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The Monk Custom

Celebrated on the Baptist’s Day, on the Sunday of Kreatini and it is associated with the fertility of the soil.The refugees from the villages in Eastern and Northern Thrace brought this custom back from their homelands.

Only the men of the village participate in the custom and the central figures of this ceremony are: the Monk, the old lady with the baby, the bride, the katsiveles and the lads, who wander around the village with smeared faces and steal various objects from the houses, which then return if the house-owners offer a payment in return.

The celebration ends at the village square, with virtual plowing of the fields, the lads carry the oxcarts instead of the oxen and the Monk is sowing and makes "piquant" wishes for the fertility of the fields.

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