Sacred Marriage in the Rituals of Greek Religion

The concept of hieros gamos has roused scholar's interest since the 19th century. The review of scholarship is indicative of the fact that the meaning of hieros gamos has been misconceived, unreasonably expanded into every case of sexual intercourse between immortals or immortals and mortals. The ritual's purpose was seen to be the promotion of fertility, in the context of agriculture and vegetation of the nature.

The concern of this thesis is the conceptual pattern of sacred marriage as a ritual of initiation and a rite of passage; the context of hieros gamos could be understood as the sacralized ritual of divine marital union enclosed by the legitimacy of a formal wedding ceremony. Sacred marriage presupposes the following specific fundamentals mutually dependent on each other: a wedding ceremony performed as if it were a human one, immortal nature of both of the partners and a permanent marital union. At the core of hieros gamos there are the basic configurations of human life with its psychological prerequisites; thus, the anthropological aspect of the ritual of hieros gamos is preponderant throughout all its stages.