OUR SPIRITUAL ROOTS NEVER DRYED: THEY'RE ALIVE

Procession to Ceres

It isn't really true that Europe became Christian 1000 years ago. That is generally true as a broad statement but there have been pagans since then:

-1385 in Lithuania, Jogaila agreed to adopt Christianity, the last country in Europe to officially convert. Nobles converted but paganism still practiced in Lithuania covertly until at least 1600’s.

-Gemistus Pletho c. 1355/1360 – c. 1453 was a pagan Platonist who believed Byzantium should be Hellenic again. In 1431 Pletho was so respected for his wisdom and morality that he was chosen to accompany John VIII Byzantine emperor to the Council of Florence to discuss a union of the Orthodox and Catholic churches.

-1484 in Sweden - in a trial a thief named Ragvald Odinskarl confessed that he had served Odin for seven years.

-1492 in Sweden Erick Clauesson confessed to worshipping Odin.

-1598 in England, a German lawyer Paul Hentzner witnessed a harvest festival in Windsor where he says the people carried an idol of the goddess Ceres in a wagon. 

-1632 in Småland, Sweden court records describe how a man was advised to call out for Odin at a crossroads on a Thursday night in order to acquire wealth.

-1693 in Sweden Petter Rudebeck describes how many people in Småland believe Odin gives them wealth if they invite him as a guest on a Thursday night.

-1776 in England, topographer William Hutchinson described how people in Northumberland decorate an idol of Ceres with a crown of flowers and grain and carry it to the fields while playing music.

-19th century Swedes are reported to still have dragged an idol called the “corn god” around fields to bless crops. Montelius provides similar earlier evidence of Thor worship in 17th century Sweden.

-Thomas Taylor (1758 – 1835) was a pagan Platonist from England who translated many of the ancient works of platonists and is said to have led pagan rites and processions in rural England.