i.e. "shaman", or "mage") and zhrets ("sacrificers"). They are those responsible for holding rites for worshipping the gods and leading communities and religious festivals. Volkhvs are the higher rank of the sacerdotal hierarchy, while zhrets are of a lower authority. Though the majority of Rodnover priests are males, Rodnover groups do not exclude women from the priesthood, so that a parallel female priesthood is constituted by the two ranks of zhritsa and vedunya ("seeresses"). Prestige is not limited to male priests; a priestess, Halyna Lozko from Ukraine, is an acknowledged authority within the Rodnover movement, and the settlement of Pravovedi in Kolomna is governed by a priestess. In 2012, a number of Rodnover organisations in Russia made an agreement for the mutual recognition of their priesthood and for the uniformisation of ordination policies. The Rodnover priesthood is characterised by a number of attributes, sacred objects which mark their role. Besides varieties of "traditional" clothing and the tambourine, the most distinctive element accompanying the Rodnover volkhv is their staff, conferred at the moment of their initiation, an "invariable attribute of religious and secular power (the sceptre, the wand) in the traditions of the peoples of the world". In Rodnovery, the priestly staff represents the axis mundi, the world tree, the invisible "pillar of strength", of the spiritual power of creation, and it is considered the vessel of one of the two parts of the soul of the volkhv or the representation of their own self. According to Rodover cosmology: the top of the staff of the volkhv represents the overworld, Prav, and is either carved as an anthropomorphic face representing the patron deity of the volkhv, or as the symbol of Rod, and is associated with Rod itself, the "God of the gods", representing the unity of the generated gods in the universal Rod, or with his visible manifestation, Svarog; the middle part of the staff represents Yav and Perun, and is carved with the symbols of the powers that the volkhv "commands" in the real world; the bottom of the staff represents Nav and Veles, and is burnt in fire to symbolise the infernal forces of the underworld. The wood of which the saff is made is chosen according to the patron deity of the priest: beech and maple are associated to Svarog and Dazhbog, oak to Perun, conifers and hazel to Veles, birch and rowan are associated to the