| الوصف: |
In a history of religion and Europe classical Antiquity is both an example of difference, that is, the polytheistic systems of Greek and Roman religions, and the beginnings of the monotheistic religions, which became the mainstream in medieval and modern Europe. Drawing on the rituals, symbols, and patterns of polytheism as the legacy of the palace cultures in the Ancient Near East and Greece (until 1200 bc), the city-states (poleis) adapted these to non-autocratic societies (polis-religion). In the empires of Hellenism and the Roman Empire itself, religions were not part of a power structure (e.g. a ruler-cult). Rather their urban character allowed a plural neighbourhood, in which the monotheistic religions were well integrated. In late Antiquity a long transformation formed the Middle Ages, when with the rise of Islam the Mediterranean became divided into three parts: the Islamic south, Greek Orthodoxy in the east, and Latin-speaking ‘Europe’ in the north-west. |