Travels in Southeastern Europe

The burden of the Balkans / by M. Edith Durham.

ON THE SHORES OF LAKE PRESBA. I53 took up the affair. I believe the officer was transferred. The churches had suffered heavily, and it appeared that the Moslem gendarme's idea about the moral effect of church-wrecking was correct. The people were deeply affected by it. Until the churches were repaired and consecrated all religion was at a standstill. It was impossible to pray. I asked if they could not hold a service in a room. The priest was astonished. It was perfectly impossible, he said. Without the proper apparatus nothing could be done. Christianity here consisted entirely, apparently, in the ceremonial performed by the priest and a hatred of Mohammedanism. I do not think I ever saw the picture of a saint in any of these houses. The ikon and lamp so conspicuous in the houses of the Serbs, the Montenegrins, and the Orthodox Albanians, was wanting. Nor did the people invoke Christ or the saints, or cross themselves at meal-times or before going to rest for the night. They seemed to possess none of the religious fervour that usually is so marked a characteristic of Orthodox peasants. They had more faith, apparently, in the amulets they wore than in anything else. Some of these were very odd. One was a green glass heart, two pink beads, and an English sixpence. At German, named after St. German, one of the first missionary priests to the Slavs, we came across the one cheery episode of that nine days' tour.
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About this Item

Title
The burden of the Balkans / by M. Edith Durham.
Author
Durham, Mary Edith, 1863-1944.
Canvas
Page 153
Publication
London :: Nelson,
[1905]
Subject terms
Eastern question (Balkan)
Balkan Peninsula -- Description and travel.

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"The burden of the Balkans / by M. Edith Durham." In the digital collection Travels in Southeastern Europe. https://name.umdl.umich.edu/ans3900.0001.001. University of Michigan Library Digital Collections. Accessed April 30, 2025.
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