Neopaganism in Contemporary Greece: Beliefs, Practices, and the Symbolic Struggle over Hellenicity/Greekness.

• Applicant: Dr. Efstathios Kessareas
• Subject Area: Religious Studies and Jewish Studies
• Term: since 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 544187013

The proposed research project has been designed to undertake a systematic examination of the Neopagan scene in contemporary Greece, a topic that still remains largely unexplored from a scholalry perspective. This diverse religious field is comprised of actors who perceive themselves as legitimate descendants of the ancient Greeks and aim to restore the Hellenic tradition and religion in modern Greece. The "Ethnic Hellenes", as they prefer to call themselves, have formed religious groups and organizations especially since the 1990s, promoting Hellenic polytheism and a related way of life as a key solution to the acute crises that not only Greece, but also the whole world faces today. In their view, these crises are the product of monotheistic religions, and especially of what they pejoratively call "Judeo-Christian heritage", which they categorically deny and discard. The project intends to explore the beliefs and ritual practices of these groups, their organizational structure, aesthetics, political preferences, and the educational and socio-economic characteristics of their adherents. More specifically, it aims to: i) examine the conflictual relations between these groups and the main producers of the dominant Orthodox culture and official ideology in Greece, namely the state, the Orthodox Church, as well as various academic disciplines (e.g., philology, linguistics, history, archaeology); ii) analyze the Neopagan strategies to improve their position in the religious field and in society in general (e.g., concerning a different conceptualization of national identity); iii) trace ideological influences, sources of inspiration (e.g., earlier Hellenocentric discourses, Eastern religions and the New Age Movement, European ideological and political currents) and organizational co-operations between Greek and international Neopagan groups; iv) explore the issue of “conversion” in the broader Neopagan scene, the procedure and criteria for membership, and the Neopagan relations with the media and the general public; and v) closely investigate the attitudes of Neopagans towards tradition and (post)modernity, and in so doing to explore how they attempt to overcome the tensions between the global and the local as well as the (post-)modern and the traditional, which have been greatly intensified due to globalization, resurgence of nationalist attitudes in times of crises, and rapid technological change. To achieve the above objectives with the aim of addressing this important research desideratum, the project will use interpretive content analysis as ist main method and semi-structured interviews, questionnaires and participant observation (fieldwork) as complementary methods. The results of the project will be made available to an academic as well as to non-academic audience through blogging, scholarly papers, newspaper articles, participation in conferences and the publication of a monograph.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants