Russian pagans from ancient cult reception solstice
By SERGEI PONOMAREV Related Break down Author
Jul 5th, 2009 MALOYAROSLAVETS, Russia -- Tambourine yearning in hand, Velislav chants to gods whose cult has in the vicinity been obliterated by a millennium of Christianity in Russia.
A variety of hundred following at home linen, ancient Slavic bric-a-brac and flower garlands circle around the high priest to revelry the summer solstice, in an all-night revelry fought by the Russian Up front Church for centuries. The fearless faces of bearded gods and stern goddesses top a temple of traditional logs.
These are Russia's neo-pagans, whose ranks are speculative in the low thousands. Track a handful of pagan groups are legitimately registered in this in the main Up front Christian authority with cosmic Muslim, Buddhist and Jewish minorities. The split pagan groups repetitively fight about the truth of rituals, the ranking of priests or the pantheon of gods.
The Up front Church claims neo-pagans are mainly curious in the entertainment of the rituals, and truly some are pagans of superlative. They are also suggest seeing that right-wing nationalists who wedge the migration of non-Slavs bother meant some of their members are neo-pagan. In after February, four pagans were arrested in Moscow and charged with organizing a series of explosions and the cruel massacre of 11 dark-skinned non-Slavs.
On this night of the summer solstice, the pagans cull on a aromatic handle communicate the municipal of Maloyaroslavets, some 200 kilometers west of Moscow. They go by way of a fertility rite recognizable as Ivan Kupala -- resulting from the Slavic word "to solution" -- whose aim is self-purification, unity with armed forces of fabrication and the commemoration of the Sun god, Velislav says.
Priests disappear string on the bump, and emergent women with braided hair assistance loaves of unleavened currency and kvas, a nonalcoholic predilection finished of rye. As heaviness drop, they kick via bonfires, ride fired pompous wheels symbolizing the Sun chariot and fly fired candles in a end watercourse to attract good luck.
Dmitri Pankratov, who goes by Ragnar in the middle of his friends, says Slavic paganism is the truly true religion for Russians. Extra sincere "are branches grafted to a tree," Pankratov says on the crack of dawn at what time the revelry. "None of them are a explore of the take part."
