Olympic Games

Some days ago, it has been asked to me an opinion, as Cultor of the Traditional Roman Religion, about the Olympic Games (which has recently started in London).

I have to say that I like sports, but when someone asks me an opnion about the Olympic Games as Cultor I have to remind, even if very briefly and superficially, the meaning and sense that these Games have within a traditional perspective.

Olympic Games, in their original meaning, have a sacred value and, for this reason, must be included in the dimension of the Res Divinae like the Roman Ludi. Olympic Games recall the fight of the Olympic Forces, the Ancient Heroes and the Solar Forces against the most brutal forces of Nature: these Games symbolize the victory of the Celestial Deities against the Titanic Forces. Not surprisingly, according to the myth, the Olympic Games were created by Heracles and symbolized by a crown made of olive leaves. 

Thus, Olympic Games are a sacred rite, a great Liturgy, which, in the past, was held according to precise rules and formulas totally dedicated to Nike, as sacralization of the Triumphant Force capable to renovate Action and Life. 

The winner became the personification of Zeus. 

The winner acquires a trascendant immortality, a trascendant rebirth with an absolute victory of the spiritual energy over the material body.

The capability to evoke and celebrate such Divine Forces and Energies is the reason why, in 393, the emperor Theodosius, under the pressures of the christian bishop ambrosius, decided to ban Olympic Games after more than a millennium because considered "the biggest and the most dangerous pagan rite": these Games were (correctly...) absolutely incompatible for the "monotheist" ethics.

From this brief and superficial description it is clear enough the difference with the modern olympic games. In the present games, transcendence, sacralization, the evocation of Divine Forces are totally absent. In the modern olympic games the physical, impulsive and instinctive features completely prevail. The present games begin in the human dimension and collapse in the human dimension. That's all. They are therefore the extreme expression of physical potentials: consequently they are degraded and profane manifestations of action considered as sacred and Divine expression. 

I repeat: I like sports. Nonetheless, considering what I mentioned above, I think that it could be better at least to change the name of these games...