New Year's Day at Agia Paraskevi (Photios Kontoglou)

"Kydonies Agia Paraskevi," early 20th-century photograph

New Year’s Day, as Photios Kontoglou remembered it, at his estate in Agia Paraskevi of Aivali (Ayvalik).

NEW YEAR’S DAY AT AGIA PARASKEVI

By Photios Kontoglou

Agia Paraskevi was the name of a monastery, but in truth it was an estate, administered by the abbot. It had neither monks nor the other things monasteries usually have. The abbot and his clan governed the surrounding mountains, the olive groves, the fields, the gardens, the pastures, the salt pans, the sea, and the livestock. The abbot was ordained from within the family — the most educated and the most honored — and this had been done so from grandfather to great-grandfather.

The abbot and his people lived in a true fortress with high walls, which contained many rooms, kitchens, ovens, storerooms, mills, and at the center stood the Church of Saint Paraskevi. This enchanted fortress was built atop a mountain surrounded by the sea on three sides, and at its summit there was a rock such as one would not find elsewhere, of such strange form and such size. The fortress was built at its base, toward the south.

One evening, on New Year’s Eve, inside the main room sat the old abbot Stephanos, his sister Eugenia, their nieces and nephews, and two brothers, Paraskevas and Stephanos, who later became abbot in his uncle’s place. Little by little the others arrived as well — quite a few people. The room was spread with soft white rugs and possessed a genuine, natural nobility. From everything you could tell you were in the East. Everyone sat cross-legged.

The elders told stories. And these stories never ended — true stories that had taken place in that ancient and blessed region, through which all sorts of people had passed, each with his own ways; stories to make you laugh and to make you cry; stories that had happened fifty or sixty years earlier, and others that had happened just last year or the year before.

When the time came, they set the table. They placed a large round tray in the middle, and around it four smaller ones, laden with every delicacy imaginable. The abbot ate little, and whenever it was not a fasting day, he would always eat, at the end, one hard-boiled egg and drink a glass of dark wine. He died at the age of one hundred and six, after falling from a little donkey he was riding on his way to the threshing floors in summer; from that fall he died within a few days.

When they had finished eating, the abbot cut the vasilopita with reverence, as though he were serving the Divine Liturgy. For each piece he said: “For Christ, for the Panagia, for Saint Nicholas, for Saint Paraskevi, for the house, for so-and-so, for so-and-so,” until at the end he cut pieces even “for the animals, the trees, the crops, the boats.” How could one vasilopita suffice for so many portions? When one was finished, they had another ready, and then another, which the women set before him. For the children and the elderly he would pretend that the knife slipped and would cut larger pieces: “Here’s a piece for little Yiannakis! Here’s a piece for Uncle Vasilis!”

Outside the blizzard groaned, as if it wanted to bring the rocks crashing down. The roar of the sea was such that you thought you would wake in the morning to see the headlands and the shores torn apart. But inside, the room was warm as a bathhouse, and until sleep overtook them, they were gently lulled by the storm.

"Agia Paraskevi," fresco

At first light the bell rang and everyone got up, except the children. The north wind had eased.

They went into the church. By the time they had finished the Six Psalms, it was fully light. From below, from the sheepfold, came the bleating of the sheep; the newborn lambs could be distinguished by their thin voices, as well as the sound of the bells. The celebrant was Father Nikanoros Koukoutos, together with the deacon Sylvester. The abbot sat in his stall on the right, wrapped in his fur, and on the left the abbess in her own. The right chanter was Mr. Thodoros Babakas, and the left Mr. Ouranios with Papa Giourgoulis. Arsenios Sgouros served in the sanctuary, handing the censer, lighting the candles, boiling the zeon (boiling water). The chanters were helped by the abbot’s nephews, Paraskevas and Stephanos.

They chanted slowly and melodiously the Katavasies: “Come, O people, let us sing a hymn to Christ our God,” the Praises and the Stichera: “He bears circumcision in the flesh,” and then the Doxastikon of Saint Basil, “Grace is poured forth upon your lips, O Venerable Father!”

"Stephanos Kontoglou I, abbot of the Monastery of Saint Paraskevi of Kydonies.
He fell asleep in the Lord, the Savior. Year 1895."
By Photios Kontoglou, 1957, pencil and ink on paper, illustration for the book 'Aivali, My Homeland'

At the moment when they were about to recite the Creed, crazy-Paraskevas suddenly sprang into the middle of the church. He had been hiding by the holy spring and began to recite it with such a wild booming voice that even Uncle Manolis, heavy with sleep, was startled awake. The abbot turned to look and saw Paraskevas wearing a robe like the kaftan worn by the hodjas, which he himself had made from a Calcutta sugar sack that reached to his knees. With his red beard and twisted mustache he presented such a sight that both women and men began stifling their laughter.

The abbot was angry. When the service ended, he scolded poor Paraskevas and imposed a penance on him. Paraskevas made a prostration, kissed his hand, and said that for a whole week he had sewn that vestment inside the cave, to wear it at the Liturgy so as to recite the Creed and be ordained Reader by the abbot.

Until Theophany he did not leave his hermitage, but chanted night and day, sitting inside a barrel with the Calcutta sack, “clothed in sackcloth and sitting upon ashes.”

Source: From the book Aivali, My Homeland. Translation by John Sanidopoulos.