Religion in Circassia refers to religious presence in historical Circassia and modern-day Adygea, Kabardino-Balkaria, Krasnodar Krai and Karachai-Cherkessia. The majority of ethnic Circassians today are Muslim while a minority retain Orthodox Christian or pagan beliefs. Historically, Circassians were predominantly Christians from the 3rd century to the 16th century, and later they gradually began converting to Islam.
History Circassia gradually went through following various religions: Paganism, Christianity, and then Islam.
Paganism
Before encountering Abrahamic religions, the Circassians believed in their traditional religion. The foundation of this religion is the worship of the chief god, Thashkho ().Люлье Л.Я. Черкессия. Историко-этнографические статьи. — Северо-Кавказский филиал традиционной культуры М.Ц.Т.К. "Возрождение", 1990. — С. 29.Khabze.info. Khabze: the religious system of Circassians. Some classify this religion as polytheistic, while others as monotheistic. Thashkho has attributes such as "needed by all, but needing no one," "creating from nothing, the multiplier," and "allowing the cycle of the universe."
All beings are essentially one and part of an eternal cycle; only Thashkho, the creator, is unaffected by this cycle. Prayers to Thashkho were made as "Good God, we wretches pray to you." Thashkho also has lesser deities subordinate to him. The beginning of the world is associated with the formation of the great emptiness or the universe (). Thashkho created the universe and order, and the rest developed spontaneously. The symbol of the Circassian religion is the T symbol.
According to Leonti Lyulye, who traveled through Circassia, in the Circassian belief, souls were rewarded after death according to their deeds on earth. Therefore, the purpose of human earthly existence was the soul's perfection. An important element was the spirit of the ancestors. The spirits of the ancestors required commemoration: funeral feasts were held, and sacrifices or memorial meals were prepared and distributed in memory of the deceased souls.
Before the Middle Ages, there were trade relations between the Circassians and the Greeks. The Circassian forest goddess Mezitha and the Greek forest god Pan are roughly the same person. The name of the Circassian bee goddess Merisse means "bee" in Greek. Other similarities can be found between Greek and Circassian beliefs: Greek mythology contains references to Circassia (such as Prometheus chained to Mount Elbrus). Some have even claimed that this mythology originated in Circassia.Гадагатль А. Героический эпос "Нарты" адыгских (черкесских) народов. — Майкоп, 1987. — С. 195.
Edmund Spencer described the traditional religion of the Circassians as follows:The principal articles in the faith of the inhabitants of the Western Caucasus are,—a firm belief in one God, supreme and powerful, and in the immortality of the soul, which they feel convinced will be translated to another world, the abode of their fathers.
Like the Mahometans (Muslims), they do not represent the Deity under any visible form, but define him as the Creator of all things, whose spirit is diffused over all space.
Besides the one Eternal God, they believe in the existence of several inferior beings, or saints, to whom the Great Spirit, Thka, has delegated power over such sublunary things as he deems too trivial for his awful superintendence. These saints have each an anniversary, which is celebrated with public rejoicing and prayer, in the same manner as festivals are in Catholic countries. Some of them are represented under a peculiar symbol; but they do not worship them, except as intermediate agents.
Upon this subject I made strict inquiry, and found that all my informants agreed as to this point, and which confirmed what I had previously heard from several Russian officers, who had been for many years in communication with the Circassians. Nevertheless, this worship must be regarded as a species of adoration by the strict Protestant and the equally rigid Mahometan.Circassians had a tradition of burying the dead in high places. German traveler Johannes Schiltberger, who passed through Circassian lands in 1427, wrote the following:They (the Circassians) have a tradition of placing those who died from lightning strikes in coffins and hanging them from a tall tree. After this, neighbors arrive with food and drink. They begin dancing, partying, slaughtering oxen and rams, and distributing most of the meat to the poor. They do this for three days, repeating the process year after year until the bodies have completely decomposed. They consider the person struck by lightning to be a saint.Turkish traveler Evliya Çelebi wrote:Evliya Çelebi, SeyahatnameAfter performing various rituals, the storytellers gather people at the deceased's bedside. This is a surprising and rare sight. They then place the deceased in a special coffin, perched on the branches of a large tree in the mountains.Sultan Barquq, the Circassian Mamluk ruler of medieval Egypt, was also buried in accordance with Circassian tradition; the coffin containing his body was hung from the ceiling of the mosque by the Circassian community.
The most important deities were:
Mezytha (god of the forests) – controlled the fate of wild animals and dictated success in the hunt. Zeykutkh (god of horsemanship) – served as the patron deity of riding and equestrians, though he lacked a clearly defined physical form. Psykhe-Guasha (princess of the waters) – a maiden deity who ruled over and protected bodies of water. Ahin (patron of cattle) – ranked among the most vital deities; a prominent myth details the sacred, "self-walking" sacrificial cow of Akhina. Sozeresh (patron of agriculture and fertility) – manifested physically as a domestic idol kept in family barns, fashioned from a seven-knotted branch of *hamshkhut* wood. Emish (patron of sheep breeding) – explicitly venerated during autumn ritual cycles coinciding with the mating season of rams.
Concurrently, the Circassians recognized and revered a supreme creator deity of the universe: the great Thashkho. Their theological practices strictly eschewed human sacrifice or the consumption of sacrificial blood. Beyond the central pantheon, Circassians venerated semi-divine figures and the Narts—the mythic heroes around whom the folklore created the heroic world of the Nart epic. Among these, the most widely celebrated was Sosruqo. On a specific winter night, families hosted lavish feasts in his honor, setting out the finest delicacies in the guest room for the hero, alongside fresh oats and hay in the stable for his magical steed. Any random traveler who happened upon the home that night was welcomed and feasted in Sosruqo's stead.
Another prominent figure, Tlepsh, was highly revered by blacksmiths as the master of fire, metalworking, and weapons; the community also petitioned him during ritual vigils to heal wounds and alleviate illness. As Islam began to penetrate the region, the imagery surrounding many of these traditional saints and epic heroes was gradually adapted by polytheistic Circassians into the mythos of heroic Arab warriors and Islamic legends.
In the late 16th century, Ottoman geopolitical expansion into the region intensified, executed primarily through their regional vassals—the Crimean Khans. This period marked the systematic conquest of various tribes across the western and central Caucasus, accompanied by the active propagation and mass adoption of Islam. Nevertheless, the Ottoman traveler Evliya Celebi observed in the late 17th century that many Circassians merely adopted Islamic identities nominally while practicing traditional ancestral rites, and noted that several isolated tribes had not converted to the new faith at all.
Holy places (groves and trees)
Numerous accounts from Western writers beginning in the 17th century firmly document the Circassians' deep veneration of sacred groves. Among them, the Dominican missionary Giovanni Luca (1637) described these sacred spaces, locally known as *kudoshi*, where weapons and the heads of sacrificed rams were hung prominently from branches. Later, the diplomat Claude-Charles de Peyssonnel (1787) documented a sacred tree named panjassan located "in the center of Circassia," noting that the local population held a reverence for it that bordered on idolatry. The consul and traveler Taitbout de Marigny corroborated this widespread veneration of groves, observing that during internal community feuds, a dissatisfied faction could choose to secede and establish an independent sacred grove of their own. Conversely, during inter-communal warfare, attackers occasionally desecrated their opponents' shrines despite sharing identical spiritual beliefs. Similarly, the English diplomat James Stanislaus Bell (1840) encountered revered trees and groves throughout the Pshada and Dzhubga river valleys; visitors regularly adorned these branches with fabric rags, both as religious offerings and as symbolic rituals to transfer and bind the illnesses of those seeking healing to the trees.
A highly detailed record is preserved in the 1724 text, Description of Circassia, compiled by Xaverio Glavani, French consul in the Crimea and first physician to the Khan, in Bakhchisarai, January 20, 1724:
"Each district of Circassia has a special sacred place, usually located in the forest, where the object of worship is a large tree. The Circassians call such a tree "penekassan." They perform their prayers before it. The dying leave a sabre, a gun, and clothing to the penekassan. These objects are ceremoniously carried there and hung on the trees, so that over time the forest becomes filled with all manner of weapons, clothing, and other items. But no one dares touch them. The dead are buried in this forest, and rituals are performed. If men and women who have committed a crime hide in the "penekassan" forest and tie a piece of cloth from among those hanging on the trees around their necks, they are exempt from punishment, as they are under the protection of a deity. It has been known for Turks enslaved by the Circassians to gain their freedom by placing themselves under the protection of the "penekassan." It should be noted, however, that slaves and criminals enjoy a certain freedom and immunity only as long as the piece of cloth they tied around their necks remains. The slaves, without waiting for the bandage to completely fall apart from wear and tear, having gained their freedom, hasten to leave the region."
These foreign accounts align precisely with observations made by Russian ethnographers from the 1860s onward. For instance, the Natukhai tribe, one of the primary Circassian subdivisions that were deported to the Ottoman Empire following the conclusion of the Caucasian War in 1864, held the ancient groves of the Baku Gorge (a tributary of the Adagum River) in exceptionally high esteem. Tribal customary law strictly forbade the removal of a single branch, leaf, or any weapon or item suspended from the canopy.
In the Pshada River valley, the Natukhais similarly venerated a massive tree that had once been struck by lightning. This site was widely believed to possess miraculous powers to cure fevers. Afflicted individuals traveled to the tree with ritual offerings—primarily traditional pies—which were immediately consumed by the companions accompanying the sick. Before departing, a small splinter or piece of bark from the tree was sewn into a cloth pouch and placed permanently around the patient's neck as an amulet, while the remaining fabric was tied to the branches as a reciprocal offering, leaving the entire tree festooned with cloth.