Excellence #2: Zeus-Worshipping Greeks

This photo depicts a Greek priestess worshiping Zeus and Hera at a temple built nearly 2000 years ago. Apparently it's a holiday in the Ancient Greek religious calendar: the celebration of Zeus and Hera's wedding. If you weren't aware of that, don't beat yourself up for your ignorance--this is the first time Greek rites have been celebrated there since the ancient religion was banned in the fourth century. CNN has more.

Apparently, until last year the Ancient Greek religion was banned in Greece, of all places (someone please explain that to me). Then last February Ellinais, a group of Greek pagans, won a court case they had brought to get the ban overturned so they could come out of the closet about their religious practice. (More on that here.) And a few months later, Greek law made another nod towards religious tolerance: the Greek Orthodox Church, which used to have the legal authority to prevent other religious groups from building places of worship (!), was stripped of that authority. (I bet the planning meetings for building non-Orthodox places of worship used to be pretty short: "Can we build a synagogue?" No. "Mosque?" No. "Catholic church?" No. "Ancient Greek temple?" No way, and if you ask again I'm calling the police on your pagan ass.)

Any evidence that the world is getting weirder and more pluralistic, that organized religion is losing its grip on political power, and that weirdos are coming out of the closet... baby, anything like that is a breath of fresh air to me. Yay Greek pagans!

*Edited to add this link to a Guardian article on the virulent reaction of the Orthodox church.* Interesting quote from one Pagan: "The Christians hated pagans so much that from the fourth century to the ninth century they destroyed their temples and libraries, killed their priests, closed their philosophical schools and, in one case, set up a death camp. It was genocide but priests don't want to talk about that today." Instead, he says, the Orthodox church insisted that Christianity had been spread, and accepted, peacefully.