The Battle of the Greek Baptism

You wouldn’t believe the battles which occur in Greek families when choosing a child’s name, there have been stories of fisticuffs, even stabbings, and pistols at dawn!

Choose may not be the right word, it’s more or a less a foregone conclusion, the first boy takes the paternal grandfather’s name and if it’s a girl, she takes the paternal grandmother’s name.

This is the Greek tradition.

And there is more, for a child to be baptised in The Greek Orthodox Church, the name must be that of a Saint, not any old Saint, a saint recognised by the Greek Church, behind every Greek Name is a Saint.

People do get around this by baptising their children after grandparents and then calling them, unofficially, whatever they like, usually some derivative of the given name.

Since Greece joined The European Union in 1983, this doesn’t apply,but before, when I baptised my two children, it did.

In order for a child to be accepted into a Greek school, the child must have been baptised in a Greek Church, so you see, there was no getting out of it if you wished your child to have an education!

Where my son was concerned, his name was non – negotiable, my husband MGG (My Greek God), was adamant, it was to be Yiannis, his father’s name, so Yiannis it was.

My daughter’s name was another story.

I thought it only fair, that seeing as I had gone along with Greek tradition for my Son’s name, plus the fact I had left friends, family and my country, England, for the sake of MGG, I should have a say in matters.

MGG is one of eight children, of whom seven have children of their own.

 My father-in-law was Yiannis, as you have already learnt, my mother-in-law; Constantina, consequently, owing to Greek tradition in these matters, the majority of grandchildren were named either Yiannis or Constantina and there were lots of them.

 So what did it matter if I gave my daughter a name of my choice?

It mattered more than I could have imagined, the problems arose, not from MGG or my mother-in-law, as you might have expected but from the local Priest.

You see, I chose a name which wasn’t Christian; it was pagan, or heathen, according to the priest, the name was Nais, meaning river nymph, in Greek mythology, one of the sea God Poseidon’s concubines, you can see why the priest was shocked!

No way was the priest baptising my daughter with the name of an ancient Greek concubine; never mind then, I’ll ask another priest.

Usually, Greek children are baptised before the age of one, by the time I had done the rounds of all priests in Corinth, where we were living at the time, Nais was over two years old, by the way, everyone was calling her nais, not ‘Beba’ (baby), as is the custom before a child is baptised, (Bebis for a boy).

We moved to Loutraki, a neighbouring town, which meant more priests I could try to brow-beat, all to no avail, Nais remained, un-baptised and in the eyes of the Greek Church and my mother-in-law, a little heathen!

Nais’s plight was forgotten for a couple of years more (Greece was now in the European Union, so I didn’t have the school thing to think about), until my friend decided she would like to be her godmother.

Here are a few more details of Greek baptism customs for you.

 Godparents must have been baptised Greek Orthodox.

 Children baptised by the same Godparents, in the eyes of the Greek Church, are Spiritual brothers, or sisters, so as to avoid a case of incest, if the Godmother has already baptised a girl, then, from now on, she can only baptise girls, if she had baptised a boy, then, she could only baptise a boy, the same applies for Godfathers.

There was one priest left in Loutraki who I had not tried, my friend and I would go and see him, you never now, he maybe more open-minded.

Well, his answer was no, he would baptise my daughter, using the name Nais, as a second name, a Saint’s name had to go first.

I said no, it was Nais first or nothing, the priest asked what I was going to do, I answered, ‘well, she’s already four years old; I’m tired of the whole thing, so I’ll probably do nothing’.

Hearing this, the priest said, ‘Oh, I suppose being baptised Nais, is better than not being baptised at all’, and agreed!

The baptism took place; the priest kept his word and said the name Nais first, I had wondered whether he might slyly change the agreement at the last minute, it has been known to happen, even Godparents, sometimes give a different name at the last minute, which is one cause of family battles I mentioned at the beginning, there’s never a dull moment in Greece!

Looking back, now I’m older, and hopefully, wiser, I don’t know why I was so stubborn about getting my own way, pig-handedness, principle and youth I suppose, everything could have been so much easier, if I had accepted a Saint’s name first and Nais second, or not even Nais at all and afterwards just called her Nais for the rest of her life.

And Nais, at four years old, would not have had to walk to the font herself, which I have never witnessed at a Greek baptism before, nor been embarrassed about taking her knickers off in a church full of people!

‘What’s in a name?

That which we call a rose

 By any other name would smell as sweet’

‘Romeo and Juliet’ by William Shakespeare