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1.7.3. Religion and Everyday Practices
Forty-five years of living under the communism has influenced the religious knowledge and
practices of people throughout Albania. Because of the absence of religious education over
the period of several decades, numerous locals of Dhërmi/Drimades are not really acquainted
with the content of the Bible. With the exception of the main prayers and some religious
songs they are also not familiar with quite some of the prayers. More than through prayers and
their knowledge of the Bible, however, the villagers’ affiliation to Orthodox Christianity may
be observed in their religious practices. The latter embrace both the practices performed in the
church and those performed outside. The practices inside the church include crossing, kissing
and bowing to the icons, lighting candles, ways of walking in the church, offerings of kollyva
(a large plate of cooked wheat, sweetened and mixed with resins and sometimes walnuts)
during memorial and name-days’ services of their deceased relatives, and offerings of
prosphora (the bread) during the name-days’ services of the living relatives. The practices
which take place outside of the church, in prophane places, include fasting and feasting and,
of course, different social activities.
Despite of the imposition of strict atheism in the period of communism many of these
practices, especially those pertaining to the prophane places, were hiddenly preserved over
generations. Nowadays, following social (massive migrations) and political changes
(democracy, religious freedom), liberalisation of the media (broadcasting of Greek and Italian
TV channels), numerous religious practices in the village have been redefined and
reconstructed. On Sunday mornings one can often hear the Psalms singing from some of the
village houses, where their owners are listening and/or watching live transmissions of Sunday
Liturgies from the Mega Television Channel in Greece. Besides Mega, several other Greek
Channels (such as Alpha, ERT 1 and ERT 2 – Elliniki Radiofonia Tileorassi, offer various TV
series and soap-operas which religious ceremonies such as church wedding, baptisms, nameday
feast, etc 39 . While watching the TV the villagers are able to see, compare, and reflect
upon the religious life generally. Besides, there are numerous local emigrants who visit the
village during the summer months. They continuously compare what they believe is a
“proper” religious behaviour in Greece with an “inadequate” religious behaviour in the
39 Nowadays, watching TV became part of the villagers’ habitual practices as except for the hours of electricity
cuts, television is kept on almost all the time.
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