What Religion Was Most Popular in Macedonia during the time of Alexander the Great?

Buddha For Morgan!: What Religion Was Most Popular in Macedonia during the time of Alexander the Great?
For a project. I thought I was ‘Pagan’ but I don’t know if thats correct.
And if you could, get me a website on the religion. (If you don’t thats fine)

THanks
Oh and one more thing, if you know this, is the religion that was most popular still used today?

Answers and Views:

Answer by Fed E
Most likely Greek Polytheism
No, it is not popular today. They are most likely Greek Orthodox today.

Answer by Μακεδονία γη Ελληνική.
They believed in the 12 Gods of Olympus as all Greeks in ancient times.
Greece is a Christian Orthodox country today.

Answer by jimmy
Not only that the Macedonians did not worshiped the Greek gods, but also there is not a single temple discovered on the territory of Macedonia which resembles the temples in Greece. Alexander sacrificed to “Macedonian gods according to ancestral rituals, and ordered a torch-race and gymnastic contest to follow.” Urlich Wilken�s Alexander the Great: p. 187, line 15, we read the following passage referring to his advances to the Hyphasis:

“Alexander built twelve great tower-like altars on the nearer side of the river. We have been informed by those who refer everything to Babylonia, that this was for the twelve signs of the zodiac. In reality it was the twelve gods of Macedonia to whom these altars were raised.”

Key words are: Twelve Macedonian gods, not Greek. The fact that the Macedonians had their own gods, does prove that they had different religion from the Greeks who worshiped different gods. To this we can add the writings of the ancient author Plutarch:

‘Soon after his death the people of Athens paid him fitting honours by erecting his statue in bronze, and by decreeing that the eldest member of his family should be maintained in the prytaneum at the public expense. On the base of his statue was carved his famous inscription: ‘If only your strength had been equal, Demosthenes, to your wisdom Never would Greece have been ruled by a Macedonian Ares’ [p.216]

Macedonians had their own Gods and religion, separate from the Greeks. Macedonian Ares is a Macedonian god, which the ancient Greeks here compare to their own Ares. The fact that they call it “Macedonian Ares” clearly states that it is not the Greek God Ares, but a Macedonian god equivalent to the Greek Ares, whose name they had substituted with Ares. This phenomena when the ancient Greeks substitute the names of the foreign gods with names of their own gods, is called interpretatio graeca. In the ancient Greek texts we also find the Greeks referring to one Egyptian God as Egyptian Athena. Of course, the real name of this Egyptian god can not be Athena (just like the name of the Macedonian god above was not Ares), since the Egyptians didn’t worship Greek gods The ancient Greek writers here use interpretatio graeca in order to better relate to their audience the magnitude of the Macedonian and Egyptian gods, both foreign to them. The above quote, furthermore, clearly shows that not only Macedonians had their own gods and religion distinct from the Greeks, but they also subdued Greece.

Macedonians today are predominantly orthodox christians

Answer by agrafa
Ancient MAKEDONIANS were believing in the same 12 Gods that all Ancient Greeks were believing.
You need to understand that at that time all Greek city-states mainly due to geographical reasons had developed some individual elements in their religion which were unique and used only in a certain city-state.
It’s the same with language. All Greeks were speaking the same basic Greek language but every city-state was developing some additional elements.
Greece today is a Greek Orthodox country.

Answer by Aramina
The ancient Macedonians used the same Greek pantheon of gods that the ancient Greeks did. Today they are greek orthodox I think.

Answer by The Mad Greek
Greek Polytheism Like the rest of the Greeks… also there was a popuplar notion at the time that he was half God aas a son of Zeus… but that was most likely started by his mother to hurt his father Phillip

Answer by aeinjw
The Greeks were anciently referred to as Hellenes, so their culture and way of religious life became called Hellenism. The many ancient Greek philosophers in fact were “prophets” of Hellenism, and their differing schools of thought amounted to various sects of pagan Hellenism. Hellenism in its many sects featured things of a pagan appeal to the “desire of the flesh”