Modern paganism, also known as contemporary paganism and neopaganism, spans a range of new religious movements variously influenced by the beliefs of pre-modern peoples across Europe, North Africa, and the Near East. Despite some common similarities, contemporary pagan movements are diverse, sharing no single set of beliefs, practices, or religious texts. Scholars of religion may study the phenomenon as a movement divided into different religions, while others study neopaganism as a decentralized religion with an array of denominations.
Ukko, Äijä or Äijö, parallel to Uku in Estonian mythology, is the god of the sky, weather, harvest, and thunder across Finnic paganism.
Finnish mythology commonly refers of the folklore of Finnish paganism, of which a modern revival is practiced by a small percentage of the Finnish people. It has many shared features with Estonian and other Finnic mythologies, but also with neighbouring Baltic, Slavic and, to a lesser extent, Norse mythologies.
Prav (Правь), Yav (Явь) and Nav (Навь) are the three dimensions or qualities of the cosmos as described in the first chapter of the Book of Light and in the Book of Veles of Slavic Native Faith (Rodnovery). Older sources mention only Nav and Yav concepts of ancient slavic cosmology, similar to Yin and Yang in Taoism, and Prav was not part of the concept. The literal meanings of the Prav, Yav, and Nav words, are, respectively, "Right", "actuality" and "probability". They are also symbolised as a unity by the god Triglav. Already Ebbo documented that the Triglav was seen as embodying the connection and mediation between Heaven, Earth and the underworld / humanity; these three dimensions were also respectively associated to the colours white, green and black as documented by Karel Jaromír Erben.
The Mari are a Finno-Ugric people in Eastern Europe, who have traditionally lived along the Volga and Kama rivers in Russia. Almost half of Maris today live in the Mari El republic, with significant populations in the Bashkortostan and Tatarstan republics. In the past, the Mari have also been known as the Cheremisa or the Cheremis people in Russian and the Çirmeş in Tatar.
Jumala, Jumal or Jumo (Mari) means "god" in the Finnic languages and those of the Volga Finns, both the Christian God and any other deity of any religion. The word is thought to have been the name of a sky god of the ancient Finnic-speaking peoples. Jumala as a god of the sky is associated with the related Estonian Jumal, Mari Jumo and is thought to stem from an ancient tradition of the Finno-Ugric peoples.
Baltic Finnic paganism, or BalticFinnic polytheism was the indigenous religion of the various of the Baltic Finnic peoples, specifically the Finns, Estonians, Võros, Setos, Karelians, Ludes, Livvi, Veps, Izhorians, Votes, and Livonians, prior to Christianisation. It was a polytheistic religion, worshipping a number of different deities. The chief deity was the god of thunder and the sky, Ukko; other important deities included Jumala, Ahti, and Tapio. Jumala was a sky god; today, the word "Jumala" refers to a monotheistic God. Ahti was a god of the sea, waters and fish. Tapio was the god of the forest and hunting.
Nature worship, also called naturism or physiolatry, is any of a variety of religious, spiritual and devotional practices that focus on the worship of the nature spirits considered to be behind the natural phenomena visible throughout nature. A nature deity can be in charge of nature, a place, a biotope, the biosphere, the cosmos, or the universe. Nature worship is often considered the primitive source of modern religious beliefs and can be found in pantheism, panentheism, deism, polytheism, animism, Taoism, totemism, Hinduism, shamanism, some theism and paganism including Wicca. Common to most forms of nature worship is a spiritual focus on the individual's connection and influence on some aspects of the natural world and reverence towards it. Due to their admiration of nature, the works of Edmund Spenser, Anthony Ashley-Cooper and Carl Linnaeus were viewed as nature worship.
Finland is a predominantly Christian nation where 65.2% of the Finnish population of 5.6 million are members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland (Protestant), 32.0% are unaffiliated, 1.1% are Orthodox Christians, 0.9% are other Christians and 0.8% follow other religions like Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, folk religion etc. These statistics do not include, for example, asylum seekers who have not been granted a permanent residence permit.
The Mari religion, also known as Mari paganism, is the ethnic religion of the Mari people, a Volga Finnic ethnic group based in the republic of Mari El, in Russia. The religion has undergone changes over time, particularly under the influence of neighbouring monotheisms. In the last few decades, while keeping its traditional features in the countryside, an organised Neopagan-kind revival has taken place.
Neopaganism in Hungary is very diverse, with followers of the Hungarian Native Faith and of other religions, including Wiccans, Kemetics, Mithraics, Druids and Christopagans.
The Hungarian Native Faith, also termed Hungarian Neopaganism, is a modern Pagan new religious movement aimed at representing an ethnic religion of the Hungarians, inspired by taltosism, ancient mythology and later folklore. The Hungarian Native Faith movement has roots in 18th- and 19th-century Enlightenment and Romantic elaborations, and early-20th-century ethnology. The construction of a national Hungarian religion was endorsed in interwar Turanist circles (1930s–1940s), and, eventually, Hungarian Native Faith movements blossomed in Hungary after the fall of the Soviet Union.
Estonian neopaganism, or the Estonian native faith, spans various contemporary revivals of the indigenous religion of the Estonian people, adapted from their local myths and culture.
The Erzyan native religion, also called Erzyan neopaganism, is the modern revival of the ethnic religion of the Erzya Mordvins, peoples of Volga Finnic ethnic stock dwelling in the republic of Mordovia within Russia, or in bordering lands of Russia. The name of the originating god according to the Erzya tradition is Nishke.
Abkhaz neopaganism, or the Abkhaz native religion, is the contemporary re-emergence of the ethnic religion of the Abkhaz people in unrecognized Abkhazia, a revitalisation which started in the 1980s. The most important holy sites of the religion are the Seven Shrines of Abkhazia, each one having its own priestly clan, where rituals and prayers began to be restored in the 1990s.
Uralic neopaganism encompasses contemporary movements which have been reviving or revitalising the ethnic religions of the various peoples who speak Uralic languages. The movement has taken place since the 1980s and 1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union and alongside the ethnonational and cultural reawakening of the Finnic peoples of Russia, the Estonians and the Finns. In fact, Neopagan movements in Finland and Estonia have much older roots, dating from the early 20th century.
Caucasian Neopaganism is a category including movements of modern revival of the autochthonous religions of the indigenous peoples of the North Caucasus. It has been observed by scholar Victor Schnirelmann especially among the Abkhaz and the Circassians.
Karhun kansa (Finnish:['kɑrhunˈkɑnsɑ] is a religious community based on indigenous Finnish spiritual tradition. The community was officially recognized by the Finnish state in December 2013. "Karhun kansa" is Finnish for "People of the Bear". The bear, known as Otso, is the most sacred animal in the Finnish spiritual tradition, and said to be the mythical ancestor of all humankind. Karhun kansa is part of Suomenusko, the contemporary revival of pre-Christian polytheistic ethnic religion of the Finns. Some members of Karhun kansa call their faith 'väenusko' rather than 'suomenusko'. The first part of the term 'väenusko' stems from a Finnish word 'väki', which refers to people, and also both unseen and visible powers that are part of traditional Finnic mythology.
Slavic Native Faith and Christianity are mutually critical and often directly hostile to each other. Among the Slavic Native Faith critiques are a view of religious monotheism as the root of mono-ideologies, by which is meant all ideologies that promote "universal and one-dimensional truths", unable to grasp the complexity of reality and therefore doomed to failure one after the other. These mono-ideologies include Abrahamic religions in general, and all the systems of thought and practice that these religions spawned throughout history, including both Marxism and capitalism, the general Western rationalistic mode of thinking begotten by the Age of Enlightenment, and ultimately the technocratic civilisation based on the idea of possession, exploitation and consumption of the environment. They are regarded as having led the world and humanity to a dead-end, and as destined to disappear and to be supplanted by the values represented by Rodnovery itself. To the "unipolar" world created by the mono-ideologies, and led by the American-influenced West, the Rodnovers oppose their political philosophy of "nativism" and "multipolarism".
