Ancestral/genealogical origin (rodovoy iskon) is based on rodolyubiye ("generosity", the love for the kin/family and the love of the kin/family). Rod ("Kin/Genus/Generation") is understood by us as the indissoluble unity of three components: "Rod in Itself" (Rod kak Sam) – "All-Being" (Vse-Sushchiy), "All-God" (Vse-Bog), "All-Keeper" (Vse-Derzhitel') – the single all-pervading spiritual principle; "Heavenly Rod" (Rod Nebesniy) – the power of the ancestors, the celestial forces of the kin; and "Earthly Rod" (Rod Zemnoy) – the aggregate of congeners, the terrestrial family. Native gods (rodniye bogi) are the essences of the faces of the single Rod, his creative powers, comprehended by us in our personal spiritual experience. These forces are manifested both in the surrounding nature and in ourselves. (So, for example, the power of Perun in nature is thunderstorm, in the human heart it is the will to overwhelm.) Through the protective glorification of the gods at the ceremony, we reunite the internal and the external, thereby gaining spiritual harmony, spiritual integrity and bodily health.
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Slavic Native Faith |
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Slavic Native Faith (Rodnovery) has a theology that is generally monistic, consisting in the vision of a transcendental, supreme God (Rod, "Generator") which begets the universe and lives immanentised as the universe itself (pantheism and panentheism), present in decentralised and autonomous way in all its phenomena, generated by a multiplicity of deities which are independent hypostases, facets, particles or energies of the consciousness and will of the supreme God itself.[2]
A popular dictum is "God is singular and plural".[3] Polytheism, that is the worship of the gods or spirits, and ancestors, the facets of the supreme Rod generating all phenomena, is an integral part of Rodnovers' beliefs and practices. The universe is described as a "dialectically unfolding manifestation" of the single transcendental beginning, end each subsequent emanation, every deity and entity, is endowed with ontological freedom, spontaneous will to life and co-creation with the supreme law of God (Prav, "Right") in the great oneness of which they are part.[4]
The swastika-like kolovrat (e.g. ) is the symbol of Rodnovery.[5] According to the studies of Boris Rybakov, whirl and wheel symbols, represent the supreme Rod and its manifestation as the many gods.[6] The vision of Rodnover theology has been variously defined as manifestationism, and rodotheism or genotheism.