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Religious Beliefs and Spirituality in Guatemala

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Guatemala, officially referred to as the Republic of Guatemala, is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, Belize to the northeast, the Caribbean Sea and Honduras to the east and El Salvador to the southeast.  The nation spans an area of roughly 42,000 square miles (108,890 sq. km) and has an estimated population, as of 2014, of 15,438,384, making it the most populous state in Central America.  Organized as a representative democracy, Guatemala’s capital is Nueva Guatemala de la Asunción, familiarly known as Guatemala City.

The former Mayan civilization of Guatemala was a Mesoamerican civilization, which continued throughout the Post-Classic period until the arrival of the Spanish in 1519, who colonized the region. The Mayans had lived in Guatemala, Honduras, Belize, the southern part of Mexico and eastern parts of El Salvador.  After independence from Spain some three centuries later, in 1821, Guatemala was a part of the Federal Republic of Central America and after its dissolution the country suffered much of the political instability that characterized the region during mid to late 19th century.  

In the early 1900s, Guatemala had a variety of democratic governments as well as a series of dictators, the last of which were frequently assisted by the United Fruit Company and the United States government. From 1960 to 1996, Guatemala underwent a civil war, fought between the government and the leftist rebels.  Since the conclusion of the war, Guatemala has witnessed both economic growth and successful democratic elections. In the most recent election, held in 2011, Otto Pérez Molina of the Patriotic Party won the presidency.

Guatemala's abundance of biologically significant and unique ecosystems contributes to Mesoamerica's designation as a biodiversity hotspot.  The capital, Guatemala City, is home to many of the nation's libraries and museums, including the National Archives, the National Library, and the Museum of Archeology and Ethnology, which has an extensive collection of Mayan artifacts. There are also private museums, such as the Ixchel Museum, which focuses on textiles, and the Popol Vuh, which focuses on Maya archaeology. Both museums are housed inside the Universidad Francisco Marroquín campus.  Almost each of the 329 municipalities in the country has a small museum.

Religious Beliefs in Guatemala:  Introduction

The Constitution of Guatemala guarantees religious freedom to all citizens.

In terms of religion, some 50 to 60 percent of the Guatemalan population adheres to the Roman Catholic faith, and another 30 to 40 percent of the population self identifies as Protestant.  Rounding out the most popular religious faiths in Guatemala are Syriac Orthodox (5 percent of the population), Eastern Orthodox (3 percent), and the indigenous Mayan faith (1 percent).

Prior to 1519, the year the Spanish began to settle the region that is now Guatemala, nearly all of the population adhered to the Mayan belief system.  The Spanish introduced Roman Catholicism to the region, making that faith the official religion of Guatemala throughout the colonial period, which officially ended in 1821 when the Guatemalan people gained their independence from Spain.  Today Guatemala has a Roman Catholic archbishopric at Guatemala City and bishoprics in the cities of Quezaltenango, Verapaz, and Huehuetenango. The constitution recognizes the separate legal personality of the Catholic Church.

It is very common in Guatemala for relevant Mayan practices to be incorporated into Catholic rites, ceremonies and worship, albeit only when those practices are sympathetic to the meaning of Catholic belief.  This phenomenon, which has been prevalent in Guatemala since the colonial period, is known as inculturation.  In recent decades, the practice of the traditional Mayan religion has been escalating in the country—the result of the cultural protections established under the peace accords.  The government of Guatemala has enacted a policy of providing altars at every Mayan ruin throughout the country, so that the traditional ceremonies may be performed there.  Among the Mayan population the National Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Guatemala is an important denomination. The church has 11 indigenous-language Presbyteries spread throughout the country.

Since 1519, Roman Catholicism has dominated in Guatemala, just as it has in many other Central and South American countries. However, the practice of Protestantism has increased drastically in recent decades.  Protestant churches were estimated to have fewer than 500,000 adherents in 1980, but rapidly growing Evangelical fundamentalist groups have dramatically increased that number.  Today, nearly one-third to two-fifths of the Guatemalan population identifies as Protestant, mainly Evangelical Protestants and Pentecostals.

Also noteworthy in terms of Guatemala’s religious landscape is the recent growth of Eastern Orthodoxy, a growth that has been nothing short of explosive. In the last five years, hundreds of thousands of Guatemalans have converted to the Orthodox faith, quickly making the country the most Orthodox nation (in proportion to its population) in the western hemisphere.

Guatemala is also home to (very) small communities of Jews, estimated to number between 1,200 and 2,000 people; Muslims (1,200); Buddhists (9,000 to 12,000) and agnostics.

Mormonism, formally known as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, currently has over 200,000 adherents, accounting for approximately 1.5 percent of the country’s estimated population in the census of 2008.   The very first member of the Mormon Church in Guatemala was baptized in 1948.  From that, membership grew to 10,000 by 1966, and 18 years later, when the Guatemala City Temple was dedicated in 1984, membership had risen to 40,000. By 1998 membership had quadrupled again to 164,000.  The Mormon Church continues to grow in Guatemala; it has announced, and recently begun construction on, the Quetzaltenango Guatemala Temple, the LDS Church's second temple in the country.

In keeping with the Mayan belief system of old, when people pass away in Guatemala, they are typically buried as quickly as possible, so as to provide a quick passage to heaven. Funerals usually include both candles and rum, and despite the local superstition that loud mourning and crying will slow down the deceased's journey to the next world; mourners usually cry very loudly, except at funerals for children. Deceased are buried with their most treasured items so as to dissuade them from returning to haunt the people.

Pre-Colonial History of Guatemala:  The Mayan Religion

Prior to the early 16 century, the Mayan belief system was followed religiously by nearly all of the indigenous people.  For clarification, the Maya are a native Mesoamerican people who developed and maintained one of the most sophisticated cultures in the Western Hemisphere prior to the arrival of the Spanish.  The Mayan religion was—and in certain cases, still is—characterized by the worship of nature gods (especially the gods of sun, rain and corn), a priestly class, the importance of astronomy and astrology, rituals of human sacrifice, and the building of elaborate pyramid-shaped temples.

Certain aspects of the Mayan religion are still seen today among the Mayan Indians of Mexico and Central America (mostly Guatemala and Belize), who practice a combination of traditional religion and Roman Catholicism.

Fast Facts about the Mayan Religion

Below are just a few fast facts about the Mayan Religion:

  • Date Founded.  250 AD (the rise of the Maya civilization)
  • Place Founded.  Mesoamerica (Southern Mexico, Guatemala, Belize)
  • Adherents.  At one time up to 2 million. Today, several million Maya practice a Roman Catholicism that retains many elements of the traditional Mayan religion.
  • Texts. Dresden, Madrid and Paris codices; Books of Chilam Balam; Popol Vuh; The Ritual of the Bacabs.
  • Theism.  Polytheism.
  • Main Gods.  Itzamná; Kukulcán (Quetzalcóatl); Bolon Tzacab; Chac
  • Practices.  Astronomy, divination, human sacrifice, elaborate burial for royalty, worship in stone pyramid-temples
 

Brief History of the Maya

The Mayan civilization arose in Mesoamerica around 250 AD, influenced by the culture and religion of the Olmecs. The Mayan urban culture especially flourished until about 900 AD, but continued to thrive in various places until the Spanish conquest in the early 16 century.

During the first 650 years of the Mayan civilization, which scholars call the Classic Period, the Mayan civilization consisted of more than 40 sizeable cities spread across modern-day Mexico, Guatemala, and northern Belize. At its peak, the total population may have reached 2 million people, the majority of whom lived in modern-day Guatemala. The cities seem to have been mainly ceremonial centers, with the majority of the Maya living a rural, agricultural life around the cities. Sometime after 900 AD, the Mayan culture declined dramatically and most of the cities were abandoned. Latest scholarship attributes this decline to the loss of trade routes due to war.

After this decline, the great southern cities of the Mayan civilization became depopulated, but the cities of the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico (such as Chichén Itzá, Uxmal, and Mayapán) continued to thrive in the early part of the "Post-Classic Period" (900–1519). By the arrival of the Spanish in the early 16th century, however, most of the Maya were village-dwelling farmers.

The remaining Maya were conquered by the Spanish and converted (at least nominally) to Roman Catholicism. The present-day Mayan peoples are spread mainly across southern Mexico, with small numbers in Guatemala and Belize. They practice a religion that combines Roman Catholicism with Mayan cosmology, deities, and domestic rituals.

Texts of the Mayan Civilization and Religion

The Mayan civilization possessed a highly sophisticated culture, one that included a written hieroglyphic language. Mayan hieroglyphics were meticulously carved into stone monuments or pieces of bone, painted on pottery, and written on books (codices) of bark paper.

The Mayan texts describe religious rituals, astronomy, and divination, and are the most valuable source of information on the ancient civilization and their belief system. Many of these texts were destroyed by the Spanish settlers because of their “pagan” religious content, but three main codices have survived. Named for the cities in which they are now kept, these are the Dresden, Madrid, and Paris codices. The Dresden Codex contains very precise tables of Venus and the moon and describes a method of predicting solar eclipses.

Other important texts describing Mayan beliefs and religious practices are those written by learned Indians who transcribed or summarized Mayan hieroglyphic records into Latin script.  One of these is titled the Books of Chilam Balam, written in Yucatec Maya and consisting of historical chronicles mixed with myth, divination, and prophecy. Another text, The Ritual of the Bacabs, covers religious symbolism, medical incantations, and similar matters.

Perhaps the most famous of the Mayan texts is the Popol Vuh (1554-1558), which was written in Quiché, a highland Maya language, and translated into Spanish by a priest. This book tells of the mythology and cosmology of the Post-Classic Guatemalan Maya, and shows central Mexican influences. It chronicles the creation of man, the actions of the gods, the origin and history of the Quiché people, and the chronology of their kings down to 1550.

Collectively, the Mayan texts were not necessarily regarded as sacred or authoritative in themselves (they are not revelations from the divine like the Bible or Quran), but rather as important records of religious rituals and knowledge.

Beliefs in the Mayan Religion and Civilization

The Mayan population worshipped a pantheon of nature gods, each of whom possessed both a compassionate and a malevolent side. The most important deity in their belief system was the supreme god Itzamná, known as the creator god, the god of the fire and the god of the hearth.  Another significant Mayan god was Kukulcán, the Feathered Serpent, who appears on many temples and was later adopted by the Toltecs and Aztecs as Quetzalcoatl.  Also important was Chac, a hooked-nose god of rain and lightning.

A fourth god that recurrently appears in Mayan art is the god known as Bolon Tzacab, who is regularly depicted with a branching nose and is often held like a scepter in the Mayan rulers' hands.  He is believed to have functioned as a god of royal descent. Mayan rulers were seen as intermediaries between the gods and the people and even as semi-divine themselves. They were buried in elaborate tombs filled with valuable offerings.

The Mayan view of the afterlife consisted mainly of a dangerous voyage of the soul through the underworld, which was populated by sinister gods and represented by the jaguar, the symbol of night. The majority of the Mayan people, including the ruling class, were believed to have gone to this underworld following their death.  Only those who had been sacrificed or died at childbirth were thought to go to heaven.

To the Maya, science and religion were not only interrelated, but one in the same. The Mayan people developed an impressive system of mathematics and astronomy, which was very intimately related to their religious rituals. Their mathematical achievements included positional notation and the use of zero; in astronomy, they accurately calculated a solar year, compiled precise tables of positions for the Moon and Venus, and were able to predict solar eclipses.

The Maya were obsessed with the concept of time, as to understand and predict various cycles of time allowed them to adapt to and best make use of their natural world. Mayan cosmology stated that the world had been created five times and destroyed four times. On a more temporal scale, the various days of the year were considered appropriate to specific activities, while some were entirely unlucky.

Practices of the Mayan People

As religion was intertwined with science in the Mayan civilization, the Mayan people were known to practice a type of divination that centered on their elaborate calendar system and extensive knowledge of astronomy. It was the responsibility of the Mayan priests to discern lucky days from unlucky ones, and to advise rulers on the best days to plant, harvest, wage war, etc. They were especially interested in the movements of the planet Venus—the Maya rulers scheduled wars to coordinate with its rise in the heavens.

The Mayan calendar was very advanced for its time, consisting of a solar year of 365 days. It was divided into 18 months of 20 days each, followed by a five-day period that was considered extremely unlucky. There was also a 260-day sacred year (tzolkin), divided into days named by the combination of 13 numbers and 20 names.

For longer periods, the Maya identified an elaborate system of periods and cycles of various lengths.  In ascending order, these were: kin (day); uinal (20 days); tun (18 uinals/360 days); katun (20 tuns/7,200 days); baktunbaktun (20 katuns/144,000 days), and so on, with the highest cycle being the alautun (23,040,000,000 days).  These units were used in the Maya Long Count, which calculated the time elapsed from a zero date set at 3114 BC. In the Postclassical Period, the method of notation was somewhat simplified, and the Long Count katuns ended with the name Ahau (Lord), combined with one of 13 numerals; and their names form a Katun Round of 13 katuns. These changes made it very difficult to correlate the Mayan count with the Christian calendar, but scholars are fairly confident that the katun 13 Ahau, which seems to have had great significance for the Mayan, ended on November 14, 1539.  It was also calculated that the next katun, which the Popul Vuh describes as the catastrophic end of the world, would end on December 21, 2012.  Fortunately for our sake, this prediction did not prove to be correct.

Up until the mid-20th century, scholars believed the Maya to be a peaceful, stargazing people, fully absorbed in their religion and astronomy and not violent like their neighboring civilizations to the north. This was based on the Maya's impressive culture and scientific discoveries and a very limited translation of their written texts. Since then, however, nearly all of the Mayan hieroglyphic writings have been deciphered, and a much different picture has emerged. These texts seem to indicate that the Mayan rulers often waged war on rival Mayan cities, took their rulers captive, then tortured them and ritually sacrificed them to the gods. In fact, human sacrifice seems to have been a central Mayan religious practice. It was believed to encourage fertility, demonstrate piety, and propitiate the gods.

The Mayan gods were thought to be nourished by human blood, and ritual bloodletting was seen as the only means of making contact with them. The Maya believed that if they neglected these rituals, cosmic disorder and chaos would result. At important ceremonies, the sacrificial victim was held down at the top of a pyramid or raised platform while a priest made an incision below the rib cage and ripped out the heart with his hands. The heart was then burned in order to nourish the gods.

It was not only the captives who suffered for the sake of the gods: the Mayan aristocracy themselves, as mediators between the gods and their people, also underwent ritual bloodletting and self-torture. The higher one's position in the Mayan hierarchy, the more blood was expected. Blood was drawn by jabbing spines through the ear or penis, or by drawing a thorn-studded cord through the tongue; it was then spattered on paper or otherwise collected as an offering to the gods.

Other Mayan religious rituals included dancing, competition, ball games, dramatic performances, and prayer.

Roman Catholicism in Guatemala

The Catholic Church in Guatemala is part of the global Roman Catholic Church, under spiritual leadership of the Pope, Curia in Rome and the Episcopal Conference of Guatemala. There are approximately 5 million Catholic believers in Guatemala, accounting for roughly 50-60% of the total population.  The Catholic Church in Guatemala has two Archdioceses:  the Archdiocese of Guatemala and the Archdiocese of Los Altos Quetzaltenango-Totonicapán.  Each of these supervises five dioceses spread throughout the country.

As mentioned above, Catholicism arrived in Guatemala with the Spanish settlers in the early 16 century, and was deemed the official religion of the country.  Since that time it has remained the most prevalent religious faith in the country, although traditional Catholic practices are often combined with some of the ancient Mayan traditions.

Starting around 1959, after Fidel Castro began the Cuban Revolution, the Vatican in Rome became increasingly aware of the number of Protestant missionaries traveling to Latin America.  Following this realization, several Catholic priests and missionaries were sent from Europe to Latin America in an attempt to increase the number of priests and baptized Latinos. Over the past few decades, Protestantism has continued to grow throughout the area.  In fact, Guatemala now plays host to a larger number of Protestants (approximately 35-40%) than any other Latin American country.

To address the rising number of Protestants in Guatemala, a group/movement was formed in the mid-twentieth century under the name “Charismatic Catholics.”  This growing movement hoped to increase the number of Catholic converts throughout Latin America and to also increase the number of native-born Catholic priests.  To accomplish this, its members in Guatemala employ the assistance of social organizations, missionaries, and clergy.  The Charismatic Catholics were very successful, and with the help of foreign missionaries were able to increase the number of Guatemalan priests, and spur revitalization within the Church as a whole. They believed that "the quest for identity was important and difficult" in the changing modern times, but absolutely necessary.

Although there is no state or official religion in Guatemala, the Guatemalan Constitution recognizes the legitimacy of the Roman Catholic Church. The constitution also provides freedom of religion to all of its citizens, and the government protects and honors this law. Although the Roman Catholic Church is the only religion recognized by the Guatemalan Constitution, any other religious affiliation can file a copy of its bylaws and a list of its initial membership to the Ministry of Government in order to receive recognition. The only requirement of the Guatemalan government is that each religious affiliation must register as legal entities if they want to participate in business of any kind. Applicants are rejected if "the organization does not appear to be devoted to a religious objective, appears to be in pursuit of illegal activities, or engages in activities that appear likely to threaten the public order."  

In recent decades, there have been multiple disputes between Roman Catholics and the indigenous Mayan people. Numerous Roman Catholic Churches had been built on ancient Mayan sites during the Spanish colonization of the Americas, a fact that has angered the Mayan people, not only because they feel it is their land, but because several Roman Catholic priests would not allow the Mayan people to access this land at all. To diffuse this turmoil, representatives from the Roman Catholic Church now meet every two to three months with the Mayan leadership at the “Interreligious Dialogue at the Foro Guatemala” to discuss several select topics of social, religious and political importance. Catholic bishops and priests have also joined together to work with indigenous Mayan people to help create a basis of local leadership, improve health and education, and organize cooperatives.

San Andrés Xécul Church

No discussion of Catholicism in Guatemala would be complete without mentioning the San Andrés Xécul Church.   Built in 1900, San Andrés Xécul is a Catholic church in the Western Highland of Guatemala.  The beautiful church displays the baroque style of architecture, and was recently restored in 2008.  The outside walls of the church contain 200 painted sculptures of humans, angels, monkeys, fruit, corn, and birds of all different colors. These images are important to the Mayan people who live in this region because they contain many agricultural images which symbolize the region’s primary source of economy. The exterior design of the San Andrés Xécul Church is very similar to the huipils worn by Guatemala women, and the inside of the church features chandeliers made from glass stone, coins, rosary beads, candles, and other depictions and sculptures of Christ.

Protestantism in Guatemala

The struggle for independence in the 19th century was accompanied by plenty of anti-Catholic sentiment, and anticlerical legislation at the time had the side effect of allowing the introduction of Protestantism into Guatemala.

In 1882, then President Justo Rufino Barrios (1835-85) invited the Presbyterian Church of the United States (USA) to come into Guatemala, ostensibly to counter the Roman Catholic Church's opposition to his reform policies. The Presbyterians sent John Clark Hill, who with a Spanish-speaking assistant in 1885 opened the first Protestant church in Guatemala City. Numerous schools were also soon established.

In 1899, the Central American Mission (now CAM International) opened work in Guatemala City.  Its work grew even faster than the Presbyterians, and in its first generation CAM founded an average of two congregations per year. In 1926, CAM founded the Central American Bible Institute (now the Central American Theological Seminary), which became the major educational institution for Evangelical groups in Guatemala and neighboring countries. The 20th century saw the founding of numerous missions from the whole spectrum of American Protestantism, and Guatemala became an attractive site for the operation of missionary agencies, the founding of indigenous Protestant/Free Churches denominations, and the exportation of Christianity to other Latin American countries.

The religion known as Pentecostalism began in the U.S. in 1934 with the conversion of a primitive Methodist minister, Charles Furman, who then brought 14 Methodist congregations into the Church of God.  Over the next half century, the church planted over 650 additional congregations, including several in Guatemala.

Another church, the Assemblies of God, opened work in Guatemala in 1937, and eventually outstripped the Church of God. In the 1950s, the cause of this new church benefited from the work of evangelist T. L. Osborn's healing revival. The Assemblies of God experienced a major schism in 1956, however, the year that José Maria Munoz organized the Prince of Peace Church. These three churches, the Church of God, the Assemblies of God, and the Prince of Peace Church, with a combined membership of more than 600,000, spearheaded a Pentecostal Charismatic movement that now includes more than 2 million Guatemalans, though many (especially Roman Catholics) remain members of their non-Pentecostal denominations.

Membership in non-Pentecostal Protestant churches in Guatemala, including a variety of indigenous Evangelical bodies, has also grown.  Alone among liberal Protestant churches, the Presbyterian Church (USA) remains an active force. No Guatemalan-based church is a member of the World Council of Churches, and there is no national council of churches. The Evangelical Alliance of Guatemala, affiliated with the World Evangelical Alliance, includes approximately 20 church bodies.

A major obstacle to Protestant growth in Guatemala came in the form of Efrain Rios Montt. A brutal dictator, Rios Montt massacred thousands of citizens of native extraction. His brief reign (1982-83), coupled with his public self identification as an Evangelical, blemished the image of Evangelical groups, even though prominent Evangelical leaders had distanced themselves from Rios Montt as his crimes became known. He has remained a power in Guatemalan politics in the years since his removal from office, and is now the pastor of the Word of God Church there.

Current estimates of the Protestant population of Guatemala range from 25 to 40 percent, making it the most Protestant country in Latin America.