Church of Aphrodite

Church of Aphrodite

Gleb Botkin used this symbol of Aphrodite on the vestments for his Church of Aphrodite.
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	United States

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.