Thread: what religion was believed before orthodox christianism?

I only used heathen because it is what all of my reconstructionalist friends use to label themselves..... not due to any meanings...

I don't know what a reconstructionalist is, but I also use the word heathen to describe myself. I didn't always. I previously just said "I'm not religious". I think it is becoming more common now for people to use the word heathen freely. Many who I know of, famous people, use the term self-speculatively. Many Scandinavians do. I think because those countries are where Christianity has ruled for the most time, and heathenism had been outcast throughout that history. That's my theory, not fact.
One example who share my experience of of this reference, are a musical group called 'The Heathens'(Hedningarna). They have no anti-chrsitian sentiments. In fact they have a whole album made based around their experieces in Karelia, Russia, where the inhabitants they resided with were Lutherans. The basic idea is "I guess I'm a heathen, because nature is my religion". The same with the artist Bj

A reconstructionalist is someone who is trying to reconstruct any old tradition and practices it, as their actual spiritual path...SO, recons practice the old religions, as closely as possible to what they know of the original....most people in the recon 'movement' label themselves as "heathen" and will actually take offense at being called "pagan"....


--plastic

Originally Posted by TATY

There was one called Dazhbog or something, who was borrowed from Iranian.
It was all part of Vladimir I's Pagan Pantheon. Vladimir I was the one who converted Rus' to Orthodoxy in about 955 AD if my memory serves me.
I recently wrote an essay about this.

Well you're off by 33 years, it was 988 AD.

I must its interesting how this topic drifted into stuff that had absolutely nothing to do with Russian paganism/heathenism.

Sadly only one poster even mentioned the supreme war god Perun. Anyways, this website offer some introductionary information about the Gods and Goddesses. http://members.aol.com/hpsofsnert/Gods.html

Although in truth, scholars admit we dont know that much about what the pagans believed. As Richard Fletcher makes clear in his boom The Barbarian Conversion: From Paganism to Christianity, we know little about what the pagans converted from. [/i]