Under One Dome? Rituals of Transition in Ottoman/Greek Thessaloniki

Abstract

During its transition from the empire to the nation-state, Ottoman Selanik/Greek Thessaloniki underwent a series of transformations in terms of its human and built environment. This article concentrates on aspects of this transition, presented through a series of vignettes of city life that point to the itineraries and entanglements between objects and people in the interior of religious buildings and in public spaces. It advocates an analysis attentive to the socio-spatial dialectic in order to explore the ways in which public rituals and religious processions, understood as cultural performances, actively constituted the city’s ethno-religious communities (Jewish, Muslim, Christian) both vis‑à‑vis the (Ottoman/Greek) state and in relation to one another, in the context of their competing modernities. In parallel, the article details the increasing assertion of the Greek Orthodox community in public spaces, through performative events that enacted a growing synergy between Greek nation and religion.