A volkhv or volhv ( Cyrillic: Волхв; Polish: Wołchw, translatable as wiseman, wizard, sorcerer, magus, i.e.

shaman Shamanism is a religious practice that involves a practitioner (shaman) interacting with what they believe to be a spirit world through altered states of consciousness, such as trance. The goal of this is usually to direct spirits or spir ...

gothi Gothi or (plural , fem. ; Old Norse: ) was a position of political and social prominence in the Icelandic Commonwealth. The term originally had a religious significance, referring to a pagan leader responsible for a religious structure and c ...

mage Mage most commonly refers to: * Mage (paranormal) or magician, a practitioner of magic derived from supernatural or occult sources * Mage (fantasy) or magician, a type of character in mythology, folklore, and fiction *Mage, a character class in s ...

) is a priest in ancient Slavic religions and contemporary

Slavic Native Faith The Slavic Native Faith, commonly known as Rodnovery * bg, Родноверие, translit=Rоdnoverie * bs, Rodnovjerje * mk, Родноверие, translit=Rodnoverie * cz, Rodnověří * hr, Rodnovjerje * pl, Rodzimowierstwo; Rodzima ...

(Rodnovery).

In modern Slavic priesthood

In contemporary Slavic Native Faith, the volkhvs are those responsible for holding rites for worshipping the gods and leading communities and religious festivals. Volkhvs are the higher rank of the

sacerdotal Sacerdotalism (from Latin ''sacerdos'', priest, literally one who presents sacred offerings, ''sacer'', sacred, and ''dare'', to give) is the belief in some Christian churches that priests are meant to be mediators between God and humankind. The und ...

hierarchy, the lesser order being that of the ''

zhrets A zhrets is a priest in the Slavic religion whose name literally means "one who makes sacrifices". The name appears mainly in the East and South Slavic vocabulary, while in the West Slavs it is attested only in Polish. Most information about the ...

''. The latter are not necessarily shamans, and their function is merely to hold sacrifices (the word ''zhrets'' literally means "sacrificer", from

Proto-Slavic Proto-Slavic (abbreviated PSl., PS.; also called Common Slavic or Common Slavonic) is the unattested, reconstructed proto-language of all Slavic languages. It represents Slavic speech approximately from the 2nd millennium B.C. through the 6th ...

*''žьrti'', and is cognate of Slavic words for "offering"). Though the majority of priests are males, most groups do not exclude women from the priesthood, so that a parallel female priesthood is constituted by the two ranks of ''zhritsa'' and ''vedunya'' ("seeresses"). Prestige is not limited to male priests; a priestess, Halyna Lozko from Ukraine, is an acknowledged authority within the religious movement. In 2012, three Russian Rodnover organisations, the Union of Slavic Rodnover Communities, the Circle of the Pagan Tradition and the Circle of Veles, signed an "Agreement on Mutual Recognition of Priests", instituting a common priesthood and the criteria for the ordination of those wishing to become Slavic priests.

Among the olden Rus'

Volkhvs are attested among the early

Rus' people The Rusʹ (Old East Slavic: Рѹсь; Belarusian, Russian, Rusyn, and Ukrainian: Русь; Old Norse: '' Garðar''; Greek: Ῥῶς, ''Rhos'') were a people in early medieval eastern Europe. The scholarly consensus holds that they were or ...

. Volkhvs were believed to possess mystical powers, particularly the ability to predict the future. The first literary reference to a volkhv occurs in the Primary Chronicle under the year 912; there, the priest-soothsayer predicts Prince Oleg's death. With the adoption of Christianity, the pagan priests came under persecution and sometimes tried to channel social discontent against the Christian church. The name of the divination book "

Volkhovnik ''Volkhovnik'' (from orv, волхвъ, 'sorcerer, shaman, magus') was an Old Russian book of divinatory nature which included collections of signs and their interpretations. Structure Modern researchers characterize ''Volkhovnik'' as a colle ...

" comes from the term "''volkhv''".

Artwork

File:Приход Глеба Святославича Новгородского к волхву.jpg,

Gleb Svyatoslavich Gleb Svyatoslavich ( 1052 – 30 May 1078) was Prince of Tmutarakan and Novgorod of Kievan Rus'. He ruled Tmutarakan under the overall authority of his father Sviatoslav Iaroslavich, Prince of Chernigov. He was twice expelled from his princ ...

kills the volkhv. Novgorod, 1071. ''

Radziwiłł Chronicle The Radziwiłł Letopis, also known as the Königsberg Chronicle'','' is an Old East Slavic illuminated manuscripts from the 15th-century; it is believed to be a copy of a 13th-century original. Its name is derived from the royal Radziwiłł fa ...

''. File:Vedun by Dušan Božić.jpg, Modern artistic vision of volkhv by Serbian artist Dušan Božić. File:Wołchw by Aleksander Karcz.jpg, Modern artistic vision of volkhv by Polish artist Aleksander Karcz. File:Volkhv by Andrey Shishkin.jpg, Modern artistic vision of volkhv by Russian artist

Andrey Shishkin Andrey Alekseyevich Shishkin (russian: Андрей Алексеевич Шишкин; born 1960) is a Russian painter. His works are one of the most prominent examples of the modern Russian "pagan art" scene related to Slavic Native Faith in Russ ...

References

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