The article examines the cultural characteristics and emotions associated with the Greek cult of death. The analysis of modern cult practices based on field research materials in comparison with ancient sources reveals many parallels with the official cult of the ancient Greeks and can shed light on the meaning and content of ancient rituals. The article attempts to demonstrate the adaptation of new ideologies to older rites and beliefs, as well as the connection between public and private rituals. It is suggested that the identified similarity may represent a common way of expressing it in a broader geographical context.

Keywords: Greece, death cult, death-related rituals, funeral lament, gifts to the deceased, memorial rites, holidays dedicated to the dead.

Introduction

The death cult plays a particularly important role in the Southeastern Mediterranean. This is evidenced, for example, by the continuous struggle for the graves of our forefathers and foremothers in Hebron. The main Shia holiday is dedicated to the death of Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad. During the celebrations, it is very important to make a pilgrimage to the tomb of the imam in Karbala (Iraq), which was previously not allowed by Saddam Hussein's regime. This prohibition is not new: as early as 850, the Caliph considered it politically expedient to level al-Husayn's tomb and prohibit pilgrimage to Karbala. However, state intervention proved ineffective, and the restored tomb remains to this day the most important religious center for Shiites. Pilgrimage to Karbala was allowed again in 2003. For Shiites, it is especially important to be buried near the sanctuary, as they believe that this will ensure access to paradise (Granebaum, 1981). Manifestations of the death cult are also found in the Balkans and in more northern lands. So, in 1988, 600 years after the defeat of Serbian Prince Lazar on the Kosovo field, believers carried his coffin in processions in every village in Serbia. And in Russia, during the Soviet era, some provincial residents brought their newborn babies to Moscow to touch Lenin's Mausoleum. In the autumn of 1990, people marched through the streets of Leningrad with portraits of the last tsar. Perhaps they kept these portraits in their homes and revered them in previous years. After the collapse of communism, it became clear that people continued to secretly observe various religious rituals. Similarly, the rituals considered pagan by the Greek Church were preserved by the Greeks, who first lived outside of Greece and then returned to their homeland. In recent times, they have generally been resolved.

The death cult can play an important political role in the Balkans, the Mediterranean, and the Middle East. The situation was similar in ancient Greece. So, the head of the Apostle Andrew now rests in the church of his name in Patras in the Peloponnese, where the saint is considered the patron saint of the city. Between 1460 and 1963 the shrine was located in Rome,

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because Thomas Palaiologos took her with him when he fled from the Turks. The struggle for the relics of St. John the Baptist Andrew's 500-year history has its parallels in the struggle for the remains of ancient heroes such as Theseus (Herodotus. I, 67; Plutarch. "Biographies". 36,1), Orestes (Pausanias. III, 3, 7) or Hector (The Iliad. XXIV, 793). For the Israelites, the bones of Joseph are as important as the tomb of Lazarus and the reliquaries that are carried in processions in modern Greece. Another parallel is the shroud with the image of Christ. It is available in every Orthodox Church and is carried in the procession on Good Friday. Sometimes the shroud is immersed in the sea, which corresponds to the annual procession with the deathbed of Adonis in Ancient Greece and Egypt (Theocritus. XV, 132 - 142). The question should be asked: can a closer look at the death cult in modern Greece in comparison with its ancient parallels clarify modern political problems?

To study this problem, the article examines the cultural characteristics and emotions associated with the Greek cult of death. This cult is a common cultural phenomenon in a geographical area from Portugal in the west to Iran in the east. It is also found in the Balkan countries and Russia. Why is the death cult so persistent? What does it consist of and how does it manifest itself? To answer these questions, let's look at the characteristic aspects of the death cult in the Greek tradition. The analysis will be based on the materials of field research that I conducted since the early 1980s, in comparison with ancient sources. A comparison of the manifestations of worship (mourning, ritual mourning, handling of the body, funeral procession, burial, wake and subsequent memorial rites) in ancient and modern society should illustrate how modern rituals can shed new light on ancient ones, and vice versa. Basically, I will move from modernity to antiquity, i.e., first of all, I will present field observations, and then I will refer to ancient materials. However, to avoid unnecessary repetition, I will sometimes also consider ancient parallels in connection with modern materials.

The Cult of Death

In the Greek cultural milieu, the cult of death unites the cult of deceased family members and great people, both recently deceased and long-deceased heroes (Hesiod. "Works and days". 654 et seq.; Pausanias. I, 36, 3) or heroines (Pausanias. I, 43, 4 et seq., VIII, 35, 8). This phenomenon is evident in the ancient cults of ancestors and heroes and in the modern practice of sanctity in Christian areas, Turkish Mevlana and the Marabouts of North Africa, suggesting a connection to fundamental beliefs or long-term mentalities in the Mediterranean. The cult of ancestors is the veneration or propitiation of progenitors, the cult of heroes or heroines, and later saints - the deceased significant person. This phenomenon is an important key to understanding most religious holidays. The fact is that many of them were an annual celebration dedicated to the deceased guardian of the society. This guardian was the intermediary between humans and the supernatural in the hierarchical structure that a polytheistic or polydaimonic society represented, just as the hero or heroine functioned when they were still alive.

The ancient Greeks believed that many sports festivals originated from celebrations dedicated to great husbands or wives. For example, we can mention Parparonia in Sparta. Although they were dedicated to Zeus, the hero was also very important for the holiday. The same can be said about the Panathenaea dedicated to Athena. Traditionally, researchers such as N. Robertson (1992) have focused mainly on the cult of the Earth-born Erechtheus. However, some heroines, such as Pandrosa and Aglavra, also had special significance in connection with the festival. All athletic festivals in Ancient Greece had their own hero, as they went back to someone's mythical death and burial, in other words, games at the festivals originated as funerary games in honor of the hero. The rituals reproduced the ceremonies that were performed at burial and memorial celebrations. The same picture appears when considering Panhellenic games and smaller local ones, although in this case the connection will not be so clear. The presence of the supposed tomb was the most important condition for choosing the site of the games. Crucial to the cult of the hero as a person who lived in ancient times, but still revered, were the blood sacrifices in his honor. Dead heroes, as well as heroines (Pausanias. IX, 17, 4-6), possessed magical powers and were intermediaries between even more powerful otherworldly forces responsible for the fruits of the earth. For the sake of the living world, it was necessary to be able to manipulate them. Since this pattern is also found in modern religious festivals dedicated to the dead, they are associated with the cult of the dead and can be called "death festivals". Blood sacrifices to the earth are still performed today through the mediation of deceased saints such as Constantine and Elena, before harvesting grain (Figure 1).

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Figure 1. Ritual sacrifice during the feast of Anastenarius, dedicated to Saints Constantine and Elena, in the village of Agia Elena (Greek Macedonia) on May 21, 1992 (the lamb's throat is cut so that the blood flows into a freshly dug pit surrounded by pots of holy water). Here and further photo by E. J. Holand.

Death-related rituals and religious holidays

Death-related Greek rituals often seem completely alien, strange, and exotic to people from Northern Europe and the United States. The difference between the familiar " us "and the exotic" them "is a major obstacle to understanding the world of the"other." However, such obstacles can be overcome if you are willing to participate [Danforth, 1982, p. 5], which can be successfully done in field research.

I have conducted field research on contemporary religious holidays dedicated to the dead and private rituals associated with death [Haland, 2007, 2008]. The most important Greek holiday is celebrated on August 15 and is called "Assumption of the Mother of God". The death of the Virgin is followed by her burial, as well as the "Rite of the 9th Day of Panagia" on August 23, which corresponds to the usual ritual associated with death, which is carried out at home. This reflects the connection between the folk death cult and official holidays. We encounter the same phenomenon in the celebration of Orthodox Easter, dedicated to the death and resurrection of Christ (Figures 2, 3). In addition, among the ancient holidays, two are particularly closely associated with the cult of death: Adonias, dedicated to the god of vegetation Adonis, and Dionysian Anthesterias, which were a holiday of the awakening of nature and at the same time days of remembrance of the dead.

Figure 2. Prayer for rain in front of icons at the cemetery in the village of Olymp on the island of Karpathos on the Bright Tuesday after Easter, April 1992.

3. Religious procession with icons through the fields in the vicinity of the village of Olymp after the ritual at the cemetery on Bright Tuesday.

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Greek religious holidays are most often dedicated to one or another deceased, in the case of ancient holidays - to the deceased together with god, often the god of the plant world. Accordingly, they illustrate the importance of popular beliefs associated with the cults of fertility and death in preserving official ideology in ancient and modern societies. These cults are associated with the domestic or female sphere of activity, which is an important area of culture in the Mediterranean, where the spheres of activity and roles of men and women are clearly differentiated.

Rituals associated with death have a pronounced emotional character. The passing away of a person, their funeral and commemoration are the most difficult moments in the life of the deceased's loved ones, and the study of these rituals means studying people in a state of grief, which is a universal universal feeling. However, in the Mediterranean, it is expressed in a special way: there is a tradition of funeral mourning [Seremetakis, 1991; Holst-Warhaft, 1992; Alexiou, 2002].

It is important to understand the cultural significance of emotions in the Mediterranean, as opposed to the traditional ideological suppression of them in the West. When describing women, men, the authors of ancient texts, point out that their roles are different from men's and they react differently to war and family crises. Of course, it is difficult to judge from ancient texts how women understood the roles attributed to them by men, since women perceive the world differently from men. We find a similar situation in modern Greek society, and based on the values of the modern Greek woman, this understanding can be called the "poetics of femininity" (Dubisch, 1995, ch. 10). The essence of this phenomenon is to show how good it is to be a woman. Ancient and modern women share the same symbolic categories that allow them to draw on a number of cultural meanings related to the female body, motherhood, sexuality, and women's activities in the religious sphere. Emotions are an important manifestation of the "poetics of femininity". Since Plato's time, women have been considered more emotional than men, and a woman's funeral lament is closely related to emotions, since the wailing should evoke an emotional response in the listener. In the Mediterranean, gestures and rituals are of great importance, they are the most important ways of self-expression. This "body language" or performative model of the communication process is just as important as verbal communication, and is particularly associated with the cult of death.

Private funerary and memorial rites currently performed reflect public rituals. Modern cult practices show many similarities with the official ancient cult (analogies are given) in various sources. The next section contains a description of the funeral in the village of Pyrgos Dirou in Inner Mani (southern part of the Mani Peninsula) in the Peloponnese, which I witnessed in 1992, as well as an analysis of how modern rituals relate to ancient sources and clarify the meaning of the ancient cult of death.

Wailing of women and burial by men

Ritual crying accompanies funerals, which are the most frequently attended event in a person's life cycle. After death, the deceased is washed, dressed, placed on a stretcher, and the women begin ritual lamentations, swaying their bodies to the beat. These lamentations are divided into three stages: they are sung at traditional wakes in the house before burial, during the funeral procession and at the grave. After burial, the deceased is mourned at certain intervals. Mourning for the deceased is a ritual that is seen as a social duty in most villages.

The deceased is buried 12 to 24 hours after death. In Mani, funerals begin at the deceased's childhood home, even though he may have lived in a different village for the rest of his adult life. The courtyard is crowded with visitors. The dead schoolteacher, Konstantinos Nick, is in the living room. Poilanzas, in full dress, lies in a coffin lined with lighted candles on the right side. As in ancient times, now the dead put a coin on the forehead or in the mouth. People send messages and gifts to their deceased loved ones with the deceased. These gifts are placed on the deceased, followed by hugs and kisses on the forehead. People are at the body of the deceased all night before burial. The widow of the deceased leads 34 mourners sitting around the coffin. They do not sing all at once, the funeral lament goes in the same direction as everything that is passed around the body - a censer, food or drinks. When mourners sing about the life of the deceased from childhood to death, they perform the female part of the ritual, which lasts all night until noon the next day, when the funeral vigil reaches its climax - the great lament. After that, the priests arrive, and the male part of the ritual begins. But the women continue to cry as if nothing is happening.

The content of the funeral lament is quite traditional-these are questions asked to the deceased. Through crying, a connection is established between the living and the dead. Crying can begin with the deceased person saying goodbye to their next of kin-

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mi and include threats. The funeral lament often contains a protest against modern doctors, calls for social change, and objections to the official religion and its false promises to reward the pious in the afterlife. It often includes the concept of fate. Complaints are passed down from generation to generation, especially from mother to daughter. Many sources attest to popular beliefs about the afterlife. The funeral lament illustrates the continuity of pre-Christian models, as many of its themes are found in inscriptions from ancient burials. As in the inscriptions on ancient tombs, a modern funeral lament may contain a kind of magic spell, when the deceased is addressed with the call: "Arise, my love, rise again! Come back and talk to me." An ancient parallel is the bitter cry of a mother at the grave of her daughter who died before the wedding, with an appeal to her soul ("Palatine Anthology". VII, 486) and the lament of Antigone, who addresses her dead parents and brother (Sophocles. "Antigone". 866 - 871, 891 - 928).

Women first mourn the deceased, then their deceased loved ones, as happened in the modern village of Olympos on the island of Karpathos in southern Greece during the Easter celebration (see below), and the crying ends most often with mourning for the position of the mourner herself. She does not speak on behalf of the deceased, who is at the center of the event, as in the funeral song of Cassandra in Aeschylus (Aeschylus. "Agamemnon". 1322-1326, 1341), who performed a lament for herself on the way to death (Aeschylus. "Agamemnon". 1345). Modern mourners usually complain about their fate and the fact that death has taken away a loved one from them. During the performance of crying, women rhythmically shake their bodies, beat their chests, scratch their cheeks and tear their hair. Until recently, they cut their hair to cover the face of the deceased, as they did during the mourning of Patroclus in the Iliad (XXIII, 135 et seq., 151). Perhaps the mourners are visualizing their inner emotional response to death.

As in Ancient Greece, death-related rituals in modern Mani refer to the family and home of the deceased, while burial has a public character represented by the Church. The contrast between ritual mourning, funeral vigil, and burial reflects the previous confrontation between the ancient ancestral cult and the official religion in Mani (Seremetakis, 1991). We can also mention the ancient powerful clans and their cults, which were fought both by the ancient legislators and, a little later, by the classical polis. There was also a struggle against the feminine way of expressing grief, which gave women considerable power over the rituals associated with death.

When the ritual vigil in Mani is over, the priests enter, followed by the male part of the deceased's family, first of all his two sons, who came home from Thessaloniki and Athens. Priests perform an official ceremony that ends with blessing people with holy water, which serves as a parallel to the ancient rituals of purification.

Then the funeral procession to the Church of Our Lady of Panagia begins. Behind the musicians is a man with a wreath from the school where the deceased worked as a teacher, another carries the lid of the coffin. Then there are priests and seven men carrying an open coffin. They are followed by a woman with koliv on a platter - a mixture of wheat, nuts and fruit, which is usually offered during the funeral service at the grave. Then comes a woman with a bottle of water, a towel, cups, spoons, and several bottles of Metaxa. Another carries a bunch of candles and an icon of Panagia. As the funeral procession slowly moves through the village, new members join in. In a chapel on the outskirts of the village, even more people are waiting for the procession.

The coffin is located in front of the iconostasis. While the priests perform the funeral rite, people enter the chapel, kiss the icon on the front door and light candles. After the sermon, several men give a eulogy, talking about the social life of the deceased and especially about all his donations to the church, which serves as a parallel to the ancient liturgies. After that, the ceremony in the chapel ends.

The cemetery is located on the outskirts of the village. It is surrounded by tall cypresses, symbolizing death and mourning. The musicians remain on the road, and the funeral procession enters the cemetery. The priest sprinkles the deceased with oil (in the form of a cross - head, legs and on both sides of the waist), so that his soul and bones become white as snow, as well as the earth on both sides of the grave. People wash their hands with bottled water. This is a modern parallel, illustrating the fear of miasma and desecration by death in ancient times, when a vessel of water was placed outside the house with the deceased so that those who came out could be cleansed.

People line up on the road leading to the cemetery. Everyone welcomes the deceased's family and receives a kolivo and a Metaxa. Everyone utters a wish for the forgiveness of the deceased. In the cafe next to the cemetery, there are several drunk people, as is usually the case in Greece at funerals or at Easter, and women whose voice has become hoarse after crying. The family of the deceased invites relatives and friends to a fishing trip

* Compare Caraveli, 1986, pp. 181-186, and Euripides. "Elektra". 678-681; Aeschylus. "Hoefors". 456 ^ 161; "Persians". 619-681, 687 et seq. See also: Palatine Anthology. VII, 524, 659.

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a memorial meal. Relatives of the deceased will not eat meat for the next 40 days in anticipation of the main memorial rite.

The works of Homer, Plato, Plutarch, tragedies, eulogies, inscriptions, images on vases and tombstones tell us about the cult of death in the ancient era. Then, as now, burial and mourning were indispensable conditions for the deceased to find bliss in the other world, otherwise the soul of the deceased would continue to wander without rest ("Iliad". 10).

The ancient funeral ritual can also be divided into two main parts: mourning and burial. The wailing of women was associated with mourning ("Iliad". XIX, 282-302; XXIV, 710-776; cf.: Euripides. "Hecuba." 609-619; Sophocles ' Elektra. 1137 et seq.), while the men performed the burial ("Iliad". 24, 785-799, see also: Plato. "Laws". 947b-e, 958-960; cf.: Thucydides. II, 34; Attic Black-figured Lekythoi, 1936, p. 229, п. 59). Weeping immediately after the death of a loved one was followed by washing the body and preparing it for the funeral vigil. Women played a leading role in these rites. The subsequent funeral vigil with ritual mourning could be led by both women and men, and the final burial ceremony was led exclusively by men*.

During the vigil, the bed was surrounded by women from the deceased's family and professional mourners. The cry was started by the mother or wife of the deceased ("Iliad". XXIV, 719 - 776). The women beat their chests and tore their hair. These gestures, as well as wounds to the cheeks and chest, accompanied by tearing clothes, were common elements of ritual crying. As in the modern Mani society [Seremetakis, 1991, p. 4]. 28, 127 - 129, 144 - 157], Ancient rituals of mourning the dead often included demands for vengeance (Aeschylus. "Hoefors". 324 - 339, 886). In our time, as before, weeping for the deceased gives an outlet to grief. Having a dual function, mourning pays homage to the deceased and expresses several contradictory emotions.

The ancient burial ceremony included taking the deceased to the burial site, cremating the body, rituals on the grave and burying the remains.

Tombs and offerings

Tombstones and grave offerings can tell you a lot about ancient and modern ideas about the afterlife. In ancient Greece, standardized kouros (statues of a young athlete) and stelae are known. In addition to food, offerings could include strands of hair, ribbons, wreaths, flowers, and small ceramic vessels. Nowadays, photographs and gifts such as a block of cigarettes, candy or toys can be seen on the graves, depending on the age and taste of the deceased and their loved ones. Catherine G. Tavulari, who died at the age of 75, had her glasses and watch placed in a small depression on the grave, where there is an icon and three red flowers.

Every Saturday morning, women demonstrate the "poetics of femininity" by putting order in the cemetery and cleaning the graves of loved ones. They then spread out their food offerings, thus maintaining a social relationship with the dead. This theme often appears in the funeral lament, which indicates the close connection of these rituals.

On the third, ninth and fortieth day after the burial, a memorial ceremony is performed. The deceased is also commemorated every six months for three years until the exhumation of the deceased's bones; of particular importance is the commemoration on the day of death. For three years, the widow will come to the grave every day to remember her dead husband and take care of his grave. For the first forty days, she keeps the oil lamp burning at home in front of her husband's photograph, then when the gravestone appears, she brings the photograph to the cemetery. People pray that the earth will accept the deceased. At this time, the widow wears black mourning clothes. Although the fortieth day ritual ends the first period of mourning and seclusion, a woman can continue to wear black clothing for the rest of her life. As well as the heroines of ancient sources ("Iliad". XXIV, 93 et seq.; Plutarch. "Moralia". 608f4), women show their grief by dressing in mourning clothes. The female body is an important source of social symbolism, playing an essential role in the "poetics of femininity". Bodies generally have a social meaning that is used in public behavior. In Greece, the female body represents family and social relationships in a number of different contexts. Putting on black mourning clothes after the death of a family member, a woman becomes a symbol of mourning and kinship relations between the deceased and the living.

Nine days before the first anniversary of the death, the father of the deceased, Panagiotis Vidales, puts an announcement about the event on lampposts in d. Tinos on Tinos Island. The ceremony begins with a liturgy in the church dedicated to the patron saint of the family. After that, a kolivo is heard, on which a photo of the deceased was placed during the service. It is usually taken from the grave and returned to the site after the ceremony, along with a wreath from the deceased's mother. Those present are treated to cakes, coffee and "Metaxa".

* Cf.: "The Iliad". XXIV, 793 - 796. For the subject of women's grief, see The Iliad. XIX, 282 et seq.; XXIV, 710 et seq.; The Odyssey. VIII, 523-530; male - "Iliad". XVIII, 22 et seq.; XXII, 408.

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4. Commemoration of the deceased on the second of three parental Saturdays, during Lent at the end of winter, March 7, 1992, Serres (Greek Macedonia).

In addition to family commemorations, there are also annual collective memorial celebrations. Some special days are dedicated to the Mershim, such as the ancient Anthesteria, but today these holidays are called "Sabbaths of souls"or" parental Sabbaths". They are observed at the end of winter and at the end of spring, i.e. when the grain sprouts and when it ripens. It is believed that at this time the souls of the dead visit the world of the living. According to ancient beliefs, the dead visited their former homes and wandered among the living for three days around the time of the beginning of spring flowering, when the Anthesterias were celebrated. On parental Saturdays, women bring food to the cemetery (Fig. 4), which they eat after the priest's blessing, so that the souls of the deceased can be forgiven.

After the exhumation of the bones of the deceased, the living should celebrate only collective memorial days. But the deceased are usually commemorated on the anniversary of their death and after the remains are re-interred in the ossuary.

Ancient sacrifices and memorial rituals

In antiquity, the funeral rite included various rituals, blood sacrifices, crying and dancing. Victims ("Odyssey". XI, 30-33) were motivated not only by the impotent rage that accompanies grief, but also by offerings to the dead corresponding to dedications to Chthonic deities. The new grave was sprinkled with grain. Here libations were made, after which the vessels were sometimes broken and left on the grave, like a bottle of wine in our days. No funeral was complete without a funerary feast, and reliefs often depicted the dead at the feast. Funeral rites were completed by cleaning the house and offering a sacrifice to Hestia (the goddess of the hearth [Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecaram, 1960, p. 1218]).

The sacrifice and trizna were repeated on the third and ninth days, and food was again brought to the grave. On the thirtieth day, a general feast was held to mark the end of official mourning. As today, the anniversary of death was marked with a special ritual, and the grave was visited on other, less formal occasions.

The responsibility of caring for graves fell on the descendants, officially-on male citizens, but in practice, on the funeral white-phoned lekifs that were placed in the grave or on the grave, female images predominate. This confirms the crucial role of women in caring for the dead and the family tomb. The same is shown by written sources (Euripides. "Orestes". 112 - 124).

The extended family of the Greeks was very important in the political and social structure of the Polis. She could demonstrate her identity through the possession of a family cemetery in the land of her ancestors (Demosthenes. XLIII, 79; LVII, 67). Until recently, this custom was common in Karpathos and Mani.

The ancient legislator Solon wanted to reduce the cost of funerals and limit the excessive expression of grief (Plutarch. "Biographies". 12B, 21.4 et seq.). He turned Genesies-the anniversary celebrations of a great man's death-into an official holiday dedicated to all the dead, which was part of the democratization process.

Various forms of self-harm expressed women's grief and served as a way to reduce emotional suffering through its transformation into physical pain. In a politicized environment, the display of grief at funerals gave the clan an opportunity to show its power, and the authorities demonstrated their strength by restricting or prohibiting rituals. A theatrical illustration is Sophocles ' "Antigone", where a single woman sprinkled earth and honored her brother's corpse with a libation, which was perceived as a political threat. In the Mediterranean, there are historical parallels to this example.

From the sixth century BC, a law was introduced in Athens and other city-states to limit mourning for the dead, especially mourning. The pain, frustration, and anger of grieving women is represented by-

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This is a powerful challenge to public order. The state's need for a permanent army necessitated the glorification of death on the battlefield, and the eulogy began to be perceived as the assimilation and ennobling of women's funeral lament by men [Holst-Warhaft, 1992]. This is evidenced by the speech of Pericles about those who died in the first years of the Peloponnesian War (Thucydides. II, 34 - 46). The desire of men to assign the function of women in funeral rituals indicates the recognition of the great importance of women's rites. Attempts by men in Athens to take control of the celebrations and the mourning of women were not successful (the same process was repeated in Byzantium), and today women still mourn their dead. Funeral lament and other female rites remain a major part of funeral ritual in rural Greece.

In the classical Athenian polis (during the period of democracy), the authorities attached great importance to the public funeral of those who gave their lives in the service of the state. However, ordinary people do not seem to have experienced such feelings, and even Pericles allowed women to mourn their dead (Thucydides. II, 34), buried in a common grave, building a parallel between the official and private rituals of the time. This serves as a further reminder of how difficult it is to change people's underlying beliefs and feelings, and that official rituals reflect a popular cult that manifests itself in the private sphere. And in the modern public ceremony on Parents ' Saturday in Athens, official celebrations are only a small part of the whole ritual, which includes the commemoration of St. Theodore, general memorial rites and private ones dedicated to the deceased loved ones. Despite the solemn homily of the archbishop and the speech of the mayor of Athens, the distribution of communal koliv and the laying of wreaths at the monument to fallen soldiers of World War II, this part of the celebration is not necessarily more important than the private rituals of people at the graves of their loved ones after the official ceremony. Some do not take part in it, but go straight to the cemetery.

The link between the living and the dead

Through their crying, women communicate with the dead, they are considered intermediaries between the world of the dead and the world of the living. In Greece, women's mourning rituals were and still are an integral part of the rites associated with death. In d. Olympos woman explained that the letters that are attached to the shroud on Good Friday are a funeral lament "moirologia", recorded in memory of the deceased. It is accompanied by a photo of a deceased loved one. When the men leave the church after the service, the women begin their own ritual of mourning in front of the shroud, but they do not mourn Christ, but their deceased family members, especially those who have died recently and who are depicted in the photos.

Crying is a feminine response to death, but it also embodies society's attitude to death and is therefore fundamental to life. Mourners are responsible for preserving the living memory of the dead, do not allow you to forget about your heroic ancestors. For example, the image of Alexander the Great, one of the supposed glorious ancestors of the Greeks and other Europeans, lives on in the memory of mourning the dead.

The cult of the dead remains to this day the basis and expression of the identity of the clan. The honor given to ancestors creates a desire to continue their work, so the Greek death cult ensures the continuity of traditions.

List of literature

Attic Black-figured Lekythoi / C. H. E. Haspels. - P.: De Boccard, 1936. - T. 1. - X, 407 p.; 54 pi.

Alexiou M. The Ritual Lament in Greek Tradition. - Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2002. - 338 p.

Caraveli A. The Bitter Wounding: The Lament as Social Protest in Rural Greece // Gender and Power in Rural Greece / ed. by J. Dubisch. - Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1986. - P. 169 - 194.

Danforth L.M. The Death Rituals of Rural Greece. - Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1982. - 237 p.

Dubisch J. In a Different Place: Pilgrimage, Gender, and Politics at a Greek Island Shrine. - Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1995. - 316 p.

Grunebaum G.E., von. Muhammadan Festivals. - L.: Curzon Press, 1981. - 115 p.

Haland E.J. Greek Festivals, Modern and Ancient: A Comparison of Female and Male Values. - Kristiansand: Norwegian Academic Press, 2007. - 765 p.

Haland E.J. Greek Women and Death, ancient and modern: A Comparative Analysis // Women, Pain and Death: Rituals and Everyday-Life on the Margins of Europe and Beyond / ed. by E.J. Haland. - Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2008. - P. 34 - 62.

Holst-Warhaft G. Dangerous Voices: Women's Laments and Greek Literature. - L.; N.Y.: Routledge, 1992. - 230 p.

Robertson N. Festivals and Legends: The Formation of Greek Cities in the Light of Public Ritual. - Toronto; Buffalo; L.: Univ. of Toronto Press, 1992. - 301 p.

Seremetakis C.N. The Last Word: Women, Death, and Divination in Inner Mani. - Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1991. - 281 p.

Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum / ed. by W. Dittenberger. - Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1960. - Vol. 3. - 402 p.

The article was submitted to the editorial Board on 06.09.10, in the final version-on 13.09.10.

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