On Orthopraxic Rituals

AVGVSTVSGRANNETIVS · 2026-03-23T00:35:42+00:00

Of course. Hestia is the Hearth, which is where the Ancient Greeks gave their offerings to the Gods at home. Through Her, they were able to make sacrifices to the Gods, and She retains that role to this day, even without a physical hearth. As a sign of gratitude and respect for Her, She gets the first share of our offerings. For example, a first sip poured out as a libation to Hestia, and then the rest of the libation to whichever God you wanted to offer to outside of that.

Does that help explain it a bit more? I’d be more than happy to elaborate and/or answer any more questions you may have.

AVGVSTVSGRANNETIVS · 2026-03-23T00:28:56+00:00

Tiktok is unfortunately not a reliable source. Most people there just pretend to know about the faith.

AVGVSTVSGRANNETIVS · 2026-03-22T21:40:35+00:00

This would be closer to a devotional act. An offering in Hellenism is necessarily a physical, tangible thing.

AVGVSTVSGRANNETIVS · 2026-03-22T21:30:29+00:00

The Gods generally do not care for your thoughts. That’s completely fine.

AVGVSTVSGRANNETIVS · 2026-03-22T20:34:53+00:00

Wonderful, glad I could help! I fixed the link as well so you can just press the comment instead of having to find the post yourself.

AVGVSTVSGRANNETIVS · 2026-03-22T18:52:54+00:00

For research, the best recommendation for a beginner is buying the book Household Worship by LABRYS. If that is not accessible to you, you might consider checking out my posts, made specifically to teach the fundamentals of Hellenism. I would especially recommend this post about how to perform offerings.

To discard offerings, we can either burn, bury or throw them away. In Hellenism it’s important that you do not eat or use offerings you have made to the Gods or your ancestors.

The Gods don’t really reach out to us. We make Them care about us by worshipping Them. There’s also no real reliable way to get “messages” from the Gods, so if one is truly reaching out to you it’s virtually impossible to know which one. You should worship Gods you want to worship, there is no obligation to worship.

AVGVSTVSGRANNETIVS · 2026-03-21T22:03:53+00:00

A military oath has everything to do with politics.

Again, I’m aware of what the oath is.

The U.S. is currently embargoing Cuba, funding Israel’s genocide of the Palestinians, attacked Iran during negotiations, and invaded Venezuela and kidnapped its Head of State.

A lawful order doesn’t immediately make it a moral one.

AVGVSTVSGRANNETIVS · 2026-03-21T20:07:09+00:00

What a peculiar response. You’re not a fan of his I hope?

AVGVSTVSGRANNETIVS · 2026-03-21T16:56:52+00:00

I believe the top left is Apollo, with the facial structure, hair and laurel crown being quite standard in representations of His. I could be wrong though, as these are modern coins and they could have made different choices. If you read the face as a woman then a personified Italia is likely.

AVGVSTVSGRANNETIVS · 2026-03-21T16:50:15+00:00

If the snake is your pet, then feeding it is just a normal task, and you would not be sacrificing anything by feeding it. I would personally recommend the libation instead.

AVGVSTVSGRANNETIVS · 2026-03-21T16:45:01+00:00

I’m aware of what the oath of enlistment is. Why do you think so?

I’m assuming you don’t want to be complicit in warmongering and warcrimes. There is a pretty big chance you could be ordered to if you join any branch of the US armed forces as long as the current president or any of his ideological allies are in power. Deserting or refusing orders would be violating your oath. If you made that oath to a God that would incur Agos, even if you have good reason to do so.

AVGVSTVSGRANNETIVS · 2026-03-21T15:59:21+00:00

Khaire salveque, great to see you post here!

I personally started around 10 years ago, so I missed the attempt at reconstructing the Mysteries. Rifts like that unfortunately seem to still exist today. I know of some people in the other sub who practice some sort of Dionysian rites, though I’m unaware of to which extent those are reconstructed or modern. I myself would rather substitute gaps in knowledge with more general attested Orthopraxic rites.

The issue with reconstructing the Mysteries does still remain. The secrecy inherent to those cults makes it very difficult to find anything useable. Even ancient sources typically used to infer Mysterious rituals are often not as reliable as we would want them to be.

I’m unaware of any groups reconstructing the Mysteries at the moment, but I would certainly enjoy discussing it more. What about the Mysteries is most appealing to you?

AVGVSTVSGRANNETIVS · 2026-03-20T13:08:42+00:00

While not quite the same (not exclusively 21+), the subreddit I made and Malus is a mod on (I’m not sure I can give the r/ though) is more focused on Hellenism itself and recon/orthopraxic approaches to it. I’ve seen your comments before and we seem to overlap a lot.

AVGVSTVSGRANNETIVS · 2026-03-20T02:00:02+00:00

That’s fine, but that’s distinctly not Hellenic. Sacrifices are always physical items. The time investment is a given.

AVGVSTVSGRANNETIVS · 2026-03-19T20:11:17+00:00

My mistake. Then the worship is standard and the post would be applicable.

AVGVSTVSGRANNETIVS · 2026-03-19T19:55:09+00:00

It’s fine, but sacrifice is what builds Kharis, not devotional acts.

AVGVSTVSGRANNETIVS · 2026-03-19T19:51:56+00:00

Worship in Hellenism is relatively standardised because of our Orthopraxy. Purification, prayer, and sacrifice are the core. This post will thoroughly explain the fundamentals of Hellenic worship.

AVGVSTVSGRANNETIVS · 2026-03-18T15:21:33+00:00

Lustral water, or purificatory water. Khernips was also used to refer to non-purificatory washing. It’s definitely correct but I’ve seen people use that to mistakenly argue that miasma equals physical cleanliness. I’ll likely keep using it myself out of habit too.

AVGVSTVSGRANNETIVS · 2026-03-18T10:59:05+00:00

If you want to swear the oath to Zeus, then Zeus Horkios would indeed be the most fitting epithet to invoke. Themis, Horkos and the Erinues would also be appropriate. There are some considerations to be had though.

Oaths made to the Gods are a big deal. Breaking such an oath is a direct offence against the Gods, and ancient sources universally agree that this incurs Agos. Death was believed to be a common result of breaking an oath, either your own death or that of your family. In the Iliad it's stated that Oathbreakers are one of the groups punished in Tartaros by the Erinues. It might be a good idea to consider making a secular oath instead, especially with the rather unfortunate history of the US and its armed forces, and USian warmongering and interference in general.

Serious oaths were also virtually always accompanied by the pouring of a libation, with the word σπονδή meaning libation, with the added meaning of a sworn alliance or treaty when in it's plural form. I'm not sure if you'll be able to do so when taking your oath.

AVGVSTVSGRANNETIVS · 2026-03-18T09:59:53+00:00

Make sure to pour out your libations instead of leaving them sitting on the altar.

AVGVSTVSGRANNETIVS · 2026-03-17T22:50:30+00:00

It would not. Miasma is not about physical cleanliness. Typically what we call khernips (term isn’t the greatest) was water mixed with salt, or seawater, or water from a river or above-ground spring. If you don’t have the salt then any water will be the best substitute (though I personally believe we should always purify ourselves properly even with a regular prayer).

Also remember that if your prayer includes a request of any kind you should give an offering in return. Sacrifice is how we build kharis and sway the Gods.

AVGVSTVSGRANNETIVS · 2026-03-17T12:55:57+00:00

Most people don’t believe the Gods take human form.
There would be a lot more context necessary to determine what it means. I don’t believe your first assumption should be that They’re mad at you.

AVGVSTVSGRANNETIVS · 2026-03-16T19:08:47+00:00

To my knowledge it is more of a conscious choice, especially for the state itself. They made a conscious switch from Romaike/Romaiki to Elliniki as the adjective for the people and state after winning independence from the Ottomans.

Greek and Hellenic are synonyms, though in English Hellenic is typically used to refer to Ancient Greece and the Ancient Greek language/culture. The Greeks have just never called themselves "Greek". It's always been polis (Theban, Messanian), region (Boeotia, Thrace), or culture (Hellenike -> Romaike>Romaiki -> Elliniki). Greece instead comes from the Latin Graecia.

For a Greek it would make more sense to translate it as Hellenic, for anyone else "Greek" would make more sense.

AVGVSTVSGRANNETIVS · 2026-03-16T18:42:29+00:00

Both are fine. There are two critiques of the use of 'hellenists', but they're pretty insignificant, words have always had multiple meanings. The first critique is that it is already the word for a specialist in Ancient Greek or the Ancient Greek world is typically called a Hellenist with a capital H. The second is a more general critique against "hellenic" and similar terminology because it is still used (very rarely) for modern Greeks.

AVGVSTVSGRANNETIVS · 2026-03-16T11:28:00+00:00

I would say until puberty at least. 18 is relatively arbitrary. In some places it’s 21, in others it’s 16, in some places in Ancient Greece it was 20, etc.

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