.

Quote:As for ancient religion being "alive and well", a couple hundred aging hippies who apostatized from chrisitanity doesn't even sound like a firm base.
Being raised in a religion (without choice) and then rejecting it ain't such a negative mark in my book. If they'd started to be Christians at, say, the age of 30, then rejected it a few years later you may have had a point.

Quote:And a mosque is going to be built right in Athens. All-powerful ? If only it were true.
Nice to see good will to all men is alive and kicking.
TARBICvS/Jim Bowers
A A A DESEDO DESEDO!
Reply
#50
I was loath to participate in this thread but, I’ve finally decided to add my two cents, although Stefanos and Idomeneas did a good job presenting the issue.

What I’ll try to add to the discussion is how the Greeks view such things. You will notice that modern and ancient Greeks had the same view about religion and community.

What one has to understand is that Greek society was always very conservative, and the four thousand years of Greek history have not changed this at all. Secondly Greeks are not Christians as a western European understand the word. Greeks have a total disregard for the clergy; you cannot believe how many jokes we have about priests, as well as the core Christian teaching, preferring instead a Greek version of Christianity which is more an amalgam of pagan traditions and platonic philosophy.
Thirdly, and this is very important, Greek religions (Pagan and later Christianity) were always public and part of the daily life of the city, the empire and later on, the state. Greece was never a secular state as again a western European understands this term.

And here is where the problem lies. Even though Greeks are not your standard Christians our inherent conservatism makes us loath to even think of changing our creed. To this, one has to add the weight of one’s family participation in the religious life of the community. I know steadfast atheist and agnostics (I am agnostic by the way) participating in Christian religious ceremonies without a second thought.

The vast majority views these ceremonies as simple communal or family get together and a way to re-verify one’s participation in this community. Traditions play very important role in every Greek religious ceremony. Even when the Church is officially against them, the funeral lament for example – which by the way were also prohibited in ancient Athens, these traditions continue to exist, again because of Greek conservatism but also, and here we face the second part of problem, it’s about how Greeks define who “Greekâ€
Spyros Kaltikopoulos


Honor to those who in the life they lead
define and guard a Thermopylae.
Never betraying what is right,
consistent and just in all they do
but showing pity also, and compassion
Kavafis the Alexandrian
Reply
#51
Quote:I'm all for reenactors having access to monuments. But this "religious" group's ostentatious efforts to gain entry smacks of a political agenda, in my view.

hoplite14gr:3g1ifigb Wrote:My prediction: minor friction will happen until people get used to the idea
that ancient religion is alive and well and it exists.

The people will probably roll over. As for ancient religion being "alive and well", a couple hundred aging hippies who apostatized from chrisitanity doesn't even sound like a firm base. So what if the law recognizes them ? "The law is a ass", to quote Dickens. The only real pagans I know of that continue to practice their faith from classical times are the few Zoroastrians that are persecuted in and around modern Iran.

Back to the monuments : as was said earlier, a better case can be made for the Church to have a legitimate claim over them since they were in its care for at least 1,000 years until the Turkish conquest. The Greek government is a twentieth century fabrication originally propped up by the British. Why should they get dibs on the monuments ? If I ran the Greek Church I'd press for full ownership over the sites. Of course, tourism is the the state's golden goose so they'll never relinquish it. As for the "all-powerful" Greek Church, what a joke. They couldn't even stop this little group from gaining access to the site. And a mosque is going to be built right in Athens. All-powerful ? If only it were true.

If the group was sincere about simply wanting to worship, they'd build their own temples, imo.

Theo

If somebody wishes to believe in a religion he is free to do so. The issue if the neo-olympians really practice ancient greek relligion or something that is a mixture of original and made up stuff is another thing. If they want to believe it they are free but im also free to form an opinion.

About church running the archaeological sites, this is totally wrong. These were not in their care, they were seized, leveled, turned to churches and absolutelly not protected by anyone who wanted to wreack or steal. The sites belongs to the Greek people and in extend to the woldwide culture not the church.

The Greek state was reestated again after long struggles and British had dark roles most time in its history so we better leave that out. The church for sure has some power but its not all-power at all. Spyros made some good points.
aka Yannis
----------------
Molon lave
Reply
#52
Thanks to everyone for answering my tedious questions. For me it's not the religion that matters (I'm so non-religious ... well, we won't go there), but the civil rights issues connected to re-enactors. It all seems still a tad unclear to be thoroughly honest, and I guess time will tell where it all goes. I do ponder on where one of the reports got the idea that the re-enactors threatened violence after the ceremony, and figure the journalism was not so objective as we should expect. But that's a given anywhere in the world.
TARBICvS/Jim Bowers
A A A DESEDO DESEDO!
Reply
#53
[size=150:8nw24pre]Moderator warning.[/size]

Hello all,

First of all, a compliment to you all, for discussing this hot topic with dignity.
However, this discussion is now going more and more into modern politics and modern religion, with topics like who should own the ancient monuments, the People, the State or the Church. Whilst that is an enormously interesting topic, which I could discuss for weeks, it's not what we want to see discussed on this particular forum.

So please, either return to the particular connection of this event to re-enactingor ancient history, or desist.
Robert Vermaat
MODERATOR
FECTIO Late Romans
THE CAUSE OF WAR MUST BE JUST
(Maurikios-Strategikon, book VIII.2: Maxim 12)
Reply
#54
Greetings Vorti,
it's a difficult one to avoid given the context of the discussion... which is modern attitudes towards ancient belief/s and participants/re-enactors who are involvedSmile
Many re-enactment events are held at ancient/archaeological sites in Europe, as you know, and sometimes include religious ceremony of a non-Christian nature.
If we were suddenly given the same treatment as those in Greece, for one reason or another, what would our reactions be... I was wondering....?
For example participants in a Roman event are harassed and insulted on the grounds that they carry emblems of Jupiter and pagan idols and plan to hold a ceremony to the Gods and a wedding, or refused entry to the site.
Has visions of the ESG marching over protesting security men....???? :lol:
This discussion is in the Greek section, however.....do you think it should be moved from this point ?
regards
Arthes
Cristina
The Hoplite Association
[url:n2diviuq]http://www.hoplites.org[/url]
The enemy is less likely to get wind of an advance of cavalry, if the orders for march were passed from mouth to mouth rather than announced by voice of herald, or public notice. Xenophon
-
Reply
#55
Quote:For example participants in a Roman event are harassed and insulted on the grounds that they carry emblems of Jupiter and pagan idols and plan to hold a ceremony to the Gods and a wedding, or refused entry to the site.
It'd be the phallic pendants that would do us in :wink:
TARBICvS/Jim Bowers
A A A DESEDO DESEDO!
Reply
#56
Quote:Greetings Vorti,
it's a difficult one to avoid given the context of the discussion...Arthes

That's precisely why we are being asked to observe the Forum rules and make a conscious decision to avoid it. Where there's the will, there will be a way.
Reply
#57
So lets take the discussion straight back to a living history / re-enactment /experimental archeological context. In the reconstruction and interpretation of Ancient Religous practices we have more information on Hellas than many other ancient cultures. There is probably more than enough and even more interpretations than you can shake a stick at (Postmodern, Psychoanalytic, Archeological, Historical, Marxist, Neo-Pagan etc.,. ). These practices actually give us a nice cross section of social activity and realia to examine and portray.

So where could we start. We could choose particular city state, place and time would be a good start.This would give us some insight into the social actors of our reconstruction. Are they a wealthy Athenian Thiasos, Spartan soldiers before battle, a Doric Karneia or perhaps a pan-Hellenic festival? The Olympic festival was probably originally a local religious event until Iphitus, the king of Elis, decided to turn it into a broader, pan-Hellenic festival. The festival was basically a religious gathering to celebrate the gods worshipped in common by all Hellenes, primarily Zeus. There were three other major pan-Hellenic festivals which could lend themselves to study, the Pythian, the Nemean, and the Isthmian, all of which included fairs, but the festival at Olympia became pre-eminent by 572 BC, when Elis and Sparta entered into an alliance under which Elis was in charge of the event itself while Sparta enforced the sacred truce. For those who are interested there is an actual Society for the Revival of the Nemean Games. See http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~clscs275/ ... ociety.htm

OK, so once we have determined a historical setting in time and space we can start looking at costume, food and liturgical activities. An extremely important festival for the Spartans was the Karneia. Basically a harvest festival (and a festival of Apollo worshipped with the epithet Karneios) celebrated for nine days during the late summer. It was a celebration of migration, colonization and the city-foundation of the Doric peoples and of various military events. The men were divided up into nine groups of three phratries who dined together and each occupied a skias, an area which contained tents. In addition, some citizens carried models of rafts, which also symbolized the coming of the Dorians. These activities were to represent the early history of Sparta, including the migration and colonization.

I think Demetrios of Skepis described the Karneia and the games as a reflection of the military training system. However, having said that during it, Spartans were not allowed to venture to wars or battles. This was the reason why the Spartans arrived late at the Battle of Marathon.
In early Sparta, the Karneia was a muscial festival which included both men and women and a dance of armed men.

Most of us are city dwellers and would balk at animal sacrifice, so perhaps we should re-enact Orphics or Pythagoreans - he says biting into a ham sandwich.

Something like this could be properly researched with regard to costume and other details and form the basis of a living history event or a partial exhibition (say the musical contest with kithara, aulos, the hymns of Tyrtaios, Alkman, Terpandros, or even the footrace and an armed dance). This lends itself to being an educational experience and then being interpreted to the media and general public.

Comments?
Peter Raftos
Reply
#58
Quote:If we were suddenly given the same treatment as those in Greece, for one reason or another, what would our reactions be... I was wondering....?

A good question.

So, before we analyse that, what was the true reason of the troubles in this particular incident.

- If there had not been a pagan ceremony, just ancient Greek soldiers, would that have cause troubles.

- If there only had been pagan worshippers there, no soldiers, would the same troubles have occurred?

- Have re-enactors in other European countries (or elsewehre), civilians or military, also experienced troubles, for religious or other reasons, such as weapons? Let's exclude the swastika troubles here, we have discussed that before.
Robert Vermaat
MODERATOR
FECTIO Late Romans
THE CAUSE OF WAR MUST BE JUST
(Maurikios-Strategikon, book VIII.2: Maxim 12)
Reply
#59
True reason for troubles: sloppiness.
Yes, there was supicion and prejudice but they gave them grounds to cause trouble.

As for getting permission to access monuments for reasons other than tourism ...well lets say you have to be well connected.

The only big event was when the treaty accepting the latest new EU members was signed in the "Attalos Gallery" in Athens Ancient Agora.
Nothing to do with re-enacting.

You can get permission to organize anything you like in a non momument open space but ancient sites well..see above.

Kind regards
Reply
#60
I think it was the religious part that annoyed exclusively but they used the fact that reenactors were there(90% of us our christians) to point out the "ridiculesness" of the situation or something similar.Its kind of problematic that ancient reenactors are seen as pagan automatically i think in Greece but this notion i hope will fade soon as they realize that as a group we are reenacting also there are 2nd wolrd war reenactions and traditional reenactors from 1800 that dance and so on but they are so common that in contrast to a new phenomenon like ancient reenactors this adverse reaction is present. As far as ancient sites our concerned in the particular site other pagans the last month had "ceremonies" with ni problems but the Greek state reacted only when we-the reenactors appeared.I think its just an ustudied reaction from the authorities and the newspapers and so on.Still it was the fact that we were dressed as ancients that they did not like not the fact that a few pagans conducted a ceremony.So if we make a byzantine agema it will be ok but the ancient one is an ill-sorted joke?
Themistoklis papadopoulos
<a class="postlink" href="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/megistiasanaparastashmaxon/">http://groups.yahoo.com/group/megistias ... tashmaxon/
<a class="postlink" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/ancientgreekmapsandmore/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/ancientgreekmapsandmore/
<a class="postlink" href="http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=Olvios300">http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=Olvios300
<a class="postlink" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/mapsoftheancientworld/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/mapsoftheancientworld/
Reply


Forum Jump: