KOLLYVA (KOLLYVADES)

KOLLYVA (KOLLYVADES). 1) Kollyva is the boiled wheat, served usually with spices and sugar, prepared on the occasion of memorial services. Although having pre-Christian roots, the custom was accommodated to Christian practice through the use of such logia as Christ’s saying, “Unless a grain of wheat fall into the ground and die . . .” (Jn 12:24).

2) Kollyvades refers to a monastic party on Mt. Athos (q.v.) in the late 18th c. and early 19th c. Beginning at the Scete of St. Anne in 1754, the movement started as a protest against the celebration of memorial services on Sundays-hence the kollyva connection. Its leaders argued that the resurrectional and paschal nature of Sunday forbids mourning of the dead on this day. Opposition to this position, and outright persecution, led the members of the movement to explore more fully the liturgical and spiritual tradition, in particular the mystical and ascetic writers of the 4th c. through 14th c. Many of the most noted monastic reformers in this period were to come from the ranks of the kollyvades, most importantly Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain, compiler and editor of the Greek Philokalia (qq.v.), together with his chief associate in the latter enterprise, Macarius, Bishop of Corinth (d. 1805). Other monastic leaders included Iakovos of the Peloponnesus, Agapios of Cyprus, and Neophytos Kavsokalyvites. The Ecumenical Patriarch (q.v.) upheld the position of the kollyvades on two separate occasions, 1781 and 1819.