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COLYBA

Volume 7 · 189 words · 1842 Edition

Colybus, a term in the Greek liturgy, signifying an offering of corn and boiled pulse, made in honour of the saints, and for the sake of the dead.

Balsamon, Goar, Leo Allatius, and others, have written on the subject of colybe. The substance of what they have said is as follows: The Greeks boil a quantity of wheat, and lay it in little heaps on a plate, adding beaten peas, nuts cut small, and grape-stones, which they divide into several compartments, separated from each other by leaves of parsley. A little heap of wheat, thus seasoned, they call zōla. They have a particular formula for the benediction of the colybe, in which, praying that the children of Babylon may be fed with pulse, and that they may be in better condition than other people, they beseech God to bless those fruits, and the persons who eat them, because offered to his glory, to the honour of such a saint, and in memory of the faithful deceased. Balsamon ascribes the institution of this ceremony to St Athanasius; but the Greek Synaxary refers it to the time of Julian the apostate.