Θρησκευτική και κοσμική λαϊκή διήγηση: αλληλεπιδράσεις: το παράδειγμα του Αγίου Ιωάννη του Καλυβίτη

Abstract

The popular biography of a saint, often different from the one of his/her official Life of a Saint, is very interesting for the study of the religious folklore and the fuller understanding of the traditional cultural system of a people, since it constitutes an important source of information as far as the perceptions of the simple people and the traditional religious behavior are concerned. The subject of the present study is the imprinting and the study of those elements that constitute the popular narrative tradition of St. John the Kalyvitis, elements that are in-topic relevant to those of his ecclesiastic Life and which are indivisibly bound to the cultural life of the places that reproduce them. The present thesis is the result of a long research and study. There was a before-hand detailed research and collection of information from documentary sources and the relevant bibliography, both Greek and international, in studies and in the archives of Universities and research centers, in conjunction with on-site folkloric research in various places of worship of St. John the Kalyvitis, where the method of recorded interview was applied. In specific, during the period 1994-2002, there was systematic on-site research and documentation of the popular narrative accounts that involved St. John the Kalyvitis in the following regions of Greece: Euboea (Bathi, Kastella, Mantoudi, Politika, Prokopi, Psahna), Thessaly (Magnesia), Ionian Islands (Corfu), Crete (Chania, Siteia), Cyclades (Kea, Paros, Tinos), Lesbos (Mytilene, Plomari, Batera), Macedonia (Florina), Peloponnesus (Achaia, Messinia) and Sterea Ellada (Attica, Fthiotida, Fokida). The primary folkloric material of these documentations, in conjunction with the reading and evaluation of archive records, books and scientific journals consisted the basic body of my thesis which aimed at this very thing, that is the collection, classification and interpretation of the unpublished and published relevant material. Methodological support was provided by other relevant studies as well.1 The book is divided into three chapters and includes preface, introduction, conclusion, glossary, bibliography (and appendix of tradition documents). In the first chapter, the official ecclesiastic biography of St. John the Kalyvitis is put forward, as well as his hymnographic and hagiographic elements. In the second chapter, the geographic breadth and the distribution of the popular narrations concerning St. John in the entire Greek continental and insular territory, Cyprus and Asia Minor are exposed. In the third chapter, a thorough analysis and interpretation of the popular tradition of St. John the Kalyvitis is attempted, particularly its connection with the official ecclesiastic tradition, the ancient classical history and mythology, and the fairytale types of the Greek as well as the international paramythology. The conclusions follow. In a special appendix in the end, the texts of unpublished fairytales and traditions of the saint, references to the live of the informants and special records and documents from the archives of the temple of. St. John the Kalyvitis in Euboea (Bathi) are exhibited. ..........................................................................................................................................................