Custom of Kavos: The Burning Fire of Time

Crossroads Inn, our countryside hotel, is located at Tripotamos, a listed traditional Cycladic village, in Tinos Island. Every year on Christmas Day, the custom of “Kavos” is revived at Tripotamos, continuing through New Year’s Day and throughout the year until its annual cycle closes on the following Christmas.

Kavos is a custom whose folds whisper secrets of ancient Greek times, secrets of Greek Orthodoxy. Visitors to Greece will encounter it nowhere else but at the village of Tripotamos, Tinos Island. It begins with a Greek Orthodox religious procession on New Year’s Day. That is only one act in a play that tells a unique story. The rituals surrounding the custom of Kavos are maintained throughout the year with the final act taking place on Christmas Day in a way that, to the uninitiated, seems mystical and often apocryphal.

The fact that Tripotamos is among the oldest Cycladic villages in existence, that Tripotamos is the only village where the custom of Kavos is enacted, and that it is situated a few hundred meters away from a significant archaeological site (at the foot of the towering granite starkness of the Rock of Exombourgo) supports the belief that the custom’s roots go back deep into the folds of Time and touch upon ancient forms of worship. Not one of the custom’s countless interpretations has revealed the how’s and why’s it was established. No one can tell with any certainty how deep into the past the roots of Kavos reach. The only thing clear is that the custom’s concept and structure have led researchers to the premise that it is as ancient as the ancient cult and worship of the goddess Demeter (Thesmophoriae of the goddess Demeter is located at the foot of the Rock of Exombourgo) and that it involves indecipherable elements, codes, and rituals which, in earlier times, may have been vested with a far more powerful and comprehensible character. Neither the location of Tripotamos in Tinos Island nor the fact that the custom of Kavos is enacted there are coincidental or random: The archaeological site of the Geometric Era sanctuary of Demeter lies a mere 200 meters north of Tripotamos’ outskirts. It is a site that has yielded significant finds (on display at the Archaeological Museum of Tinos, Chora).

Information as to how and when the custom was embraced by Orthodox Christianity is just as inaccessible, with the earliest mentions of the custom only going as far back as the 1600’s.

Down the passage of Time, the custom seems to have lost many of its essential characteristics. However, Kavos remains a one-of-a-kind and wholly mystifying custom which has maintained its web of inexplicable rituals. It is a story for those who once initiated were empowered to delve within the custom’s mystery. It involves a codified behavior and contains innumerable puzzles as to its origins.

The story of Kavos seems to evolve around a “vigil light”, an unsleeping burning fire contained within a lantern-like oil lamp whose immense significance can be traced to the male figure who carries it, walking ahead of the procession and preceding even the icons and the priest. It is Fire, an inherently dynamic element of Nature, which holds sway over this custom and aptly takes place at the very beginning of each New Year.

The Sacred Fires of antiquity (traces of them are also located at the foot of the Rock of Exombourgo) and the charcoal-burning braziers used in ancient purification rituals spring to mind effortlessly upon seeing that Sacred Flame carried around with precisely the same purifying purpose. On that day, homes remain impassable until they are visited by the “Light of the Kavos”: The unsleeping light ushers in every house of the village the New Year, untainted and free of miasma or undesirable burdens.

That “vigil light” may well serve in interpreting the custom’s name. In Greek, “kavos” means “mooring line”, the rope used to secure boats onto a permanent fixture on quays and piers so as to prevent movement of the boat or ship on the water. It is thus that the vigil light “secures” the custom to its ancient and initial nucleus since it has remained “unsleeping” for centuries, burning day and night without ever being allowed to go out.

Many are those who have argued that the word “kavos” comes from the Italian “capo” which means “in charge”. In that sense, again, we must turn for the name of the custom to that one thing which, at the head of the procession, is placed in charge: the vigilant, unsleeping light. Both the eternally “vigil light” at the head of the procession and the term “kavos” seem to mesh into a code which, understood by the initiated centuries ago, is no more than a riddle today.

Custom of Kavos: The Burning Fire of Time

Crossroads Inn, our countryside hotel, is located at Tripotamos, a listed traditional Cycladic village, in Tinos Island. Every year on Christmas Day, the custom of “Kavos” is revived at Tripotamos, continuing through New Year’s Day and throughout the year until its annual cycle closes on the following Christmas.

Kavos is a custom whose folds whisper secrets of ancient Greek times, secrets of Greek Orthodoxy. Visitors to Greece will encounter it nowhere else but at the village of Tripotamos, Tinos Island. It begins with a Greek Orthodox religious procession on New Year’s Day. That is only one act in a play that tells a unique story. The rituals surrounding the custom of Kavos are maintained throughout the year with the final act taking place on Christmas Day in a way that, to the uninitiated, seems mystical and often apocryphal.

The fact that Tripotamos is among the oldest Cycladic villages in existence, that Tripotamos is the only village where the custom of Kavos is enacted, and that it is situated a few hundred meters away from a significant archaeological site (at the foot of the towering granite starkness of the Rock of Exombourgo) supports the belief that the custom’s roots go back deep into the folds of Time and touch upon ancient forms of worship. Not one of the custom’s countless interpretations has revealed the how’s and why’s it was established. No one can tell with any certainty how deep into the past the roots of Kavos reach. The only thing clear is that the custom’s concept and structure have led researchers to the premise that it is as ancient as the ancient cult and worship of the goddess Demeter (Thesmophoriae of the goddess Demeter is located at the foot of the Rock of Exombourgo) and that it involves indecipherable elements, codes, and rituals which, in earlier times, may have been vested with a far more powerful and comprehensible character. Neither the location of Tripotamos in Tinos Island nor the fact that the custom of Kavos is enacted there are coincidental or random: The archaeological site of the Geometric Era sanctuary of Demeter lies a mere 200 meters north of Tripotamos’ outskirts. It is a site that has yielded significant finds (on display at the Archaeological Museum of Tinos, Chora).

Information as to how and when the custom was embraced by Orthodox Christianity is just as inaccessible, with the earliest mentions of the custom only going as far back as the 1600’s.

Down the passage of Time, the custom seems to have lost many of its essential characteristics. However, Kavos remains a one-of-a-kind and wholly mystifying custom which has maintained its web of inexplicable rituals. It is a story for those who once initiated were empowered to delve within the custom’s mystery. It involves a codified behavior and contains innumerable puzzles as to its origins.

The story of Kavos seems to evolve around a “vigil light”, an unsleeping burning fire contained within a lantern-like oil lamp whose immense significance can be traced to the male figure who carries it, walking ahead of the procession and preceding even the icons and the priest. It is Fire, an inherently dynamic element of Nature, which holds sway over this custom and aptly takes place at the very beginning of each New Year.

The Sacred Fires of antiquity (traces of them are also located at the foot of the Rock of Exombourgo) and the charcoal-burning braziers used in ancient purification rituals spring to mind effortlessly upon seeing that Sacred Flame carried around with precisely the same purifying purpose. On that day, homes remain impassable until they are visited by the “Light of the Kavos”: The unsleeping light ushers in every house of the village the New Year, untainted and free of miasma or undesirable burdens.

That “vigil light” may well serve in interpreting the custom’s name. In Greek, “kavos” means “mooring line”, the rope used to secure boats onto a permanent fixture on quays and piers so as to prevent movement of the boat or ship on the water. It is thus that the vigil light “secures” the custom to its ancient and initial nucleus since it has remained “unsleeping” for centuries, burning day and night without ever being allowed to go out.

Many are those who have argued that the word “kavos” comes from the Italian “capo” which means “in charge”. In that sense, again, we must turn for the name of the custom to that one thing which, at the head of the procession, is placed in charge: the vigilant, unsleeping light. Both the eternally “vigil light” at the head of the procession and the term “kavos” seem to mesh into a code which, understood by the initiated centuries ago, is no more than a riddle today.

On New Year’s Day, no one enters or visits any one of the village’s houses unless those houses have first been visited by the vigil light and the icons have brought luck to the household by “setting foot” [podariko] inside while the priest chants a supplication. Each house will receive light from the procession’s lantern and each household will offer treats to those who have joined the procession.

Following the end of the procession’s route, a communal table is set in the large hall next to the church. It is hosted by the Kavos, the individual who is entrusted with the responsibilities of the custom each year, taking over the custom from the old Kavos on Christmas Day. Only the male heads of the village’s families are entitled to sit down at that communal meal. However, on the second day of Christmas (December 26), the meal welcomes the entire village, with everyone sitting down to eat, drink, and celebrate.

On Christmas Day, before that communal meal, the icons change hands, their care passing from the old to the new Kavos. Spiridon Foskolos, Tripotamos’ priest, gives us a description of the preparations that begin on Christmas Eve and surround that important communal meal, the feast of Brotherly Love: “In the morning of Christmas Eve the village women gather at the hall where the meal will take place to clean the cooking vessels and utensils, peel the pearl onions for the ‘stifado’ meat stew, and stuff the grape leaves with the rice mix.” Although the women take care of the numerous tasks involved in preparing the meal’s courses, it is the men who cook on that day.

The fare served at that men-only Christmas table has remained unaltered for centuries. It is forbidden to add or take away any of the dishes comprising it. “The bells toll at 5, at the crack of dawn, on Christmas Day. The first to arrive at the church is Kavos holding a basket filled with candles. As they enter the church, congregants receive a candle each. As soon as the first notes of the Cherubicon are heard, the cooks receive the priest’s blessing and after worshipping before the icon of the Virgin Mary, they light the fireplaces, getting them ready for the 7 cauldrons containing the meats, the stuffed grape leaves, and the rosto [roast]. After the Divine Liturgy, visitors to Tripotamos go to the hall adjoining the church where they are offered a bowl of ‘Asteras’ [Star] meat stew and grilled sausages.

Why seven and only seven cauldrons? The secret behind that ritual remains hermetically shut. Equally puzzling is the name of the meat stew (Asteras - Star) even if one may easily associate that name with the Star of the Magi. Since time immemorial, the number 7 has carried weight and interpretations of such enormity and power that even Christianity embraced parts of it, thus retaining the extraordinary symbolism of the number 7.

On Christmas Day, precisely at noon, the bells toll again, and the procession of the icon of the Birth of Jesus makes the rounds of the village. The procession ends at the location of the church, where the table inside the adjoining hall is set, awaiting the male heads of the village’s families who, on entering, exchange a special handshake which, in a way, also bears a secret character. It signifies instant recognition and trust and it flags the instant reconciliation between and among the men present who, before sitting down to their meal, must automatically leave behind any differences and disputes they may have had up to then.

The heads of the village families sit at the table (in the old days, the custom decreed that they should bring along their own plate, bread, and eating utensils bundled up in a towel). The priest of Tripotamos joins the men at the table, gives his blessing, and the courses are served in the specific order decreed by the custom, an order which has remained unperturbed and unchanged for centuries.

  • The first course served is the beef broth where rice has been added and which has been thickened with a combination of egg and lemon [soupa avgolemono].
  • The second course is a beef stew.
  • The third course is “stifado”, beef and pearl onions braised in a fragrant tomato sauce. The onions are said to symbolize the sweetness that should govern people’s relations.
  • The fourth course comprises the stuffed grape leaves which also carry their own symbolism at that meal. They symbolize unity and brotherly love because, as lore goes, “the people of the village should be tightly knit with one another just like the rice remains tightly packed within the rolled grape leaves which, in turn, are placed close to each other”.
  • The fifth course served is the “rosto”, a cut of beef braised in a rich tomato sauce with onions and 6 beef tongues. Those last ones also have an apotropaic character, as the purpose of their presence is to ward off wagging tongues.
  • The sixth course is an assortment of fruit (apples, oranges, and mandarin oranges).
  • The seventh and last element at that meal is the wine which flows in copious amounts and is drunk out of old brass bowl-like goblets.

In earlier decades and during that same meal, the public life of Tripotamos for the coming year was in the hands of the leaders of the village families who sat at the Kavos’ table. They would discuss any public works that had to be carried out around the village involving roads or public facilities in need of maintenance. All projects discussed and approved of would be managed communally.

After the meal, the bells toll again and Kavos brings the icon of the Birth of Jesus at the table and hands out candles whose distribution marks the beginning of a religious service during which the Christmas Canon odes are chanted. The priest takes a prosforo (a loaf of altar bread) that he has secured behind the icon and as the 9th Ode of the Christmas Canon is being chanted he begins cutting pieces of bread and distributing them to those gathered around the table. Each man sitting at the table takes a small crumb of altar bread with his fingertips, puts it in his mouth, and crosses himself.

That last ritual flags the end of the old Kavos’ term of service. At that point the priest asks those present the following: “Who wishes to undertake the obligations of the brotherhood?” He who answers “I do” becomes the Kavos for the new year. Everyone at the table stands up and shouts “Axios”, meaning worthy of the heavy task.

That ritual is only a formality since the names of the family leaders who, in their capacity of Kavos, will be shouldering the heavy burden of the custom’s obligations have already been entered in a long waiting list whose fulfillment will take over 50 years (Year 2070). The family leader who becomes Kavos for the year has a succession of important tasks that are as morally binding as they are financially so: Kavos is responsible for the care of the village church (dedicated to the Presentation of the Virgin Mary); must ensure at any cost that the vigil light burns undisturbed in the oil lamp throughout the year, never to be allowed to go out; maintains the church and its grounds clean; pays for the Divine Liturgy of Christmas; purchases the candles; and commissions the making of a lambada (a tall candle) needed for the liturgy on New Year’s Day.

No one knows whether today’s elements of the custom of Kavos were actually transferred into Orthodox Christian religious practices from the Thesmophoriae, the celebrations surrounding the cult of Demeter, where offerings would include grains, fruit, vegetables, and wine. One thing is certain: today, Kavos is a custom that is as profoundly Christian as Tripotamos and the land of Tinos Island.

Source: Title translated and text adapted by Tch. McCoy from N. Zervonikolakis’ superbly absorbing narrative (Jan 4, 2008).

book online
Best Price Guarantee
BOOK ONLINE
Check availability
https://www.crossroadsinn.gr
37.9778
23.7278