shared sacred places 385
homogeneous nation states in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and the
establishment of national religions in many Mediterranean countries, these networks
provided particular forms of connectivity between groups and regions. Pilgrims used to
travel to more than one sanctuary, connecting them to one another and to their regular
visitors. When travel is facilitated within political territories, pilgrimage to shrines and
annual festivals enhance a sense of belonging beyond the local horizon; in this context,
local populations accommodate newcomers into their system of beliefs, calendar cus-
toms and ritual apparatus, making cultural exchange a deep-seated way of life.
Mediterranean religious experiences become both shared and familiar through this
form of “bottom-up” reciprocity.
From the religious point of view, shared sacred spaces are “matter out of place” in
that they imply hybridity and mixing, both of which are unwelcome in times or ter-
ritories of intransigent (exclusive) monotheisms (Bromberger, 2005: 122). Within
homogeneous and monocultural national territories, therefore, phenomena such as
mixing and sharing have niched into interstices and margins, away from official eyes,
hidden, as far as possible, from the random visitor. Sharing holy places does not
imply the blurring of religious or cultural boundaries; it is part of the experience of
living side-by-side in multicultural societies. Cosmopolitan societies, historians
remind us, are not melting pots, but places where identified social groups live in
contiguity (Ilbert, 1992: 28). Moreover, sharing does not imply intimacy: in the
Mediterranean, people have traditionally tolerated the presence of others in certain
holy places, but religious communities have always refused mixed marriages.
Historical, emblematic monuments are a case apart: here it is religious authorities,
rather than local populations, who are in constant negotiation with each other about
sharing highly symbolic sacred spaces; this involves a top-down policy, agreed
between official representatives. The Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, a
pilgrimage center par excellence, is a case in point: this is a place where the differ-
ences among Christians (Roman Catholic as well as the various Eastern churches) are
enacted during the celebration of Easter. Every year, re-negotiations and tensions are
both acted out and finally resolved and appeased. As mentioned before, this is not
surprising, since religious mixing is exceptional in places where religious hierarchies
are well embedded and powerful, where religious institutions are almost part of the
“sacred landscape” (Albera, 2005). Hence, configurations of mixing, present or past,
are to be viewed within their historical context: for example, Catholic/Muslim or
Orthodox/Muslim sharing are best viewed in relation to the minority status of
Christians within Muslim territories, yesterday’s Ottoman Empire, or today’s national
states (Catlos, this volume).
Inter-denominational mixing among Christians, related to the presence of Catholic
lords in Eastern Christian territories since the Crusades, has also been described as
part of the Mediterranean landscape. In Cyprus, shared processions led by the Latin
clergy and attended by Christians from all denominations have been attested since the
twelfth century (Holmes, 2012). They point to mixed local practices between mem-
bers of Eastern and Latin congregations. The rarer instance of members of the clergy
serving both communities is attested by the fifteenth-century traveler to the Holy
Land, Felix Fabri (Holmes, 2012), following conversions of the local population to
the Latin Church and the establishment of Catholic families in the Eastern Christian
territories. A contemporary example comes from the village of Cargese in Corsica,