Religious festivals and folk games: The case of the “Bithynian Olympic Games”

Quite a bit earlier than the revival of the Olympic Games in Athens in 1896, local competitive sporting events held as part of religious celebrations of the Orthodox Christian faith were not unknown in regions of mainland Greece and Asia Minor. The purpose of this paper is to present the folk athletic competitions that took place in the context of religious festivals. In addition to the "folk" competitions with their local peculiarities, there were also competitions with direct references to antiquity, which were called “Olympic Games”, referring to ancient pattern, as was the case with the annual games in Ortaköy, Bithynia, on April 23, during the celebration of St. George, on which this paper focuses. The athletic competitions held in the region of Bithynia have been noted as an example of the incorporation of modern social customs into the Greek Orthodox community, even though the mental codes of these populations, in the process of forming their ethnocultural identity, perceived these new forms of collective activity as survivals of the ancient Greek athletic ideal. In conclusion, it can be inferred that the popular competitions held during religious festivals had specific characteristics, such as periodicity, religious atmosphere and competitive rules, highlighting commonalities with the Panhellenic games of antiquity. The subject of these athletic competitions presents interesting historical data and should be the subject of a broader synthetic study.