Lviv, Ukraine. (they were also never fully Islamised, unlike most other Turkic peoples). The Chuvash are not simply Finns Tatarized in language, but show evidence in face form, nose form, and in the scarcity of true blondism, that the Turkish influence did bring some Mongolic traits. Their religion shows many similarities with Finnic and Slavic Paganisms; moreover, the revival of "Vattisen Yaly" in recent decades has occurred following Neopagan patterns.
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"Over the past 30 years a body of liturgy has developed, detailing how the [Manifesto] principles can be practised by interested members through establishing a relationship between self and deity. Members are encouraged to express this spiritual relationship by enacting rituals, prayers and meditations, as detailed in the liturgy. This liturgy is drawn from the ritual structures of contemporary paganisms, Goddess spirituality and diverse archaeological scholarship into religious experience in the ancient world."Melton, Gordon J., and Partridge, Christopher, New Religions: A Guide: New Religious Movements, Sects and Alternative Spiritualities.
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Many more were persecuted.Country Studies: Russia-The Russian Orthodox Church U.S. Library of Congress, Accessed 3 April 2008 After the collapse of the Soviet Union there has been a renewal of religions in Russia, and among Slavs various movements have emerged besides Christianity, including Rodnovery (Slavic Native Faith), Assianism, and other ethnic Paganisms, Roerichism, Ringing Cedars' Anastasianism, Hinduism, Siberian shamanism or Tengrism, and other religions. As of a different sociological surveys on religious adherence, from 41% to over 80% of the total population of Russia adhere to the Russian Orthodox Church.Olga Filina (Ogonek Magazine).
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Berger, H.A., Ezzy, D., (2007), Teenage Witches, Rutgers University Press, pp=24-25 Ezzy argues that practitioner's worldviews have been neglected in many sociological and anthropological studies and that this is because of "a culturally narrow understanding of science that devalues magical beliefs".Blain, J., Ezzy, D., Harvey, G., (2004), Researching Paganisms, AltaMira Press, page120 Mauss argues that the powers of both specialist and common magicians are determined by culturally accepted standards of the sources and the breadth of magic: a magician cannot simply invent or claim new magic. In practice, the magician is only as powerful as his peers believe him to be. Throughout recorded history, magicians have often faced scepticism regarding their purported powers and abilities.
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There is greater focus on ethnicity within the Pagan movements in continental Europe than within the Pagan movements in North America and the British Isles. Such ethnic Paganisms have variously been seen as responses to concerns about foreign colonizing ideologies, globalization, cosmopolitanism, and anxieties about cultural erosion. Although they acknowledged that it was "a highly simplified model", Aitamurto and Simpson wrote that there was "some truth" to the claim that leftist-oriented forms of Paganism were prevalent in North America and the British Isles while rightist- oriented forms of Paganism were prevalent in Central and Eastern Europe. They noted that in these latter regions, Pagan groups placed an emphasis on "the centrality of the nation, the ethnic group, or the tribe".
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In discussing Asatro - a form of Heathenry based in Denmark - Matthew Amster notes that it did not fit clearly within such a framework, because while seeking a reconstructionist form of historical accuracy, Asatro nevertheless strongly eschewed the emphasis on ethnicity that is common to other reconstructionist groups. While Wicca is identified as an eclectic form of Paganism, Strmiska also notes that some Wiccans have moved in a more reconstructionist direction by focusing on a particular ethnic and cultural link, thus developing such variants as Norse Wicca and Celtic Wicca. Concern has also been expressed regarding the utility of the term "reconstructionism" when dealing with Paganisms in Central and Eastern Europe, because in many of the languages of these regions, equivalents of the term "reconstructionism" - such as the Czech Historická rekonstrukce and Lithuanian Istorinė rekonstrukcija - are already used to define the secular hobby of historical re-enactment.
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Some practitioners regard "ethnic religion" as a term synonymous with "Native Faith", but others perceive there as being a distinction between the two terms. Laruelle has emphasised that Rodnovery "cannot necessarily be defined as a religion in the strict sense"; some adherents prefer to define it as a "spirituality" (dukhovnost), "wisdom" (mudrost), or a "philosophy" or "worldview" (mirovozzrenie). According to Shnirelman, it was the Soviet Union's official scientific atheism, which severely weakened the infrastructure of universalist religions, combined with anti-Westernism and the research of intellectuals into an ancient "Vedic" religion of Russia, that paved the way for the rise of Rodnovery and other modern Paganisms in Eastern Europe. After the Soviet Union, the pursuit of Rodnovery matured into the spiritual cultivation of organic folk communities (ethnoi) in the face of what Rodnovers consider as the alien cosmopolitan forces which drive global assimilation (what they call "mono-ideologies"), chiefly represented by the Abrahamic religions.
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