Dursteler|185significant influence with the Venetian patrician officials who governed Corfu,
as well as extensive connections in Venice, which Maria likely anticipated would
be useful in her sensitive case.
Maria’s decision to seek the support of the archbishop was perfectly ratio-
nal; less clear is why Bragadin was so willing to support the women after such
a cursory examination. First, there was the issue of Maria’s spiritual status:
Although mixed marriages between Muslim men and Orthodox women were
common, clerics regularly denied women living in mixed marriages access to
the sacraments, confession, and Christian burial, because they were consid-
ered to be voluntarily living in sin. Renegades and individuals in mixed mar-
riages underlined the instability and permeability of confessional boundaries
and unsettled ecclesiastical and political elites tasked with preserving these
borders.
Second, there were the potential political ramifications of Bragadin’s action,
which could easily have been perceived as usurping the position of the Orthodox
megas protopapas. In general, relations between the two Christian communities
on Corfu were friendly: Clergy from both participated in their respective feast
day processions and masses, and they often attended each other’s funerals. Sev-
eral Greek churches had Latin altars, and a community of Greek monks were de-
pendents of the archbishop. However, there were also religious tensions because
of the imbalance of power between the two churches, which were exacerbated by
the more aggressive policy toward the Eastern rite church that the Roman papacy
adopted in the decades following the Council of Trent. To try and dissipate the
prospect of religious conflict, Venice’s rulers adopted a policy of political expedi-
ency toward the Republic’s Greek subjects and were proactive in defending their
religious prerogatives. Despite these potential ecclesiastical and political points
of contention, once again Maria successfully avoided numerous pitfalls, and the
speed and ease with which she and her daughters were assimilated suggests a
subtext that the documents do not fully address.
Even before this meeting, on the day after Maria and her daughters went
ashore, several of Corfu’s “chief citizens” had made marriage proposals to the two
oldest girls. These were propitious offers given that there were only about 130–150
Corfiot citizen families, less than 0.5 percent of the island’s total population. A
member of one of Corfu’s most influential clans sought Maria’s hand, which she
refused, preferring instead to enter one of the island’s oldest and most impor-
tant monasteries. She took the name Sister Macaria, and her youngest daughter,
Catigè, known now as Catterina, joined her in the monastery. Eminè, now called
Anna, was promised in marriage to Zorzi, the seventeen-year-old son of Dimo
Trivoli, head of one of the chief families in Corfu and an important government
official. The marriage took place two and half years later, in 1640, when the girl
had reached a more acceptable eleven years old.