The twelve days of Christmas seemed to pass very quickly this time, despite the rigours and monotony of pandemic restrictions.
But it’s always an ambiguous period, at least in Greece, for here the Christian belief in the Birth is complicated by a layer of folk-lore involving the Kallikantzaroi, the souls of the dead who haunt the earth at this time, with the express aim of wrecking the Tree of Life, which supports the Earth. Every Christmas these creatures, who have red eyes, cloven hoofs and monkeys’ arms and live on a diet of snakes and worms, become livid with rage because the Birth thwarts their evil intent.
The Kallikantzaroi are darkness and evil, the shadow side of the human soul. They occupy themselves by polluting food and water, and otherwise tormenting people, but are always fought with the weapons of all-cleansing fire and all-seeing light. They are finally ousted on the 6th of January, the Feast of the Epiphany, which commemorates St John’s baptism of Christ in the river Jordan, and the manifestation of God in the form of a dove. God’s voice is heard, and both light and water are present.
Epiphany is a major feast in Orthodoxy, the day on which the Blessing of the Waters takes place, and when the faithful take little containers of holy water home from church. The sprinkling of each room ensures the defeat of the Kallikantzaroi. But churches were closed this year because of the pandemic, and young men were unable to compete in icy waters for the prize of a flower-bedecked cross.
I try to have a fairly long walk every day, as regulations permit, and on the 6th I went along the beach road. It was all very quiet, and the waterfront was practically deserted. But I suddenly noticed a sole woman right at the water’s edge. She had her back to me, but I saw her lift what was clearly an icon, which she then venerated. I couldn’t hear her precise words, but it seemed obvious she was repeating the forms of the liturgy to herself. Then she produced a long ribbon, on the end of which was a small cross, which she drew back and forth through the shallow sea, so engaging in her own individual Blessing of the Waters.
Screened by some convenient trees, I stood there for quite some time, just watching. She was barefoot, and suddenly walked a few steps