Volkhv or Volhv (translated as Sage, Sorcerer, Magus, Shaman, Wizard, Gothi) was a priest in the religion of ancient Slavs as well as in the indigenous beliefs of modern Slavs i.e. Rodnovery. In modern Slavic Native Faith, the Volkhv is responsible for performing rituals of worship of the gods and for conducting major communities and religious festivals. Volkhv is the upper rank of the hierarchy of the priests, and the lower rank is that of the Zhrets. The function of the latter is merely to hold sacrifices and are not necessarily Shamans. The Proto-Slavic *žьrti is cognate of Slavic words for -- Offering. Consequently, the purpose of the Zhrets are merely to hold sacrifices. Though the majority of priests are men, but most groups do not exclude women from the priesthood. Therefore, the parallel female priesthood consists of two classes, zhritsa and vedunya (female seers). However, the religious authoity, dignity and prestiege of female priests are as highly regarded as that of the male priests. There is common criteria for priesthood and ordination process for being appointed as priest. Volkhv has been historically attested among the early Rus people. Volkhvs were believed to have mysterious powers, especially the ability to predict the future. The name of the Old-Russian divination book –Volkhovnik-- comes from the term -- Volkhv [Information and Image Credit: Volkhv, Wikipedia] [Image: 2. Modern artistic vision of Volkhv by Russian artist Andrey Shishkin] [Images Availed Under Creative Commions Attribution 3.0 Unported; (Kindly Relate to Individual Source Image URL for More Usage Properties)] [License-Link : https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en ] [Wikipedia Source Image URL : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Volkhv_by_Andrey_Shishkin.jpg ] #Mythology
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