COLIVI. - In the Byzantine rite this word designates a kind of sweet, made mainly of cooked wheat or rice, with the addition of raisins, pomegranate seeds, almonds or walnuts, the whole sprinkled with sugar. Blessed in church, in honor of a saint or in memory of the dead, the colivi are distributed to those present.In the first case the blessing prayer is recited at the end of the liturgy (Mass) or of vespers; in the second case, the kolyva, in which one or more candles are fixed, are placed on a small table in the narthex; the priest incenses them and performs a brief office: the three troparia, the short litany, and the prayer for the dead.

Bibliography4 works

BIBL.: L. Petit, La grande controverse des colybes, in Echos d'Orient, 2 (1898-99), pp. 321-31; A. Gaudin, Colybes, in DACL, III, coll. 3343-46; N. Nilles, Kalendarium manuale utriusque Ecclesiae, II, Innsbruck 1897, pp. 96-100, 379-81. Liturgical texts in J. Goar, Euchologion, Paris 1647, pp. 658-61; the small office in P. Mercenier and F. Paris, La prière des églises de rite byzantin, I, Chevetogne 1947, p. 283. On the symbolism see Symeon of Thessalonica: PG 155, 688-92. On the origin, the homily of Nectarius: PG 39, 1821-40.

Alfonso Raes

@incollection{ec3_colivi, author = {Raes, Alfonso}, title = {Colivi}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {III}, pages = {1948}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1949}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/colivi} }

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