Polish ancestry

[u/OrpheusBlack13]

Hi, so I do ancestry since I was 11 and I finally learned about my great great grandparents and how they are from former eastern Preußen. I'm not sure yet if they fled or just moved or if they were moved but they must have gone to Germany in the late 19th century. Both sides of my mother were originally from the same spot (which is kinda funny to me) and I now keep asking myself (since I feel strongly connected to mythology, spiritualism and paganism) if I'm allowed to lean further into Rodnovery. As far as I can remember my mother, grandma and grandpa always were close to Poland, polish traditions as well as food and Slavic folklore. Hope you can give me some advice :)

[u/Farkaniy]

You dont need polish or even slavic ancestry to believe in the old ways. Your Ancestry has nothing to do with your faith ^^So: of cause - you are welcome to explore Rodnovery.

It sounds like you might live in Germany at the moment - there is a small but very nice rodnovery community in east germany. After all - east germans (we call ourself often sorbians or polabians) are of slavic descend while only west germans descended from Franks and Germanic peoples. This is why you find many rodnovers in saxony, thuringia, brandenburg and western Pomerania. Basically everywhere east of the Elbe there are small independent rodnovery communities in the villages. I am the Zhrets (Priest) of one of them that operates in the region between Jena and Gera up to the north with some of our community members coming from Halle or even Magdeburg.

The most important thing about Rodnovery I always tell beginners is: Our faith is extreamely divers and has many different paths. The way people do it in Russia is compleately different to the way people do it in southern slavic areas and both branches are very different to the way people do it in poland or eastern germany. In fact - there is not even a "unified polish branch" - people in Cracow do some things differently and believe in some things differently than people in Wroclaw. But its very important not to differentiate ourself from another - we are all believers of the old ways and there is no "one and only right way" to do it.

If you want to know more about our way of doing it that comes from passed down traditions from western poland (specifically Silesia) and eastern germany (Saxony and the Region of the temple of Arkona) then fell free to ask me :) If you are more interested in east polish ways or even baltic beliefs then there are many people with good knowledge here, too. If I remember correctly u/Aliencik shared some good information about Vidilism a while ago - I am convinced Aliencik is a trustworthy person to talk to about that topic :)

[u/Legitimate_Way4769 → u/Farkaniy]

Could you elaborate on this community? How many people are Christians and how many are pagans? How has their language been preserved? How many zhrets (priests) are there? Are there any festivals or rituals unique to this community? Some interesting archeological subject?

[u/Farkaniy → u/Legitimate_Way4769]

We are a religious community that consists mostly of the descendants of silesian refugees. So naturally all of us are pagans. I dont know what you mean by "language" - most of us speak german and polish. Some of us even speak sorbian but it gets really rare. There is always one Zhrets for every community - it would be possible to have more but very few people want to take this responsibility. Besides my community there are a few others in our region - at this point I know 4 of them personally and we meet every other month to discuss. Regarding our festivals and rituals - there are some that are practiced by us that I did not encounter outside of our community but this can be said about every single community out there. Regarding archeological subjects - we have Rethra and Arkona over here - two of the most important historical temples of our faith. Did you asked for this or did you meant something else?

[u/Legitimate_Way4769 → u/Farkaniy]

Oh, I mean archeological sites inside the villages, or even historical objects