Let me get one thing clear before I continue this blog.

I am a modern day Hellenic, which means I am a 21st century Hellenic. I live over 1500 years after the collapse and demise of the polytheistic Hellenic society. I live in a society that is very different and would in many respect be alien to even the Victorians or Qing Chinese or even the early 20th century American, let alone society from over two millenias ago. I live in a society that in many respect holds very different set of values and societal emphasis from any society that has come before it. I live in a society that is technologically, politically, socially and economically different from even society a century prior.

I live in a society where the emphasis is increasingly focused on the individual. I live in a society where gender equality is increasingly championed. I live in a world where the barrier of race and nation is slowly being removed. I live in an increasingly mobile and fluid society, where career, where you stay, your status in society is more determined by the individual and less by one birth or society. I live in a society where there are more choices than ever before but as a result less security than ever before. I live in a world where information in general flows more freely than ever before at any point in history.

And guess what, so is everyone who is reading this blog at the moment. You are all modern day Hellenics. To deny that will be to deny the society, the reality around you which is unHellenic.

As a modern Hellenic, my aim is not to reconstruct the every single detail and every single material of the ancient polytheistic Greek religion and reviving every single old temple and the resurrecting the societal structure that comes with it. Reconstructionism is not trying to create a time capsule or a historical amusement park. The conditions that allowed and in fact encouraged many tiny details of ancient practices relevant and functional at the time no longer exist in modern society. Also some conditions that existed in the ancient world are no longer desirable or productive to bring back in the modern world.

For example the practice of keeping an ever burning flame at home to represent Hestia is no longer practical let alone safe in the modern world. We no longer live in a society where there is someone at home all the time to tend and to watch the flames. Most of us live in nuclear families where both spouse work. We spend a lot of time outside our home then in our home. This is opposed to ancient society where it was the norm to have large extended families with grandmothers and wife staying at home nearly all the time and usually they were around the hearth where the fire is burning in the first place. If the fire should spread someone can easily put it out. Translate this to the modern context makes leaving an open, unattended flame in the house very dangerous and irresponsible business indeed. Certainly it is not something that most modern day Hellenics should advocate to be part of standard home practice to honor Hestia. This practice was suitable in ancient times or current societies in the world where the norm in any house is that of a large extended family with someone at home all the time. It is however clearly not suitable for any mobile and nuclear families.

My aim as a modern Hellenic is to bring back the spirit of the ancient Greek religion to the modern world. My aim is to adapt and bring into relevance the practice and belief of the ancient Greeks into today’s and tomorrow’s world. The ancient Greek religion was never stagnant and was always adapting to the local situations and times, something we as modern Hellenics seems to forget very easily given our very heavy emphasis on reconstructing Classical Greek religious practice. We forget that what the ancient Greek religion had was but one constant. The one constant is their belief that religion is about honoring the Gods and the Divine Beings through worship and through living a good, excellent and pious life. Everything else are subjected to change with the times but these remained constant.

My practice as a modern Hellenic is to also bring back the reasoned ethics and the guiding philosophies of the ancient Greeks and augment it with modern ethics, science and philosophy. The ancient Hellenic balanced emphasis on one’s role and duty towards society but also the individual’s personal development towards excellence ethically, mentally, emotionally, physically, scholastically and also in terms of career and family is needed more than ever in the modern world. In the modern world we have become focused too much on the individual and specifically on the individual’s career development that we neglect development in terms of ethics, emotional maturity, critical thinking, health etc..

I see Hellenism as a way to fill the yawning gap in spirituality in the modern world with the richness and diversity of the ancient Greeks. More and more in the modern context, spirituality is divorced from life in general. Spirituality is seen as something you do in church or during meditation and is tied up to the concept of religious practice. Spirituality is increasingly divorced from work, from family life, from even morality and ethics. In modern societies attempt to be secular, we conflate spirituality with religion and literally push spirituality to Sundays or religious holidays.

This view will be totally alien to the ancient Greeks who saw spirituality as part of every activity in life. The Greeks had no divide between spirituality and everything else in life. In fact the Greeks until late in the Hellenic period had no word for religion nor do they have our modern day concept of religion. Religious practice was only a small part of spirituality for the ancient; the rest of life was also spiritual. For the ancient Greeks, living and spirituality were one in the same. If there is one gift Hellenismos can bring to the modern world, this will be it. It is to live a spiritually filled life.

Let us go back to the issue of the ever burning flame. Let us remind ourselves why the ancient Greeks kept an ever burning flame. There were two reasons, one is that they wanted to honor Hestia who is the Goddess who presided over the hearth. The second is that to light a fire in ancient times was difficult and to keep an ever burning flame going is a practical solution to the difficulty of lighting a new flame every time you needed fire for some reason or the other.

In the modern world lighting a fire is no longer the chore it was to the ancients, so there goes one reason for keeping an ever burning flame.

So the only reason for us to keep an ever burning flame is to honor Hestia. It is indeed right for us to want to honor Hestia for she deserves so much honor.

However is miming an ancient practice in a vastly different modern situation the best way to honor Hestia? Is keeping a naked flame unattended in your apartment while you go away for work really honoring Hestia? What if your apartment burnt down? How will this affect other apartments in the areas? How will these affect the many families that stays in your block?

How is keeping a naked flame that poses a risk of destruction of not only your home but the home, property and family of other people honoring Hestia?

We honor the Gods by worshiping the Gods and also upholding and doing things that are sacred and cherished by them. Hestia is the Goddess of the Hearth and the Family. What is sacred to Hestia is one’s home, what is cherished by Hestia is the family. Hestia dwells within our home. She is the Goddess who watches over the family and activities within the home and the hearth. By default she is also the Goddess who watches over the inner activities of the city and society for every society is but an extension of the family.

We honor Hestia by praying to her daily. Unless you are doing a very personal devotion to a particular deity you should remember to make the first portion of any offering to Hestia for she receives the first of every offering. If you really want the flame, light the flames whenever you are at home but put it out before you leave the house or when you sleep.

But we also honor Hestia by how we treat our family and our home. To honor Hestia, first cherish your family. Spend more time with your family, honor your parents and cherish your spouse and love your children. Gather the family together for frequent meals at home so that the spirit of togetherness can be born. Be house proud, take care of your dwelling area. Keep your house tidy and liveable. If you own your own house, ensure that you do the basic upkeep and mantainence for the house for by doing that you cherish the hearth.

But Hestia is also the Goddess of Society for they are the extended family. Make sure you contribute to your local community. Be a good citizen. Cherish the society you live in.

In this way we can be truly said to honor Hestia. In this way we can be truly said to live a spiritual life, for we spend every minute, every breath of our life doing things that are sacred to the Gods.

In this way Hellenismos becomes a religion that has a role in the modern world instead of being stuck in the past. We adapt the spirit of the ancient Greeks and bring it into modernity.

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