Athens —
A group of women come out from behind a banner placed in front of a small cave, dressed in white ceremonial robes. Men and women of varying ages are standing in a semi-circle while the women lead a small procession around the stone altar. One woman places a small statue of Athena, the ancient Greek goddess of wisdom, at the back of the altar as frankincense burns.
The scene feels like something out of Ancient Greece, but it’s not. This is a small but dedicated community of people in Athens who still worship the likes of Athena, Zeus, Dionysus and Poseidon — not as metaphor or purely out of cultural heritage, but as a genuine religious practice in 21st-century Greece.
Today’s occasion is Plynteria, an ancient Athenian purification festival marking the ritual cleaning of Athena’s sacred statue. And the group is Labrys, a modern Hellenistic or Greek Polytheism group that supports communal events and encourages home worship to honor the ancient gods we know best from classic works of art like “The Odyssey.”
Christopher Nolan’s forthcoming summer blockbuster of Homer’s epic poem is yet another retelling of the classic myth, armed with an all-star cast from Matt Damon’s Odysseus to Zendaya’s Athena.
