Who were the last pagans in Europe?

I think of four situations:

1. The Sami people - the Uralic people, native to northern Scandinavia and adjacent areas of Finland and Russia. Many of them were not Christianized until the 18th century.

2. Malians - another group of Ural people. They live in Mariel, the Russian Federation, in the far east of Eastern Europe. Many of them still practice their native religion. Over the centuries, many Malians embraced Christianity, and they formed one of the last unbroken pagan traditions in Europe.

3. Carpathians: A small Slavic ethnic group, closely related to Ukrainians and eastern Slovaks. Although little is known about their historical religion, some villages reportedly worshiped the moon as a god and did not show interest in Christian worship until the 18th century.

4. Russia - While Russia was officially Christianized in 988 AD and Christianity became the religion of the urban elite, it would take many, many centuries to Christianize the countryside. For centuries, religion in much of rural Russia was a Christian veneer over pagan traditions and folk beliefs.

Below, you can see Oniana Maria's portrait of the "Fiery Mary" - combining the biblical Virgin Mary with the fertility goddess theme typical of Slavic paganism. She was also regarded as the daughter of the Slavic thunder god Perun (who himself was identified among the Slavs with Saint Elias). All icons are decorated with a round rose, the symbol of the highest Slavic pole. Not to mention that the element of fire itself was a very important feature of Slavic paganism.

This icon was not painted by some confused, newly converted pagan at the time. Icons like this continued to be painted until the 19th century, nearly 1,000 years after the formal conversion of Russia. Russian Orthodox clergy and officials would complain about “dvojvierie” – rural people’s dual faith in Christianity and paganism until modern times.

In the "dvojvierie", the typical Russian peasant would literally attend Christian worship services organized by the local church, but when it came to their daily spirituality, they were not shy about sacrificing the spirit of their home , or burning effigies to ward off death and disease.