kourbània
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

''Kourbania'' ( el, το κουρμπάνι, pl. from tr, kurban, from
Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...
قربان ''kurban'' 'sacrificial victim') is a Christianized
animal sacrifice Animal sacrifice is the ritual killing and offering of one or more animals, usually as part of a religious ritual or to appease or maintain favour with a deity. Animal sacrifices were common throughout Europe and the Ancient Near East until the spr ...
in parts of
Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders with ...
. It usually involves the slaughter of lambs as "kourbania" offerings to
saint In religious belief, a saint is a person who is recognized as having an exceptional degree of Q-D-Š, holiness, likeness, or closeness to God. However, the use of the term ''saint'' depends on the context and Christian denomination, denominat ...
s. In antiquity the sacrifice was offered for health or following an accident or illness, as a votive offering promised to the Lord by the community, or by the relatives of the victim. Writing in 1979, Stella Georgoudi stated that the custom survived in "some villages of modern Greece" and was "slowly deteriorating and dying out". A similar custom from
North Macedonia North Macedonia, ; sq, Maqedonia e Veriut, (Macedonia before February 2019), officially the Republic of North Macedonia,, is a country in Southeast Europe. It gained independence in 1991 as one of the successor states of Socialist Feder ...
and
Bulgaria Bulgaria (; bg, България, Bǎlgariya), officially the Republic of Bulgaria,, ) is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Macedon ...
known as ''kurban'' is celebrated on
St. George Saint George (Greek: Γεώργιος (Geórgios), Latin: Georgius, Arabic: القديس جرجس; died 23 April 303), also George of Lydda, was a Christian who is venerated as a saint in Christianity. According to tradition he was a soldier ...
's day.


Description

The practice involves the blood sacrifice (θυσία, ''thusia'') of a domestic animal to either a saint, taken as the tutelary of the village in question, or dedicated to the
Holy Trinity The Christian doctrine of the Trinity (, from 'threefold') is the central dogma concerning the nature of God in most Christian churches, which defines one God existing in three coequal, coeternal, consubstantial divine persons: God the F ...
or the
Virgin Virginity is the state of a person who has never engaged in sexual intercourse. The term ''virgin'' originally only referred to sexually inexperienced women, but has evolved to encompass a range of definitions, as found in traditional, modern ...
. The animal is slaughtered outside the village church, during or after the
Divine Liturgy Divine Liturgy ( grc-gre, Θεία Λειτουργία, Theia Leitourgia) or Holy Liturgy is the Eucharistic service of the Byzantine Rite, developed from the Antiochene Rite of Christian liturgy which is that of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of C ...
, or on the eve of the feast day. The animal is sometimes led into the church before the icon of the saint, or even locked in the church during the night preceding the sacrifice. Most of the ''kourbania'' are spread between April and October. The descriptions (for both the Byzantine and Turkish periods) of this θυσία, or ''kurban'' (in Turkish), are numerous indeed, and are an example of one popular element which the Turks adopted from Byzantium. The most detailed description is given by the sixteenth-century Turkish slave Bartholomaeus Gourgieuiz:


In Cappadocia (Anatolia)

In the late nineteenth century, Greek Christians of the village of Zele (Sylata) in
Cappadocia Cappadocia or Capadocia (; tr, Kapadokya), is a historical region in Central Anatolia, Turkey. It largely is in the provinces Nevşehir, Kayseri, Aksaray, Kırşehir, Sivas and Niğde. According to Herodotus, in the time of the Ionian Revo ...
sacrificed animals to
Saint Charalambos Saint Charalampos ( grc, Ἅγιος Χαράλαμπος) (also variously Charalampas, Charalampus, Charalambos, Haralampus, Haralampos, Haralabos or Haralambos) was an early Christian priest in Magnesia on the Maeander, a city in Asia Minor, i ...
especially in time of illness. Though the Greeks frequently referred to these sacrifices by the Turkish term ''Kurban'', the sacrificial practices went back to Byzantine and pagan times as is evident from several factors. They frequently referred to these sacrifices by the ancient Greek terms θυσία and θάλι. The question of Christian borrowing from the Muslim ''Kurban'' sacrifice is probably restricted to the philological aspect, for the pagan sacrifice seems to have remained very lively and widespread in Byzantine times.
Speros Vryonis Speros Vryonis Jr. ( el, Σπυρίδων "Σπύρος" Βρυώνης, July 18, 1928 – March 12, 2019) was an American historian of Greek descent and a specialist in Byzantine, Balkan, and Greek history. He was the author of a number of wor ...
. ''The Decline of Medieval Hellenism in Asia Minor: and the Process of Islamization from the Eleventh Through the Fifteenth Century.'' Volume 4 of Publications of the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. University of California Press, 1971. p. 490.


In Heracleopolis (Anatolia)

One of the most spectacular examples of its existence in
Byzantine Anatolia Byzantine Anatolia refers to the peninsula of Anatolia (modern day Turkey) during the rule of the Byzantine Empire. Anatolia would prove to be of vital importance to the empire following the Arabic conquest of the Levant and of Egypt during the ...
was the sacrifice of the fawn to St. Athenogenes at Pedachthoe/Heracleopolis on July 17 (
July 16 Events Pre-1600 * 622 – The beginning of the Islamic calendar. * 997 – Battle of Spercheios: Bulgarian forces of Tsar Samuel are defeated by a Byzantine army under general Nikephoros Ouranos at the Spercheios River in Greece. * 105 ...
). On that day the young animal and its mother passed before the altar of the monastery church of St. Athenogenes while the
Gospels Gospel originally meant the Christian message ("the gospel"), but in the 2nd century it came to be used also for the books in which the message was set out. In this sense a gospel can be defined as a loose-knit, episodic narrative of the words an ...
were being read. The fawn was sacrificed, cooked, and eaten by the congregation and thus the faithful celebrated the glory of the martyred saint. The pagan usage of animal sacrifice survived also in the Byzantine practice of slaughtering and roasting animals after the celebration of ecclesiastical festivals.


In Lesbos

In the village of Mistegna on Lesbos, the ''kourbania'' is to the Akindinoi saintsGreat Synaxaristes :
Οἱ Ἅγιοι Ἀκίνδυνος, Ἀφθόνιος, Πηγάσιος, Ἐλπιδοφόρος (ἢ Ἐλπιδηφόρος) καὶ Ἀνεμπόδιστος
'' 2 Νοεμβρίου. ΜΕΓΑΣ ΣΥΝΑΞΑΡΙΣΤΗΣ.
on one of the Sundays following
Easter Easter,Traditional names for the feast in English are "Easter Day", as in the '' Book of Common Prayer''; "Easter Sunday", used by James Ussher''The Whole Works of the Most Rev. James Ussher, Volume 4'') and Samuel Pepys''The Diary of Samuel ...
. Also on Lesbos, the
bull sacrifice Cattle are prominent in some religions and mythologies. As such, numerous peoples throughout the world have at one point in time honored bulls as sacred. In the Sumerian religion, Marduk is the "bull of Utu". In Hinduism, Shiva's steed is Nan ...
to
Saint Charalambos Saint Charalampos ( grc, Ἅγιος Χαράλαμπος) (also variously Charalampas, Charalampus, Charalambos, Haralampus, Haralampos, Haralabos or Haralambos) was an early Christian priest in Magnesia on the Maeander, a city in Asia Minor, i ...
is set on a Sunday in May, on Mount Taurus outside the village of Saint Paraskevi.


In Thrace

In the village of Mega Monastiri in northeastern
Thrace Thrace (; el, Θράκη, Thráki; bg, Тракия, Trakiya; tr, Trakya) or Thrake is a geographical and historical region in Southeast Europe, now split among Bulgaria, Greece, and Turkey, which is bounded by the Balkan Mountains to t ...
, the community used to buy the most robust calves and raise them specifically for the ''kourbania''. These animals designated for sacrifice were never used for farm labour. In some instances, the animal was bathed and decorated with flowers or ribbons, its horns decorated with strips of gold foil and led to sacrifice through all the streets in a joyous procession. The village priest then performed a number of rites to complete the consecration of the victim before the killing, but unlike the practice in antiquity, the act of killing the animal is no special office and can be performed by anyone. The sacrifice is followed by a festival. The food for the festival is prepared under the supervision of the churchwarden, and is blessed by the priest before the meal begins. In Mega Monastiri, these meals were the scene of gatherings of lineages or clans, each with its own stone table in the churchyard, the place of honour on the eastern end of the table reserved for the clan eldest. The prayers said by the priest over the victim have a long tradition of attestation, dating from at least the 8th century, establishing the animal sacrifice as long-standing within Christian tradition, over at least a millennium.


Criticism

The sixteenth canon of the Synod of Carthage asked the emperor to put an end to this practice, while the commentary of Balsamon indicates that it was widespread in the twelfth century, and it has survived to the present day. In the late 18th century, a monk Nicodemus denounced the ''kourbania'' as a "barbaric custom" and "vestige of ancient pagan error", without success, as he was himself accused of heresy by the village priests. Also in the 18th century, bishop Theophiles of Campania attacked the custom as an imitation of the "vain Hellenes". Greek ethnographers in the 19th century did not hesitate to identify the ''kourbani'' as a survival of pre-Christian Greek antiquity. Georgoudi (1979) prefers a comparison with the Hebrew sacrifices
korban In Judaism, the korban ( ''qorbān''), also spelled ''qorban'' or ''corban'', is any of a variety of sacrificial offerings described and commanded in the Torah. The plural form is korbanot, korbanoth or korbans. The term Korban primarily re ...
of the
Old Testament The Old Testament (often abbreviated OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew writings by the Israelites. The ...
, citing early medieval canons and conciliaries which denounce customs such as cooking meat in the sanctuary as Jewish and Armenian Christian, not Greek, practice.


See also

*
Animal sacrifice Animal sacrifice is the ritual killing and offering of one or more animals, usually as part of a religious ritual or to appease or maintain favour with a deity. Animal sacrifices were common throughout Europe and the Ancient Near East until the spr ...
*
Christopaganism Christianity and neopaganism overlap when the beliefs or practices of one religious path influence, or are adopted by, the other. Historically, Christianity sometimes took advantage of traditional pagan beliefs when it spread to new areas – a ...
*
Crucifixion in the Philippines Crucifixion in the Philippines is a devotional practice held every Good Friday, and is part of the local observance of Holy Week. Devotees or penitents called ''magdarame'' in Kapampangan are willingly crucified in imitation of Jesus Christ's suf ...
* Dušni Brav (in Serbia) * Eid al-Adha ( Qurbani, 'Kurban Bayram') * Folk Catholicism * Madagh (in Armenia) *
Tama (votive) 300px, An Saint Paraskeva with tamata hung beside itCrete 2001. The saint holds a plate with two eyeballs on it. She is considered to be a healer of the blind. One of her visitors has left a votive offering (''tama'') depicting eyes to indicate wh ...
*
Slaughter offering A slaughter offering in the Hebrew Bible ( he, זָבַח, translit=zevakh) is a type of Jewish animal sacrifice. The term specifically refers to the slaughter of an animal to God followed by a feast or a meal. This is distinguished from the burnt o ...


References


Sources

* Stella Georgoudi. 'Sanctified Slaughter in Modern Greece: The "Kourbania" of the Saints.' In: Detienne and Vernant (Eds.). ''The Cuisine of Sacrifice among the Greeks.'' University of Chicago Press, 1989. pp. 183-203. ::(Translated from the French original, ''L'égorgement sanctifié en Grèce moderne : les Kourbania des saints'' (1979), 271-307.) *
Speros Vryonis Speros Vryonis Jr. ( el, Σπυρίδων "Σπύρος" Βρυώνης, July 18, 1928 – March 12, 2019) was an American historian of Greek descent and a specialist in Byzantine, Balkan, and Greek history. He was the author of a number of wor ...
. ''The Decline of Medieval Hellenism in Asia Minor: and the Process of Islamization from the Eleventh Through the Fifteenth Century.'' Volume 4 of Publications of the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. University of California Press, 1971. p. 490.


External links

* Bruce Alexander McClelland. '
Chapter 4: Sacrifice in the Balkans
"'' In: SACRIFICE, SCAPEGOAT, VAMPIRE: The Social and Religious Origins of the Bulgarian Folkloric Vampire. Ph.D. Thesis, May 1999. * {{in lang, el

'' Δημοτικό Διαμέρισμα Πετρούσας, ΓΙΑΝΝΙΚΕΙΟ ΓΥΜΝΑΣΙΟ ΠΕΤΡΟΥΣΑΣ ΔΡΑΜΑΣ. Retrieved: 21 December, 2013. Animal sacrifice Christian worship and liturgy Greek culture Greek folklore Bulgarian folklore Votive offering