Germanic religion may refer to:
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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.
Paganism is a term first used in the fourth century by early Christians for people in the Roman Empire who practiced polytheism, or ethnic religions other than Judaism. In the time of the Roman Empire, individuals fell into the pagan class either because they were increasingly rural and provincial relative to the Christian population, or because they were not milites Christi. Alternative terms used in Christian texts were hellene, gentile, and heathen. Ritual sacrifice was an integral part of ancient Greco-Roman religion and was regarded as an indication of whether a person was pagan or Christian. Paganism has broadly connoted the "religion of the peasantry".
The Wheel of the Year is an annual cycle of seasonal festivals, observed by a range of modern pagans, marking the year's chief solar events and the midpoints between them. Modern pagan observances are based to varying degrees on folk traditions, regardless of the historical practices of world civilizations. British neopagans popularized the Wheel of the Year in the mid-20th century, combining the four solar events marked by many European peoples, with the four midpoint festivals celebrated by Insular Celtic peoples.
Germanic may refer to:
Germanic mythology consists of the body of myths native to the Germanic peoples, including Norse mythology, Anglo-Saxon mythology, and Continental Germanic mythology. It was a key element of Germanic paganism.
Old Norse religion, also known as Norse paganism, is a branch of Germanic religion which developed during the Proto-Norse period, when the North Germanic peoples separated into a distinct branch of the Germanic peoples. It was replaced by Christianity and forgotten during the Christianisation of Scandinavia. Scholars reconstruct aspects of North Germanic Religion by historical linguistics, archaeology, toponymy, and records left by North Germanic peoples, such as runic inscriptions in the Younger Futhark, a distinctly North Germanic extension of the runic alphabet. Numerous Old Norse works dated to the 13th-century record Norse mythology, a component of North Germanic religion.
Germanic paganism or Germanic religion refers to the traditional, culturally significant religion of the Germanic peoples. With a chronological range of at least one thousand years in an area covering Scandinavia, the British Isles, modern Germany, the Netherlands, and at times other parts of Europe, the beliefs and practices of Germanic paganism varied. Scholars typically assume some degree of continuity between Roman-era beliefs and those found in Norse paganism, as well as between Germanic religion and reconstructed Indo-European religion and post-conversion folklore, though the precise degree and details of this continuity are subjects of debate. Germanic religion was influenced by neighboring cultures, including that of the Celts, the Romans, and, later, by the Christian religion. Very few sources exist that were written by pagan adherents themselves; instead, most were written by outsiders and can thus present problems for reconstructing authentic Germanic beliefs and practices.
Heathenry, also termed Heathenism, contemporary Germanic Paganism, or Germanic Neopaganism, is a modern Pagan religion. Scholars of religious studies classify it as a new religious movement. Developed in Europe during the early 20th century, its practitioners model it on the pre-Christian religions adhered to by the Germanic peoples of the Iron Age and Early Middle Ages. In an attempt to reconstruct these past belief systems, Heathenry uses surviving historical, archaeological, and folkloric evidence as a basis, although approaches to this material vary considerably.
Anglo-Saxon paganism, sometimes termed Anglo-Saxon heathenism, Anglo-Saxon pre-Christian religion, Anglo-Saxon traditional religion, or Anglo-Saxon polytheism refers to the religious beliefs and practices followed by the Anglo-Saxons between the 5th and 8th centuries AD, during the initial period of Early Medieval England. A variant of Germanic paganism found across much of north-western Europe, it encompassed a heterogeneous variety of beliefs and cultic practices, with much regional variation.
Polytheistic reconstructionism is an approach to modern paganism first emerging in the late 1960s to early 1970s, which gathered momentum starting in the 1990s. Reconstructionism attempts to re-establish genuine polytheistic religions in the modern world through a rediscovery of the rituals, practices and contextual worldviews of pre-Christian pagan religions. This method stands in contrast with other neopagan syncretic movements like Wicca, and ecstatic/esoteric movements like Germanic mysticism or Theosophy.
Continental Germanic mythology formed an element within Germanic paganism as practiced in parts of Central Europe occupied by Germanic peoples up to and including the 6th to 8th centuries. Traces of some of the myths lived on in legends and in the Middle High German epics of the Middle Ages. Echoes of the stories, with the sacred elements largely removed, may appear throughout European folklore and in European fairy tales.
Persecution of Germanic Pagans may refer to:
Heathenry, heathenism or heathendom may refer to:
The pagan religion of the Germanic tribal confederation of the Franks has been traced from its roots in polytheistic Germanic paganism through to the incorporation of Greco-Roman components in the Early Middle Ages. This religion flourished among the Franks until the conversion of the Merovingian king Clovis I to Nicene Christianity, though there were many Frankish Christians before that. After Clovis I, Frankish paganism was gradually replaced by the process of Christianisation, but there were still pagans in the late 7th century.
Modern paganism in the United States is represented by widely different movements and organizations. The largest modern pagan religious movement is Wicca, followed by Neodruidism. Both of these religions or spiritual paths were introduced during the 1950s and 1960s from Great Britain. Germanic Neopaganism and Kemetism appeared in the US in the early 1970s. Hellenic Neopaganism appeared in the 1990s.
Modern paganism in Scandinavia is almost exclusively dominated by Germanic Heathenry, in forms and groups reviving Norse paganism. These are generally split into two streams characterised by a different approach to folk and folklore: Ásatrú, a movement that been associated with the most innovative and Edda-based approaches within Heathenry, and Forn Siðr, Forn Sed or Nordisk Sed, a movement marked by being generally more traditionalist, ethnic-focused and folklore-rooted, characterised by a worldview which its proponents call folketro. Forn Siðr may also be a term for Scandinavian Heathenry in general. Vanatrú defines the religion of those individuals or groups in which the worship of the Vanir dominates.
European religion may refer to:
The Verein für germanisches Heidentum, abbreviated VfGH, is a Germanic neopagan organisation in Germany. It began in 1994 as the German chapter of the British Odinic Rite and was called the Odinic Rite Deutschland. It became independent in 2004 and changed its name in 2006. Though it has never had many members, it is nonetheless influential among German neopagans. Prominent people within the organisation have included Bernd Hicker, who was its first leader, and Fritz Steinbock, who has managed and influenced its religious practice.
Gothic paganism or Gothic polytheism was the original religion of the Goths before their conversion to Christianity.
Trees hold a particular role in Germanic paganism and Germanic mythology, both as individuals and in groups. The central role of trees in Germanic religion is noted in the earliest written reports about the Germanic peoples, with the Roman historian Tacitus stating that Germanic cult practices took place exclusively in groves rather than temples. Scholars consider that reverence for and rites performed at individual trees are derived from the mythological role of the world tree, Yggdrasil; onomastic and some historical evidence also connects individual deities to both groves and individual trees. After Christianisation, trees continue to play a significant role in the folk beliefs of the Germanic peoples.