In the best way, and more specifically with three baptisms, a multi-year feud in Crete is closed, proof that even the biggest differences can be left in the past.
The results of the successful "sasmos", as it is called in Crete the attempt to resolve disputes between individuals or families, were sealed last Monday in the area of Mylopotamos.
The long-lasting feud between well-known families in Zoniana of Mylopotamos in Rethymno had started on the occasion of the dispute over properties and pastures, and according to zarpanews.gr last summer there was a sudden resurgence between three people from two families. An episode of beating and the shots that fell mobilized the authorities who enlivened the village in order to calm the tension and not to open a new blood cycle again.
That period was the moment when the mediators, the "sastas", decided to take control of the situation into their own hands.
A total of seven people from Livadia, Anogeia and Zoniana tried for seven months to reconcile the three families involved in the long-standing feud.
New intensity
Last Sunday a new tension in the dispute again mobilized the authorities and many expressed fear that the chaos would not end.
But the brokers had done their work and on Monday night the last promise was given by the heads of the families who participated in the negotiations all this time.
In fact, the ceremony that will close not with one or two, but with three baptisms, will be made official next Saturday. Then two members from each family will visit their co-children for the well-known Mylopotamos custom, limping.
It is a ceremony where the baby's nails are cut and the one who cuts them is considered godfather. In fact, it is a custom of comparable gravity to gilding a baby. In total, the nails of three babies will be cut, one from each family that had a dispute, and as soon as conditions allow, the mysteries will also be performed.
And from Saturday onwards, people who until yesterday were enemies, wherever they meet, will greet each other as they do here in Crete, people who are united by the baptism of a child.
As soon as the commotion occurred, the prosecutor was informed and the police forces that had been on guard in the area since Sunday discreetly moved away.
As for the brokers, maybe they have already got a job for the next spasm.
After all, in such a difficult place as Mylopotamos, where the inhabitants have learned to solve their differences on their own, the people who undertake to carry out such difficult cases are few and far between and the cases they have to manage are many.