‘Anglicans have every reason to be profoundly grateful for the gift’

Patrick Comerford

The Rev Dr Thomas Carroll, who has recently retired at the age of 68 to his native Longford, is a priest of the Diocese of Ardagh and Clonmacnois, but has spent most of his working life as lecturer in liturgy and church history in the US, England, Rome, and Australia. He holds doctorates from both the Angelicum University in Rome and the Pontifical Liturgical Institute.

Despite his retirement, Father Carroll has been in much demand as a lecturer in theological colleges in Dublin. It is to be hoped that in coming years his native Ireland will benefit from his wisdom and learning.

As a young student in Rome in the 1950s and 1960s, Tom Carroll was present at the Second Vatican Council. Since then, he has earned acclaim as a theologian, writing and lecturing extensively on preaching, liturgy and patristics, the study of the early fathers of the Church. His Preaching the Word was published in 1984, and Liturgical practice in the Fathers followed in 1988.

Academic life

But what makes him unusual as a Roman Catholic theologian, perhaps, is that more than 40 years of his academic life have been devoted to researching the life and writings of a 17th-century Church of Ireland bishop, and his work has been highly acclaimed by Anglicans and Roman Catholics alike.

In 1990, he was the editor of Jeremy Taylor, Selected Works, published by the Paulist Press in New York as part of its “Classics of Western Spirituality” series aimed at providing “a library of the great spiritual masters”.

In his review of that book, the former Archbishop of Dublin, the late Henry McAdoo proclaimed: “This volume … is the book I have been waiting for.” Dr McAdoo had been co-chair of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC), a pioneering body in the field of securing ecumenical agreements. Moreover, he was the acknowledged expert on Taylor, and his insights from Taylor’s eucharistic theology are said to have been a major contribution to the ground-breaking agreements between Anglicans and Roman Catholics in the 1970s and 1980s.

Although Jeremy Taylor was born and educated in England, and spent his early years as a country rector and a junior chaplain to Charles I, he has always been seen as a key figure in the 17th-century Church of Ireland, alongside John Bramhall and James Ussher.

It is surprising that he managed to survive the turbulent years of the English Civil War. He owed his early promotions to the patronage of Charles I’s chaplain, the Archbishop of Canterbury, William Laud, who was executed; his second wife, Joanna Bridges, is thought to have been an illegitimate daughter of Charles I, and in print condemned Cromwell as “the Son of Zippor … sent to curse the people of the Lord.”

Moved to Ireland

To save Taylor from a second spell in jail, Lord and Lady Conway invited him to become their chaplain at Portmore, near Lisburn, and he moved to Ireland at the age of 44 in June 1658. Within two years, the monarchy was restored, and Taylor, who was in London for the triumphal entry of Charles II on May 29th, 1660, might have expected to become a bishop in the Church of England. Instead, he was offered the diocese of Down and Connor in the Church of Ireland.

Taylor’s disappointment was undisguised. He wrote to the Lord Lieutenant, the Duke of Ormonde, complaining: “I am thrown into a place of torment … the ministers are implacable.” He referred to the Presbyterian ministers, who were in a majority in his new diocese, as “Scotch spiders” who “have threatened to murder”. His response would be swift: within weeks he declared vacant the parishes of 36 Presbyterian ministers.

Despite his complaints, Taylor was among the 10 new bishops and two archbishops consecrated for the Church of Ireland in St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin, on January 27th, 1661. In front of all the powers of church and state, Taylor was given the singular honour of being invited to preach at his own consecration. In February, he took possession of his diocese, but found it had neither cathedral nor bishop’s residence, and went to live at Hillsborough Castle.

Taylor never realised his ambitions to return to a more comfortable diocese in England. Indeed, his pleas to Ormonde to be moved to any other diocese, including Meath, Dublin and Armagh, were ignored too.

Perhaps by way of compensation, the adjacent Diocese of Dromore, with its burned-down cathedral and handful of priests, was added to his charge, and he was appointed Vice-Chancellor of Trinity College Dublin. In time his reforms and revisions had set Trinity on his feet, he restored Dromore Cathedral at his own expense, and the parish church at Lisburn was serving as the cathedral for the Diocese of Connor.

Personal sadness

Taylor’s personal life was marked by great sadness. His seventh and only surviving son, Charles, died on August 2nd, 1667. The following day, the bishop caught a fever, and he died at the age of 54 on August 13th, 1667. His last words were: “Bury me at Dromore.”

For years, Dr McAdoo complained that Taylor’s voluminous works were inaccessible to the general reader. Father Tom Carroll’s scholarly and attractive Selected Works went a long way towards rectifying that.

More recently, he has been invited to contribute the entry on Jeremy Taylor for the new edition of the Dictionary of National Biography being published by the Oxford University Press.

Earlier this summer, Four Courts Press published a new selection of 11 sermons by Taylor, edited by Father Carroll as Wisdom and Wasteland: Jeremy Taylor in his prose and preaching today. The news that Four Courts Press had agreed to publish the book reached Dr McAdoo the day before he died. In his foreword, the late archbishop praises Tom Carroll for his “large benefaction”, and says: “Anglicans have every reason to be profoundly grateful for the gift”.

This feature was first published as ‘An Irishman’s Diary’ in The Irish Times on 16 August 2001.

Simitis finds little time to relax on Aegean holiday

Mr Costas Simitis … little time to enjoy the sights of Sifnos

Letter from
Greece
Patrick
Comerford

The Greek Prime Minister, Mr Costas Simitis, is spending his holidays this week in the Aegean on the western Cycladic island of Sifnos, 76 miles south of Athens. In Classical times, Sifnos enjoyed great wealth, derived from its gold and silver mines, and its treasury was dedicated to Apollo at Delphi. Today, Sifniots claim, the island has 365 churches and chapels, one for each day of the year.

However, Mr Simitis is unlikely to find much time to relax among the 365 churches of Sifnos or to enjoy the island’s great festival tomorrow, the feast of the Panagia or Virgin Mary, which comes only second to Easter for its great festivities and celebrations.

Instead, he will be considering how to fight his latest slump in the opinion polls, concentrating on a speech in which he is expected to outline his plans to keep his economic and public sector reforms on track, and contemplating the potential challenges within his own centre-left party, the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (Pasok).

Pasok has been in office for all but three of the past 20 years, but dissatisfaction is running high. Last month, for the first time, Mr Simitis’s rating sank below 30 per cent, his lowest ever, and for the first time he polled below Mr Costas Karamanlis, the untested leader of the main opposition party, New Democracy.

As he sees his popularity being eroded, Mr Simitis is now expected to announce a series of anti-poverty measures, along with tax cuts and increased public spending, in a major speech in Thessaloniki next month.

Greeks had hoped that joining the EMU last January would mean greater prosperity and a better standard of living.

The Prime Minister’s supporters point out that in the past few years Mr Simitis has achieved low inflation, faster growth than the EU average and an acceptably low budget deficit.

But his opponents point out that hopes for 5 per cent growth this year have been scaled back, the ailing stock market has hit a three-year low, and consumer inflation is running at 3.9 per cent, with persistent dry weather making fruit and vegetables expensive.

In Thessaloniki, Mr Simitis may want to make the most of the Olympic Games taking place in Athens in 2004, promising that all Greeks and not just Athenians will reap benefits.

But for most Greeks taxes remain high, paying them is time-consuming and complicated, and the poll figures reflect the belief of many that they have seen little change in a daily struggle with bureaucracy and public services.

The Prime Minister’s closest political adviser, the Environment Minister, Mr Costas Laliotis, conceded: “We must not close our eyes and ears to the messages incorporated in the polls.”

Elections are some time away, but Mr Simitis is facing growing criticism within Pasok, the party founded by the late Andreas Papandreou.

The Prime Minister has warned that he will not sacrifice policies for the sake of popularity. But heated street protests led by the public sector unions – his power-base in Pasok – forced him to shelve plans to overhaul the state pension scheme.

Now he has brought the party congress forward by six months to October in the hope of reaffirming his leadership before launching a much-needed cabinet shuffle. A cabinet shuffle is particularly popular among Pasok voters (69.3 per cent), and ministers whose proposals have caused a public uproar recently are expected to go. Although Mr Simitis is standing for re-election as party leader, one of his principal rivals inside the cabinet, the ageing Defence Minister, Mr Akis Tsohatzopoulos, who leads the party’s old-fashioned tax-and-spend populists, may see this as his last opportunity to become party leader and prime minister.

The Defence Minister, angered by a trimmed defence budget and a decision to postpone buying new fighter jets, has never been reticent about his ambitions. Having suffered two previous defeats at the hands of Mr Simitis, Mr Tsohatzopoulos could see the party congress in October as his last chance for revenge.

Mr Simitis, for his part, must win and win convincingly if he can hope to keep the populists silent as he forges ahead with reforms.

If he fails to win convincingly, then the best-qualified alternative is his Foreign Minister, Mr George Papandreou.

Mr Papandreou would have a better chance than most to unite Pasok’s two main factions: the populists loyal to Mr Tsohatzopoulos who still invoke his father’s memory, and the pro-euro modernisers.

A few weeks ago, on the fifth anniversary of Andreas Papandreou’s death, the Foreign Minister danced a zeibekiko to his father’s favourite tune – Vassilis Tsitsanis’s Cloudy Sunday – on the island of Samos.

As he staggered and swirled in the solitary dance, those who watched and clapped included the Turkish Foreign Minister, Ismail Cem.

Tradition and the Turkish presence underlined Mr Papandreou’s desire to bridge the gap between populists and reformers.

But if the steps of the zeibekiko were a hint that he wanted to follow in the footsteps of his father and grandfather as prime minister, Mr Papandreou has told friends and allies within Pasok he is prepared to wait.

He believes he has plenty of time to make his bid for the party leadership in the future.

This news feature was first published in ‘The Irish Times’ on 14 August 2001

New Turkish tourists symbolise Greek search for a pluralist, tolerant society

Minarets still dominate the skyline of Rethymnon in western Crete, where Turkish fountains and hanging balconies decorate the narrow streets and alleyways

Letter from
Crete
Patrick
Comerford

A militant campaign led by Archbishop Christodoulos of Athens has vigorously fought against the government’s determination to drop any reference to religious affiliation from Greek identity cards. The campaign came with veiled threats and challenges to the authority of the government of the Prime Minister, Mr Costas Simitis. But many Greek Orthodox bishops were unhappy with the campaign, and it appears to have backfired as a petition organised by the primate failed to garner the hoped-for number of signatures.

At times, it is easy to confuse Greek identity and loyalty to the Greek Orthodox Church. But the presence of a continuing number of Muslims in northeastern Thrace and in the Dodecanese islands is living testimony to the diversity within the Greek identity and to Greece's struggle to be a more open, tolerant and pluralist society.

The Muslim minority in Crete suffered severely after Crete’s formal unification with the modern Greek state in 1912. Many were removed to the Anatolian mainland of Turkey, while smaller numbers were relocated to the Dodecanese – principally Rhodes and Kos – only to find they were living in a Greek society once again in 1948.

Many Cretan towns still retain fine examples of late Ottoman architecture. The skyline of Rethymnon is dominated by both the Venetian fortezza, capped by the dome of a 16th century Turkish mosque, and by the minarets of the Nerandzes and Veli Pasha mosques. The charm of its side streets and alleyways is enhanced by a multitude of wooden hanging balconies, Turkish fountains, and doorways with Turkish inscriptions in florid Arabic script. In the island’s capital, Iraklion, the former mosque of Vezir Tzami is now the Church of Saint Titus, proudly displaying the severed head of the Apostle Paul’s martyred companion.

The new rapprochement between Turkey and Greece – symbolised this summer by the joint visit to Samos by the two foreign ministers, Ismail Cem and George Papandreou – has brought a new type of tourist to Crete. In recent months, the children and grandchildren of repatriated Cretan Muslims have returned to Iraklion in search of the houses and streets where their ancestors once lived. Greeks have been used to visiting Istanbul – the city they still call Constantinople and continue to dream of as Byzantium – as tourists and as pilgrims to the Patriarchate. But few expected to see Turks becoming enthusiastic tourists in Greece.

For Ms Lena Chryssakis, this is a welcome development in tourism. For years, she and her husband Manolis have run Mika Villas, a popular destination in the foothills above Hersonnisos for “young and lively” Irish holidaymakers. As a trained tour guide with a love of Classical, Byzantine and Venetian Crete, she has delighted in taking special tours to the island’s archaeological sites, including the ancient Minoan palaces and remains at Knossos and near Archanes, in the hills above Iraklion.

Now the arrival of a new generation of Turks in search of their ancestral homes has provided her with an opportunity to proudly introduce visitors to the history and culture of Crete. Many are surprised to find that the old houses in the Turkish quarter of Iraklion, bounded by Avgoustou and Chandakos streets, have been lovingly renovated.

A recent group of Turkish tourists explained that their grandparents once lived in central Iraklion, close to the Cathedral of Aghios Minas. Hidden away from the eyes of tourists, this part of Iraklion is typical of many Greek towns, with its narrow streets, busy shops, and traditional houses. Here, centuries ago, the young El Greco, Domenikos Theotokopoulos, trained as an icon painter.

The area around Aghios Minas is also the setting for the novel Freedom and Death by Nikos Kazantzakis, author of Zorba the Greek. The hero of the novel, Captain Michailis, was Kazantzakis’ own father. The book is an epic account of his struggle against the Turks for Cretan liberation and of his marriage to Margi Christodoulakis, the great-aunt of Manolis Chryssakis, who continues to live in this part of Iraklion.

But if the back streets of Iraklion are attracting new attention from the grandchildren of those who fought against Captain Mikhailis, they are home, too, to another of Greece’s tiny minorities, the Roman Catholics. For centuries Crete had a large Venetian population. Although they inter-married and integrated with the Greek Orthodox minority, the small sleepy eastern village of Neapolis, home to Lena Chryssakis’ father and his family, has one claim to universal fame: it was the birthplace of the only Pope born in Crete, the Franciscan friar Alexander V (1409-1410).

Traditionally, the largest Catholic presence in Greece has been on the islands of Tinos and Syros. But today there are four Catholic churches on Crete. The small modern church of Saint John the Baptist, hidden in the side streets, close to the studio of Iraklion’s acclaimed icon painter, Antonis Theodorakis, offers a full programme of recitals and live music throughout the summer.

In Chania, there has been a renewed interest in Crete's ancient Jewish minority, dating back 2,400 years. The island’s only surviving synagogue, Etz Hayyim, was designated one of the world's 100 endangered cultural monuments, and after decades of neglect was restored under the direction of Nicholas Stavroulakis, with the help of the Lauder Foundation, and rededicated in October 1999.

Tourism and a renewed confidence among once-dwindling minorities may yet help Crete to become an example of the pluralism and tolerance that become the hallmark of modern Greek society.

This news feature was first published in ‘The Irish Times’ on 6 August 2001.