Level Participation In Greek Religion

In Ancient Greece, gender and social status effected the level participation in Greek religion. Depending on gender and a number of details affecting social status meant for different levels on involvement with religious activities such as rituals, festivals, competitions, etc. This essay will describe how these two elements would affect a person’s participation in Greek religion, specifically for sacrifices, festivals, priests and sanctuaries, and lastly, cults. By looking at these elements of Greek religion and comparing the roles and levels of participation to different genders and their social status, it can be shown what religious life was like for different types of people.
Almost all types of rituals, both public and private, were accessible …show more content…
A person of any gender could become a priest. The priest restrictions were generally to men only being able to be priests for male gods and women being priests for female gods, with a few exceptions such as the Pythia being a female oracle for Apollo. As for social status, potential priests had to be Greek, freeborn, and free from blood-guilt and physical defects. Thus, murderers and the citizens with defects were unworthy to serve the gods, being a minority group of people unable to become the otherwise accessible role of a priest to a sanctuary. In most cases, the election of priests was done by chance by drawing lots, meaning that no one was given special treatment over the other, regardless of social status, and was instead left up to the gods. Being a priest came with its own social benefits, including prestige and privileges based on the importance of sanctuary. For example, the priest would often receive the skin of the sacrificed animal which they could either keep or sell . Sanctuaries were open to all and notably, foreigners could and did visit oracles such as the Pythia at Delphi. Croesus, king of Lydia, visited the Pythia to ask if he should attack Persia which she replied that if he did, he would destroy a great empire, which later turned out to be his own . Regardless of any other factor, someone who had murdered another was prohibited from entering sanctuaries. This was due to …show more content…
There were Dionysian cults that were for women only. The women were called Maenads, meaning mad women . They were away from male observation and thus had no male interference. Due to this, little is known about these cults asides from plays and art depictions which are likely exaggerated . For example, in the Bacchae, the Maenads act ecstatically, wearing animal skins, dancing in a frenzy, chanting, and eating raw flesh . Though ecstatic worship is an attribute of Dionysus, the consumption of raw meat is likely false, with male writers regulating these women to be wild without male supervision . The Eleusian Mysteries cult was open to all people, even slaves so long as the people who were to be initiated had no blood guilt and could speak Greek. Thus, this cult had no restriction on gender or social status. However, like the Dionysian cults, there is not a great deal known about them and thus difficult to determine what level of role individuals had within the