Patrick Comerford
This year marks the 85th anniversary of the Battle of Crete, which began on the morning of 20 May 1941, with multiple German airborne landings on Crete, and lasted for 12 days.
During the German occupation of Crete in World War II, 5,000 stranded Greek, Australian, New Zealand and British troops who fought in the Battle of Crete in 1941, found shelter in Preveli until the Abbot, Agathangelos Lagouvardos, aided their escape to Egypt on two submarines on the nights of 31 May and 1 June 1941 and 20 and 21 August 1941.
As I was looking back in recent days on old photographs of churches, chapels and monasteries in Greece that I had not written about, I came across photographs of two chapels I had visited but not yet written about: the small Chapel of Saint Savvas near the beach below Preveli Monastery, and the Chapel of Aghia Kyriaki in the Kourtaliotiko Gorge.
I have visited Preveli Monatery a few times, and on the way there and back, between Preveli and Rethymnon, I usually passed through the Kourtaliotiko Gorge and visited the Chapel of Aghia Kyriaki.
The Kourtaliotiko Gorge (Κουρταλιώτικο Φαράγγι), also known as the Asomatos Gorge (Φαράγγι Ασώματου), is on the south side of the western part of Crete. It is located where the Kourtaliotiko River flows south between the mountains of Kouroupa and Xiron.
The village of Koxare is at the north end of the gorge. A road runs north to south through the gorge connecting Koxare to Asomatos; it then leads west, to the town of Plakias on the south coast of Crete. The cliffs on the side of the gorge provide a roosting site for the Lammergeier vulture.
At one point in the gorge, about 20 metres from the north entrance, some ‘claps’ can be heard, like hands coming together. These ‘claps’ are the kourtala that give the name ο Κουρταλιώτης (o Kourtaliotis, ‘the rattle’ and ‘the noisy’) to the gorge. They are caused by the wind being funnelled through the high caves of the gorge and breaking the sound barrier.
On the road between Asomatos and Koxare in the gorge, the Chapel of Aghia Kyriaki was built in 1853, with the natural rock face serving as one of its main walls. The chapel is about 10 km south of Armeni, just before the short path entry leading down into the gorge.
The chapel is on the side of the road and is easy to climb up to. Inside, its features include a rare stone iconostasis rather than one of the traditional wooden ones found in most Greek churches.
Saint Kyriaki (Αγία Κυριακή), also known as Saint Kyriaki the Great Martyr (Αγία Κυριακή η Μεγαλομάρτυς), was martyred during the reign of the Roman emperor Diocletian. She was born in Nicomedia to Greek parents Dorotheus and Eusebia, devout Christians. Because she was born on a Sunday, they named her Kyriaki, the Greek name for Sunday.
When Kyriaki rejected a would-be suitor’s proposal of marriage, he denounced both her and her parents as Christians to Emperor Diocletian. Dorotheus and Eusebia were exiled to Melitene in eastern Anatolia and Kyriaki was sent to Nicomedia to be interrogated by the emperor’s co-ruler, Maximian. When Kyriaki refused to renounce her faith, she was whipped and tortured.
She was thrown into a fire and to wild beasts, and then sentenced her to beheading by the sword; she was 21. Her feast day is marked on 7 July in the Greek Orthodox Church. Several places in Greece have the name Aghia Kyriaki (Αγία Κυριακή), including an island in the Dodecanese.
About 900 meters from the Chapel of Aghia Kyriaki, the trailhead leads down a carved staircase of 258 steps to the lower gorge, where I remember seeing a goatherd taking a large flock of belled goats through the gorge. Down there too is yet another small chapel, the Chapel of Aghios Nikolaos, and from there it is possible to hike through the freezing waters to see the magnificent 40-metre-high waterfall on the Kourtaliotis River waterfall.
The gorge leads eventually to the sandy beach at Preveli, and the natural life includes native palm trees. I am told an experienced hiker could follow the path across the river to reach the beach, and it takes about 2½ hours at an average pace. There is an alternative path, one parallel to the river, which easier and faster to walk through.
Each time I was travelling between Rethymnon and Preveli, I took the even easier option of travelling by coach. But each time I also managed to stop and climb the steps to visit the Chapel of Aghia Kyriaki.
Watching goats being herded through the Kourtaliotiko Gorge, below Aghia Kyriaki Chapel (Image: Patrick Comerford, YouTube)
