A Xeno's View of Greece and Greeks Part 6: Birth, Marriage, Death

There are many differences in the ways Greeks celebrate the milestones of life when compared to what I was used to growing up.

 

When I began to look toward marriage, I expected a “normal” wedding and reception, although I knew there would be some differences, as we were being married in a Greek Orthodox church.  So where do we begin to dispel that notion….?   

Perhaps with the marriage bed (krevati) celebration held at my wife’s (our) house prior to the wedding.  During this bit of voodoo, money and babies are thrown on to and rolled about the bed as a symbol of good luck, prosperity, and fertility.  As a man, I was not afforded the opportunity to attend this lovely event. Darn.

 

The wedding ceremony itself, while not too bad to be a part of, is a pretty boring affair.  For one thing, as an attendee, you are standing up pretty much the whole time, and if you don’t know Greek, you’re lost for about 90 minutes.  We actually made our own wedding programs and put in a detailed description of the goings-on and their symbolism so my side of the family could follow along. 

There’s the wedding candles, which weigh approximately 263 pounds each, and which the bride and groom must hold, lit, for about 1/3 of the service.  There are the stefania, which the bride and groom wear as crowns, as they are king and queen for the day.  These crowns are connected by a ribbon (get the symbolism?) and are switched above the couple’s head 3 times.  Pretty much everything in this service is done three times.  We drank wine, had the rings blessed, and were walked around the altar in the Dance of Isaiah – 3 times.  But the one thing we didn’t do three times, or one time for that matter, was speak.  Nope, no vows here.  You are making a pact with GOD to stay married forever.  The idea is that a promise to a person is easy to break, while a promise to God, well you better think twice.

After the ceremony, we received wedding gifts at the front of the church from my wife’s aunt, who had raised her most of her life.  Then it was off to the reception, which was pretty much like your normal reception except for the presence of Greek people even my wife didn’t know (invited by an aunt or cousin), and the playing of much Greek music with spirited Greek dancing.  The great part about this was that many of my friends and family members were willing to join in, and were heartily encouraged by my wife’s family.     

 

So then it was baby time, and we had rules to abide by here, as well (although we chose not to).  Our first-born was to be named after my parents.  Anything other than this would be disrespectful.  Our second child would be named after my wife’s parents, no questions asked. But I had no desire to name my children in such a way, nor did my wife, so we compromised.  Our first son’s name is my middle name, and his middle name is my wife’s father’s first name.  Our youngest son’s first name came from nowhere, but his middle name is my father’s name.  In our own way we managed to keep a sort of family naming intact without going by the letter of the Greek law and creating more people with the same name.  Ever wonder why every Greek guy you know of is named George, John, Jimmy, Nick or Gus?  Now you know why.  They just recycle the names every other generation.  It can get pretty confusing at large family get-togethers, because if you call out a name, about half of the people will turn and respond.  Both of our kids have names that sound like “normal” American names, but both can be translated to Greek names, so I think we did a pretty good job walking the line between American and Greek traditions.

 

So when I was a baby, my parents had me baptized about a month after I was born in a small ceremony during the course of a regular Sunday service.  (Coincidentally, my wife and I were baptized on exactly the same day – she an almost one-year-old, I a little over a month old) Afterwards my small family and a few close friends had lunch at someone’s house and that was it.  Not so for the Greeks, my friends.  Far from it in fact.  I know some people whose baptism “after parties” were bigger affairs than my wedding, with hundreds of guests and a live band. And that is not an uncommon occurrence in the Greek community. 

A Greek baptism is held most often after church on Sunday, or on a Saturday night if it’s going to be one of those rocking affairs mentioned above, but not as part of the normal church service.  Here the baby is held up naked as the day he was born and is dunked into a large marble font while doused in olive oil.  Doesn’t make it very easy to hold the little ones I’m sure.   Once the little Greek salad is purified, he is dressed up like the Pillsbury Dough Boy (or Dom Deluise, in my oldest son’s case) and is given a cross necklace and pinned with blue matia, or eyeballs, to ward off the evil eye.  In a sort of a religious reverse psychology, it is not uncommon for little ones to be spit upon (or mock-spit upon, to be more accurate) in an attempt to trick the devil and his evil minions into thinking that this child is not worth his attention. 

At our very small (by Greek standards) “receptions” after each of our sons’ baptisms, we had around 50-60 people (40-50 of whom were Greek) attend luncheons at local restaurants.  But again, I think the celebrations we hosted successfully combined the Greek and American traditions, and the whole family had a great time.

 

Every family has one day to deal with the death of their loved ones, and I won’t dwell too long on this part of life, but I think there are a few things worth noting. 

The closeness of large Greek families, to include family friends, is perhaps most apparent at the death of one of their own.  When my wife’s aunt passed away she was in Greece, and my wife was unable to attend the funeral.  She was able to visit her aunt for a few weeks prior to her passing which was a good thing for both of them I believe. 
During our trip to Greece in 2007, we went to visit the monastery where my wife’s aunt was buried.    We went to her grave site, where there was a candle, which was kept perpetually burning.  We were then taken to what I can only describe as an ossuary, or sort of “bone vault”, where the exhumed bones of the deceased are placed into a metal lock box, labeled and put on a shelf.  You wouldn’t think there would be any issue with space to bury people in Greece, but I have found out that this is indeed one of the problems.  The other is that cremation is illegal in Greece, a law which is the result of the partnership between the Greek government and its official state church.  Greece is the only country in Europe where such a law is in effect and enforced, much to the dismay of many Greeks, who feel the exhumation is humiliating and contrary to the natural process of death.

Now, that doesn’t mean everyone has to be exhumed.  If you have lots of money, as with many things in Greece, you can get what you want.  Permanent plots in a cemetery run between $18,000-$120,000 per plot, while renters pay $650 to $1,050 for a three-year burial, with the option to stay up to one year longer at $155 per month. After that, exhumation is mandatory in most other cemeteries, to make way for new bodies.  

This is just another bit of culture shock to an outsider like me, although I must say that the grounds around the monastery where my wife’s aunt was buried were beautiful, and the priest and nuns were all very nice and respectful, making it a not-unpleasant experience.

 

These are the ways of the modern Greeks, based on hundreds of years of ritual and superstition.  It is amazing to see such ancient rites and ways carried on in much the same fashion they were centuries ago.  While strange to our western sensibilities, these are the fabric of a people that have been through war and famine, oppression and slavery, and have never been broken.  To me, that says keep up the good work, for, no matter how weird this stuff seems, it is working to keep the Greek identity and way of life alive in a modern world that typically eats and spits out the old ways. Bravo Ellada.

Σας ευχαριστώ για την επίσκεψη (Thank you for visiting)
Todd

Next Month - Part 7: "I Wasn't Late - I'm on Greek Time!"