Dancing on Olympus

[dianeduane]

Apparently something a little unusual was going on recently up on the slopes of one of Europe's highest mountains.

Last week, like a thunderbolt from Zeus himself, an unexpectedly large horde of pre-Christian devotees descended on Mount Olympus for the annual Prometheus festival.

Many wore white robes although a minority, it is true, came wearing little more than their love for the 12 ancient gods. But a bit of near-nudity notwithstanding, their arrival might have gone unnoticed had it not been for the fact that there were 4 000 of them dancing in the wood-encircled meadow halfway up the mountainside.

Apparently, though, this has really, really annoyed some people.

This year, despite fierce protests from the Orthodox Church, pagans were allowed to set up a cultural association. Now they want to take their battle to the ancient temples of Greece in the hopes of one day having the religion officially recognised.

..."What their worshippers symbolise, and clearly want, is a return to the monstrous dark delusions of the past," hissed Father Eustathios Kollas, who presides over the community of Greek priests. "They should be stopped."

This should be interesting to watch. I have strange visions of this issue winding up in front of the European Court of Justice at some point, if some involved EU citizen feels his or her right to worship freely is being infringed...

 

 

Comments

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

That's when we see if "freedom of religious expression" is a phrase with any meaning, or just a collection of pretty-sounding noises to be used when we want and ignored when we don't. If it's the latter, if freedom of religious expression only applies to those religions that don't actually bother anyone (like the Church of England), then we should probably admit that.

[fiveforsilver]

Wait, hold on, I thought they already ruled that it wasn't illegal to worship that religion? I specifically remember hearing about it. And now they're still trying to stop people? But...

[a-muse-d.livejournal.com]

"nobody suspects the Spanish Inquisition!"


i'm too lazy to look for the corresponding userpics and/or animated gif.

[akicif.livejournal.com]

Close.... "No-one expects the Spanish Inquisition!"

[inklesspen.livejournal.com]

Now they want to take their battle to the ancient temples of Greece in the hopes of one day having the religion officially recognised.

Emphasis mine. I'm guessing that it's this and things like this that provide a way to legally set up roadblocks for them. You're talking about hundreds or thousands of foreigners flying in, wanting to do their thing at these ancient temples? Yeah, I'd be concerned too, concerned that they're not going to take proper care of the sites.

[gfish.livejournal.com]

They seem to have made it work at Stonehenge...

[inklesspen.livejournal.com]

After long negotiations, including fifteen years during which no visits at all were permitted, yes. It has most certainly not been without incident.

[akicif.livejournal.com]

Yep. George Firsoff may be gone, but his archive of the Stonehenge Truth and Reconciliation Commission is still up on http://www.greenleaf.demon.co.uk/padras.htm - it would make sense to grab these before Demon take the site down (thinks: where's my wget script?).

[akicif.livejournal.com]

For some values of.... I was a steward at the first Summer Solstice after public access was restarted, and then again 2001 and 2002 (and would have been there this year, but for threatened bad weather and train strikes - neither of which happened).

There are some folk who were obviously there for the "religious experience", but with numbers that went from 7000 in 2000, to 14000 in 2001 and almost 22000 in 2002, there were at least as many who were not.

And while drums and fire-juggling can be very pleasant, the experience of the numinous doesn't get much of a look-in when you're trying to talk a bunch of eejits down off of the stones (we try to discourage this for fairly obvious reasons, and it's strongly suggested that journalists don't take pictures of folk up on top not to hide the fact that it happens, but pour discourager les autres as it were.

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

"Dark delusions of the past"? What about the dark delusions of the present? But then, I'm living in a country which is presently being targeted for a theocratic takeover by a group only marginally better than the Taliban, if that. If you think I'm exaggerating, have a look at dark_christian and/or http://www.talk2action/org.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Say, this is a weird question, but regarding your image: are you sure you got the right Mount Olympus? Only that thing looks suspiciously like the view out my window, which is indeed an Olympus ... only it's in Salt Lake City.

I dunno what the Greek one looks like, but I think I can see a couple of familiar glaciers ...