Greek Pagans return to the Parthenon

Greek Pagans return to the Parthenon:
"Oh, goddess" roared high priestess Doretta Peppa, her hands extending over an offering of water and olive oil. "We are ready to defend your grounds.

"[But] we ask of you to protect this site, this city and its civilization, and to rid it of all evils such as the deconstruction of the Acropolis."

The 15-minute mid-day rite was organized by Ellinais, an Athens-based group that recently won a court battle for state recognition of the ancient religion. The group is now demanding the government allow it to perform weddings and other rites.

On Sunday, the group's Parthenon ritual cast a new thunderbolt at its government opponents and the designs to build a controversial museum at the foot of the Acropolis.

Polytheists like Peppa believe that monotheistic religions such as Christianity and Islam have as their god an authority figure who is too remote from humanity and nature.

Participants claimed it was the first such gathering since the ancient religion was officially abolished late in the 4th century.

"We believe that the structural elements of a temple should not be moved and we worry about the consequences," said high priestess Doretta Peppa.

Peppa's Athens-based group - called Ellinais, an acronym in Greek for "Sacred Society of Greek Ancient Religionists" - is campaigning to revive the ancient religion. The group has defied Culture Ministry bans on holding prayers at several ancient temples.

Orthodox Christianity is the official religion of Greece. Peppa said officials have harassed believers in the Olympian gods.

"People have had difficulties with their jobs," she said.

Thrusting their arms skywards and chanting Orphic hymns, Greek pagans yesterday made a comeback at the Acropolis as they added their voices to protests against the imminent inauguration of the New Acropolis Museum.

Ignoring a sudden rainstorm and irate officials, white-clad worshippers gathered before Greece's most sacred site and invoked Athena, the goddess of wisdom, to protect sculptures taken from the temples to the new museum. It was the first time in nearly 2,000 years that pagans had held a religious ceremony on the site.

"Neither the Romans nor the Ottomans or any other occupational force ever took anything from this holy site," said Yannis Kontopidis, one of the high priests who officiated over the affair.

"It's scandalous that antiquities of such value, carved in honour of Athena, should be wrested from their natural environment and moved to a new locale."

Not since Pericles oversaw the construction of the Parthenon had any of its classical artworks been officially removed - until last year, when thousands of items were transferred by crane to the New Acropolis Museum beneath the citadel.

[And just in case you're curious as to how the Christians feel about all this:]

Yesterday's ceremony represented a major coup for Greek polytheists whose faith, which is described by the powerful Orthodox church as a "miserable resuscitation of a degenerate dead religion", has long been banned in the country that gave birth to the gods of Mount Olympus.