Ancient and modern Greece: religion and its features. Summary: Ancient Greek religion

98% consists of Orthodox, the rest are Muslims (about 1.5%) and the rest of the minority - 0.7% - Jews, Protestants, Catholics.

Officially state religion of greece- Orthodoxy, but there is the possibility of choosing a religion, provided that this does not happen among Orthodox Christians.

The religion of Greece occupied an important place in the culture. The Greek people dressed God in human clothes, unlike the Egyptians. Enjoy life - that was the motto of the Greek people. Regardless of the fact that the Greeks reproduced the great history of the gods in everyday life, they still remained independent and practical people.

God - the creator in the religion of Greece was not present. The people of Greece imagined that the earth emerged from chaos, night, darkness then ether, light, sky, sea, day and other powerful forces of nature. The older generation of the Gods appeared from the Earth and the Sky, then Zeus and the steel Olympian Gods followed them.

In Greece, on the day of the beginning of Great Lent (Clean Monday), kites are released into the sky. Near the church, paper eagles are launched, in particular those who came with their children. The first day of fasting in Greece is a very beautiful sight - kites hang everywhere.

The religion of Greece is such that sacrifices were made to the Olympian gods. There was a belief that the Gods, just like people, need food. Even the Greeks believed that the shadows of those who had gone to another world required food and fed them (the heroine of the tragedy Aeschylus - Electra irrigated the earth with wine and at the same time said - the drink penetrated the earth, my father received it. The priest was present at every temple, and in the most important temples was oracle The oracle spoke about what the Gods had said and could predict the future.

Religion of Greece and Christianity

In the middle of the 2nd century AD. Christianity originated in Greece. In modern times, Christianity is considered as a religion formed as the faith of the offended and humiliated. This is not true!!! On the ruins of the Greco-Roman pantheon, a new idea of ​​\u200b\u200bmonotheism appeared - a god-man who, for the sake of saving mankind, was martyred.

The situation in Greco-Roman society was very tense. Society needed support, protection and support in this unstable time. These were educated people who occupied not the last place in society.

The religion of Greece to this day has preserved the tradition of cleaning the fireplace on the eve of the new year. The meaning of this tradition is to take out all the ashes of the past year, clean the chimney and chimney so that demons and evil spirits do not get into the dwelling next year.

In addition to internal contradictions, the early Christian church was subjected to external influences - terrible persecutions. People of the new faith were forced to hold meetings in secret, since Christianity was not officially recognized. The Christian people were forced not to spread their beliefs to the masses, so as not to provoke the authorities. Christianity has come a long way from underground communities, this path lasted for thousands of years and became the driving force for the development of civilization.

The history of Orthodoxy indicates that in 49 BC, the first Greek who came to preach Orthodoxy was St. Paul. Orthodoxy was founded by Emperor Constantine the Great. Constantine was converted to Christianity in the fourth century after the vision of Christ. The eighth century was marked by the great controversy between the Patriarch Constantine and the Pope of Rome on matters of religion. There are differences about the celibacy of the clergy, while an Orthodox priest has the right to marry before ordination. There are also peculiarities in the wording of prayers, in food while observing fasting.

In 1054, the dispute between Catholicism and Orthodoxy was growing, in the same year the Pope and the Patriarch completely diverged in their convictions. Each church (Roman Catholic and Orthodox) went its own way. To date, the national religion of greece- orthodoxy.

It goes into the depths of past centuries, today faith in the gods has revived again, like a kind of Greek neopoganism (the approximate number of supporters is 2000 people).

Thanks to the historical past of the country, Orthodoxy and Greece are closely connected. The years 1453-1821 are marked by the rule of the Ottoman Empire, it was at this moment that priests and religion were the most important factor in determining and preserving the Greek nationality. It was the Orthodox Church that made a colossal contribution to the preservation of the Greek language, the Orthodox faith, culture and traditions.

The religion of Greece is present in all the life and activities of Greek society. Even in educational institutions where children go to compulsory religious courses sutra before each school day. Political activity is also not complete without the intervention of the Orthodox Church, it approves or disapproves of the decisions made.

In Greece, the law since 1982 allows you to live in a civil marriage, but 95% of the population still prefer to get married in a church.

The official religion of Greece is Orthodoxy. About 98% of the population professes Orthodoxy. The residence of the archbishop - the head of the Greek Orthodox Church is located in Athens.

The Ecumenical Patriarch is subordinate to the churches of Crete, the Dodecan Islands, the Orthodox churches of the monastic republic of Mount Athos, and his residence is located in Constantinople (Istanbul).

Religious minority in Greece

As mentioned earlier, the official religion of Greece is Orthodoxy. By law, all residents are given freedom of religion, but the spread of other Orthodox beliefs among Orthodox is prohibited. There are other branches of Orthodoxy - Catholicism (professed in particular on the islands of the Aegean Sea, formerly belonging to the Venetian Republic).

There are Protestants, Evangelicals, Pentecostals, Old Believers, Jehovah's Witnesses, as well as Mormons and Quakers in Greece, but their number is very small. The Society of Sephardic Jews is a society of several thousand people in Thessaloniki who managed to preserve the value of the Jewish community that was destroyed during the Holocaust (during the 2nd World War). In Greece, on the island of Rhodes and Thrace, a minority lives - Muslims (descendants of the Muslim Turks). Even more rare are the followers of the ancient Greek pagan faith, Scientologists, Bahais, Buddhists, Krishnaites.

An interesting fact - the Greeks do not always celebrate their birthday, but the day of the saint, in whose honor they got their name - always.

Not a single reform carried out in Greece could have a significant impact on the Greek Orthodox Church, which to this day remains one of the most influential institutions in the country.

There were many gods in the pantheon, among which 12 main ones stood out. Each of them performed its own functions. For example, Zeus (pictured below) was the main god, he was a thunderer, ruler of the sky, personified power and strength in such a state as Ancient Greece.

The religion of the Hellenes prescribed the worship of Hera, his wife. This is the patroness of the family, the goddess of marriage. Poseidon was the brother of Zeus. This is an ancient sea deity, the patron of the sea and horses. Athena personifies just war and wisdom. Religion Dr. Greece, in addition, is her patroness of urban fortifications and cities in general. Another name for this goddess is Pallas, which means "shaker of the spear." Athena, according to classical mythology, is a warrior goddess. She was usually depicted in full armor.

Cult of Heroes

The ancient Greek gods lived on Mount Olympus, a snow-covered mountain. In addition to worshiping them, there was also a cult of heroes. They were presented as demigods who were born from the unions of mortals and gods. The heroes of many myths and poems of Ancient Greece are Orpheus (pictured above), Jason, Theseus, Hermes, etc.

Anthropomorphism

Revealing the features of the religion of Ancient Greece, it should be noted that anthropomorphism is one of the main among them. The deity was understood as the Absolute. The ancient Greeks believed that the Cosmos is the absolute deity. Anthropomorphism was expressed in endowing higher beings with human qualities. The gods, as the ancient Greeks believed, are ideas embodied in the Cosmos. It is nothing but the laws of nature that govern it. Their gods reflect all the shortcomings and virtues of human life and nature. The higher beings have a human form. Not only in appearance they look like people, but also in their behavior. The gods have husbands and wives, they enter into relationships with each other, similar to human ones. They can take revenge, be jealous, fall in love, have children. Thus, the gods have all the advantages and disadvantages that are characteristic of mortals. This feature determined the nature of the civilization of Ancient Greece. Religion contributed to the fact that humanism became its main feature.

sacrifices

All the gods were offered sacrifices. The Greeks believed that, like humans, higher beings need food. In addition, they believed that food was also necessary for the shadows of the dead. Therefore, the ancient Greeks tried to feed them. For example, the heroine of the tragedy Aeschylus Electra waters the earth with wine so that her father can receive it. Sacrifices to the gods were gifts that were offered in order to fulfill the requests of the worshiper. Popular gifts were fruits, vegetables, various breads and cakes dedicated to individual gods. There were also blood sacrifices. They boiled down mainly to the killing of animals. However, very rarely people were also sacrificed. This is what religion was in Greece at an early stage of its development.

temples

Temples in ancient Greece were usually built on hills. They were separated by a fence from other buildings. Inside was an image of the god in whose honor the temple was built. There was also an altar for making bloodless sacrifices. Separate rooms existed for sacred relics and donations. Blood sacrifices were performed on a special platform located in front of the temple building, but inside the fence.

Priests

Each Greek temple had its own priest. Even in ancient times, some tribes did not play a significant role in society. Every free person could perform the duties of priests. This position remained unchanged even after the emergence of individual states. The oracle was in the main temples. Its functions included predicting the future, as well as reporting what was said by the Olympian gods.

For the Greeks, religion was a matter of state. The priests were in fact civil servants who had to obey the laws, like other citizens. If necessary, priestly duties could be performed by heads of clans or kings. At the same time, they did not teach religion, did not create theological works, that is, religious thought did not develop in any way. The duties of the priests were limited to the performance of certain rites in the temple to which they belonged.

Rise of Christianity

The emergence of Christianity chronologically refers to the middle of the 2nd century. n. e. Nowadays there is an opinion that it appeared as the religion of all the "offended" and "humiliated". However, it is not. In fact, on the ashes of the pantheon of Greco-Roman gods, a more mature idea of ​​faith in one higher being, as well as the idea of ​​a god-man who accepted death for the sake of saving people, appeared. Cultural and in Greco-Roman society was very tense. It was necessary to obtain protection and support from temptations and external instability. Other Ancient Greece failed to provide them. And the Hellenes turned to Christianity. We will now talk about the history of its formation in this country.

early christian church

The early Christian church, in addition to internal contradictions, was sometimes subjected to external persecution. Christianity in the early period of its existence was not officially recognized. Therefore, his adherents had to gather in secret. The first Christians of Greece tried not to irritate the authorities, so they did not actively spread their faith in the "masses" and did not seek to approve the new teaching. This religion for 1000 years has gone from underground disparate societies to a teaching of world significance that has influenced the development of many civilizations.

A Brief History of Christianity in Ancient Greece

Today, the main religion in Greece is Orthodox Christianity. Almost 98% of believers adhere to it. The inhabitants of Greece adopted Christianity very early. After Constantine, the Roman emperor, adopted this religion, in 330 AD. e. he moved his capital to Constantinople. The new center became a kind of religious capital of the Byzantine or Eastern Roman Empire. After some time, tense relations arose between the patriarchs of Rome and Constantinople. As a result, in 1054 there was a split in religion. It was divided into Catholicism and Orthodoxy. The Orthodox Church supported and represented Christian Eastern Europe after its conquest by the Ottomans. After the revolution that took place in 1833, she became one of the first Orthodox in the region to recognize and support the spiritual leadership of the Patriarch of Constantinople. Until now, the inhabitants of Greece are faithful to their chosen religion.

Modern Orthodox Church

Interestingly, the church in Greece today is not separated from the state, as in many other countries. It is autocephalous. The archbishop is its head. His residence is in Athens. Catholicism is practiced by a few inhabitants of individual islands of the Aegean Sea, which once belonged to the Venetian Republic. On the island of Rhodes and in Thrace live, in addition to the Greeks, and Muslim Turks.

Religion is an integral part of many aspects of Greek society. The Orthodox Church influences, for example, the education system. In Greece, children attend religious courses, which are compulsory. In addition, every morning they pray together before class. The church also influences decision-making on certain political issues.

Pagan organizations

A court in Greece not so long ago allowed the activities of an association uniting worshipers of the ancient gods. Pagan organizations thus became legal in this country. Today the religion of ancient Greece is being revived. About 100 thousand Greeks adhere to paganism. They worship Hera, Zeus, Aphrodite, Poseidon, Hermes, Athena and other gods.

The Greek religion was based on various traditions and traditions, often rooted in the deep past. Some deities (Zeus, Poseidon, Athena, Hermes) were known in the Mycenaean era, others (Apollo, Ares, Dionysus) were borrowed from neighbors. In addition to the Olympian deities, revered by all Greeks, there were a huge number of gods and heroes who were worshiped only in a certain area. Peasant gods are also known, who were once idols of fertility or patrons of the boundaries of land. There were many different legends about the origin of various gods. At the turn of the VIII-VII centuries. BC e. the poet Hesiod collected these myths together in his poem Theogony. Around the same time, the main forms of worship and rituals that were practiced later developed.

Olympian religion

Dionysus and his retinue. Marble relief, 4th c. BC e. Louvre, Paris

The world of the gods in the representation of the Greeks is a reflection of the world of people. Zeus and other gods live in luxurious halls on Olympus and gather for a common feast, during which they consult and argue with each other. The gods are completely anthropomorphic, they are able to experience human passions, including the ability to love, suffer and hate. They are immortal, their power exceeds human; often intervene in the fate of people and endow them with happiness or misfortune, not so much by justice, but by personal whim. The gods are fickle, they can turn away from the one they just helped, but generous donations can win their hearts over to their side.

However, even the gods are not omnipotent. Their lives, just like the lives of people, are ruled by an impersonal destiny. (Ananka). In humans, it determines birth, lifespan and death, and even the gods cannot change it. It is in their power only to postpone for some time the fulfillment of what was destined. Due to political fragmentation and the absence of an influential priestly class, the Greeks did not have a unified system of religious dogmas. Instead, a large number of very close but not identical religious systems existed in parallel. All Greeks recognized the same gods, had common principles of faith, which related to ideas about fate, the power of the gods over the world, the position of a person, his posthumous fate, etc. At the same time, there was no canon that would define the forms and content of the main traditions , as well as cult practices, which differed significantly in different areas.

The temple was considered the house of the god, and the statue installed in it was the body of the god. Access inside the temple was open only to priests and ministers. The main cult activities took place outside. Altars on which sacrifices were made were also erected outside the temple, often in front of its facade. Both the building itself and the site surrounding it (temenos) were considered sacred and enjoyed the right of inviolability.

Rituals and sacrifices did not require special training; anyone could conduct them. Each independently determined the nature and principles of his faith, provided that he did not deny the gods in general. This freedom was the most important prerequisite for the emergence of secular knowledge of the world, which Greek philosophers could develop without fear of incurring the wrath of political or religious authorities.

Ancient Greek religion is a branch of the Indo-European religious tradition. Its origin is chronologically connected with the beginning of migration and separation of the "proto-Greek" tribes in the 4th-3rd millennium BC, and its decline falls on the 5th-6th centuries. AD - the final victory of Christianity. Thus, the ancient Greek religion existed for about four thousand years, and it is natural that during this period of time it underwent qualitative changes.

It is customary to distinguish several stages in the development of the ancient Greek religion.

ancient, covered Mycenaean the stage is associated with religious beliefs that were formed in island and mainland Greece at the end of the 3rd - beginning of the 2nd millennium BC. It is associated with the existence of the Cretan-Mycenaean civilization (late III - mid-II millennium BC). It is characterized by the fusion of autochthonous, non-Indo-European religious tradition and the religious beliefs of the alien "proto-Greek" tribes with elements of the cults of Middle Eastern religions. This peculiar symbiosis marked the beginning of the development of the ancient Greek religion.

The religious views of the autochthonous Cretan culture were based on agrarian and fertility cults.

The central deity of the Cretan pantheon can be considered great goddess associated with the cult of fertility, agrarian and chthonic cults, as evidenced by the iconography of the deity. The specificity of her cult allows us to identify many similarities with similar cults of the Middle East region, known since the Neolithic era. According to the surviving iconography, in the Mycenaean pantheon one can single out a no less revered male deity of the natural elements in the form of a bull and a man with a bull's head.

Indirect evidence of the existence of this deity and even the opposition of religious traditions dating back to matriarchy and patriarchal religious traditions is the Greek myth of Minotaur. The Minotaur is a monster living in Crete with a human body and a bull's head, who lived in a labyrinth built for him, annually devouring seven young men and women sent as tribute from Athens.

In Cretan culture, the symbols of this deity were the images of the horns of a bull and a double-edged ax - labrys. The cult of sacrifices and ritual ritual are directly connected with this deity. tauromachy(battle with a bull).

With the spread and predominance of the "proto-Greek" ethnic component in the Cretan culture, the Mycenaean stage in the development of the ancient Greek religion begins, which is characterized by cultural, religious, political continuity with the samples of autochthonous Cretan culture.

In addition to the former deities, the Mycenaean pantheon includes new, Indo-European deities, such as Zeus, Athena, Hera, Poseidon, Hermes, Artemis, Ares, Erinnia etc. With the strengthening of monarchical tendencies and the development of social inequality, the religious life of Mycenaean societies is differentiated. Above the agrarian archaic religion of the Great Goddess, palace cults are built, associated with the deification of the ruler and the monopolization of all priestly functions. In place of the matriarchal Great Goddess comes the patriarchal deity, designed to strengthen the prestige and power of the ruler. The growth of the socio-political influence of individual clans and the formation of dynastic principles of government led to the dominance of the cult of ancestors and the complication of funeral rituals. The crisis of the Crete-Mycenaean societies, associated with natural disasters and the invasion of the Dorian Greeks, led to the decline of the Crete-Mycenaean religious tradition.

11th-6th centuries BC. – " archaic"The stage of ancient Greek religion. It is characterized by the syncretism of Mycenaean religious beliefs, the Dorian Indo-European religious tradition and elements of Middle Eastern religious cults. Initially, the religious tradition is represented by primitive cults of scattered ancient Greek tribes. This period in the history of ancient Greek religion is often called pre-Olympic(preceding the addition of the pantheon of the Olympic gods).

The religious beliefs of this period had a great influence on the further development of the religious tradition of Greece. The main characteristics of these beliefs include:

• - totemic elements - most of the deities of this period have a pronounced zoomorphic appearance: Apollo - mouse and wolf, Hera is a cow, Athena is an owl, Dionysus - bear, Zeus - bull, etc. There are widespread myths about the origin of the tribe, clan, policy(city-states) from a specific animal and deity;
• - deification and personification of various objects of the surrounding world, feelings, psychological states;
• - the practice of honoring sacred places: groves, streams, rivers, mountains, caves, etc.;
• - the formation of the cult of heroes, dating back to the cult of ancestors, the heroes acted as progenitors and patron spirits of individual clans;
• – the existence of echoes of shamanism and shamanic practices;
• - the absence of the priestly class as a separate social group.

In the IX-VIII centuries. the process of processing and systematization of tribal religious beliefs, mythology and ritual into a single whole begins. This stage in the development of ancient Greek religion is called Olympic and is associated with the formation of a common Greek pantheon headed by the Olympian gods. The creation of a common Greek religion reflected the moment of awareness of common Greek unity based on a common language and religious and mythological traditions. At the same time, local, tribal, polis cults did not lose their significance, but organically fit into the expanded religious and mythological system of Ancient Greece.

The first attempt to unify the ancient Greek religion belongs to Homer(VIII century BC). in epic poems "Iliad" And "Odyssey", devoted to the events of the Trojan War, a description of the cosmogony, the structure of the world and the Greek pantheon is given.

The universe was created by a married couple ocean(the personification of the world river washing the ecumene) and Tethys(younger generation of titans). The world has a tripartite structure: heaven, earth, underworld (the latter is divided into Erebus, Hades And Tartarus). The deities of the ancient Greek pantheon are anthropomorphic and sit on the sacred Mount Olympus in Thessaly: by the name of this mountain, the Greek gods are called Olympian, and the ancient Greek religion is often called the "Olympian religion".

The pantheon of the Olympian gods reproduces the structure of the patriarchal family. At the head of the pantheon is Zeus (the god of the sky, thunder and lightning), following in seniority - Kronids(children of Kron): Poseidon (god of the seas), Hades(god of the underworld), Hera (goddess of marriage and family), Demeter(goddess of fertility) Hestia(goddess of the hearth). The following are the children of Zeus: Athena (goddess of wisdom and war), Aphrodite(goddess of love and beauty (see Fig. 30)), Apollo (god of arts and healing), Artemis (goddess of hunting), Hephaestus(god of fire and blacksmithing), Ares (god of war). The messengers of the gods Hermes (the god of trade and theft) and Iridu(goddess of the rainbow), as well as serving at feasts Gebu(goddess of youth) and adviser to Zeus - Themis(goddess of justice). But above all deities is moira("Destiny"), whose will is absolutely ruthless and inevitable in relation to people and gods.

Thus, in Homer the idea of ​​religious fatalism is dominant - all actions and events are predetermined by a higher power, and it is impossible to change anything.

The successor of the tradition of Homer is Hesiod(VIII century BC), which in its " Theogony"("The Origin of the Gods") gives a detailed picture of the cosmogony, genealogy and hierarchy of the ancient Greek deities. He tried not only to combine into something a whole multitude of tribal beliefs of the Greeks, but also to find a place in the pantheon for the Thracian, Phrygian and other foreign deities revered by the Greeks - Dionysus ( god of winemaking Cybele(goddess of fertility), etc.

Hesiod tells of the creation of the world from Chaos(the initial state of the world), and sets out a consistent genealogy of three generations of deities, replacing each other. The children of Chaos belong to the first generation - Gaia("Earth"), which gave rise to uranium("Sky") and Pont("Sea"), Nyukte("Night"), Tartarus("Abyss"), Erebus("Darkness"), Eros("Love"). From the marriage of Uranus and Gaia were born titans And titanides- gods of the second generation: Hyperion("Greatest" - identified with Helios sun god) Cron("Time"), Ocean(deity of the cosmic river washing the world), Mnemosyne("Memory"), Rhea(mother goddess) Tethys(water deity), Themis ("Justice"), etc. The son of a titan Iapetus – Prometheus became the ancestor of people. From the marriage of Uranus and Gaia were born cyclops (cyclops), one-eyed giants, and hecatoncheires(hundred-armed fifty-headed giants, the personification of natural elements).

Cronus rebelled against his father Uranus, castrated him and seized power. Born from the blood of Uranus giants(giants) and Erinnia(goddess of vengeance). Cron, having married Rhea and fearing the fate of his father, began to devour his children. Rhea managed to save Zeus (the god of sky, thunder and lightning, the supreme Olympian deity), who was able to free his brothers and overthrow his father and the power of the titans, founding the third generation of gods. Leaving the sky behind him, Zeus gave his brother Poseidon the water element, Hades - the underworld. Having chosen Olympus as the seat of his generation of the gods, Zeus produced many different deities from numerous wives, and demigods and heroes from ties with mortal women. Thus, in the era of the archaic, Greek religion goes from primitive tribal beliefs to the religious teachings of the general Greek level.

Classic stage(V-IV centuries BC) in the development of the ancient Greek religion is characterized by the final formation of the state polis cult and a protracted crisis in the ancient Greek religion. The latter was associated with the formation of a new rational type of worldview and a personality that opposed collectivism and collectivist values. Ancient Greek philosophy, with its rationalism, empiricism and criticism, dealt a severe blow to ancient Greek religion. Most ancient Greek philosophers opposed religion in one way or another, even to the point of preaching ancient varieties of atheism. One of the reasons for this is the primitivism of religious beliefs (rough anthropomorphism, etc.), which did not satisfy the stratum of intellectuals.

Crisis phenomena continue throughout the next, Hellenistic stage development of the Greek religion (III-I centuries BC), leading to an increase in skeptical attitudes towards traditional beliefs. The radical breaking of the polis worldview, the spread of the ideas of cosmopolitanism, the development of radical philosophical ideas led to the strengthening of mystery and individualistic forms of religion, an active passion for various Eastern cults, i.e. there was a redistribution of the influence of different religions.

The final stage of the ancient Greek religion falls on the I-VI centuries. AD Initially, she is under pressure from the official ancient Roman imperial religion and various Eastern beliefs popular in the territory of the Roman Empire. Its end was associated with the victorious march of Christianity, the spread of which did not meet any special obstacles in Greece. With the domination of Christianity, the latent stage of the ancient Greek religion begins, existing in close connection with Christianity at the level of petty demonology, domestic rituals and rituals, preserved mainly in the countryside (individual elements - up to our time).

Classical ancient Greek religion is characterized by several specific features.

The ancient Greek religion was a developed version of polytheism - henotheism, i.e. At the head of the pantheon of gods was the supreme god - Zeus. We can say that the development of ancient Greek religion stopped at the transitional stage from polytheism to monotheism.

The ancient Greek deities are characterized by a pronounced anthropomorphism, which was associated with the idea of ​​​​the presence of correspondences between a deity and a person. Only the deity is perfection, the maximum expression of vitality and potency, the sign of which is immortality. A person in comparison with him looks like just a copy, devoid of these advantages. But in the classical era, this similarity was one of the objects of criticism of religion - what kind of deities are they, if they, just like people, suffer from family problems, lust, experience fear, envy and other completely human feelings. Sometimes the moral character of these deities was worse than that of a person (so the plot of the famous operetta by J. Offenbach, where the deities dance the cancan, was only an exaggeration of the real features of the creatures that made up the ancient Greek pantheon).

The ancient Greek religion allowed for the possibility of direct communication with the deities and the existence of transitional states from the human to the divine. The demigods were the offspring of a love affair between a god (a goddess - extremely rarely) and a mortal woman (man).

The deification of a wide variety of natural phenomena, elements of public and private life was also characteristic, which ultimately led to the division of all deities into three large groups: uranic(heavenly), chthonic(underground) and ecumenical(terrestrial).

It is necessary to say about the presence of a rich and extremely diverse demonology in the Greek religion. The term itself daimon"of Greek origin, it denotes some mysterious (supernatural) force, both positive and negative in its effect on a person. Folk religiosity was built primarily on the veneration of various spirits and demons: nymphs(female spirits of nature), maenad(female fertility spirits), Silenov And satyrs(male fertility spirits). Most of these characters are neutral in relation to a person, purely negative are only lamia- female harmful creatures.

The cult of ancestors was widely developed in Greek religion. According to the ideas of the Greeks, a deceased relative after death passed into the category of underground deities, often he was called that - theos("god") or was perceived as a patron - a daimon. Obviously, in ancient Greece there was no single concept of personal eschatology, since on the one hand there were tendencies to classify the deceased ancestors as blessed (probably not all, but especially prominent), on the other hand, Homer's description of Hades suggests that the existence of the dead is not at all a state of bliss. Therefore, mystery cults developed, aimed at ensuring that the initiates could escape Hades after death and really approach some kind of divine bliss.

The category of holiness was well developed in the ancient Greek religious tradition. There were several terms denoting its various aspects:

• – hieros- the sacred as part of the divine power;
• – agnos- holy as pure and undefiled, holy as forbidden;
• – osios- holy as ordained by the gods.

The opposite of holiness was denoted by the terms miasma- filth, impurity and kakia- shameful act.

The fundamental category of ancient Greek religion is the concept of fate, understood as predestination, in extreme manifestations this was expressed in religious fatalism. In the classical era, predestination and fatalism were among the first to come under attack from the criticism of rational thinking and were gradually replaced by ideas of the individual's personal freedom.

In ancient Greek religion, there were two categories expressing the idea of ​​the soul. Fumos expressed the connection of the soul with the breath, chest and heart. This is, so to speak, the material part of the soul, which exists while the person himself is alive. Psyukhe- a certain immortal indestructible substance that exists in a person (according to the Greeks, it was located in the head of a person). She leaves the body after death and goes to the other world. The further fate of psyche is extremely vague - staying in one of the areas of the underworld or moving to another body. Ideas metempsychosis(transmigration of souls) were popular with the Greeks, but, unfortunately, no specific data shedding light on this issue have been preserved.

The ancient Greek religious cult can be divided into two types: polis (state or public) and private.

Taking into account the specifics of the political structure and mentality of the Greeks, it is clear that the dominant cults were polises, addressed to the gods - the patrons of the polis.

Religious activity was carried out in numerous temples built in honor of specific deities, the main decoration of which were sculptural images of the god. On their territory there were also altars to the gods. Ritual practice consisted of sacrifices, chants (for this purpose, hymns were used - prosody, dithyrambs, pyrrhams etc.), reading prayers, playing musical instruments, dancing. Since the priesthood as a special social class did not exist, the leadership of the polis cults was usually carried out by elected officials or persons who inherited priestly positions or received them as a gift for special services to the polis.

The veneration of common gods by various policies led to the formation of cult federations - amphictyonium, for joint worship, maintenance and protection of cult centers.

A private cult was performed by the head of the family, who performed priestly functions. Witchcraft and magic occupied an important place in private rituals.

Both in the polis and in private cult practice, they actively used divinations(predictions). Any important business was unthinkable without them. The will of God, expressed in the act of divination, was called "oracle". The place where it was carried out was also called (the most famous soothsayers were pythoness- priestesses of the Delphic temple of Apollo).

There were many different small and large holidays, but the most important were the all-Greek religious holidays, called eulogies. The most significant of them were Olympic Games in honor of Zeus, Pythian in honor of Apollo Nemean- in honor of Zeus and Isthmian in honor of Poseidon.

Of great importance in the religious life and cult practice of the Greeks were mysteries("mystery"). The most popular in Greece were Eleusinian mysteries in honor of Demeter and Persephone, Samothracian- in honor of Kabir(lower deities of fertility), Bacchic - in honor of Dionysus.

Mysteries are secret religious rites that are part of the state cult or performed by private individuals and religious societies. They were complex ritual complexes, including special rites of passage (initiation), rites of purification, prayer practices, altered states of consciousness (ecstasy) and acts hierophany(manifestations of the sacred principle in a sensually accessible form). Only initiates were allowed to participate in them, who were obliged to keep secret everything that happens during the mysteries. The ceremony of initiation of a new member was called mystagogy, and the dedicated sheet. The initiation itself consisted of purification, sacrifices and "approach" to the deity. As they became familiar with the mysteries and rituals, the initiates were divided into several categories.

Religious rites in the mysteries proceeded according to a complex scenario, with the dressing of the participants, the use of masks, pantomimes, songs, dances, music, etc. As a rule, these were dramatized representations of myths and tales dedicated to a revered deity. The priests of the mysteries were called hierophants("revealing the sacred"), the mysteries usually took place at night and were often associated with human sacrifices. According to a number of researchers, it was the mysteries that led to the emergence of the ancient Greek theater and the two main theatrical genres - tragedy and comedy.

Ancient Greek culture, including religion, mythology, philosophy, literature, fine and applied arts, architecture, had a huge, if not paramount, influence on the development of European culture.

Christianity learned quite a lot from Greek culture, but the adoption of these elements was slow and difficult. As a result, only that which did not contradict the religious principles of Christianity was borrowed or could be radically rethought for this purpose.

Christians in the early centuries were distrustful of any element reminiscent of a pagan cult, even if it did not in itself contain anything specifically pagan. Under the ancient Greek influence, some architectural and iconographic techniques, principles of text interpretation appeared. At the same time, Greek culture put forward from its midst a religious alternative to Christianity in the form of hermetic and other syncretic teachings that were widespread in Europe and flourished in the Renaissance.

They were, as we have already seen, the personifications of the forces of nature and gradually acquired a moral significance. Among epic poets and singers, the moral element in the conceptions of deities is already so prevalent that the original symbolic personifications of nature are little and weakly visible. The deities of the ancient Greek religion are, both in character and in appearance, completely similar to people, idealized people; they differ from people in that in intelligence, knowledge, strength they are infinitely superior to them, and, moreover, they are immortal; in addition, they can be instantly transferred from place to place; but the qualities of their mind and heart are the same as those of people, the motives for action are the same. The same feelings and passions rule over them: hatred and love; they have the same joys and sorrows. In this sense, one must understand the words of Herodotus, that Homer and Hesiod created their gods for the Greeks; he talks about this anthropomorphism, about the transformation of the ancient gods, who were the personifications of the forces of nature, into ideal human-like creatures, having all human virtues and vices.