Crypto-Paganism
Crypto-paganism is the secret adherence to paganism while publicly professing to be of another faith. In historical context, a crypto-pagan (from the Greek ''kryptos'' – , "hidden") was most likely to maintain the pretense of believing an Abrahamic religion, while continuing to observe their own religious practices in private. Hiding one's true religious faith may be in response to a perceived danger of rejection by society, or else to formalized persecution by an established government or religious organization. In antiquity and the early Byzantine Empire Anthemius, one of the last Roman emperors of the West who ruled from 467 to 472, surrounded himself with prominent pagans such as Messius Phoebus Severus and was believed to hold pagan views. According to Damascius, Severus and Anthemius had a secret plan to restore the Pagan cults. The murder of Anthemius (by Ricimer) destroyed the hopes of those pagans who believed that the traditional rites would be restored. Anatolius ( ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Anatolius (Osroene)
Anatolius ( el, Ανατόλιος, died c. 579/580) was a Byzantine official, active in the reign of Tiberius II Constantine (r. 574–582). He was a ''topoteretes'' (deputy) of the praetorian prefecture of the East and ''praeses'' (provincial governor) of Osroene. He was accused of being a crypto-pagan and consequently executed.Martindale, Jones & Morris (1992), pp. 72–73 Sources Primary sources about him include Evagrius Scholasticus, and John of Ephesus. There are mentions of him in the works of Michael the Syrian and Nikephoros Kallistos Xanthopoulos. Biography Anatolius was apparently a man of humble origins. He eventually rose to high office, gaining in political significance. Evagrius Scholasticus reports: "Anatolius, who was originally one of the vulgar and an artisan, but had subsequently, by some means or other, obtained admission into public offices and other posts of importance."Evagrius Scholasticus (1846), Book 5, Chapter 18 (XVIII) He lived for some time in An ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Crypto-Christianity
Crypto-Christianity is the secret practice of Christianity, usually while attempting to camouflage it as another faith or observing the rituals of another religion publicly. In places and time periods where Christians were persecuted or Christianity was outlawed, instances of crypto-Christianity have surfaced. History Various time periods and places have seen large crypto-Christian groups and underground movements. This was usually the reaction to either threats of violence or legal action. Roman Empire Secrecy is a motif which is found in the New Testament, particularly in Mark's Gospel. According to the Gospels, Jesus was concealing his mission or his messianic identity until a certain time, and he ordered his disciples to do the same, for e.g. in Mark 9:9, after the Transfiguration "''Jesus gave them orders not to tell anyone what they had seen''". This motif has been called "the messianic secret" and it has been interpreted in different ways. According to one interpretation, ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Acindynus (Carrhae)
Acindynus was a Byzantine governor of Carrhae (Harran), active in the reign of Emperor Maurice (r. 582–602). He was accused of being a pagan and was executed. The main sources about him are Syriac chronicles, in particular the ''Chronicle'' of Michael the Syrian and the Chronicle of 1234.. The source of both accounts was the lost chronicle of Dionysius Telmaharensis.. Biography Acindynus was reportedly a governor of Carrhae (Harran) in Osroene. The term used, "hegemon", typically implies a civil governor, but the civil governors of Osroene were usually stationed at Edessa. Acindynus was probably a military commander stationed in the secondary city. The Syriac accounts agree that Emperor Maurice himself authorized Stephen, Bishop of Harran, to persecute the pagans of his area. During the persecution, the accused were given a choice between a forced conversion to Christianity and death. Acindynus was known to be a Christian, but his scribe/secretary Iyarios (elsewhere called Hon ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Paganism
Paganism (from classical Latin ''pāgānus'' "rural", "rustic", later "civilian") is a term first used in the fourth century by early Christians for people in the Roman Empire who practiced polytheism, or ethnic religions other than Judaism. In the time of the Roman empire, individuals fell into the pagan class either because they were increasingly rural and provincial relative to the Christian population, or because they were not '' milites Christi'' (soldiers of Christ).J. J. O'Donnell (1977)''Paganus'': Evolution and Use ''Classical Folia'', 31: 163–69. Alternative terms used in Christian texts were '' hellene'', '' gentile'', and ''heathen''. Ritual sacrifice was an integral part of ancient Graeco-Roman religion and was regarded as an indication of whether a person was pagan or Christian. Paganism has broadly connoted the " religion of the peasantry". During and after the Middle Ages, the term ''paganism'' was applied to any non-Christian religion, and the term presum ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Ecumenical Patriarch Of Constantinople
The ecumenical patriarch ( el, Οἰκουμενικός Πατριάρχης, translit=Oikoumenikós Patriárchēs) is the archbishop of Constantinople ( Istanbul), New Rome and ''primus inter pares'' (first among equals) among the heads of the several autocephalous churches which compose the Eastern Orthodox Church. The ecumenical patriarch is regarded as the representative and spiritual leader of many Orthodox Christians worldwide. The term ''ecumenical'' in the title is a historical reference to the Ecumene, a Greek designation for the civilised world, i.e. the Roman Empire, and it stems from Canon 28 of the Council of Chalcedon. The Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople is one of the most enduring institutions in the world and has had a prominent part in world history. The ecumenical patriarchs in ancient times helped in the spread of Christianity and the resolution of various doctrinal disputes. In the Middle Ages they played a major role in the affairs of the Ea ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Chinese Rites Controversy
The Chinese Rites controversy () was a dispute among Roman Catholic missionaries over the religiosity of Confucianism and Chinese rituals during the 17th and 18th centuries. The debate discussed whether Chinese ritual practices of honoring family ancestors and other formal Confucian and Chinese imperial rites qualified as religious rites and were thus incompatible with Catholic belief. The Jesuits argued that these Chinese rites were secular rituals that were compatible with Christianity, within certain limits, and should thus be tolerated. The Dominicans and Franciscans, however, disagreed and reported the issue to Rome. Rome's Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith sided with the Dominicans in 1645 by condemning the Chinese rites based on their brief. However, the same congregation sided with the Jesuits in 1656, thereby lifting the ban. It was one of the many disputes between the Jesuits and the Dominicans in China and elsewhere in Asia, including Japan ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Backsliding
Backsliding, also known as falling away or described as "committing apostasy", is a term used within Evangelical Christianity to describe a process by which an individual who has converted to Christianity reverts to pre- conversion habits and/or lapses or falls into sin, when a person turns from God to pursue their own desire. To revert to sin or wrongdoing, especially in religious practice, someone lapses into previous undesirable patterns of behavior. To be faithful, thus to believe backsliding is a reversion, in principle upholds the Apostle Paul’s condition in salvation: "If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." Romans 10:9 (TNIV). In Christianity, within the Roman Catholic Church as well as those denominations which teach Arminianism such as the Methodist Churches, backsliding is a state which any free-willed believer is capable of adopting. This belief is rejected by Calvini ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Gerald Gardner
Gerald Brosseau Gardner (13 June 1884 – 12 February 1964), also known by the craft name Scire, was an English Wiccan, as well as an author and an amateur anthropologist and archaeologist. He was instrumental in bringing the Contemporary Pagan religion of Wicca to public attention, writing some of its definitive religious texts and founding the tradition of Gardnerian Wicca. Born into an upper-middle-class family in Blundellsands, Lancashire, Gardner spent much of his childhood abroad in Madeira. In 1900, he moved to colonial Ceylon, and then in 1911 to Malaya, where he worked as a civil servant, independently developing an interest in the native peoples and writing papers and a book about their magical practices. After his retirement in 1936, he travelled to Cyprus, penning the novel ''A Goddess Arrives'' before returning to England. Settling down near the New Forest, he joined an occult group, the Rosicrucian Order Crotona Fellowship, through which he said he had enc ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Wicca
Wicca () is a modern Pagan religion. Scholars of religion categorise it as both a new religious movement and as part of the occultist stream of Western esotericism. It was developed in England during the first half of the 20th century and was introduced to the public in 1954 by Gerald Gardner, a retired British civil servant. Wicca draws upon a diverse set of ancient pagan and 20th-century hermetic motifs for its theological structure and ritual practices. Wicca has no central authority figure. Its traditional core beliefs, principles, and practices were originally outlined in the 1940s and 1950s by Gardner and an early High Priestess, Doreen Valiente. The early practices were disseminated through published books and in secret written and oral teachings passed along to their initiates. There are many variations on the core structure, and the religion grows and evolves over time. It is divided into a number of diverse lineages, sects and denominations, referred to as ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Closeted
''Closeted'' and ''in the closet'' are metaphors for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender and other ( LGBTQ+) people who have not disclosed their sexual orientation or gender identity and aspects thereof, including sexual identity and human sexual behavior, sexual behavior. This metaphor is associated and sometimes combined with coming out, the act of revealing one's sexuality or gender to others, to create the phrase "coming out of the closet". Etymology Nondisclosure of one's sexual orientation or gender identity preceded the use of 'closet' as a term for the act. For example, surgeon James Barry was only discovered to be born female post-mortem, which may allow him to be defined as a closeted transgender man. Similarly, the writer Thomas Mann entered a heterosexual marriage with a woman, but discussed his attraction to men in his private diary, which by contemporary terms would have designated him a closeted homosexual man. D. Travers Scott claims that the phrase 'c ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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LGBT
' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity. The LGBT term is an adaptation of the initialism ', which began to replace the term ''gay'' (or ''gay and lesbian'') in reference to the broader LGBT community beginning in the mid-to-late 1980s. When not inclusive of transgender people, the shorter term LGB is still used instead of LGBT. It may refer to anyone who is non-heterosexual or non-cisgender, instead of exclusively to people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender. To recognize this inclusion, a popular variant, ', adds the letter ''Q'' for those who identify as queer or are questioning their sexual or gender identity. The initialisms ''LGBT'' or ''GLBT'' are not agreed to by everyone that they are supposed to include. History of the term The first widely used term, '' homosexu ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Modern Paganism
Modern paganism, also known as contemporary paganism and neopaganism, is a term for a religion or family of religions influenced by the various historical pre-Christian beliefs of pre-modern peoples in Europe and adjacent areas of North Africa and the Near East. Although they share similarities, contemporary pagan movements are diverse, and do not share a single set of beliefs, practices, or texts. Scholars of religion may characterise these traditions as new religious movements. Some academics who study the phenomenon treat it as a movement that is divided into different religions while others characterize it as a single religion of which different pagan faiths are denominations. Because of these different approaches there is disagreement on when or if the term ''pagan'' should be capitalized, though specialists in the field of pagan studies tend towards capitalisation. Prominent modern pagan religions include Wicca, Druidry, Heathenry, Rodnovery, and the Goddess m ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |