Some regard it as an ultimate truth, or as the fount of all things which lies beyond the " three realms " ( Sanskrit: tridhatu ) and the " wheel of becoming " ( Sanskrit: bhavacakra ), somewhat like the pagan Greek and Christian logos: this is known as Dharmakaya ( Sanskrit ).

In the pagan wheel of the year, November begins at or near Samhain in the Northern Hemisphere and Beltaine in the Southern Hemisphere.

In the pagan wheel of the year the spring equinox is the time of Ostara and the autumn equinox is that of Mabon.

The town is first mentioned in 742 under the name of " Erphesfurt ": in that year, Saint Boniface writes Pope Zachary to tell him that he had established three dioceses in Thuringia, one of which " in a place called Erphesfurt, which for a long time has been inhabited by pagan natives.

May Day falls exactly half a year from November 1, another cross-quarter day which is also associated with various northern European pagan and the year in the Northern hemisphere, and it has traditionally been an occasion for popular and often raucous celebrations.

Mellitus returned to England the following year, after Æthelberht's successor had been converted to Christianity, but he was unable to return to London, whose inhabitants remained pagan.

In 1925, the Czech esotericist Franz Sättler founded a pagan religion known as Adonism, devoted to the ancient Greek god Adonis, whom Sättler equated with the Christian Satan, and which purported that the end of the world would come in the year 2000.

This is an ancient British midwinter celebration that occurs every year in Padstow and was originally part of the pagan heritage of midwinter celebrations that were regularly celebrated all over Cornwall where people would guise dance and disguise themselves by blackening up their faces or wearing masks.

In the year 97 ( with Timothy dying at age 80 ), Timothy tried to halt a pagan procession of idols, ceremonies, and songs.

Struck by his research that indicates pagan societies offer a human sacrifice in the event of crop failure, Howie deduces that Rowan is in fact still alive and that she will be sacrificed as part of the May Day celebrations to ensure a plentiful harvest for the coming year.

Caesar Galerius led the pagan movement against Christianity and arrived to bring up Diocletian against Christianity in the year 302: first Christian soldiers had to leave the army, later the Church's property was confiscated and Christian books were destroyed.

The burning of the badnjak is a ritual which is most certainly of pagan origin, and is considered a sacrifice to God so that the coming year may bring plenty of food, happiness, love, luck and riches.

The Christian chronicler Eusebius of Caesarea was as convinced of Mopsus ' historicity as his pagan predecessors and contemporaries: in his parallel chronologies he entered under the year corresponding to 1184 / 83 Mopsus reigned in Cilicia.

The pagan residents of Harran also maintained the tradition well into the tenth century AD, of being the site of Tammuz ' death, and would conduct elaborate mourning rituals for him each year, in the month bearing his name.

It is assumed, then, that there was a pagan temple at the same location before the first church, some time before the year 1000.

This timeline extends the duration of the pagan reaction from less than a year, in Bede's narrative, to about eight years.

In that year Salomon, King of Brittany, put an end to some pagan raids by payment of five hundred heads of cattle.

Across the country the traditional midsummer bonfire is also built, and following an ancient pagan tradition, revelers try to jump over the bonfire, this in order to gain protection during the rest of the year.

In 1927, Christmas was declared to be of pagan origin, and the following year its celebration by Bible Students was condemned as supporting " Satan's organization ".

While this name fits very nicely with the Christian idea of Christmas, the name is likely of pagan origin ; it indicated the birth of a young and new god of the sun to the old and weakened solar deity during the longest night of the year.

Her feast day is the 1st February, celebrated as St Brigid ’ s Day or Imbolc in Gaelic Ireland, one of the four quarter days of the pagan year, which marked the beginning of spring, lambing, and lactation in cattle.

He was then quickly restored to his former prestige and reunited with his family ; but when he demonstrated his new faith by refusing to make a pagan sacrifice, the emperor, Hadrian, condemned Eustace, his wife, and his sons to be roasted to death inside a bronze statue of a bull or an ox, in the year AD 118.

It is alleged that the pagan Poles bickered with nature / Dyngus by means of pouring water and switching with willows to make themselves pure and worthy of the coming year.

In pagan times it was known as Cruachán Aigle, being mentioned by that name in sources such as Cath Maige Tuired, Buile Shuibhne, The Metrical Dindshenchas, and the Annals of Ulster entry for the year 1113.

The day was a traditional summer holiday in many pre-Christian European pagan cultures.

Although the god does not appear within the story, his energy certainly invokes the younger folk of the village to revel in the summer twilight, and the vicar of the village is the only person worried about the revival of worship for the old pagan god.

In the summer of 1046, an extensive revolt of the pagan Hungarians broke out, led by Vata, and Peter had to flee to the Western region of his kingdom.

According to the contemporary sources of Christian missionaries of the early Middle Ages, particularly of Saxo Grammaticus who gave a detailed account of Svetovid's great temple on the island of Rügen, the pagan Slavs held a great festival each summer in honor of Svetovid.

It is usually said to have originated as a pagan festival celebrating the arrival of summer, fertility, or both.

According to Hermann von Wartberge and Jan Długosz, Algirdas remained a pagan until his death in summer 1377.

This is similar to the Swedish Midsummer holiday, and is believed to be a pagan celebration of the summer solstice in June.

Annual rock music festivals include Mėnuo Juodaragis ( summer festival of neofolk, darkwave, and pagan arts ), Kunigunda Lunaria ( gothic / darkwave / industrial festival in Vilnius ); Naujas Kraujas ( new bands ' festival ); Kilkim žaibu ( Baltic folk, pagan and black metal festival ).

The Mishna and Talmud ( Avodah Zara 8a ) describe a pagan festival called Saturna which occurs 8 days before the winter solstice.

The Catholic Encyclopedia states the Church's view on the latter claim by saying that while midwinter pagan feasts such as Saturnalia may have helped influence the eventual choice to fix the date of Christmas, this does not mean that Christian Christmas traditions find their origin or inspiration there: " though the abundance of analogous midwinter festivals may indefinitely have helped the choice of the December date, the same instinct which set Natalis Invicti at the winter solstice will have sufficed, apart from deliberate adaptation or curious calculation, to set the Christian feast there too.

In the 7th century, Saint Eligius ( died 659 / 60 ) warned the recently converted inhabitants of Flanders against the age-old pagan solstice celebrations.

This, coupled with the fact that among the pagan Scandinavians the horse was often the sacrifice made at the winter solstice to Odin for success in battle, has been thought to justify the theory that " hodening " is a corruption of Odining.

The winter solstice festival is an important gathering of Ontario's pagan community.

" The Christians and the Pagans " on Mortal City simultaneously tackles both religion and sexual orientation through a tale of a lesbian / pagan couple that chooses to spend solstice with the devout Christian uncle of one of the women, thus creating a situation where people who would oppose each other on almost every political and cultural front try to get by on pure politeness.

Common Christian holidays are also celebrated, the most important being Christmas ( called Jul in Norway after the pagan and early Viking winter solstice ) and Easter ( Påske ).

The Christmas tree is often explained as a Christianization of pagan tradition and ritual surrounding the winter solstice, which included the use of evergreen boughs, and an adaptation of pagan tree worship.

It was celebrated by pagan Slavs on December 21 the longest night of the year and the night of the winter solstice.