Greek religion is the polytheistic religion practiced in ancient Greece in form of cult practices, thus the practical counterpart of Greek mythology. Within the Greek world, religious practice varied enough so that one might speak of Greek religions. The cult practices of the Hellenes extended beyond mainland Greece, to the islands and coasts of Ionia in Asia Minor, to Magna Graecia (Sicily and southern Italy) and to scattered Greek colonies in the Western Mediterranean, such as Massilia (Marseille). Greek examples tempered Etr ...

Including:

• Ancient Greek religion - Overview
• Ancient Greek religion - Worship
• Ancient Greek religion - Theology
• Ancient Greek religion - Mystery religions
• Ancient Greek religion - Suppression of paganism
• Ancient Greek religion - Revival of paganism

Read more here: » Ancient Greek religion: Encyclopedia - Ancient Greek religion

See also:

Ancient Greek religion, Ancient Greek religion - Overview, Ancient Greek religion - Worship, Ancient Greek religion - Theology, Ancient Greek religion - Mystery religions, Ancient Greek religion - Suppression of paganism, Ancient Greek religion - Revival of paganism

Read more here: » Ancient Greek religion: Encyclopedia II - Ancient Greek religion - Revival of paganism

In the late 4th century, the Imperial courts were predominantly Christian; Christianity had relatively few internal quarrels; and a deep conviction that right belief, orthodoxy, was what mattered to God. The Christian emperors closed pagan oracles, temples and end the pagan games by degrees, in a series of increasingly stringent decrees. Finally, the public practice of the Greek religion was made illegal by the Emperor Theodosius I and this was enforced by his successors. The Greek religion, stigmatized as "paganism", the religion of country ...

See also:

Ancient Greek religion, Ancient Greek religion - Overview, Ancient Greek religion - Worship, Ancient Greek religion - Theology, Ancient Greek religion - Mystery religions, Ancient Greek religion - Suppression of paganism, Ancient Greek religion - Revival of paganism

Read more here: » Ancient Greek religion: Encyclopedia II - Ancient Greek religion - Suppression of paganism

It is perhaps misleading to speak of "Greek religion." In the first place, the Greeks did not have a term for "religion" in the sense of a dimension of existence distinct from all others, and grounded in the belief that the gods exercise authority over the fortunes of human beings and demand recognition as a condition for salvation. The Greeks spoke of their religious doings as ta theia (literally, "things having to do with the gods"), but this loose usage did not imply the existence of any authoritative set of "beliefs." Indeed, the Greeks ...

See also:

Ancient Greek religion, Ancient Greek religion - Overview, Ancient Greek religion - Worship, Ancient Greek religion - Theology, Ancient Greek religion - Mystery religions, Ancient Greek religion - Suppression of paganism, Ancient Greek religion - Revival of paganism

Read more here: » Ancient Greek religion: Encyclopedia II - Ancient Greek religion - Overview

It is perhaps misleading to speak of "Greek religion" as a unified system of dogma or ritual; perhaps the most conspicuous aspect of the religions practised in the Greek city states is their overall variety and their localism. Different cities worshipped different deities, sometimes with epithets that specified their local nature; Athens had Athena; Sparta, Artemis; Corinth was a center for the worship of Aphrodite; Delphi and Delos had Apollo; Olympia had Zeus, and so on down to the smaller cities and towns. Identity of names was not even a ...

See also:

Ancient Greek religion, Ancient Greek religion - Overview, Ancient Greek religion - Worship, Ancient Greek religion - Theology, Ancient Greek religion - Mystery religions, Ancient Greek religion - Suppression of paganism, Ancient Greek religion - Revival of paganism

Read more here: » Ancient Greek religion: Encyclopedia II - Ancient Greek religion - Overview

The most widespread public act of worship in ancient Greece was sacrifice, whether of grain or the blood sacrifice of animals. The temples of the Greek religion generally were not public gathering places where people gathered socially for collective indoor prayer; most temples held little more than a cult idol of the deity and the accumulated votive gifts, which might amount to a treasury. When we are told in studies of mythology that "horses are sacred to Poseidon" or roosters to Hermes, what this meant first and foremost was that these ani ...

See also:

Ancient Greek religion, Ancient Greek religion - Overview, Ancient Greek religion - Worship, Ancient Greek religion - Theology, Ancient Greek religion - Mystery religions, Ancient Greek religion - Suppression of paganism, Ancient Greek religion - Revival of paganism

Read more here: » Ancient Greek religion: Encyclopedia II - Ancient Greek religion - Worship

In the context of the Greek traditions, there was no theology in the sense of a rationalized exposition of the normative understanding of the gods. If one takes the term to refer to any explicit account of the gods in general, or of particular gods, then the Greek tradition abounded in theologies. In the Homeric epics, the dramatic action is often interrupted to tell the history of some god, or some story that accounts for some of the gods honors. The Homeric Hymns are poems devoted to one particular god, but the stories they relate d ...

See also:

Ancient Greek religion, Ancient Greek religion - Overview, Ancient Greek religion - Worship, Ancient Greek religion - Theology, Ancient Greek religion - Mystery religions, Ancient Greek religion - Suppression of paganism, Ancient Greek religion - Revival of paganism

Read more here: » Ancient Greek religion: Encyclopedia II - Ancient Greek religion - Theology

The most widespread public act of worship in ancient Greece was sacrifice, whether of grain or the blood sacrifice of animals. In general, the Greeks distinguished sacrifices given to the Olympian gods from those given to chthonic (from chthôn, earth) or earth-bound gods (like Hades, Hekate, and so on). Sacrifices served multiple functions: one sacrificed before important undertakings, to introduce a new-born child to the phratry or district, to introduce a young man on the verge of manhood into the society of those engaged in politics. The ...

See also:

Ancient Greek religion, Ancient Greek religion - Overview, Ancient Greek religion - Worship, Ancient Greek religion - Theology, Ancient Greek religion - Mystery religions, Ancient Greek religion - Suppression of paganism, Ancient Greek religion - Revival of paganism

Read more here: » Ancient Greek religion: Encyclopedia II - Ancient Greek religion - Worship

Theology did not come naturally to a faith this diverse and essentially local. At the time of the Homeric epics, the Greeks were familiar enough with their neighbours to be aware that the next city-state over worshipped a different subset of gods. The Homeric Hymns tell us something about the belief and worship of various gods, but apart from the (often variable) family trees of the gods, there is little ...

See also:

Ancient Greek religion, Ancient Greek religion - Overview, Ancient Greek religion - Worship, Ancient Greek religion - Theology, Ancient Greek religion - Mystery religions, Ancient Greek religion - Suppression of paganism, Ancient Greek religion - Revival of paganism

Read more here: » Ancient Greek religion: Encyclopedia II - Ancient Greek religion - Theology