bond (δέσμον) of excommunication. For even as the body is found bound (δεδέμενον) in the earth, so is the soul bound (δεδεμίνη) and tormented by Satan. And whensoever the body receives absolution and is loosed (λυθῇ), from excommunication, by the power of God the soul likewise is set free from the bondage of the Devil, and receiveth the life eternal, the light that hath no evening, and the joy ineffable.”
Leone Allacci[21] considered this Orthodox dogma of the physical results of excommunication and a subsequent absolution to be certain beyond any matter of dispute, and he mentions several cases, which he says were well known and proved, which demonstrate the truth of this belief. Athanasius, Metropolitan of Imbros, recorded that at the request of the citizens of Thasos he read a solemn absolution over several bodies, and before the holy words were even finished all had dissolved into dust. Very similar was the example of a converted Turk who was subsequently excommunicated at Naples, and who had been dead some years before he obtained absolution from two Patriarchs, and his body dissolved, so that he was at rest.
An even more remarkable instance is that of a priest who had pronounced a sentence of excommunication, and who afterwards turned Mohammedan. This did not affect the victim of his curse, who though he had died in the Christian faith, yet remained “bound.” This circumstance which caused the greatest alarm was reported to the Metropolitan Raphael, and at his earnest request the Mohammedan, though after much delay and hesitation consented to read the absolution over the body of the dead Christian. As he was pronouncing the final words the body fell completely to dust. The Mohammedan thereupon returned to his former faith, and was put to death for so doing.
I do not know whether this is the same tradition as is recorded by Mr. Abbott in his Macedonian Folk-lore, p. 211, but I gather that the examples are not identical, although they have various points of similarity. I quote Mr. Abbott’s most striking account at length. “How great is the dread of an ecclesiastic’s wrath can be realized from the following anecdote related to the writer as a ‘true story’ by a person who entertained no doubts as to its authenticity. ‘Many years ago there was an Archbishop of Salonica who once in a moment of anger cursed a man of his diocese: “May the earth refuse to
