Our Cambridge Dictionary defines the word “pagan” as
… a person who belongs to a religion that worships many gods, especially one that existed before the main world religions:
We checked the meaning of “pagan” after reading an article in The Critic headed
The return of the strong gods?
It’s the first time a European nation has enshrined a special place for a pagan religion
The article recalled that in the fifth century AD, as the last of Rome’s old patrician families fought a losing battle for the continuance of pagan rites in the face of the rise of Christianity, they claimed that abandoning the old rites endangered the safety of the state.
Roman religion had always been a communal and civic affair; Rome’s state religion was a pan-imperial supernatural insurance policy — or even a supernatural protection racket: end the sacrifices, and face the consequences.
A millennium later – on 14 February 1387 – Grand Duke Jogaila of Lithuania and a group of Catholic priests extinguished the perpetual fire and closed the temple of the thunder god in Vilnius.
State paganism in Europe was over — until, that is, 9 October 2025.
On that day, Latvia’s parliament passed a law which represents the first time a European nation has enshrined a special place for a pagan religion in the state.
The Dievturi Community Law is similar to laws that have been passed in several different countries extending legal recognition to neopagan groups. This usually includes the right to register their places of worship, operate as charities, and receive state recognition for marriages solemnised according to their rites.
But Latvia’s Dievturi Community Law goes further: it praises Dievturība (Latvia’s form of revived paganism) and commends it to the Latvian people:
“Dievturība, as a traditional religion in Latvia, and the Sadraudze [community] representing it have maintained a longstanding tradition in Latvia; it is faithful to spiritual and moral values, nurtures the Latvian language and traditions, and preserves the nation’s spiritual heritage.”
In neighbouring Estonia paganism is reportedly the second most popular religious affiliation
Dievturība (literally “keepers of Dievs”, the Latvian supreme sky-god) is Europe’s oldest continuously existing neopagan movement.
The Critic article associates it with nationalism:
It was the brainchild of Ernests Brastinş̌ and Kārlis Marovskis-Bregžis who, in 1925, decided that Christianity was an unsuitable religion for the new Republic of Latvia, which had secured its independence from Russia in 1918.
This was not altogether surprising; Latvian nationalists had long been troubled by Christianity, which was imposed on Latvia by crusaders in the Middle Ages who then ruled Livonia as a German-speaking noble class for the next seven centuries. Christian conversion was thus equated with national erasure.
Dievturība became associated with the ultra-nationalist “Thunder Cross” movement founded by Gustavs Celmiņš in 1933, which collaborated with the Nazis in perpetrating the Latvian Holocaust. For this reason, and because “native faith” movements were associated with nationalism, followers of Dievturība were persecuted during the Soviet occupation of Latvia.
The movement re-emerged from the shadows in the late 1980s and then flourished in post-independence Latvia. In 2015 Latvia elected its first openly pagan President, Raimonds Vējonis.
Dievturis claim to be following the ancient pagan religion of the Balts, which was preserved in Latvia’s traditional mythological songs, (known as the Dainas) collected in the 19th century. In reality, Latvia’s original pagan religion had faded away by the late 18th century, and Dievturība is an attempt to reconstruct a religion we know little about.
Ernests Brastinş̌ was a former Lutheran, and modelled the sacred text of Dievturība on Martin Luther’s catechism. The focus of Dievturība is a religious mysticism derived from interpretation of the Dainas, accompanied by ritualised song and dance — in contrast to the animal sacrifice practised by pre-Christian Latvians.
Whereas neighbouring Catholic Lithuania proved exceedingly reluctant to accord any official status to its neopagan Romuva movement (acting only in 2024 under pressure from the European Court of Human Rights), Latvia’s new law endorses Dievturība and its claim of continuity with Latvia’s ancient past — going as far as the Latvian constitution (which forbids any establishment of religion) will permit.
The article notes that all of the Baltic states face a dire demographic situation, with plummeting birth-rates. It suggests the appeal of native religions may be a reaction to fears of the marginalisation of indigenous culture
In this country, you will invite accusations of racism if you challenge the indigenous people’s spiritual beliefs which are being incorporated in the rituals of local bodies, schools and other government organisations,
Former Kaipara Mayor Craig Jepson was vilified when he banned the use of karakia to open and close council meetings.
Meng Foon, New Zealand’s race relations commissioner at the time, condemned the decision which Jepson made when Kaipara’s first ever Māori ward councillor, Pera Paniora, tried to open a meeting with a karakia.
As Spinoff reported:
Jepson’s reasoning was that he believed council meetings should be “secular, multicultural and respect everyone“.
But it’s pretty obvious that banning a tenet of te ao Māori, with no equivalent ban of any te ao Pākehā practices, does not respect tangata whenua and promotes monoculturalism.
“If he is banning karakia in Māori and allowing others to say prayers or sayings, that is racist,” Meng Foon told RNZ. Cancelling karakia ended a 25-year-old Council tradition and an ancient tangata whenua practise for… one week.
In a subsequent Spinoff article, Airana Ngarewa distinguished karakia from other prayers by linking it with the concept of tapu.
With comments from the likes of Kaipara mayor Craig Jepson popping in and out of the headlines, it seems it is time for a healthy history lesson on the relationship between tapu and karakia and why they play such a central role in how Māori see and navigate the world, and why Māori maintain they are appropriate everywhere – especially council meetings in Aotearoa.
He proceeded to explain:.
At its simplest level, a thing is tapu in te ao Māori if it shares a special connection with the atua, the traditional Māori gods. To some these gods are real and to others they are expressions of the natural world around us.
Human beings are tapu because our tupuna believed we were shaped from the soil of Papatūānuku. Parts of the natural world are tapu because they are domains of the atua, the ngāhere being the domain of Tāne and the oceans being the domain of Tangaroa. Urupā are tapu because they house the tūpāpaku of our loved ones who have passed on and are under the protection of Hine-nui-te-pō.
Tapu was taken very seriously by the old people. There are many kōrero tuku iho that recount occasions where tapu was transgressed and the consequences that took place afterwards. While sometimes deadly, other times the consequences were more instructive.
Ngarewa gave the example of a chief travelling into the forest to find a tall tree to fell.
The chief, Rata, desired to shape the trunk of a tree into a waka. After felling the tree, he returned home satisfied. However, when he returned the next day to the spot where he left the trunk behind, he could not find it. Upon closer investigation, it seemed the felled tree had put itself back together.
Determined, Rata fell the tree again, stripped it of its branches and hollowed it out, working until the sun had set. Early morning the next day he returned and found the tree had put itself back together again. And so a final time, Rata fell the tree, stripped it of its branches and hollowed it out. This time though, he only feigned leaving, hiding to see how the tree would rebuild itself. To his surprise, he saw a group of insects, birds and the spirits of the forest (the children of Tāne) putting the tree back together one chip and shaving at a time.
Rata rushed from his hiding place and seized as many as he could in his hands, questioning why they had undone his work. Their reply was simple, “Who gave you permission fell this god of ours?” As shame overcame Rata, the children of Tāne instructed him to return to his village so that now he had learned his lesson they may build him the waka he needed.
Rata’s mistake was simple. He had transgressed against the tapu of the forest, of Tāne Mahuta, by felling one of his trees without performing the proper karakia first. This is the heart of the relationship between tapu and karakia. This is the heart of why Māori maintain they are important and necessary inside and outside council chambers on this whenua. Karakia are about respect and acknowledging the mana inherent in all things. This includes our fellow man, forests, lakes, streams, mountains, the sky above and the earth below.
In the context of beginning or closing meetings,
… karakia are often about acknowledging the tapu of everyone who has gathered together, the tapu of the kaupapa and creating a sense of collective action, a goal all local government should strive towards.
But whoa.
Several trees have been cut down in a forest near to where I live in recent years.
There is no evidence the children of Tane have expressed their disapproval.
As for public meetings fomenting collective action, we need think only for a moment about what happens overseas. Meetings are held and collective action is intiated, but without karakia.
On the other hand, we can think of the troubles of councils in this country which have made karakia an essential part of their proceedings.
Wellington, for example.
In November last year, local government practitioner Lindsay McKenzie was appointed as a Crown Observer because – Local Government Minister Simeon Brown said – Wellington City Council was facing significant challenges in delivering services to its community, while balancing its debt and insurance obligations,
The Minister decided a Crown Observer was necessary to better enable the council to address its problems and allow him to monitor their progress in doing so.
Bob Edlin is a veteran journalist and editor for the Point of Order blog HERE. - where this article was sourced.
The article recalled that in the fifth century AD, as the last of Rome’s old patrician families fought a losing battle for the continuance of pagan rites in the face of the rise of Christianity, they claimed that abandoning the old rites endangered the safety of the state.
Roman religion had always been a communal and civic affair; Rome’s state religion was a pan-imperial supernatural insurance policy — or even a supernatural protection racket: end the sacrifices, and face the consequences.
A millennium later – on 14 February 1387 – Grand Duke Jogaila of Lithuania and a group of Catholic priests extinguished the perpetual fire and closed the temple of the thunder god in Vilnius.
State paganism in Europe was over — until, that is, 9 October 2025.
On that day, Latvia’s parliament passed a law which represents the first time a European nation has enshrined a special place for a pagan religion in the state.
The Dievturi Community Law is similar to laws that have been passed in several different countries extending legal recognition to neopagan groups. This usually includes the right to register their places of worship, operate as charities, and receive state recognition for marriages solemnised according to their rites.
But Latvia’s Dievturi Community Law goes further: it praises Dievturība (Latvia’s form of revived paganism) and commends it to the Latvian people:
“Dievturība, as a traditional religion in Latvia, and the Sadraudze [community] representing it have maintained a longstanding tradition in Latvia; it is faithful to spiritual and moral values, nurtures the Latvian language and traditions, and preserves the nation’s spiritual heritage.”
In neighbouring Estonia paganism is reportedly the second most popular religious affiliation
Dievturība (literally “keepers of Dievs”, the Latvian supreme sky-god) is Europe’s oldest continuously existing neopagan movement.
The Critic article associates it with nationalism:
It was the brainchild of Ernests Brastinş̌ and Kārlis Marovskis-Bregžis who, in 1925, decided that Christianity was an unsuitable religion for the new Republic of Latvia, which had secured its independence from Russia in 1918.
This was not altogether surprising; Latvian nationalists had long been troubled by Christianity, which was imposed on Latvia by crusaders in the Middle Ages who then ruled Livonia as a German-speaking noble class for the next seven centuries. Christian conversion was thus equated with national erasure.
Dievturība became associated with the ultra-nationalist “Thunder Cross” movement founded by Gustavs Celmiņš in 1933, which collaborated with the Nazis in perpetrating the Latvian Holocaust. For this reason, and because “native faith” movements were associated with nationalism, followers of Dievturība were persecuted during the Soviet occupation of Latvia.
The movement re-emerged from the shadows in the late 1980s and then flourished in post-independence Latvia. In 2015 Latvia elected its first openly pagan President, Raimonds Vējonis.
Dievturis claim to be following the ancient pagan religion of the Balts, which was preserved in Latvia’s traditional mythological songs, (known as the Dainas) collected in the 19th century. In reality, Latvia’s original pagan religion had faded away by the late 18th century, and Dievturība is an attempt to reconstruct a religion we know little about.
Ernests Brastinş̌ was a former Lutheran, and modelled the sacred text of Dievturība on Martin Luther’s catechism. The focus of Dievturība is a religious mysticism derived from interpretation of the Dainas, accompanied by ritualised song and dance — in contrast to the animal sacrifice practised by pre-Christian Latvians.
Whereas neighbouring Catholic Lithuania proved exceedingly reluctant to accord any official status to its neopagan Romuva movement (acting only in 2024 under pressure from the European Court of Human Rights), Latvia’s new law endorses Dievturība and its claim of continuity with Latvia’s ancient past — going as far as the Latvian constitution (which forbids any establishment of religion) will permit.
The article notes that all of the Baltic states face a dire demographic situation, with plummeting birth-rates. It suggests the appeal of native religions may be a reaction to fears of the marginalisation of indigenous culture
In this country, you will invite accusations of racism if you challenge the indigenous people’s spiritual beliefs which are being incorporated in the rituals of local bodies, schools and other government organisations,
Former Kaipara Mayor Craig Jepson was vilified when he banned the use of karakia to open and close council meetings.
Meng Foon, New Zealand’s race relations commissioner at the time, condemned the decision which Jepson made when Kaipara’s first ever Māori ward councillor, Pera Paniora, tried to open a meeting with a karakia.
As Spinoff reported:
Jepson’s reasoning was that he believed council meetings should be “secular, multicultural and respect everyone“.
But it’s pretty obvious that banning a tenet of te ao Māori, with no equivalent ban of any te ao Pākehā practices, does not respect tangata whenua and promotes monoculturalism.
“If he is banning karakia in Māori and allowing others to say prayers or sayings, that is racist,” Meng Foon told RNZ. Cancelling karakia ended a 25-year-old Council tradition and an ancient tangata whenua practise for… one week.
In a subsequent Spinoff article, Airana Ngarewa distinguished karakia from other prayers by linking it with the concept of tapu.
With comments from the likes of Kaipara mayor Craig Jepson popping in and out of the headlines, it seems it is time for a healthy history lesson on the relationship between tapu and karakia and why they play such a central role in how Māori see and navigate the world, and why Māori maintain they are appropriate everywhere – especially council meetings in Aotearoa.
He proceeded to explain:.
At its simplest level, a thing is tapu in te ao Māori if it shares a special connection with the atua, the traditional Māori gods. To some these gods are real and to others they are expressions of the natural world around us.
Human beings are tapu because our tupuna believed we were shaped from the soil of Papatūānuku. Parts of the natural world are tapu because they are domains of the atua, the ngāhere being the domain of Tāne and the oceans being the domain of Tangaroa. Urupā are tapu because they house the tūpāpaku of our loved ones who have passed on and are under the protection of Hine-nui-te-pō.
Tapu was taken very seriously by the old people. There are many kōrero tuku iho that recount occasions where tapu was transgressed and the consequences that took place afterwards. While sometimes deadly, other times the consequences were more instructive.
Ngarewa gave the example of a chief travelling into the forest to find a tall tree to fell.
The chief, Rata, desired to shape the trunk of a tree into a waka. After felling the tree, he returned home satisfied. However, when he returned the next day to the spot where he left the trunk behind, he could not find it. Upon closer investigation, it seemed the felled tree had put itself back together.
Determined, Rata fell the tree again, stripped it of its branches and hollowed it out, working until the sun had set. Early morning the next day he returned and found the tree had put itself back together again. And so a final time, Rata fell the tree, stripped it of its branches and hollowed it out. This time though, he only feigned leaving, hiding to see how the tree would rebuild itself. To his surprise, he saw a group of insects, birds and the spirits of the forest (the children of Tāne) putting the tree back together one chip and shaving at a time.
Rata rushed from his hiding place and seized as many as he could in his hands, questioning why they had undone his work. Their reply was simple, “Who gave you permission fell this god of ours?” As shame overcame Rata, the children of Tāne instructed him to return to his village so that now he had learned his lesson they may build him the waka he needed.
Rata’s mistake was simple. He had transgressed against the tapu of the forest, of Tāne Mahuta, by felling one of his trees without performing the proper karakia first. This is the heart of the relationship between tapu and karakia. This is the heart of why Māori maintain they are important and necessary inside and outside council chambers on this whenua. Karakia are about respect and acknowledging the mana inherent in all things. This includes our fellow man, forests, lakes, streams, mountains, the sky above and the earth below.
In the context of beginning or closing meetings,
… karakia are often about acknowledging the tapu of everyone who has gathered together, the tapu of the kaupapa and creating a sense of collective action, a goal all local government should strive towards.
But whoa.
Several trees have been cut down in a forest near to where I live in recent years.
There is no evidence the children of Tane have expressed their disapproval.
As for public meetings fomenting collective action, we need think only for a moment about what happens overseas. Meetings are held and collective action is intiated, but without karakia.
On the other hand, we can think of the troubles of councils in this country which have made karakia an essential part of their proceedings.
Wellington, for example.
In November last year, local government practitioner Lindsay McKenzie was appointed as a Crown Observer because – Local Government Minister Simeon Brown said – Wellington City Council was facing significant challenges in delivering services to its community, while balancing its debt and insurance obligations,
The Minister decided a Crown Observer was necessary to better enable the council to address its problems and allow him to monitor their progress in doing so.
Bob Edlin is a veteran journalist and editor for the Point of Order blog HERE. - where this article was sourced.
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