4 “Adat Orthodox Christianity”

When asked why they cultivated certain rites, my Orthodox Christian respondents often replied that those were adet (Turkish: adet, Arabic: sing. ‘adah, pl. ‘adat)²¹⁴ meaning tradition, an attitude in where, to borrow a phrase from Ludwik Stomma, a Polish ethnologist, customs are observed in order to “keep things as they are, which is as they should be” (Stomma 1986, p. 82). Although the Bulgarian word “tradition” [Bulgarian: traditsiya] is sometimes used as well, the Turkish word adet²¹⁵ prevails, indicating strong Ottoman influence²¹⁶ in the studied region. Accordingly, I refer to the local model of Orthodox Christianity as “Adat Christianity”, a term I prefer to the existing categories describing the unofficial forms of religious practice by Orthodox Christians²¹⁷, such as the Bulgarian bitovo hristianstvo (Russianbitovoe pravoslavie), or its more recent equivalent, the Bulgarian term folklorno hristianstvo (literally: “folk Christianity”), Orthodox Christian paganism²¹⁸, or the Russian and Bulgarian dvoverie (dual religion)²¹⁹.

Since they are stereotypes, such existing categories tend to obscure the actual beliefs and religious practices in question rather than make them conceptually clear. The nature of those beliefs was largely shaped by trying to reconcile religious values with the agricultural ethos. Because factors such as geographical isolation or the agricultural ethos no longer obtain to the same degree, the local models have changed, in some ways beyond recognition, since the days of the pioneering field research at turn of the 19th century.

Reconstructing the patterns of past influence between Islam and Christianity is a task for the historian of culture, potentially providing ethnologists with valuable insights. However, scholarship on the subject remains disappointingly patchy, making it difficult at present to establish firm points of historical reference. I noticed certain analogies between Muslim and Christian behaviors, but a closer analysis is not possible without a broader literature of the subject.

The analogies between Bulgarians and Turks or Pomaks in the Western Rhodopes, probably influenced by a history of cohabitation in the Ottoman Empire, include a belief in the “evil eye” with its related formulas, such as Da te posere petela (literally “May a rooster shit on you”, kokoshki sa go osrali (literally “Chickens have shat on him”, or luk da si imash (literally, “May you have onions/garlic”), a kind of counterpart to the Turkish-Arabic formula ma sha’ Allah (Turkish:maallah), colloquially pronounced mashalla (pronounced with a geminate /l/) ormashala ²²⁰, spoken aloud (or in one’s thoughts²²¹) in the presence of a person being complimented to avert migraine or the “evil eye”²²², which the well-wisher may cause inadvertently:

M.L.: Is it possible to give somebody the evil eye without meaning to?

K.: Yes. It’s called “ill time”. For instance, say, I like a person very much, I like the way that person looks, so I look at the person, and the older people would say this happened at an ill time. Then the person might get a headache, or start feeling heavy. (W, Ch, Interview 37, Garmen 2006)

M.L.: When the Mohammedans²²³ have something nice to say about a child they always say mashallah to ward off the evil eye. Do you say something similar?

S.: we say, “May a rooster shit on you”.

M.L.: Is that something you’re expected to say every time?

S.: Well, you say that if you haven’t seen the child before, when you see the child for the first time. (W, Ch, Interview 34, Garmen 2006)

M.L.: Do people say compliments about babies?

K.: The Pomaks say mashallah, we say, “May you have onions”. On top of that people also spit, “Puh, puh, puh, may you have onions”. (W, Ch, Interview 37, Garmen 2006)

By way of comparison, here are some comments from Muslims. According to hodzha Murat, a person who says mashallah pleads to Allah to bestow the attribute on the person in question. The hodzha admitted that the words also have an apotropaic function:

Hodzha 3: Mashallah means, here is an attribute given by Allah. Then, the evil eye, the envious eye, cannot reach that person. You say mashallah, “Allah has willed it”.

M.L.: Who says that, the person giving the compliment or the person receiving it?

Hodzha 3: The person giving the compliment, the speaker. I mean, you say those words to protect that person, in case you give them a jealous look or the evil eye. (Interview 17, Ribnovo 2005)

Obviously, the presence of post-Ottoman components in religious life does not exhaust the specificity of local Orthodox Christianity in the Western Rhodopes. Symptoms of its affinity to Christianity include, among others, the importance attached by my Christian respondents to Jesus as the Christ (primarily) and also to Mary [Bulgarian: Deva Mariya] as Mother of God and Christian saints, i.e. St. Dimitar (Bulgarian: Sveti Dimitar , St. George, St. Paraskeva and St. Nedelya). They have a sense that the saints are present in their lives – communicating their requests through dreams or granting healing to people incubating in their shrines (see Section 5.1.2). However, they know little about Christian doctrine – other than mentioned above – or liturgy. Their worldview includes the existence of pre-Christian beliefs (e.g. rusalkas/samodivas and vampires/karakondzhuls, see Chapter 10), but it is also marked by the influence of modern New Age trends, mostly discussed in narratives about visits to a Bulgarian fortuneteller, the late Baba Vanga.

Post-Ottoman components appear to exert a stronger influence in my research than New Age ideas. Unlike the latter, which are a relatively new development, the Ottoman Empire continued to influence local lives for close to 500 years, and the presence of Muslims in the area led to unwitting adaptation of certain elements of Ottoman practices and beliefs, particularly what they perceive as the most important of religious practices, namely the ritual of blood sacrifice (kurban). However, this process was too complex, and played out over too long a period of time, to make it possible to reconstruct the daily life and culture of the Orthodox population before and after the Islamicization processes in Bulgaria. The religious life of my Christian respondents today is a synthesis of those elements.

4.1  Kurban in the Religious Life of Christian Respondents

The influence of Ottoman Islam on the religious life of my Orthodox Christian respondents may be responsible for the importance²²⁴ of blood sacrifice (kurban) as a central act of religious life, more important than Holy Communion. Although “the practice predates Islam in the Balkans”, “the practice in the Balkans is older than Islam” (Hristov, Skimi 2007, p. 10), its continued prevalence in a population which accepted Christianity as the official religion under Tsar Boris in the year 864 may result from mimetic rivalry between Orthodox Christians and Muslims in a religiously mixed area. Christians may also be persuaded of a particular value and effectiveness of kurban in view of its major importance to Muslims. In the Balkans, both religious groups use the term kurban in any one of three senses: “it denotes the blood sacrifice, the sacrificial animal, the sacrificial feast and the ritual food” (Blagoev 2004, p. 324).

According to Goran Blagoev, a Bulgarian historian, and Yordanka Georgieva- Oko, a scholar in Bulgarian and Turkish Studies at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland (in Polish transliteration: Jordanka Georgiewa-Oko), the kurban in Christian dogma “denotes sacrifices made in God’s name which no longer involve blood sacrifice. Old Bulgarian translations of the New Testament use the word qorban/korvan in the sense of a gift, a bloodless sacrifice to God” (Blagoev 2004, p. 29; Georgiewa-Oko 2010, p. 70). In the Qur’an²²⁵, the term is a borrowing related to the burnt offerings of Leviticus (Blagoev 2004, p. 29). It should be noted that the word “sacrifice” does not accurately reflect the meaning of the term qorban as it appears in the Torah, whether in the Latin etymological sense of making something holy (sacrificio) or in the colloquial sense of losing/surrendering something. Instead, the Hebrew word derived from the root q-r-b, to approach (Pecaric 2005, p. V–VI). In this interpretation, the idea of “approaching” or “drawing near” refers both to the taking of food or sacrificial animals into the Temple, and to the psychological process of a spiritual approach, essentially analogous to prayer as uderstood today (cf. Pecaric 2005, p. VI).

Probably to eliminate the association with the Hebrew word qarab, commentators of the Qur’an derive the word kurban from the Arabic qurba or kinship²²⁶ (Blagoev 2004, p. 30). In this interpretation of the word still retains the semantic connection with the Hebrew qarab, Blagoev points out, because kurban nowadays refers to a sacrifice bringing a person closer to God (Blagoev 2004, p. 31). I believe that my Muslim and Orthodox Christian respondents alike use the word in this sense. Blagoev notes that blood sacrifice, in obedience and poverty turn into meritorious service in this world and the next, still remains the most important way of forging bonds between people and God in Islam, and in the Balkans generally (cf. Blagoev 2004, p. 325).

The kurban rite is sanctioned by the figure of Abraham, who is considered to be the originator of this kind of sacrifice by Muslims and Christians alike²²⁷, even if Abraham and his son (Isaac in the Christian tradition, Isma‘il in the Muslim tradition) are not usually named²²⁸. Christian and Muslim narratives of Abraham’s sacrifice differ from their biblical or Qur’anic sources: in traditional narratives, Abraham/Ibrahim makes a vow to sacrifice a son, if a son is given to him by God²²⁹.

Muslims and Christians insist that vicarious sacrifice was made possible by Abraham/Ibrahim’s experience after he was told to sacrifice a lamb (or a ram) instead of his child (Miltenova, Badalanova 1996, p. 212–213; Badalanova 2002a, p. 58). Had God not put a stop to the practice, the respondents believe they would still have to sacrifice their own children:

Hodzha 4: If he [Ibrahim – M.L.] had not killed²³⁰ his child, we would [still] have to kill our children as kurban. That’s the origin of kurbans, they go back to Avram alehis salyam for us. (Interview 3, Ribnovo 2005)

To Muslims, animal sacrifice is a canonical practice with a direct connection to the holiday of Kurban Bayram held during the Hajj²³¹; Christians primarily make animal sacrifices on 6 May (Gergiovden) (Miltenova, Badalanova 1996, p. 212)²³².

Writing about religious life in the 20th century, Dimitar Marinov notes that making a kurban on that date held so much importance in some regions of Bulgaria (such as Sofia) that those who neglected to perform the sacrifice were not allowed to attend church (Marinov 1994, p. 606). To this day, Orthodox Christians believe kurban to be a canonical element of St. George’s Day devotions; in this view, those who make the sacrifice should attend church on the day, and the lamb sacrificed on Gergiovden is the most important religious sacrifice of the year. The ritual takes a place of supreme importance in the religious imagination, with God and St. George being treated as being practically synonymous in certain Bulgarian folk songs and folklore²³³ (cf. Miltenova, Badalanova 1996, p. 212).

For the sacrifice to be acceptable to God (or to the saint), both religious groups believe the animal must be without blemish and meet a number of other criteria:

G.: The ritual [requires a specific type of] lamb, which must be white, it mustn’t be black, it mustn’t have horns. Horns are the symbol of the devil. So it must be still without horns. (W, Ch, Interview 23, Satovcha 2005)

In terms of differences pertaining to the ritual itself, Christians (unlike Muslims) distribute cooked, rather than raw, meat, and do not cover the lamb’s eyes with a scarf²³⁴. In addition to ritual gestures enacting Abraham’s sacrifice, Christians include gestures symbolizing the Christian tradition, such making crosses on children’s foreheads with the lamb’s blood²³⁵, a gesture to bring health and a long life and to serve as a reminder of the fact that children are no longer sacrificed to God since the times of the cross and Christianity (cf. Miltenova, Badalanova 1996, p. 213).

Christians refrain from sacrificing animals on Wednesdays and Fridays (on those days animal sacrifice is replaced by “fasting” or meatless kurban²³⁶, such as cooked beans), another example of Christian influence on the practice. Other examples include Christian symbols (a lit candle and church incense) used during the sacrifice. My respondents also mentioned a practice in which the lamb’s blood is buried under a rose bush (Interview 42, Garmen 2006).

In this context, probably the most obvious connection to Christian ritual (owing to its Eucharistic connotations) is the salt given to the lamb before the sacrifice. According to Dimitar Marinov, the salt offered to the lamb is a substitute for the Eucharist (Bulgarian: komka) (cf. Sarinov 1994, p. 608). My respondents were unable to explain the meaning of this element, and did not connect it with the Communion. However, in terms of oral transmission it is important to note the link between the Bulgarian word agne (lamb) and the liturgical formula of Agnets Bozhiy (Lamb of God) (cf. Badalanova 2002, p. 52). This semantic connection means that every lamb sacrificed as a kurban is seen by the faithful as an incarnation of the Lamb of God, and conversely, the Lamb of God is the sacrificial lamb²³⁷ (Badalanova 2002a, p. 52). Yordanka Georgiewa-Oko makes a similar point where she writes about the connection between the ritual of kurban and the rites of the Eucharist (cf. Georgiewa-Oko 2010, p. 70).

Also notable in this context is the vivid Orthodox Christian iconography of Christ as the Lamb of God, or the so-called Amnos/Melismos²³⁸, with its connotations of blood sacrifice. This kind of iconography developed in south-eastern Europe in the 11^th century and may have influenced Orthodox Christian religious thinking. The scene appears in murals, usually as part of depictions of the Divine Liturgy²³⁹. In the center it has the Infant Christ on the altar placed on a diskos/ paten similar to a prosphoron (Eucharistic bread),²⁴⁰ and surrounded by angels officiating as High Priests, holding liturgical utensils such as a knife or a Communion spoon (Greek: labida), preparing to divide/fracture (Greek melizo) the Lamb of God. Sometimes a Seraphim appears in the center of the composition, officiating as the main priest. The image symbolically depicts the preparation of the gifts (the liturgical bringing of bread and wine to the altar), and it emphasizes the role of angels as actual participants in the liturgy.

Although such analogies may go some way to explain the popularity of kurban sacrifice among Orthodox Christians in Bulgaria and in other Balkan countries, my field research did not yield enough evidence to support the conjecture that kurban might play the same role as the Eucharist for my respondents. In fact, church rituals, including the Holy Communion, are almost completely absent from the lives of my respondents, and their status is very much secondary to that of blood sacrifice (kurban). According to my respondents, taking Communion is not sufficient to obtain the gift of life, which can only be obtained by sacrificing another life:

M.L.: The kurban is the most precious thing you can promise?

Sofiya: Right, I mean, it’s the spilling of blood. It’s like giving blood. You can’t make a greater promise.

M.L.: Why do the saints want blood?

S.: Well, that’s just how it is. If you want a healthy, living child, you must give a soul.

M.L.: Giving another soul is the only way?

S.: Yes.

M.L.: Does it have to be a lamb, or could it be a different animal?

S.: Around here, we only kill lambs. (W, Ch, Interview 54, Garmen 2006)

B.: Blood must be spilled for kurban to be real. When you make kurban, it becomes kurban when there is blood. You can’t just buy a chicken from the shop and cook it, or a lamb, or anything. Then you distribute it for health, so you may live in good health. (W, Ch, Interview 51, Garmen 2006)

In this sense, the ritual of kurban is part of the archaic scheme of do ut des with its emphasis on tangible benefits (life, health, prosperity) on top of the spiritual connection with God or a saint.

Although blood sacrifice is not part of official Christian cult (as opposed to Muslim cult), the rite plays a major role in the religious practices of Orthodox Christians in Bulgaria, with Christian clergy often joining the faithful in the practice.

My respondents from Satovcha reported that the local clergy, headed by the vladika²⁴¹ actually hold the kurban ritual in the church itself (sic!) on the feast of the church’s patron saint. Such a ritual was reportedly performed in the church of St. Nedelya in Satovcha as the priests roasted a large sheep and distributed 150 portions of bread and meat to the congregation. Only two of the priests ate the meat with the faithful; the bishop and ten other priests, who abstained from meat, had a separate fasting meal (fish, nuts and wine) prepared by the faithful.

The symbolic sacralization of the lamb involves a visit to the church, where the lamb is offered as a gift to the saint and a priest says a prayer over the animal. I saw Christians bringing live lambs to the monastery of St. George on 5 May (the eve of St. George’s Day/ Bulgarian: Gergiovden) and 6 May, where they kissed an icon of St. George displayed by the side entrance to the church of St. George²⁴² in Hadzhidimovo.

The priest’s prayer is another sacralizing element. My respondents identified the prayer with the ritual of blessing the lamb, but opinions differ between the higher-and lower-ranking clergy. The Metropolitan bishop ministering in Hadzhidimovo denied that such practices ever took place, and only conceded that prayers could be said over the prepared meat of the lamb.

However, Dimitar Marinov points out that lambs were blessed in Bulgarian villages not only after, but also before the sacrifice. This involved the burning of incense, often no involvement from the priest being required (cf. Marinov 1994, p. 608). In the absence of a priest, the ritual was performed by an old man who would turn to the east, make the sign of the cross three times, and incense the lamb three times. Lambs would need to be blessed before slaughtering, but because a priest would not be available to bless each animal separately, the animals could be brought into the church so that prayers could be said over several lambs at the same time (cf. Marinov 1994, p. 608). Once the animal was roasted, the priest would again say a prayer over the lamb and the ceremonial loaves, and the meat and the loaves were incensed one more time. In the absence of those elements, or if the bread and meat was not divided by the priest, the gifts were not considered properly blessed (cf. Marinov 1994, p. 612). For my Christian respondents the presence of a priest was no longer a matter of importance, and they often perform all the rituals on their own (with the exception of kurbans held to celebrate the feast of the patron saint of a church).

Although the ritual is incompatible with Christian doctrine, the faithful (and even some priests) treat the kurbans held by priests in churches (or those held at home but sanctioned by the presence of a priest) as confirmation of the link between kurban sacrifice and Christian cult. The higher-ranking clergy, who are aware of the unorthodox nature of the practice, take a different view. When I talked about kurbans in Orthodox Christian tradition in Bulgaria with the Metropolitan of Nevrokop, he insisted that the problem was a matter of linguistic misunderstanding, as Christians use the term kurban in a different sense than Muslims do, meaning Christian agape²⁴³ and not actual blood sacrifice:

Metropolitan: In the Orthodox Church there are no kurbans. When we open the book we read it contains a blessing of the festive table, with the word kurban added in brackets. Kurban is a Turkish, Arabic word meaning “sacrifice”. During Turkish oppression it was simply became adopted as the name [for the thing]. But the [exact] meaning of sacrifice differs from Islam. In our Orthodox Church it’s a continuation of the ancient agape feasts. (Interview 62, Hadzhidimovo 2009)

Trebnik²⁴⁴ uses the word in this sense in a blessing for a meal called Panagia²⁴⁵ , or a Blessing of the Table for Namedays and Holidays, Kurbans, Shared Meals and Other [occasions] (Trebnik… 2002, p. 505). According to its formula, the priest blesses the meal and asks God, Christ, the Mother of God and the saint of that day for a healthy life for named individuals and for other inhabitants of the town or village.

In my opinion, this explanation (the faithful are simply unaware of the true nature of kurban as an agape feast) sidesteps the issue. In fact, the community-making aspect of kurban features prominently present in the ritual practice of my respondents, and the bonding is emphasized by a ritual sharing of the sacrificial meal. If anything, blood sacrifice is an ideal instance of community-making culminating in a sacrificial rite. Instead, it seems that the members of clergy are trying to modify the meaning of the word kurban in order to eliminate two of its meanings (the sacrificial animal and the sacrifice itself).

However, this stance is a recent development among the Bulgarian clergy, who until the recent decades used to participate in, and sanction the importance of, blood sacrifice. In 19th-century Bulgaria, the priest who performed the blessing of the food was entitled to receive the skin of the sacrificial animal and the ritual loaves, an arrangement known as the “priest’s right” [pravoto na popa] which remained in force even where an elder deputized for the priest (cf. Marinov 1994, p. 347).

Kurbans are made not only on Gergiovden or Easter, but also on the feast days of local patron saints. In addition to those, a practice known as promised or “vowed” sacrifice (Bulgarian: obrechen kurban) is very popular in both religious groups. This custom is so important to my Christian respondents that they tend to define kurban as an animal sacrificed to fulfil a vow made to a saint.

Muslims make “vowed kurbans” exclusively to Allah; Christians make such vows to saints as well. The saint is chosen according to the feast day, depending on which feast coincides with the important life event in question, such as an illness or an accident. In such dramatic circumstances, people make vows to sacrifice a kurban in exchange for saving their lives or restoring the health.

Sacrifices made to a saint in exchange for the healing of a specific individual must be performed on every anniversary of an important date throughout the person’s life. If the anniversary falls on a day of fasting, the sacrifice can be rescheduled by a short period of time. Parents make sacrifices on behalf of their children until they come of age.

The respondents believe that a failure to make the sacrifice in a given year may bring misfortune on the individual in question, and that the saint will warn the person and ask for his or her due sacrifice. Vowed kurbans are mostly private, but collective arrangements are also known (e.g. a whole village might promise to sacrifice animals on St. Elijahs’ Day after praying to the saint for rain (Interview 41, Garmen 2006). Childless couples may also vow to make kurban in exchange for a baby, especially when one spouse has a dream about having children.

Building sacrifices are another category of kurbans, where the blood of a lamb is spilled as vicarious sacrifice for the spirit of a place to avert accidents on a construction site. Building sacrifices, too, involve the presence of clergy, and are sometimes practiced, in conspicuous contrast to Christian doctrine, when the foundations are laid for a new church. The sacrifices are made twice, first when the foundations are laid, and again when the structure is complete.

A traditional narrative traces the origin of building sacrifices to the supposed custom of immuring the wife of a building master (Bulgarian: vgradena nevesta, the walled-up woman) in the foundations of a bridge (or monastery) to propitiate the spirit of the place and to ensure the building would not collapse. This is a widespread belief, and the song Vgradena nevesta (The Walled-Up Woman) is known throughout the Balkans. There is no scholarly consensus about the song’s origin, conjectured to be originally Indian, Greek, Serb, Romanian or Bulgarian (The Walled-Up… 1996).

The song, which has a number of variants, tells the following general story: builders working on a structure (a bridge, a monastery) are repeatedly frustrated as their day’s work collapses at night. Finally, a master builder named Manol realizes that the mishaps will continue until the spirit of the place is placated. The builders conclude that one of their wives must be sacrificed, and agree to sacrifice the first wife who will bring the midday meal to her husband the following day. The men agree to keep the arrangement secret, but only Manol is true to his word and keeps silent. He attempts to delay his wife’s arrival but the woman overcomes the various obstacles and comes to serve a meal to her husband. When she arrives, the men begin to build a wall around her²⁴⁶, which she takes for a joke. She does not realize the gravity of her situation until she begins to disappear behind the tall walls. The wife implores her husband to be spared but her entreaties are in vain. The woman curses the construction project, but the husband reminds her of their son, who will one day travel over the bridge. The woman revokes her curse and asks for two openings to be left in the wall so she can breastfeed her baby, barely a month old, which she does for a year.

In my research I heard an abbreviated variant, reported by the respondent as a biblical story. Interestingly, although the narrative makes no reference to animal sacrifice or to kurban as a replacement for human sacrifice, it seems to fulfil the same function in the local community as the saga of Abraham’s sacrifice:

M.L.: Why do people make kurbans, how old is this tradition?

O.: Oh, it’s biblical, as when a man gave up his son as kurban. There is a song, “Oh, Manol, master builder”. Manol built three bridges. He builds them during the day, at night they all burn or collapse. Manol considers what to say to the master builders, and he says – “Tomorrow we shall wall up the shadow of one of our wives to make sure the bridge stays up”. The others said nothing to their wives, only the master said: “Put on some nice clothes and come to the site tomorrow”. The others never told their wives to come [to the site]. The master looks up and sees his wife coming. And he says, “She will be the kurban, there’s no two ways about it!”. He walled up her shadow, the bridge stayed up, they carried on building and his wife died.

M.L.: When you wall up a person’s shadow, that person dies, right?

O.: Right. (W, Ch, Interview 42, Garmen 2006)

Importantly, the belief is also prevalent among Muslims, as mentioned by Goran Blagoev (2004). It may be a shared element of the indigenous tradition, surviving the arrival of Christianity and Islam.

Several competing theories try to account for the importance of vowed kurbans²⁴⁷ among Christians and Muslims. Goran Blagoev offers two conjectures. He notes that parallels exist between this narrative and the prevalent motif of the vow to sacrifice the firstborn son, found in the Semitic tradition (cf. Blagoev 2004, p. 47) and predating Islam in the Balkans (Miltenova, cited in: Blagoev 2004, p. 47). The firstborn son was considered a gift from God; his sacrifice was an act of restoring him to God²⁴⁸ (Blagoev 2004, p. 47). Similarly, Florentina Badalanova believes that the theologeme of Abraham’s sacrifice provided a model for its folk interpretations inSlavia Orthodoxa ²⁴⁹ (Badalanova 2002a, p. 52), and points out that certain components in the saga of Abraham as found in the Bulgarian folk tradition are closer to biblical or midrashic traditions than to the text of the Qur’an (cf. Badalanova 2002a, p. 64), or conversely, they make reference to rabbinical and midrashic texts and the Qur’anic tradition rather than to the Bible (cf. Badalanova 2002b, p. 23).

The alternative conjecture proposed by Goran Blagoev is that the motif entered folklore (probably Muslim folklore) via Islamic sources, notably the story of Muhammad’s grandfather, ‘Abd al-Muttalib, who asked Allah to give him ten sons and promised to sacrifice one of them at the Kaaba. Lots are drawn, and the youngest and dearest son of ‘Abd al-Muttalib is chosen. On his way to the Kaaba the man is stopped by Kuraishites, who implore him not to go ahead with the plan or they will have to sacrifice their children as well (Blagoev 2004, p. 48). Blagoev encountered similar variants in Bulgaria, with Ibrahim rather than Muhammad’s grandfather being stopped on his way by neighbours (Blagoev 2004, p. 48).

As noted by the Polish anthropologist Magdalena Zowczak, the story of Abraham (reinterpreted in the light of Islamic beliefs) plays a dominant role in southern Slavic nations in the understanding of the Christian Passover sacrifice, a parallel to kurban (cf. Zowczak 2005, p. 222). In borrowing the Turkish word kurban, the Christians also adopted the Ottoman exegesis of the sacrifice and the secular point of the practice (a life for a life). Statements from my Christian respondents about the kurban sacrifice contained only Islamic motifs attested in my research and in the literature, suggesting that the theologeme of Abraham’s sacrifice is boosted in Christian narratives by the influence of “Adat Islam”, itself rich in Judaic analogies. Rather notably, none of my respondents identified the exegesis of the kurban with St. George, despite the motif’s popularity in the Balkans.

Regardless of the validity or otherwise of such interpretations, to my respondents the ritual of kurban (though only compatible with the Islamic religious canon) brings Islam and Orthodox Christianity together. In both religious groups the vow to make kurban is a reaction to life’s most critical events, and the fact that kurban is practised by members of the other group is treated as proof of its validity.

214 The word adet is also used by Muslims living in Bulgaria, and the following chapter is accordingly devoted to what I call “Adat Islam”. The word is also known in other regions of southeastern Europe which used to be part of the Ottoman Empire. One example is the work of a 20^th-century ethnographer, J. Obrbski, on religion in the Macedonian region, which he defined as “the special privileges God gave to man in the mythical time of cosmogony, transmitted from generation to generation until the present time. Similar to zakon [law], adets are immutable and may not be pioneered freely by man” (J. Obrbski, unpublished Polish typescript kindly made available to me by Prof. Anna Engelking).

215 Although the word hadet (a synonym of obichay) does exist in colloquial folk Bulgarian, it is becoming less frequent except in the Muslim areas, a process which is part of the more general tendency of Turkish borrowings to fall out of use. My respondents used the word “tradition” as a synonym of adat.

216 This influence is usually passed over in silence by Balkan scholars, who often reject it or treat it as an embarrassment.

217 This problem is discussed at greater length in my article (2007b).

218 A term Obrbski used to describe the religious beliefs of Macedonians in Poreche, today used by O. Todorov and others (cited in: Minchev 2003, p. 15).

219 Defined as “competing pagan and Christian elements in cults of saints, and the cosmological and eschatological ideas of «the simple man»” (Minczew [Minchev] 2003, p. 13, translated from Polish).

220 When praising a child, my Orthodox Christian relatives in Prilep, Macedonia likewise use the term mashala, oblivious of its Muslim origins or its reference to Allah.

221 As my respondents explained, older people speak the word aloud, but younger people find this embarrassing and only say it in their head.

222 According to my respondents, the “evil eye” may also be caused by a compliment from a well-wisher. This may happen as a result of meeting that person an “ill” (unpropitious) time. Unlike the Orthodox Christians in the studied region (who use the apotropaic formulas alone), Muslim women who compliment other women also touch their intimate parts.

223 I follow my respondent in using this term.

224 The word kurban is an Ottoman import in Bulgaria (Hristov, Skimi 2007, p. 10), derived from “the old Hebrew qorban, transformed via Aramaic into the Arabic qurban” (Blagoev 2004, p. 28, translated from Bulgarian).

225 Y. Georgiewa-Oko points out that the term only occurs in several Qur’anic passages in a general sense unconnected to specific theologies of blood sacrifice (cf. Georgiewa-Oko 2010, p. 70).

226 In this context, the binding aspect of the sacrifice is emphasized in that it creates and strengthens family ties (cf. Blagoev 2004, p. 30).

227 In some regions of Bulgaria, songs about Abraham’s sacrifice are sung as part of the kurban ritual (Badalanova 2002a, p. 57).

228 In folk songs, the name of Abraham is often replaced by Bulgarian names, such as Stoyan, Lazar, Ivan etc. as “in this way the Biblical narrative is transformed into folk-memory” (cf. Badalanova 2002a, p. 58).

229 In some versions, Ibrahim makes the promise unwittingly by promising to sacrifice that which is dearest to him (Blagoev 2004, p. 45).

230 The exact collocation in Bulgarian contains the word zakolvam (to slaughter), a drastic but technical term referring to the act of slaughtering an animal. In the ritual sense it implies a sacred aspect, where the sacrifice is calculated to minimize suffering, and to give eternal life to the animal. To reflect this nuance I use the more neutral word to kill.

231 The Hajj is the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca. A “lesser” pilgrimage (called the ‘umrah) can be made at any time of year. The main pilgrimage (the Hajj proper) is held during the month of Dhu alHijjah (Arabic: Dhu al-Hijjah). Participants enact events from the life of Isma‘il, Hajar and Ibrahim, and celebrate ‘Id al-Adha, “Festival of the sacrifice”, and sacrifice animals to commemorate Ibrahim’s obedience. The Hajj is one of the five “pillars of Islam” or Muslim religious duties, and it must be made at least once in a lifetime by persons who are physically able to make the journey unless they cannot afford it (cf. Danecki 1997, p. 169–160; Dziekan 1997, p. 40).

232 Many Christians and Muslims believe that Abraham/Ibrahim had to sacrifice his son because it was customary on Gergiovden or Kurban Bayram, respectively (Blagoev 2004, p. 46). None of my Christian respondents made the connection between Abraham’s sacrifice and God’s sacrifice of Jesus.

233 In this narrative, the father sometimes sacrifices his son to St. George rather than to God, and it is the saint who tells him to replace his son with a ram:

“God, give me a child,

A boy or a girl,

God, grant my wish

And give me a boy, Ivancho,

When Ivancho is grown,

I shall kill him as a kurban

On St. George’s Day (…)” (cited in: Miltenowa, Badalanova 1996, p. 219, translated from Bulgarian).

234 This element of the ritual refers to Isma‘il’s request to have his eyes covered so he could be unaware of his father’s approach; the boy was afraid he might otherwise struggle in panic and hurt himself, a blemish which would render his body unsuitable for sacrifice.

235 Muslims make dots of blood on children‘s foreheads for the same purpose (Blagoev 2004).

236 As was the case when I did my field research in Hadzhidimovo on the night of 5 May 2009.

237 According to F. Badalanova, this is indicated by other Bulgarian words used to refer to the kurban ritual, such as obrok (one of whose meanings is sacrifice), cherkva (temple, church), krst (cross), molitva (prayer), sluzhba (liturgy) (Badalanova 2002a, p. 52). My respondents did not use those terms. According to A. Ianov, who in the 1880s did field research in the Moriovo area, where kurban was made on the feast of Pentecost, “the local community even perceived the song of Abraham’s sacrifice as the eqivalent of the Eucharistic mystery” (cited in: Badalanova 2002a, p. 57-58).

238 The act of dividing a prosphoron (a loaf of sacrificial bread) into little pieces, from the Greek melizo“to partition”.

239 This scene is called “Divine Liturgy with Christ, the Lamb of God”.

240 This square piece of the prosphoron is called the Lamb (Amnos). It is decorated with the Greek cross and the letters IC XC NIKA. In symbolic terms, the diskos encompasses the entire church: placed to the left of the Lamb is a piece of the prosphoron dedicated to the Mother of God, with more pieces below it dedicated to the religious authority. Below the Lamb are placed pieces dedicated to the living, with pieces dedicated to the dead below them. To the right of the Lamb are pieces dedicated to the saints, with pieces dedicated to the secular authority below them (placed at the same level as those dedicated to the religious authority).

241 An Orthodox metropolitan bishop.

242 This practice is also found in other regions of south-eastern Europe, including the region of Strumica in Macedonia (cf. Zowczak 2005, p. 210).

243 M. Głuszek noted similar explanations provided by members of Orthodox clergy, including Father Naum, Bishop of the Eparchy of Strumica in her field research in Macedonia in monasteries in the Strumitsa and Prilep regions in 2001 (Głuszek 2009, p. 42).

244 Book of Needs – a liturgical book containing the order of services and the accompanying prayers and blessings for different occasions.

245 A title of the Mother of God, popular among Orthodox Christians. In icons, Panagia is depicted as a full human figure turned to the viewer with her hands raised in prayer, a medal of Baby Jesus on her chest. The prayer is said to bless meals not only on her holiday but also on the feast days of other patron saints.

246 In some variants of the song the woman sees tears in the eyes of her husband, who says he has lost his wedding ring in the building’s foundations. The woman offers to look for it, and the building gets bricked up with her inside.

247 Notably, another Slavic word for sacrifice is obiata, etymologically related to promise.

248 G. Blagoev cites Exodus 22, 29.

249 F. Badalanova proposes the term Slavia Orthodoxa to describe Orthodox Christians speaking Slavic languages, and Slavia Islamica to describe Muslims speaking Slavic languages (Badalanova Geller 2008b, p. 2).