Odin's Challange

Your mission if you choose to except, find the latest possible POD in which Norse Paganism (neopagan movements are not allowed) is the state religion of at least the Scandinavian countries throughout the Middle Ages. This is not a pagan wank scenario though, parts of Europe must still be Christian dominated particularly the romance nations.
 
There were almost no 'states' around in Scandinavia in the middle ages, and now you demand both 'surviving paganism' and a 'state religion'. Pre-Christian kings were religious priests, so the connection to the state seems fairly simple if we just could link the religion to the state-building process.

For a PoD, I suppose that the Saxons would need to hold off Charlemagne in the 700s and later, so Irminsul still stands during this period.
 
The Saxons holding off Charlemagne is one thing, but the Norse were extremely resistant to Christianisation when compared to the Saxons and other Germans. In many cases, I believe, the Church portrayed Jesus as a warrior in order to make him more appealing to the Norse.

I don't know of a specific POD, but if you can somehow make the Church suffer a number of setbacks early on, then the spread might be slower. Consolidating Odinism into a cohesive and organised religion is the challenge. There were no specific rituals in place aside from blood sacrifice. I think the best you'll be left with is a heavily Christian-influenced Paganism.

Maybe if you can somehow have an earlier Islam equivalent arise and spread at the same rate as OTL Islam, it will distract the Christian powers for long enough for Paganism to consolidate. You'd also need the Norse to stop converting for convenience's sake (they tended to do that; conquer a new land, convert to either curry favour with the locals or curry favour with powerful neighbours or wed Christian brides for the same reasons).

It's a difficult thing to accomplish.
 

Benevolent

Banned
Just have a heavily Odinist Folk Christianity receive a look the other way by the Vatican that eventually crystallizes once actual states and kingdoms come about with an eventual stripping of Christian iconography in some religious nativist backlash or something.
 
Your mission if you choose to except, find the latest possible POD in which Norse Paganism (neopagan movements are not allowed) is the state religion of at least the Scandinavian countries throughout the Middle Ages. This is not a pagan wank scenario though, parts of Europe must still be Christian dominated particularly the romance nations.

Hi Trackah,

Well, OTL the småland region was the last coverted region in Scandinavia, I think. There had been also revesions to paganism in the 11th century.

Maybe you can have the Pagan religion be more organized as a church like polytheistic pagan Christianity , maybe have Baldur as an jusus like deity in the center of the mythology...
I was thinking of a Baltic pagan organized religion in a majority Christian Europe, too. A still pagan Scandinavia timeline would be a great help for a Baltic pagan Christianity repelling culture.

here is a source regarding Pagan Europe:

https://books.google.de/books?id=4QZUAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA137&lpg=PA137&dq=sm%C3%A5land+pagan+latest&source=bl&ots=GeeiTnGiLJ&sig=i5i3QtDoOQKoLnRTDkUof-Al5M8&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CCYQ6AEwAWoVChMIw5eoyOn0xwIVRFksCh1wyQTs#v=onepage&q&f=false
 

Lunarwolf

Banned
Well, Hälsingland held on to the Old Gods until the 1200's afaik, then of course we were very slow in turning away from catholicism, not doing it until 1550's sort of thing.
 
I subscribe to the idea that for a religion to compete, it needs some form of scripture.

The only "major" religions that survived well without some form of canon would be shinto and chinese folk religion, both of which only did so because buddhism was fortunately accommodating. Hinduism had the Vedas, buddhism innumerable sutras, Sikhism the Guru Granth Sahib (sorry to any Sikhs if I said that wrong) and I'm sure I need not say about the abrahamic faiths, or the incredible against the odds survival of the Parsi community.

In short, Scandinavian polytheism is going to need to establish a tradition of writing prior to its interactions with Christianity.
Then you get all sorts of issues though... Chances are you butterfly Christianity, the still dominant west having more to gain out of adopting a Germanic faith, but also you sorta butterfly Odin by going too far back. Traditionally it was Tyr who was king of the gods, so it arguably fails Odins challenge.
 
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