pagan

Examples of pagan in the following topics:

• Vladimir I and Christianization

  • Many of these practices were based on pagan and localized traditions.
  • He also remained a practicing pagan during these first years of his rule.
  • He returned to Kiev with his bride in 988 and proceeded to destroy all pagan temples and monuments.
  • Pagan uprisings continued throughout Kievan Rus' for at least another century.
  • Outline the shift from pagan culture to Orthodox Christianity under the rule of Vladimir I

• Islam Ascendant

  • Upon his arrival in Medina, Muhammad unified the tribes by drafting the Constitution of Medina, which was a formal agreement between Muhammad and all of the significant tribes and families of Medina, including Muslims, Jews, Christians, and pagans.
  • This response to persecution and effort to provide sustenance for Muslim families initiated armed conflict between the Muslims and the pagan Quraysh of Mecca.
  • Muhammad destroyed the pagan idols in the Kaaba and then sent his followers out to destroy all of the remaining pagan temples in Eastern Arabia.

• The Catholic Church

  • Christianity spread throughout the early Roman Empire despite persecutions due to conflicts with the pagan state religion.
  • The 496 conversion of Clovis I, pagan king of the Franks, saw the beginning of a steady rise of the Catholic faith in the West.
  • The Synod of Whitby of 664, though not as decisive as sometimes claimed, was an important moment in the reintegration of the Celtic Church of the British Isles into the Roman hierarchy, after having been effectively cut off from contact with Rome by the pagan invaders.
  • They were entirely pagan, having never been part of the Empire, and although they experienced Christian influence from the surrounding peoples, they were converted by the mission of Saint Augustine sent by Pope Gregory the Great.

• Arabian Cities

  • Some time in the 5th century, the Kaaba was a place to worship the deities of Arabia's pagan tribes.
  • Mecca's most important pagan deity was Hubal, whose idol had been placed there by the ruling Quraysh tribe and remained until the 7th century.
  • Up to the 7th century, this journey was undertaken by the pagan Arabs to pay homage to their shrine and drink from the Zamzam Well.
  • The Muslim converts native to Yathrib—whether pagan Arab or Jewish—were called Ansar ("the Patrons" or "the Helpers").
  • According to Ibn Ishaq, the local pagan Arab tribes, the Muslim Muhajirun from Mecca, the local Muslims (Ansar), and the Jews of the area signed an agreement, the Constitution of Medina, which committed all parties to mutual cooperation under the leadership of Muhammad.

• The Justinian Code

  • Many of the laws contained in the Codex were aimed at regulating religious practice, included numerous provisions served to secure the status of Christianity as the state religion of the empire, uniting Church and state, and making anyone who was not connected to the Christian church a non-citizen, as well as laws forbidding particular pagan practices, for example, that all persons present at a pagan sacrifice may be indicted as if for murder.

• The Shift East

  • Licinius, aided by Goth mercenaries, represented the past and the ancient Pagan faiths.
  • Licinius' defeat came to represent the defeat of a rival center of Pagan and Greek-speaking political activity in the East, as opposed to the Christian and Latin-speaking Rome, and it was proposed that a new Eastern capital should represent the integration of the East into the Roman Empire as a whole, as a center of learning, prosperity, and cultural preservation for the whole of the Eastern Roman Empire.

• The Anglo-Saxons

  • Although Christianity dominates the religious history of the Anglo-Saxons, life in the 5th and 6th centuries was dominated by "pagan" religious beliefs with a Scando-Germanic heritage.
  • Almost every poem from before the Norman Conquest, no matter how Christian its theme, is steeped in pagan symbolism, but the integration of pagan beliefs into the new faith goes beyond the literary sources.

• Justinian and Theodora

  • In 391 and 392 he issued a series of edicts essentially banning pagan religion.
  • Pagan festivals and sacrifices were banned, as was access to all pagan temples and places of worship.

• Flight from Mecca to Medina

  • The first group of pagan converts to Islam in Medina were the clans who had not produced great leaders for themselves but had suffered from warlike leaders from other clans.
  • This was followed by the general acceptance of Islam by the pagan population of Medina, with some exceptions.
  • Muslim historians suggest that the treaty mobilized the contact between the Meccan pagans and the Muslims of Medina.

• The Fourth Crusade

  • Crusades were fought for many reasons: to capture Jerusalem, recapture Christian territory, or defend Christians in non-Christian lands; as a means of conflict resolution among Roman Catholics; for political or territorial advantage; and to combat paganism and heresy.
  • In Northern Europe the Catholic church continued to battle peoples whom they considered pagans; Popes such as Celestine III, Innocent III, Honorius III, and Gregory IX preached crusade against the Livonians, Prussians, and Russians.
  • In the early 13th century, Albert of Riga established Riga as the seat of the Bishopric of Riga and formed the Livonian Brothers of the Sword to convert the pagans to Catholicism and protect German commerce.