When did the Hellenic faith die?

I think till 966 AD in mani(Peloponnese) existed a remaining minority of non Christians.


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The Hellenic stragglers re: 1000AD is a myth, yes. Kaldellis talks about this a bit in his new book, Romanland. What was happening the Mani was quite a bit more complicated than that.

It's hard to give an actual hard date. If it helps, the kind of religious practice we're familiar with from the late archaic and classical begins to break down very rapidly in the Hellenistic era. That's not to say it *dies* but it changes. By the early Roman era patterns of cultic worship have actually changed a great deal. Most scholars argue that this is due to both the weakening of the polis and the internal divisions (phratries etc) which sustained a lot of everyday religion. It's hard to over emphasise the importance of the Polis to Greek religion as we know it.

We then get a rise of mystery cults, individual charismatic gurus, philosophical and literary interpretation etc until Christianity comes.

Constantine VII Porphyrogenetos seems to indicate that Basil I Christianized at least some of the Maniots:

"They were idolaters and worshippers of images after the fashion of the ancient Hellenes; and they were baptized and became Christians in the reign of glorious Basil."

The great God Pan is dead

Aristotle and others dropped superstitious notions because of their studies and philosophical arguments. They never were superstitious as the Christians. Their most important stories were from Homer and they were about being good human beings, not exactly theology (the study of God). I do not believe their gods are supernatural beings. Perhaps in ancient times, some people did, but what they had was nothing like the Church of Rome and belief in supernational powers of good and evil. But the Athenians were much more secular than Christians and their gods lead them away from the kingdom order of the God of Abraham religions. Their doctors and philosophers such as Aristotle discouraged superstitious notions.

Each god and goddess is an archetype and we can be benefited by understanding them and doing incantations to benefit from them. The power is in our own minds. This may seem the same as praying Jesus for help, but it is fundamentally very different.

World Focker said:

The Hellenic stragglers re: 1000AD is a myth, yes. Kaldellis talks about this a bit in his new book, Romanland. What was happening the Mani was quite a bit more complicated than that.

It's hard to give an actual hard date. If it helps, the kind of religious practice we're familiar with from the late archaic and classical begins to break down very rapidly in the Hellenistic era. That's not to say it *dies* but it changes. By the early Roman era patterns of cultic worship have actually changed a great deal. Most scholars argue that this is due to both the weakening of the polis and the internal divisions (phratries etc) which sustained a lot of everyday religion. It's hard to over emphasise the importance of the Polis to Greek religion as we know it.

We then get a rise of mystery cults, individual charismatic gurus, philosophical and literary interpretation etc until Christianity comes.

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Spart never cared much about the gods. Athens changed its education when it began colonizing. As the US has done, it moved from education for individual growth, to a focus on technology, so it could send out people trained to replicate Athens bureaucratic order. That change in the purpose of education changed the culture and broke the cultural bonds of the former Athens.

Christopher The Great said:

Thank you for the responses.

So would it be safe to say that some parts of southern Greece still believed in the Pagan faith well into the 900's?

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Constantine VII singles out just one small town in Greece, Maina, as still practising hellenic paganism in the 9th century, and claims that these pagans were christianized by Basil I, so even in the previous century "some parts of southern Greece" would likely be a vast overstatement. There were probably some isolated communities of Slavic pagans in 10th century Greece (although I don't believe they're specifically mentioned by any of our sources), but that's a different issue. Here's the full account from De Administrando Imperio by the way:



Note that the "local inhabitants" (presumably of surrounding villages and towns) were already Christians, having singled the citizens of Maina out as "Hellenes" -- that is, pagans -- even despite the absence of direct imperial authority in the region through the 8th and most of the 7th century.

Christopher The Great said:

Thank you for the quote.

Any idea when that quote was made?

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De Administrando Imperio was written by Constantine VII himself around 940-50, but the relevant information to the thread concerns the late-9th century.

The last pagan temple was closed in 950 AD in Harran (Carrhae) , Upper Mesopotamia.

Mani Peninsula - Wikipedia these people actually claim descent from the Spartans. The article does mention when it was converted.

As in the Hellenic gods of Greek origin? I am not actually sure it was really a faith so much as a cultural system of superstition. People could effectively be anti-theistic but still respect the gods for reasons generally similar to Pascal's wager.

As for the greater Hellenic religious movement, that included the Greek mystery religions, philosopher cults and such: they never died. Christianity, especially mystic Christianity, is largely a Hellenic reconstruction of Judaism. Roman Catholicism has the Trinity as the basis for God which was gleaned from the philosophical recognition that it's a paradox for God to both be perfect and therefore unchangeable and also to be active in the universe. The idea of the "Word" comes directly from Pre-Platonic Greek Philosophy as a concept to describe the guiding principle of the universe; the Stoics and others personified this voice; and the Hellenistic Jews made it an element of God; while the Christians made the Word into flesh. Jesus is the "Word made Flesh" - and this isn't a Semitic idea, but a Greek one introduced via Hellenistic Judaism - which is the origin of Christianity: the Word, in Greek philosophy (called the Logos) is the creative nature. If we are looking at it like a metaphor for a virtual world: God the Father is the Design, his first begotten son is the Word which is the code behind the virtual world: you could say the Holy Spirit is like the engine.

I realize this is ancient history and not the Religious Forum, but I think this passage is of historical note because we know that it was first conceived of during the Roman Empire - and I am not examining it as a piece of philosophy (note I have translated "Word" to Logos just for consistencies sake. "Word" - with the capital W - is simply the English version of the Greek "Logos" in this context).

Heraclitus - "For though all things come to be in accordance with this Logos,"
The Stoics - conflated the Logos of creation/natural laws with virtue and the universal reason (logic) - unfortunately I don't have a quote.
Hellenistic Judaism: Philo of Alexadria - "The Logos of the living God is the bond of everything, holding all things together and binding all the parts, and prevents them from being dissolved and separated"
Christianity: Gospel of John 1:1 - "In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made."


We study "The Logos" in science too, not as a sacred entity, but as an inherent fact of the universe: BioLOGY, Physics, Chemistry, etc... It can be understood through materialism as well as religious. This isn't some new age concept either, this was a feature of the Islamic Golden age, and the Romans and Greeks too (albeit in more primitive and less organized methods than the Islamic GA, the Renaissance, Enlightenment, and beyond). Even as someone who is not at all religious, I can fully appreciate the beauty of how the Greeks and Hellenistic thinkers transformed philosophical thoughts into divine principles. I think that is really the legacy of Hellenism.

The main reason we look at the pagan side of things and decide Hellenism died, is because it differs from what has survived, or evolved from what survived. The only reason we see it as a dead faith is that we stuck a barrier on when evolutions of the Hellenistic thought became something different - even though it was always evolving - similar to the birds from the dinosaurs: which are really the same thing even though we understand them as things completely different.