Vine Domnul Popa
It’s Christmas time and there is much joyful larking about.
In Romania, it means your home gets a special visit from an honored guest. Over three different Craciunuri, I’ve received such unexpected noctural knockings twice. Here’s how it works:
You’re at home peacefully relaxing with the faint inklings of song in the far distant background noise, when the bothersome sounds of a barbarian at the gates disrupt you.
The urgent rapping at your uşa repeats frequently as you scurry to open the door fearing news that your elderly neighbor may have passed away. Sliding to a stop before your socks carry you into the wall, you fumble with the keys to unlock the entrance.
Flinging open the portal: there he is! A sparkly-eyed man with a broad grin across his face nods at you and sucks in a large volume of air. And, so, the singing begins.
A Gregorian-style song erupts from the large cavern above his chin and the stranger thrusts a painted picture of baby Jesus into your face as though it were a sheild warding away any sinful reprisals.
With the force of God safely holding you at bay, the man begins stepping into your abode without so much as a welcome or a wink. The bold maneuver secures his ability to take control of the situation.
Fait accompli.
The faux franciscan hymnal incantation spews forth a melodious mumbo jumbo, calling upon the Hindu-sized parthenon of Orthodox deities — most of whom are cleverly disguised as mere “saints” with demigodly powers of protection — to both bless your home and frighten away evil spirits.
The showmanship of a shaman. The words of a witch. Your misperception of a priest.
At the conclusion of the ceremony, a substantially bulkier man steps out of the shadows and imposes his figure across the threshold of your home with hairy palm outstretched to receive the expected offering.
You see, while the man who is pretending to be a priest may have sang the song to protect you from the Devil and help you win the lottery in the coming year, the ritual affords him a certain dignity of distance from gelt of the temporal world. A man of God should not perform Acts for compensation, but because the Lord commands him so.
Like so much an emporer’s new clothes.
Thus, the thugly sidekick steps in to give baby Jesus a helping hand in collecting payment from the superstitious rabble as well as coerce the reluctant victim who will invariably buckle under one level of pressure or another.
Cough up the dough, Jack. It’s all part of the magic trick.
Granted, I’m a fair bit recalcitrant, so my reaction is completely different. And evolving toward a new purity. For example, in Braşov, I simply closed the door in the face of the so-called priest in his 30s wearing the şmecherii uniform of blue jeans and black leather jacket.
Whereas tonight, here in the Decebal cartier of Bucureşti, just before closing the door, I shared the season’s newsflash with Popa: “Dumnezeu e mort.”
December 17th, 2008 at 9:02 pm
Wow, what nerves, to close the door right in the holy face of popa!
You should have tried to stay there, faulty looking for all your wrongdoings that the popa always knows, and listening at the purifying voice like it was going to bring all the god and all the good to you right then. But you’d still have to pay for it.
December 18th, 2008 at 11:27 am
You’re going to heck, dude. Cotizează! :)
December 18th, 2008 at 4:40 pm
As always, you have a talent for making me laugh out loud in front of my computer :)
I’ve done the closing of the door several times, myself. It always made me feel a bit guilty, for some reason. However, I’ve recently decided I’m really very evil at heart and I don’t care. It makes everything much easier.
Disclaimer: any conclusions arrived at by logically extending the anecdotal evidence presented above are clearly the result of your own deranged mind attempting to make sense of a purely nonsensical world. Thank you, and have a nice day!
December 18th, 2008 at 9:29 pm
Laura – Ah, holy face, indeed! If you only inserted the letter ‘r’ an an equidistant point in the latter term, I think we’d really be getting somewhere. I suppose this means next year I’ll… what, um, lose the lottery… that I… don’t waste money on?
CO – There are moments when I think I may have already been there once or twice before. Nu sa poate cotiza pentru ţapa.
Narc – Ahoy, mate! Never have a glass of milk in your hand whilst brandishing my blog before your eyes. Let that be a warning to others who learn life’s lessons from the comments thread. Guilt is for the youthful and submissive. The rest of us have things to get done. (Disclaimer: Third party disclaimers may or may not be null and void at the sole discretion of those who never wrote them. While supplies last.)
December 19th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
Yay!
Or should I say:
Amen, brother!
December 25th, 2008 at 11:24 pm
Bonus points for a door in the nose of the popa, but if I were you, I wouldn’t even open it. Wayyyyy too many huligani are using all sorts of excuses (dom’le, suntem de la deratizare…) to get you to open the door at all, bust in your place, tie you up, and relieve you of belongings and apartment ownership documents.
Happened to my step-grandmother-in-law (that’s a mouthful, ain’t it?) right before she died from the stress of it.
Stay silent, waste their time, which means fewer people have to deal with a popa / huligan… ;-)