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United Pagan Church of Australia
New Group Listing online
A new listing for Pagan groups has been added to our site. Any Pagan group can be listed, free of charge, to enable Pagans everywhere to locate information and contact detail. To view the list or find out how to add your group, visit the Pagan Groups and Gatherings page.
TV Show Supernatural and Pagans - is the information true?
Special Religious Education in public schools
Religion in Scouts/Guides. Please read this regarding recent events.
The United Pagan Church of Australia (UPCoA) was established to act as an umbrella organisation for the purpose of bringing together various Pagan religious based organisations to have a unified voice for all Australian Pagans. The UPCoA aims to have the responsibility of acting as a religious representative of the Australian Pagan community in dealings with federal, state and local government agencies, the community as a whole, and other organisations and institutions. UPCoA is recognised by the Australian Taxation Office as a religious organisation and is endorsed as a charitible institution.
Whilst the UPCoA will act to help promote the activities of all member organisations, it does not exercise any control over the internal matters of any member organisation, except for those groups purposely started as bracnhes of the UPCoA.
Today it is common to see people from many different relgions working and living side by side, tolerant of each other, and yet many people that follow a Pagan religion are still treated with bias and prejudice everyday. Many Pagans worship in private, scared to let others know that they are Pagan for fear of the reaction from people that only know what Hollywood has told them, which is, obviously, a version that has been written to sell movies rather than convey a true historical message of fact.
Paganism is the oldest religion known to humanity, far older than any of the "mainstream" religions such as Christianity, Judaism and Islam. In fact, many of the traditions followed to this day originated as Pagan traditions or celebrations, or have been adapted from ancient Pagan practices. Many misinformed people create false fears by promoting Pagans as "Satanists", or Pagan beliefs as "Satanic". The reality is that Satan is a deity of the Judeo-Christian religion and is not part of any true Pagan belief. Claiming that a Pagan worships Satan would be like saying that a Christian worships Zeus - it is impossible to worship a deity that simply doesn't exist within the religion!
But, church is a Christian word! (isn’t it??)
For those that view our name as reflecting Christian titles (i.e. Church), this term is in fact far from a purely Christian word. One definition of the word “church” is “the body of people who share a faith or a religious organisation”. Surely this can be applied as much to Pagans as any other religion? If you remain unconvinced, the following may help change your view:
“Church” comes from the Old English and German word pronounced “kirche”. In Scotland, it was “kirk”.
The following entries are from the Oxford Universal English Dictionary:
Church [Old English cirice, circe; Middle English chereche, chiriche, chirche; whence churche, cherche, etc.: -Greek Kuriakon...]
Church comes from the Anglo-Saxon root word “circe”, and stems from the Greek name of the goddess “Circe”, the daughter of “Helios”, the Roman Sun-god adopted from Greek mythology. Linked to this goddess in Celtic pagan worship is the name “Kirce”. From her name comes the word “kirch” which pertained to the building dedicated to pagan Celtic worship and rituals. The Greek word “kuriakon” was used for the building or “house of Kurios (Lord)”.
The actual original Greek word used in the Christian religious texts was “ecclesia”, not church.
This Greek word appears in the New Testament approximately 115 times. That’s just in this one grammatical form. It appears also in other forms, and in every instance, except three, it is wrongly translated as “church” in the King James Version. Those three exceptions are found in Acts 19:32, 39, 41. In these instances the translators rendered it “assembly” instead of “church”. But, the Greek word is exactly the same as the other 112 entries where it was changed to “church” wrongly. So, in reality, it is the Christians that have chosen to use an ancient Pagan term rather than Pagans using a purely Christian term!
For those finding it hard to believe that anything Christian could have a Pagan origin, this is not the only Pagan term that is widely accepted in Christianity. Consider the following list as just a few examples of common terms, titles, celebrations or events that have some kind of Pagan origin or influence:
Olympic Games, Christmas, Easter, Halloween, May Day, Sunday, harvest festivals, Priest, Pontifex Maximus (i.e. the Pope).
Want to know more? Read our article on “Pagan origins of common terms”.
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Since 19th July 2007
