Andrew Henry dismantles a comforting historical myth: that Europe's conversion to Christianity was a swift, total victory that erased older beliefs by the Middle Ages. Instead, he reveals a landscape where sacred groves, animal sacrifices, and animist worldviews persisted into the 18th and 19th centuries, particularly on the northern and eastern frontiers. This is not a story of fading folklore, but of active, living religion that survived the reach of empires and the edicts of kings.
The Myth of the Clean Break
The piece opens with a jarring juxtaposition: while the French Revolution and the Enlightenment were reshaping the intellectual core of Europe in 1789, Estonian peasants were still fencing off sacred trees and sacrificing black roosters to an earth goddess. Henry uses this moment to challenge the assumption that paganism vanished long ago. "Christianization did not sweep across Europe like an unstoppable wave," he argues, noting that in many regions, the process simply stalled. This reframing is crucial because it forces us to abandon the idea of history as a series of clean breaks. Instead, we see a messy, uneven negotiation between institutional power and local practice.
The author identifies the "last pagans" not as a monolith, but as indigenous groups on the periphery: the Sami of the Arctic, the Baltic peoples, and the Finno-Ugric communities of the Volga region. These groups lived outside the political centers of medieval Christendom. Henry points out that while Lithuania's elite converted in 1387, a date often cited as the definitive end of European paganism, the reality on the ground was far more complex. "Official adoption often blanketed over deep continuities in ritual life that persisted for generations," he writes. This is a vital correction to the historical record; the date of a ruler's baptism rarely matches the date a community stops honoring its ancestors.
"Christianization is often presented as a series of decisive conversion moments... But for this topic, the classic example is the Christianization of Lithuania in 1387... But this is where the model begins to break down."
Critics might argue that labeling these late practices as "pagan" risks projecting a romanticized, static view of pre-Christian belief onto communities that were likely adapting and changing. However, Henry anticipates this by leaning on the work of historian Francis Young, who prefers the term "unchristianized peoples" to avoid the baggage of the word "pagan."
Beyond the Label: Animism and Creoleization
Henry tackles the terminological minefield head-on. The label "pagan" is too vague, lumping together the worship of Zeus with the offering of milk to a sacred rock in 17th-century Estonia. He pivots to the concept of animism, redefining it not as "primitive" magic but as a relational worldview. Quoting scholar Graham Harvey, Henry explains that animism is a perspective "in which the world is full of persons, only some of whom are human." This shift in definition is powerful because it moves the discussion from what these people didn't believe (Christianity) to what they did believe (a universe alive with agency).
Yet, Henry is careful not to present these traditions as untouched fossils. He introduces the concept of "creolization," borrowed from linguistics, to describe how these religions evolved through contact with Christianity. Just as Haitian Vodou emerged from the fusion of West African traditions and Catholicism, European frontier religions adapted to survive. "Apparently, so-called pre-Christian beliefs and rights were sometimes a response to Christianity rather than something predating its introduction," Henry notes. This suggests that what we see in the historical record is often a hybrid, a new religious language born of pressure and adaptation.
A striking example is the Latvian goddess Decla, described by a 17th-century pastor as a protector of children who rocks them at birth. Henry suggests this might not be an ancient deity at all, but a "paganized transformation" of a Christian saint. Similarly, the ritual of the Yule log—often cited as a pagan survival—may actually be a Christian folk practice reinterpreted through an animist lens. "Rather than preserving a purely pre-Christian Baltic ritual," Henry admits, "it is perhaps better understood as the wooden equivalent of a goose or turkey, a special treat for the Christmas season." This nuance prevents the narrative from becoming a simple story of "good old days" versus "oppressive church," replacing it with a dynamic history of cultural synthesis.
"Religions can do this too... Over generations, this produced religions like Haitian vodu and Santia... Dr. Young argues that something similar happened in North and Northeastern Europe where Christianization either stalled or remained shallow."
This approach aligns with findings from other deep dives in the series, such as the Christianization of Lithuania, where the official conversion of 1387 masked centuries of continued reverence for sacred groves. It also echoes the persistence of Sami shamanism, where spiritual specialists used drums to mediate with the spirit world long after nominal conversion. The evidence suggests that for these communities, the sacred was not a matter of doctrine, but of relationship with the land.
The Limits of the Historical Record
The piece concludes with a sobering reminder of the source material. Almost everything we know about these "unchristianized" peoples comes from hostile outsiders: missionaries and pastors trying to suppress what they saw. "Nearly all of our evidence was written down after Christian contact and usually written down by outsiders who were confused, hostile, or trying to suppress what they were observing," Henry writes. This means the "pagan" practices we read about were often already in the midst of being reshaped by the very forces that documented them.
This limitation doesn't invalidate the argument; rather, it strengthens the call for a more humble historical approach. We cannot know the "pure" pre-Christian past, but we can understand the complex, hybrid realities that persisted into the modern era. The existence of a 1992 inauguration in the Mariel Republic, performed by both an Orthodox priest and an animist priest, proves that these traditions did not just survive; they evolved and found a place in the modern world.
Bottom Line
Andrew Henry's most compelling contribution is the shift from viewing these groups as "survivors" of a dead past to seeing them as active participants in a complex, creolized religious landscape. The argument's strongest point is its rejection of the "decisive conversion" model, replacing it with a nuanced understanding of how belief systems adapt under pressure. The biggest vulnerability remains the reliance on hostile sources, which inevitably colors our view of these practices, but Henry navigates this by focusing on the process of change rather than the static content of the beliefs. For the busy reader, the takeaway is clear: history is rarely a clean slate, and the spiritual lives of the marginalized often hold the keys to understanding the full depth of cultural transformation.