DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9841#0267
248
SPIRITUAL
fraternization.
[chap.
The existence of such feuds as these, in many Sfakian
families, would greatly have paralysed the exertions of
the Cretan insurgents against the Mohammedans in 1821.
The Oriental Church, however, invites her sons to become
"brothers29;" and the spiritual relationship, thus entered
into, is of so solemn and sacred a nature, that, like
gossipred, it for ever prevents marriage between those
immediately connected with the contracting parties. This
religious ceremony was very generally performed, among
the Sfakian mountaineers, in 1821, and they were thus
enabled, forgiving all mutual enmities, cordially to work
together in every attempt to injure their common foe the
Mohammedans.
Manias repeats to me a distich, according to which
The brothers whom the church doth make
Are dearer to each other
Than those who're tied by bonds of blood,
As children of one mother30.
The Slavonian ritual, which, I suppose, differs but
little from the Greek, also contains "a particular bene-
diction for the solemn union of two male or two female
friends in the presence of the congregation31.'1 These
customs of the mountaineers of Greece and Dalmatia,
call to our recollection the old Cretan institutions which
sanctioned a close intimacy between those of the same
sex32, and were undoubtedly designed "to revive that
generous friendship of the heroic ages, which was so
29 There is an 'AkoXouBlu, or office, for this spiritual fraternization in the
Greek Euchology, published by Goar: (see pp. 898—902.) The custom
seems to have prevailed as early as the age of Justinian; (Codinus, de
Orig. C. P. quoted by Goab, 1. c. p. 901.) and although it was forbidden
by both Imperial and Ecclesiastical authority, (Goar, 1. c. p. 902.) is still,
as we find in Sfakia, even generally prevalent. Monks, however, were always
prohibited from becoming either avv-reKvoi or doc\<fto7ron}tol.
KaAiVepoi oi doeptpai rtjs 6KK.\fjcn'a?
irapd oi accp(piH Trjs Koi\ia<;.
31 Foktis, Travels in Dalmatia, p. S7. 32 S-thajjo, x. p. 483.
SPIRITUAL
fraternization.
[chap.
The existence of such feuds as these, in many Sfakian
families, would greatly have paralysed the exertions of
the Cretan insurgents against the Mohammedans in 1821.
The Oriental Church, however, invites her sons to become
"brothers29;" and the spiritual relationship, thus entered
into, is of so solemn and sacred a nature, that, like
gossipred, it for ever prevents marriage between those
immediately connected with the contracting parties. This
religious ceremony was very generally performed, among
the Sfakian mountaineers, in 1821, and they were thus
enabled, forgiving all mutual enmities, cordially to work
together in every attempt to injure their common foe the
Mohammedans.
Manias repeats to me a distich, according to which
The brothers whom the church doth make
Are dearer to each other
Than those who're tied by bonds of blood,
As children of one mother30.
The Slavonian ritual, which, I suppose, differs but
little from the Greek, also contains "a particular bene-
diction for the solemn union of two male or two female
friends in the presence of the congregation31.'1 These
customs of the mountaineers of Greece and Dalmatia,
call to our recollection the old Cretan institutions which
sanctioned a close intimacy between those of the same
sex32, and were undoubtedly designed "to revive that
generous friendship of the heroic ages, which was so
29 There is an 'AkoXouBlu, or office, for this spiritual fraternization in the
Greek Euchology, published by Goar: (see pp. 898—902.) The custom
seems to have prevailed as early as the age of Justinian; (Codinus, de
Orig. C. P. quoted by Goab, 1. c. p. 901.) and although it was forbidden
by both Imperial and Ecclesiastical authority, (Goar, 1. c. p. 902.) is still,
as we find in Sfakia, even generally prevalent. Monks, however, were always
prohibited from becoming either avv-reKvoi or doc\<fto7ron}tol.
KaAiVepoi oi doeptpai rtjs 6KK.\fjcn'a?
irapd oi accp(piH Trjs Koi\ia<;.
31 Foktis, Travels in Dalmatia, p. S7. 32 S-thajjo, x. p. 483.