Yesterday I wrote about one of the oldest Celtic deities: Cailleach, the patron of wolves. [link below]

Once Europe was “converted” to Christianity, the Church began to depict her as a witch, an evil spirit, etc.
Was that an exception or the rule? https://twitter.com/EchoesofthePas1/status/1260226409336836097?s=20

For over 1000 years, the way the “love” of Jesus conquered the world was by means of violence and warfare – the “conversion” of the pagan Saxon tribes by Charlemagne and the Albigensian and Northern crusades are just a few of NUMEROUS examples.

Well... When not torturing and killing pagans the church would use of other methods for convincing them that a Jewish “loving” god and messiah were the correct choices for them.

Demonization: One of the earliest strategies of Christianity was to convince everyone that pagan deities were either demonic or akin to monsters. This approach was set out early on by the “church fathers” [i.e. “Djius”].

E.g. Loki is the devil.

Demotion + Diminution: Frequently, pagan deities were demoted by the Church by means of turning them into fairies or old ladies living in the woods; pagan gods were also humanized, having stemmed from human parents, etc.

Little did the Church know that many pagan elements would still be preserved in these tales by means of coded symbolism!

Sanctification: Many of the pagan characters from myths [though not all and not all the time] are often worthy and moral, generous and helpful, etc. Thus, as it was impossible to attack them with demonization or demotion...

...the Church often portrayed them under the guise of “Christian saints” – this way many aspects of pagan tradition were kept alive through characters which the Church claimed to be their own.

The Celtic deity Brigid falls under this category. She became Saint Brigid of Ireland.

Marginalization: Often used together with the processes such as humanization, diminution and demonization, the Church would relocate pagan mythical characters and traditions to a place (and often a time) outside of the center of the communities they occupied originally.

This was another way to cut the vital link between the local people and their original traditions and deities and make acceptance of a foreign religion more acceptable.

"Christianity is our heritage, duuude!"

And this is possibly one of the reasons why currently there are so many pagans who attempt to link European deities to the Indo-European theory.

What one must ponder is... In order to "convert" people, why would a FOREIGN religion have to resort to endless wars, torture, executions, rape, kidnapping of women and children, forced indoctrination of said people, destruction of sacred sites and writings,...

...distortion and slandering of native deities, falsification + manipulation of their own "sacred" texts, for more than a thousand years in very land it came in contact with?

Christianity is not European.
PUT THAT INTO YOUR MIND!

Thank you for reading!