 | |
| Formation | 1938 |
|---|---|
| Type | Religious organization |
| Purpose | structural Monotheistic Church, based on a singular female goddess, who is named after Aphrodite, the ancient Greek love goddess. |
| Headquarters | Charlottesville, Virginia, US |
| Location | |
The Church of Aphrodite was a religious group founded in 1938 by Gleb Botkin, a Russian émigré to the United States.[1][2][3] The organisation considered one of early precursor to the Goddess movement. Monotheistic in structure, the Church believes in a singular female goddess, who is named after the ancient Greek goddess of love, Aphrodite.[3]
Having grown up in the Russian Imperial court, Botkin fought in the Russian Civil War on the side of the counter-revolutionary forces after his father, a physician to the royal Romanov monarchy, was executed by the Bolshevik government. Fleeing to Long Island in the United States, he began writing novels and non-fiction books, mostly set in his Russian homeland, before coming to believe in a female divinity and founding the Church of Aphrodite. He won the right to register it as a religious charter in the New York State Supreme Court.
- ^ Kurth 1983, p. 287.
- ^ Melton 2003, p. 911.
- ^ a b Galtsin 2012.