You are indeed welcome here to the temple. It is a pleasure. Here we, the priests and priestess or "hieron" and "heirae" perform the daily services to the goddess as she watches over our small island and protects us all. But Seriphos has many temples and we worship all the gods that came forth.
Unlike the world that you are accustumed to, we Hellenics, as most of our neighboring nations, worship a family of gods. They are all about us, watching us and guiding us. Now-now, that is not to say that they interfere with our lives and manipulate us. They do visit from time to time, in a host of ways, yes, but they do not will us to do as they see fit. We are their children and they protect us as much as they can from they ills of the world. Devils you say? I am not sure what that word is. Oh evil beings. No they are not at all as you say, they are of love and joy, balance and harmony. We believe that the only evils in the world are what man creates themselves. Do you wish to know more about them and explore the ways they effect our lives? Very well then, click on the scroll below to learn all about them.
We Hellenes celebrate the gods in all their aspects in quite the same way you celebrate the one god you worship. We have holidays throughout the year. On these days no buisness is open. You may think that these are just reasons party-it-up. but you don't understand, that we don not recognize what you call "week-ends", so everyday that we can celebrate is a welcome one. Want to learn more about the Hellenic Calendar? click below.
The priesthood here at the temple is a rather demanding position and not just everyone may join. The position starts practically at birth, for ones parents must both be alive and one can not be adopted into a family. There are many years of training, prayers to learn, rituals to attend to and so-forth. Yet in the end the rewards are endless. The constant devotion and love of the gods are glorious. There are others here that reside in the temple as well. The oracle is the highest place. She is the living words of the gods. Noone may see her face though. Rather, your questions are given to the priests. They, in-turn, will see the oracle and hear the answers the visitor needs. The oracles often speak in riddles and foreign words. It is up to the priests to interpret the oracles words so that the visitor may understand the meaning. There are also keepers, heralds and such here in the temple as well. Together we all are the keepers of these divine shrines to the gods and try to keep everything in order as the gods wish them to be. More about the arts of divination can be learned at the Propylae.
Follow the bottem scrolls to lead you to more information aboout the gods. The First one will lead you to a family tree of the gods. The second scroll will lead you to the sacred stories that have been passed down to the other to us from the ancients. It is the story of creations and the stories of the gods in the early days of the Earth. It is dived into several pages. Each devoted to a specific time period.
For a more indepth look at our religeon follow the scrolls below.
