Greek Wedding
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This exercise will test your spelling! Can you fill in the blanks below by listening to the account of a wedding? |
I had a …………………..1 phone-call last June when a friend …………….2 mine ………………….3 to say Kristina was getting …………………..4 at the end of the month ………………5 the island of Andros ………………6 a Greek Orthodox service. In Greece, as is the case in England, people get married either in a civil ceremony or in a religious one, whereas in some countries you have to have the …………………7 ceremony regardless of whether or not you have a religious one.
I had to look up Andros in my atlas. I hadn’t realised that Greece has over two …………………..8 islands, only 154-odd of which are …………………..9 inhabited. Andros is one of those which is (inhabited), mainly by ……………….10, and it is the northernmost …………………11 of the Cyclades about 2 hours’ ferry …………………..12 from Athens – from Rafina, I think the port was called. Andros is also the …………………..13 of the islands as it has many …………………..14 of water in its valleys, and is very plentiful ………………15 fruit, fish and vegetables.
I was very …………………..16 by how very different ……………….17 an English ceremony many aspects of the service ………………….18. There were about a hundred and fifty of us, all …………………..19 the open air outside a tiny, whitewashed hillside chapel, …………………..20 on a cliff-top overlooking the Aegean at 7.30 in the evening …………………..21 a warm June evening.
The service …………………..22 conducted by two Greek priests – maybe one was a deacon, I’m not sure – in a …………………..23 little circular area near the chapel, actually a former threshing-floor, …………………..24 used for beating grain. Inside this ………………….25 was an altar, a large candle and some smaller ones, a …………………..26 display of white flowers and white and gold ribbons and an icon tied with ribbons to a stand. The area was …………………..27 cramped ………28 ……….29 …………..30 the priests, the bride and groom, a pageboy, a little bridesmaid and the chief witness were there – actually there were …………………31 pageboys now I think. Those of us who’d got there …………………32 perched on rocks surrounding olive and almond trees, but the late-comers – ………………….33 two-thirds of the wedding-guests – just stood …………………..34 they could find a …………………..35, and couldn’t see or hear most of the service, …………………..36. At one stage the priest even yelled at some of them to shut up.
In the past there used to be two …………………..37 parts …………………..38 a Greek wedding ceremony – the Service of Betrothal, and the Ceremony of the Sacrament of Marriage. Rings are exchanged at the engagement service – the Betrothal service when the couple exchange rings which have been blessed by the priest and there’s …………………..39 a party afterwards. Nowadays the marriage service, sometimes called the ‘Crowning’, is most often celebrated together with this first Betrothal service, but it used to be quite a distinct service months or even years later …………………..40 the first service. This …………………..41 me of betrothal and marriage in 16th …………………..42 Tudor England when couples could vow to be husband and wife without a priest or anyone …………………..43 present, but already in Shakespeare’s time in the second …………………..44 of the 16th century unsolemnised betrothal was starting to be considered different …………………..45 a solemnised and consummated …………………..46.
I was …………………..47 to see just one witness for the bridal couple, as in Britain we usually have two, one for each person (a Best Man and a Chief Bridesmaid or a Matron of Honour), and also that this witness can be …………………..48 a man or a woman – in this case a woman. This witness had a more significant symbolic rôle than her equivalent in England, …………………..49. For instance, after the priest had blessed the …………………..50, making the sign of the cross over the couple’s …………………..51 and saying they were married to each other in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, the witness …………………..52 the rings between the couple three times. This apparently symbolises the belief that in married life the …………………..53 of one partner will be compensated for by the strengths of the other, the imperfections of each partner balanced by the perfections of the other. By themselves the two are incomplete, but together they are …………………..54 – ie perfect.
The numerous candles are significant too – they ………………55 the willingness of the couple to receive Christ, who ………………………56 blesses them in their marriage.
To symbolise their unity the couple …………………..57 a glass of wine and their hands remained joined for the rest of the service. There was a reading of the first miracle of Christ, when he changed water into wine. The so-called Common Cup is the common cup of life, symbolising the sharing of …………………..58 and also the burdens of …………………..59. There followed the Ceremonial Walk – when Kristina and Vassilis walked in a …………………..60 around the centre table …………………..61 by the priest – this symbolised their first steps as a married couple, led by the priest representing the church, and the …………………..62 that the walk was circular was symbolic of Christ being at the centre of their life. At this point guests at the wedding threw rice over the three of them – I assume this is based on some sort of ancient fertility …………………..63 – I don’t know for sure.
There was an angelic little bridesmaid too, Irini, who had ……………..64 held a basket of rose-petals for ………………..65 ……………….66an hour until this moment, when she showered the couple.
After this ceremonial walk the priest blessed the couple, the two crowns were …………………..67 and then he separated their …………………..68 hands with the bible, reminding them that only God could …………………..69 the union which they have just entered into. The equivalent in England would be the moment when the priest says at the end of the service, ‘What God has joined, let no man put asunder’ – an ancient word from Old English meaning ‘apart’.
Outside the tiny chapel all the guests were treated to a small glass of a local drink of sweet ………………….70 and we were each given a little white bag with some sugared almonds in it. We were also given a little …………………..71 with a blue eye on it. We then set …………………..72 further up the hillside to where the reception was ………..73 out-of-doors and for the next few hours talked, danced to music played by some local …………………..74 and ate and drank…..and it was a wonderful, unforgettable …………………..75 experience for me.