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The paper examines the specific performative features of the Service of Washing of the Feet as it is performed today on the island of Patmos. The ceremony itself was recorded in a post-Byzantine manuscript, likely dating to the seventeenth or eighteenth century. Its performance at the monastery of St John the Theologian has been documented since the monastery’s foundation in the eleventh century. It can therefore be assumed that the written record was made only after the service’s form had become more or less established. The distinctive traits of Orthodox liturgical performativity observed throughout the Byzantine rite are exceptionally developed in this specific and perhaps most spectacular service still celebrated. These performative aspects can also be discerned in other Byzantine material (textual and visual), making the service a valuable ‘archaeological’ example for studying Byzantine performativity.
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