The Ancient Greeks celebrated religion on a different level than is currently done. The Greeks practiced a civic religion that combined the city, its people, and religion together and insinuated itself into their everyday lives. This was through their system of polytheism, their orthopraxic rituals, democratically elected religious officials, the patron deities of their Polis, and the rites of passage that every citizen went through.
Civic religion in ancient Greece was the way that the ancient people practiced religion in their everyday lives. It combined their households with their communities, and their communities with their government or city-states. Crime towards the gods, impiety or Asebeia, was treated as crime towards the city and …show more content…
The orthopraxic—literally meaning “right practice”—were not necessarily religious; they only performed the rituals that they were prescribed so that the aforementioned miasma, or pollution, would not overcome the city-state. This is in opposition to many religions or sects that considered themselves orthodox or those practicing the “right belief.” Orthodoxy also, in contrast to orthopraxy, believed that certain beliefs had to be followed for the individual to be correctly practicing the religion, basically becoming a belief system based on doctrine. Orthopraxy was, as many Greeks practiced it, only done through the correct rituals and not necessarily through believing in certain histories and myths that were told about the deities. Many of the gods and goddesses that are seen throughout Greek history had different facets, and certain aspects of different deities got worshipped in different places. An example of this would be that Poseidon could be worshipped as his aspect as the god of the sea in a coastal town, whereas he might be worshipped as the god of horses, Poseidon Hippios, in a city where horse-raising was popular. Greek city-states did not necessarily have laws against this, but the only citizens that were most likely prohibited from practicing orthopraxiclly, or was the group most likely to worship the gods according to the myths were the priests and priestesses, which most had been elected for their religious role and had the highest chance of following the rules—or else they might suffer a curse from a
Civic religion in ancient Greece was the way that the ancient people practiced religion in their everyday lives. It combined their households with their communities, and their communities with their government or city-states. Crime towards the gods, impiety or Asebeia, was treated as crime towards the city and …show more content…
The orthopraxic—literally meaning “right practice”—were not necessarily religious; they only performed the rituals that they were prescribed so that the aforementioned miasma, or pollution, would not overcome the city-state. This is in opposition to many religions or sects that considered themselves orthodox or those practicing the “right belief.” Orthodoxy also, in contrast to orthopraxy, believed that certain beliefs had to be followed for the individual to be correctly practicing the religion, basically becoming a belief system based on doctrine. Orthopraxy was, as many Greeks practiced it, only done through the correct rituals and not necessarily through believing in certain histories and myths that were told about the deities. Many of the gods and goddesses that are seen throughout Greek history had different facets, and certain aspects of different deities got worshipped in different places. An example of this would be that Poseidon could be worshipped as his aspect as the god of the sea in a coastal town, whereas he might be worshipped as the god of horses, Poseidon Hippios, in a city where horse-raising was popular. Greek city-states did not necessarily have laws against this, but the only citizens that were most likely prohibited from practicing orthopraxiclly, or was the group most likely to worship the gods according to the myths were the priests and priestesses, which most had been elected for their religious role and had the highest chance of following the rules—or else they might suffer a curse from a