Thus Spake Zarathustra

5000 year-old religion still under represented in the states, but less so now.

New Priest for Old Faith By Jean Torkelson, Rocky Mountain News March 5, 2007 Zoroastrians now have Littleton man to lead their worship What do you do when your young people want to marry and your old people come to die, but the nearest priest available to mark such milestones lives thousands of miles away? For Coloradans who practice Zoroastrianism, one of the world's oldest and most fragile religions, the question has been a vexing one - until Sunday. Rumi Engineer, an immigration lawyer from Littleton, was admitted into the priesthood of his 5,000- year-old faith, making him one of only about 100 priests in North America, and the first in Denver. "Besides my Creator, I've had many mentors and practically all of them are here today," said Engineer before about 40 well-wishers gathered at the Church of Religious Science, 1420 Ogden St. The two faiths share worship space and a similar philosophy of the importance of the mind in defining human existence... [ Full Story ]

Zoroastrianism has had a hard time surviving until the modern age, what with persecution in its native Persia some 1,200 years ago and the fact that it is not a proseletyzing religion. So it's good to see a story like this.