Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The Triumph of Christianity over Paganism, a painting by Gustave Doré (1899). Paganism is commonly used to refer to various religions that existed during Antiquity and the Middle Ages, such as the Greco-Roman religions of the Roman Empire, including the Roman imperial cult, the various mystery religions, religious philosophies such as Neoplatonism and Gnosticism, and more localized ethnic ...
Not all historical pagan traditions were pre-Christian or indigenous to their places of worship. [36] Owing to the history of its nomenclature, paganism traditionally encompasses the collective pre- and non-Christian cultures in and around the classical world; including those of the Greco-Roman, Celtic, Germanic, and Slavic tribes. [40]
Folklorist Jack Santino says "Her day and its traditions almost certainly are traceable to pre-Christian celebrations that took place at this time, on the first of May". [12] Art historian Pamela Berger noted Walpurga's association with sheaves of grain, and suggested that her cult was adapted from pagan agrarian goddesses. [13]
In the modern pagan movement of Heathenry there are a number of holidays celebrated by different groups and individuals. The most widely observed are based on ancient Germanic practices described in historical accounts or folk practices; however, some adherents also incorporate innovations from the 20th and 21st centuries.
Beyond the familiar traditions like Santa Claus, a fir tree, caroling and gift-giving, a number of countries—including the U.S.—bring their own unique twists, both old and new, to the holiday ...
[140] [141] [142] Theodosius also turned pagan holidays into workdays, but the festivals associated with them continued. [143] A number of laws against sacrifice and divination, closing temples that continued to allow them, were issued towards the end of his reign, but historians have tended to downplay their practical effects and even the ...
Lithuanians thus survived late into history as appreciable representatives of ancient European paganism, preserving this tradition as the official, state religion until the late 14th and early 15th centuries when Christianity was finally accepted by the states of the Grand Duchy, again for political reasons. [23]
According to Britannica, German settlers brought with them the tradition of putting up Christmas trees to America, but most Puritans rejected this custom because of its foreign pagan roots. And ...