Paper short abstract:

This paper explores what role holy sites play for practioneers of contemporary Hellenic polytheism (Hellenismos). Emphasis will be on sites defined as part of Greece’s cultural heritage. I will compare what meaning are given to these sites by practioneers from North America and Europe.

Paper long abstract:

Holy sites are important in most religions, so also in contemporary paganism. Many places which are important for pagans, either as goals for pilgrimage or ritual sites, are also seen as cultural heritage sites by the governments who protects them. This has led to discussions, sometimes heated, about who should be allowed access to the sites. The stone circles of Great Britain, blotsteder connected to Åsatru in Norway, and the debate on who owns “the heart of Vilnius”, the Catholic Church or followers of Romuva, are only a few examples of this. This is also well known for followers of contemporary Hellenic polytheism, where the access and use of the Akropolis of Athens and other cultural heirtage sites for religious purposes is the subject of an ongoing debate.

This paper will explore the role of holy sites for practioneers of contemporary Hellenic polytheism based in North America who live too far away from the sites to have easy access to them. In what way does the distance to places affect the sites’ role and importance in the practioneers’ religious lives? What part does holy or important sites play in the worshipper’s religious life? Do sites even matter in the everyday worship? Are they engaged in the debates concerning access and use of important sites in Greece?

The paper will present analyses of statements from interviews and from websites discussion forums with the aim to better understand how practioneers of Hellenismos based in North America think about holy sites and what part sites play in daily worship, as well as in more unique experiences such as conversions.

Paper short abstract:

This paper argues that ‘landscape’, as a concept through which national belonging is articulated in cultural terms, is enriched by considering religious uses of the outdoors. It can thus act as a vehicle for developing dialogues about polyvalent religious signifiers in diverse societies.

Paper long abstract:

The focus of this paper is the way in which religious observations have the capacity to form, amplify, and contest culturally sedimented ‘meanings’ in landscapes. The concerns of the paper are therefore the sacralization of the landscape but with a broad understanding of both the ‘sacred’ and ‘religious’. Its approach is thus to treat as meaningful beliefs and practices that might best be understood through the framing of vernacular religion than more formal understandings of religious practice.

The paper will argue that it is important to acknowledge the heterogeneous uses of landscapes by diverse religious groups. It will focus on the vernacular religious practices that are given meaning in the Derbyshire Peak District, considering how different groups including ‘Muslim Hikers’, Aetherians, and local pagan groups add to the layers of religious meaning that provide layers of cultural sediment to the Peak District hills.

The importance of acknowledging these varied articulations of vernacular religion is crucial to counter groups that seek to narrow and limit the meaning of the sacred landscape. The overlapping stories of the groups above will be contrasted with attempts to claim an English sacred landscape by far right groups. Patriotic Alternative parading banners on hillfort summit of Mam Tor in Derbyshire by Patriotic Alternative on Indigenous Peoples' Day 2020 serves here as an example of how the landscape is continually at the centre of competing visions of religio-cultural meaning.

This paper will argue that a polyvocally religious landscape can counter racist, ethnonational attempts to delimit the spiritual boundaries of the landscape. The shared discourse of an enchanted, multistoried countryside offers the potential for not only a heterogeneous, multifaith retort to monovocal bigotry but also demonstrates how landscape might offer a means to explore faith-based approaches to wider environmental awareness in nominally secular societies.

Paper short abstract:

The paper utilizes the recent dispute over an architectural project on the site of the largest Celtic oppidum in Czechia, analysing relations between heritage and religion. It argues modern Pagans adjust authoritative heritage discourse by pointing out site’s sacred, wild, and religious dimension.

Paper long abstract:

Following Smith (2006) or Harrison (2012), heritage is an active process of assembling objects, discourses, places, and practices to make sense of the past and future in the present. Religious discourses significantly influence such processes as they peculiarly interpret the past. Modern Paganism revives and reconstructs the pre-Christian European religions. Modern Pagans re-explain the past, e.g., by considering Celtic, Slavic, or, for instance, megalithic culture sites sacred and claim them Pagan.

Scholars investigated religious constructions of the past, landscapes, and various sites (Gunzburg and Brady 2021). Also, scholars explored how prehistorical places provide feelings of ontological security and relaxation (Nolan 2020). However, little scholarship examined the impact and influence of modern Paganism and its usage of heritage processes.

In this paper, I utilise an ongoing architectural project concerning the largest Celtic oppidum “Závist,” near the Czech capital Prague to make sense of the relations between modern Paganism and heritage. The local municipality planned to build a lookout tower and a concrete pad on the hill’s top and change the site’s face. The plan caused a heated dispute and initiated a petition as locals, experts, and representatives of the modern Pagan community questioned the project. Their call was successful and forced the municipality to reconsider the site’s renovation. Both modern Pagans and locals argue that oppidum Závist is a heritage site, the capital’s last piece of wilderness, highlighting its sacred dimension, and refuse the architectural plan.

In this paper, I argue that modern Pagans challenge and adjust authorized heritage discourse by linking religious discourses (imaginations of the Pagan past) with the sacredness of nature and tensions between notions of urban and wild. Thus, the paper offers a new perspective on addressing relations between heritage processes and the utilisation of religious representation of the past on the example of modern Paganism.

Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the process of “heritagization” – whereby places, practices and objects become categorized as heritage – as it plays out at the intersection of law and religion in the European domain.

Paper long abstract:

This paper explores the process of “heritagization” – whereby places, practices and objects become categorized as heritage – as it plays out at the intersection of law and religion in the European domain. The paper examines which forms of religion become subject to heritagization, and therefore eligible for legal support, and which forms fall outside the scope of such protection. The paper critically interrogates the preference for material remains, the built environment and canonized religious expressions within the dominant heritage discourses at different levels of governance. Comparing the international, European and Nordic legal framework and case law relating to cultural heritage, the paper discusses the future of religious heritage legislation and the capacity of legal regulation and jurisprudence to accommodate other, less canonized and less “recognizable” forms of religious life.

Paper short abstract:

The presence of Jews in Iran has always had its ups and downs. Jews in Iran are recognized minorities that are scattered throughout the country. This study investigates the relationship between urban spaces and religious heritage , especially synagogues in Tehran, the capital of Iran.

Paper long abstract:

The presence of Jews in Iran has always had its ups and downs. Naturally, political and social changes have influenced their way of life and the interaction of religious minorities in the urban context and neighborhoods of Tehran. Politics rules society. The architecture of religious buildings of religious minorities, on the one hand, influences the urban context and, on the other hand, is influenced by the socio-political conditions and structures that govern society. Cities are places for religious presentations and celebrations that form part of urban consumer cultures and contribute to constructing urban identities and city images. Jews in Iran are recognized minorities that are scattered throughout the country. This study investigates the relationship between urban spaces and religious heritage , especially synagogues in Tehran, the capital of Iran.

Paper short abstract:

Applying a decolonial lens to expressions of Islamic maximalism in Europe: A short analysis focusing historical and contemporary examples from the discursive struggles of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hizb ut-Tahrir and Tablighi Jama`at.

Paper long abstract:

In my doctoral project “Discourse, Islam, and Decoloniality” I analyze the work of three maximalist Islamic movements; the Muslim Brotherhood, Hizb ut-Tahrir, and Tablighi Jama`at, from a decolonial perspective. My research focuses on what we can potentially learn about Islamic maximalism if we analyze it as an expression of decolonial thought. In this regard, the continued racialization of Muslims in global discourses today is highly relevant. In this presentation I will hence discuss, firstly, the effects of European imperial and missionary discourses leading up to the Second World War and how Muslims were, in effect, written out of their own history with regards, to, in particular, events in East Asia. Secondly, I will elaborate on how this fact has an effect still today by examining expressions of calling for Muslim unity in the discourses of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hizb ut-Tahrir and Tablighi Jama`at. All three movements are active in Europe, but their attempts to bring forward the relevance of their cultural heritages in a European context have met with very different responses.

Paper long abstract:

The establishment of the White Horse Temple (Baima si 白马寺) in Henan Province by Emperor Ming (58-75 AD) marked the introduction of Buddhism into China (Yang & Wang, 2014). According to tradition, it is the first Buddhist temple in China, established in 68 AD. The main temple buildings, were reconstructed during the Ming and Qing dynasties, refurbished in the 1950s, and again in 1973 after the Cultural Revolution. A few more additions and renovations were completed in the past decade, and uniquely, the complex now includes temples designed and dedicated to Buddhist traditions of other countries beyond Chinese Buddhist traditions; namely: Myanmar, Thailand, and India. These architectonic, stylistic and cultural expressions raise several questions including: Why would the first Chinese Buddhist temple stress foreign Buddhist traditions? What stands behind the choice of these particular countries?

Since the early 2000s, the CCP has increasingly used various cultural heritage sites, including Buddhist ones, as soft power agents. Furthermore, In the context of the "One Belt, One Road" (Yidaiyilu一带一路) initiative launched by President Xi in 2013, Buddhist temples, representatives, and practices have been harnessed to play a part in the PRC's agendas. In this context, the White Horse Temple, as part of cultural tourism in Henan, is facing new opportunities and challenges (Lin & Wei, 2022).

Beyond the explicit and implicit political message inscribed in the developments in the temple, the paper turns to deal with further concerns, namely, what happens to religious space now that it has, for the past three decades, been used, redesigned, and renovated under the strong influence of diplomatic and political motives? What can be said about how the cultural heritage of the temple is preserved? How do these developments affect local Chinese Buddhist visitors to the temple?

The paper looks into the material particularities of the reconstruction of the oldest Chinese Buddhist temple in light of the trajectory described above, based on field notes from 2018, as well as online ethnographic data from the Chinese social media app Little Red Book (Xiaohongshu 小红书). I argue that the temple's unique spatiality and characteristics stress a double cultural message. The first is that the temple, as ancient Buddhist heritage, ties the Buddhist tradition with the Chinese nation, and history. This message is part of a broader endeavor for the Sinicization of Buddhism (Fojiao zhongguohua jincheng佛教中国化进程). The second is that Buddhism is a collective Asian tradition, shared among the PRC's potential allies and therefore a fruitful cultural common ground for economic and political collaboration.