Sanguine Greeks see historic drachma make way for upstart euro

Greek banknotes which, together with coins, have been used by generations of Greek parents to teach their children about their classical, cultural and historical heritage. The drachma is Europe’s oldest currency but five months ago the euro became the only legal currency in Greece

Despite being the oldest currency in Europe, dating from the sixth century BC, the drachma has been supplanted by the newest kid on the block, and has been surprisingly well received

Patrick Comerford
In Greece

Greeks proudly claim the drachma was Europe’s oldest currency, but five months after the euro became the only legal currency in Greece, few seem to regret its demise. Greeks have adapted rapidly to the changeover since the drachma was finally abolished on March 1st. “It’s easier, there are much fewer zeros involved,” one businessman told me last week.

The drachma was often a difficult currency for tourists. Apart from the high number of zeros involved in calculations, in financially volatile periods, visitors could see a 20 per cent swing up or down in the value of their home currency against the drachma during an average trip.

Now, after a determined struggle by the Greek government to stabilise the economy and become a full – if late – member of the euro zone, Greek euro-yearnings have been fulfilled.

As the oldest currency in Europe, the drachma first appeared in the sixth century BC and was quickly adopted by the city states throughout the ancient Greek world. The Greeks named their unit of currency from the word drássomai, “to grip”, or “to take a handful”, and a drachma was originally worth a handful of arrows or a handful of grain.

The drachma is mentioned in the Bible in both the Old Testament and the New Testament.

Despite Roman efforts to take it out of circulation, the drachma continued as one of the major coinages of the ancient world and remained in circulation until Ottoman times.

With Greek independence in the 19th century, the drachma returned after a lengthy eclipse, and was restored as the official national currency in 1833.

But, at first, Greeks showed no confidence in the new currency: Turkish, Spanish and British notes and coins – even the currencies of defunct Italian city states – were more trusted, circulated widely, and began to supplant the drachma.

Two moves saved the currency: a 60 million drachma foreign loan bolstered the state’s finances, and the National Bank of Greece was established in 1841 and put the first banknotes into circulation.

Successive efforts to shore up the drachma ended with the outbreak of the second World War and hyperinflation.

The drachma lost its value completely, and within 11 months the government released banknotes of 100,000, five million, 200 million, two billion, even 100 billion drachmas in a vain attempt to catch up with runaway prices.

At the height of the crisis in late 1945, one British sovereign was worth around 70 trillion drachmas.

The country’s real currency was sterling, and memories of that period have never faded – to this day, Greeks, especially in the islands and villages, dream of finding that “trunk full of sovereigns”.

The drachma was often a difficult currency for tourists... and in volatile times visitors could see a 20% swing up or down in value of their home currency.

The 2,500-year-old Parthenon atop Athens’s ancient Acropolis

Generations of Greek parents have used the drachma as a visual aid to teach their children about their classical, cultural and historical heritage: bankruptcies, wars and violent swings of government between monarchy and republic have given most heroes of Greek mythology and modern history a chance to appear on coins and banknotes.

Until earlier this year, the lowest coin in circulation was 10 drachmas, which featured Demokritos, while Homer was on the 50 drachma coin and Alexander and the Star of Vergina graced the 100 drachma coin.

Banknotes included mythical gods such as Poseidon (50), Athena (100) and Apollo (1,000); cultural figures such as Rigas Velestinlis-Pherios (200), along with the Monastery at Arkadia (500), the site of ancient Olympia (1,000); and the heroes of the independence struggle, including the seafarers (50), Korais (100), Kapodistrias (500) and Kolokotronis (5,000).

Some of the heroes of the past survive on the new Greek euro coins, and the one euro coin replicates the Attic drachma with the owl, emblem of Athena, surrounded by a crown of laurels.

The cent coins have also been given the Greek name “lepta”, recalling the sub-division of the drachma that hyper-inflation had forced from circulation many years ago.

Greek financial institutions will continue exchanging drachmas for euros until the end of this month, and commercial banks will still exchange drachmas until the end of the year.

And, if they have not become collectors’ items by then, the Bank of Greece will accept the old coins and notes until 2010.

This half-page feature was first published in the ‘Business This Week Supplement’ in ‘The Irish Times’ on 26 July 2002. It was my last feature as an a staff journalist with ‘The Irish Times’

Goodbye to journalism is not to stop bearing witness

RITE AND REASON:

Patrick Comerford explains why he is leaving journalism after more than 30 years to work full-time with the Church of Ireland

When the Rev Stephen Hilliard was leaving The Irish Times to become a full-time minister, the then deputy editor, Ken Gray, joked that he was moving from being a “column of the Times” to being a “pillar of the church”.

Later, when I asked Stephen to define the different challenges of journalism and parochial ministry, I was told: “In many ways they’re the same. We’re supposed to be comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable.”

For over 30 years I have worked as a journalist - including almost three years with the Wexford People and almost 28 years with The Irish Times, the last eight as Foreign Desk Editor. I leave later this month to start a new venture as the Dublin-based regional officer of the Church Mission Society Ireland, the principal mission and development agency in the Church of Ireland.

For 30 or more years as a journalist and writer, I have tried to work at the point where faith meets the major concerns of the world. That work has made me a witness to the great conflicts and disasters of the last century.

I have seen the evil consequences of the Holocaust in museums, memorials and synagogues and at the Anne Frank House. I have met the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the children of Chernobyl. I have been in the midst of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the Middle East.

I have witnessed the evils of apartheid and racism, seen military occupation, poverty, and the deprivations of famine in Africa and South Asia, and talked and prayed with Sheila Cassidy and victims of torture and violence.

I have family experiences of the social terror left behind by the old regimes in Eastern Europe. I have friends who were tortured and exiled by the colonels in Greece but who have since made major contributions to the arts, diplomacy and politics.

Through those years I have been inspired by the courage of people who refuse to become victims and instead become fearless and articulate witnesses to the truths that good can overcome evil, that there is hope in the face of oppression, that faith is not a mere comfort but can inspire, motivate and provide vision for what can be - for what must be.

It is easy to drop names and say I have been inspired by heroes and friends such as Seán MacBride, Desmond Tutu, Trevor Huddleston, Bruce Kent, Mary Lawlor and Adi Roche.

But there is a vast ocean of silent people who give their time, their energy and their skills every day to campaigns like Amnesty International, the Anti-Apartheid Movement, CND, Christian Aid, the Simon Community, Trócaire, to movements concerned with the environment, globalisation, world debt, caring for refugees and asylum-seekers, to mission societies and, yes, even political parties. When they read newspapers like this, they hope to be informed, inspired and empowered by our news, comment and analysis.

My decision to move has surprised some colleagues and friends. But it is a natural transition for someone who continues to work with people wanting to be informed, inspired and empowered in the face of the major issues confronting the world and threatening our survival, and to bring to those issues the priorities of Christian faith, hope for the future and deep love.

Father Walter Forde has pointed out how people are more reluctant to volunteer their time and talents today. There will always be people like Ciaran Donnelly from Dublin and Paul Murphy from Cork, working without job security in Burundi and Nairobi. But there were not enough volunteers for the Vincent de Paul runs in Dublin last Christmas, and a shortage of volunteers threatens the Sunshine Homes holidays for inner city children.

These are body blows to witness and mission in Ireland. Perhaps we have failed to appreciate and encourage volunteers in the right ways. Perhaps we have failed to define mission in ways that are relevant to people today.

The Anglican Consultative Council has defined the five tasks of mission: to proclaim the good news of the kingdom; to teach, baptise and nurture new believers; to respond to human need by loving service; to seek to transform the unjust structures of society; and to strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and sustain and renew the life of the earth. These are the issues I have been working with for over 30 years.

I will continue to nurture my love for Greece, its people, music, poetry, culture and history. I will continue to engage in Muslim-Christian dialogue. I will continue to teach theology and work on history projects. And, naturally, I will continue to write.

Nadine Gordimer, in her inaugural Andre Deutsch Lecture in London 10 days ago, argued that a writer’s highest calling is to bear witness to the evils of conflicts and injustice. But that is the calling of a priest too. And that is the calling I hope to develop with the Church Mission Society as I seek to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable.

This ‘Rite and Reason’ column was published in ‘The Irish Times’ on 2 July 2002.

CMS Ireland names new regional officer In Dublin

The Church Mission Society Ireland has appointed the Rev Patrick Comerford as its new Regional Officer based in Dublin. CMS Ireland – the principal mission and development agency in the Church of Ireland – has a vision of every parish in mission and playing a meaningful role in the World Church by 2010.

As regional officer, Patrick will help carry forward this vision for a fast-growing programme of churches in mission. He will be part of a dynamic team responsible for promoting and developing the work of CMS Ireland, both in Ireland in partnership with dioceses overseas.

He expects to visit churches throughout Ireland, preaching, speaking and organising mission events and building a support network of parishes and people.

Patrick Comerford is a priest in the Church of Ireland and has worked for 30 years as a journalist with leading provincial and national newspapers. For the past eight years he has been Foreign Desk Editor of The Irish Times and has travelled throughout Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia reporting on international affairs.

Born in 1952, Patrick has a B.D. in theology from Maynooth, a Post-Graduate Diploma in Ecumenics from Trinity College Dublin and carried out post-graduate research in mission history at NUI Maynooth. He has a strong commitment to Muslim-Christian dialogue and chairs the board of the Church of Ireland Gazette. He has contributed to a number of books on church history and theology, including Christianity (ed. Patsy McGarry) and the forthcoming history of the laity in the Church of Ireland, All Sorts and Conditions.

He is married to Barbara, a social worker and they have two sons, Jamie and Joe. They enjoy holidays in Greece and Wexford and he includes poetry and the classics among his many other interests.

Patrick hopes to take up his new post with CMS Ireland on Monday 29 July 2002.

This press release was issued by the Church of Ireland Press Office on 24 June 2002

Yugoslavia consigned to history, replaced by Serbia and Montenegro

By Patrick Comerford
Foreign Desk Editor

The Yugoslav parliament voted overwhelmingly yesterday in favour of a plan to abolish the Balkan federation and replace it with a looser union between its last remaining members, Serbia and Montenegro.

The move clears the way to work out the details of a new constitution from the blueprint, negotiated by the EU in March. The west is keen to head off a drive by Montenegro for independence that it fears would destabilise the region.

The parliaments of Serbia and Montenegro already had approved the plan, which would consign Yugoslavia to history after more than seven decades of existence in various forms. But analysts and diplomats still expect protracted negotiations over the details. The upper house passed the plan by 23 votes to six against and the lower house approved it by 74 to 23.

“Many people will see this day as the day when Yugoslavia died, because the name is no longer mentioned in the agreement - the new state is called Serbia and Montenegro,” the Serbian Deputy Prime Minister and Yugoslav deputy, Mr Zarko Korac, said.

The two republics would have broad autonomy within one internationally recognised state with its own president, parliament, cabinet and army to replace the federal institutions.

The original plan, signed on March 14th in Belgrade, envisaged a new constitution would be ready for approval by the three parliaments by the end of June. However, many analysts, diplomats and politicians say interpretations of the blueprint and ambitions for the new union already differ so widely that the prospect of agreement by then is remote.

The Speaker of the Lower House, Mr Dragoljub Micunovic, said he expected the new draft constitution to be finished by the autumn. Yugoslavia would cease to exist when it is adopted.

Pro-independence Montenegrin parties, for whom the scheme is at best a necessary evil to retain Western favour, set great store by a clause that allows them to revive independence plans in three years. But pro-Yugoslav parties there want close links to Serbia, and a directly elected parliament with a strong mandate.

For now, at least, the EU and NATO Secretary-General Mr Javier Solana have headed off Montenegrin independence. They feared that a planned breakaway referendum would encourage further violent redrawing of borders in the Balkans.

Yugoslavia – meaning southern Slavs – was formed at the end of the first World War, itself triggered by the independence aspirations of the south Slavs of the Balkans, with Serbia leading a unification movement.

The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria in Sarajevo triggered the first World War. At the time, the only independent south Slav states were Serbia – then incorporating Macedonia – and Montenegro. Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina were under the rule of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which crumbled at the end of the first World War. In 1915 Serbia and Montenegro were overrun by the Central Powers and Serbian troops retreated to the Greek island of Corfu.

In July 1917 representatives of the south Slavs proclaimed a kingdom under Peter I of Serbia, and Montenegro adhered in 1918. In December 1918, the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes was proclaimed, and it was renamed Yugoslavia in 1929.

Yugoslavia joined the Axis pact in 1941, and Germany soon invaded. After the second World War, Tito came to power, but Yugoslavia was expelled from the Moscow-led Cominform in 1948.

Yugoslavia later became a leading light in the international non-aligned movement. After Tito's death in 1980, a collective presidency was introduced. In 1991 the Yugoslav republics of Croatia and Slovenia declared independence. With the rapid departure of four of Yugoslavia's original six constituent republics, the remaining two - Serbia and Montenegro - formed a new federation in 1992. Now the name “Yugoslavia” is being consigned to history, replaced by the new Federation of Serbia and Montenegro.

• This news report was published in The Irish Times on Saturday 1 June 2002.

Funeral procession marks ‘Great Friday’

Solemnity, bonfires and dancing are all part of the Eastern Orthodox Easter, writes Patrick Comerford

For the Eastern Orthodox world, Easter -- the most important religious holiday -- is still five weeks away. The week leading up to Easter is full of celebrations in Greece and Cyprus, and in the villages of Crete the preparations begin on Lazarus Saturday, the day before Palm Sunday, when children wander the streets singing Easter songs.

Early on Holy Thursday, Greek women traditionally make special Easter breads while the children dye and paint eggs red – a tradition that has still not given way to commercial competition from chocolate eggs. Later in the day, bonfires are lit in church courtyards, representing the fire in the courtyard of Caiaphas during Christ’s trial.

Good Friday – or “Great Friday”, as it is known in the Greek Orthodox world – is a solemn, sombre day. In every church, women set up a funeral bier for the cloth bearing the image of Christ’s body, the Epitaphios. Throughout the afternoon, people go from church to church, viewing the biers strewn with rose petals and praying and kissing the crucified image.

The main Great Friday liturgy takes place in the evening. When I visited the Phaneromeni Church in central Nicosia, after the singing of the great Good Friday hymn, the Axion Esti, soldiers and scouts carefully carried the bier shoulder-high into the square outside. The bishop led a procession through streets bordering the Green Line that divides the Cypriot capital.

In every town and village, as this procession makes its way through fashionable shopping streets or narrow alleyways, people stop for prayer, ending each time with the refrain “Kyrie, kyrie eleison” (Lord have mercy, O Lord) .

As part of the pious Greek custom, people cross themselves as they push under the moving bier: mothers force through small children in buggies, young couples clasp hands as they stoop, soldiers carrying the bier photograph one another as they bow and bob below it.

Throughout Friday night and Saturday morning, women keep vigil in the churches, but by Saturday night, the streets are decorated with garish lights wishing everyone “Kalo Pascha” (happy Easter), and large bonfires are burning in each church courtyard.

Long before midnight, the churches are packed with people standing shoulder-to-shoulder, on each other’s toes, and pulpit steps are layered with children anxious for a view across the adult heads. As midnight approaches, the lights are dimmed and then extinguished, leaving the church in complete darkness. And then the shout goes out: “Avto to fos …” (This is the Light of the World). Flames flicker from the three candles held by the priest before a torrent of candlelight spreads rapidly through the congregation with the joyful acclamation: “Christos anesti" (Christ is Risen).

As the priest pushes his way through the church to bring the Light of Christ into the darkness of the world, the throng follows, moving in a procession around the church as some of the more valiant young men will leap over the bonfire on which an effigy of Judas has just been burned to the peal of the bells.

As people drift away, they take their candles, hoping to keep the flame flickering until they reach home, each family using the candle to mark a black sooty cross on the lintel of the door. The Lenten fast is broken with an early meal of mayiritsa, a soup made with lamb tripe, rice and lemon.

Easter Day is a day for families, as adults and children return to the villages of parents and grandparents. The rest of the lamb is roasted on the spit, the red eggs are cracked, and the songs and dances carry on into the evening.

And until Ascension Thursday, the traditional greeting and response are “Christos anesti” (Christ is risen), “Alithos anesti” (He is truly risen).

• Greek Easter Day this year falls on May 5th.
• Rev Patrick Comerford is an Irish Times journalist and an Anglican priest

This feature was first published in ‘The Irish Times’ on Friday 29 March 2002

Antagonisms did not always exist between Jews and Muslims

WORLD VIEW
Patrick Comerford

It is almost a decade since Samuel Huntingdon wrote in Foreign Affairs about the “clash of civilisations”. Since September 11th, relations between the West and the Arab and Islamic world have deteriorated.

But, surprisingly, Muslim-Christian dialogue has improved since then, with Muslims and Anglicans signing a major agreement in Lambeth, a ground-breaking forum in Cairo involving Christians, Muslims and Jews, and another world day of prayer in Assisi, convened by Pope John Paul II and involving leaders of the major world faiths.

As relations between Israelis and Palestinians continue to deteriorate, it is too easy to imagine this malaise is typical of the relations between Jews and Palestinians. But Jewish-Muslim dialogue is another side of the triangle that is enclosed by Jewish-Christian and Christian-Muslim dialogue. Relations between Jews and Muslims in Israel and Palestine may have reached their lowest point to date, but it was not always so, and need not be like this in the future. Israelis refer in Hebrew to their Palestinian neighbours as “cousins”. Family relationships can often be tense; but, nevertheless, they remain a family concern, and the ties of kinship can never be denied.

The ties between Jews and Muslims were the subject this week of a seminar, “Jews and Muslims: the encounter through the generations”, organised jointly by the James Shasha Institute of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Trinity College Dublin.

Prof Reuven Amitai, director of the James Shasha Institute, referring to the present “sorry and difficult situation”, accepted tensions have reached a new peak, making it easy to forget that in the past relations between Jews and Muslims were seen in a different light.

They were not always perfect or idyllic, but neither were they characterised by antagonism or conflict. During the siege of Jerusalem in July 1099, Jews and Muslims had fought side-by-side, and they were massacred together. In 1187, when Salladin recognised the need to repopulate the city with a friendly and co-operative people, he turned to the Jews of the neighbouring regions.

Dr Meir Bar-Asher, a specialist in the Qur’an and Qur’anic exegesis, pointed out that the relations between Jews and Arabs predate the birth of Islam. Jews, as “People of the Book”, ahl al-kitab, were a protected minority dhimmi under Islam, along with Christians and Zoroastrians. But Dr Bar-Asher highlighted the presence of Jews in the Hijaz since the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem, and the presence of both Jews and Judaised Arabs in the Arabian peninsula from ca 200 CE. At one time, the population of Medina, now the second holiest city in Islam, may have been predominantly Jewish cohanim or priests.

He contrasted Qur’anic passages describing the status of Jews as the Chosen People and the recipients of the Torah, Wisdom and Prophethood, with those verses declaiming the Jews for distorting and falsifying their scriptures.

Dr Bar-Asher detailed the Jewish impact on early Islam. Arabic terminology for many religious concepts, including heaven, hell, prayer and almsgiving, share a similarity with Hebrew or Aramaic, Biblical material has been imported into the Qur’an from post-Biblical, rabbinical sources, and practices such as Friday prayer, the original direction of prayer qibla and the Ramadan fast show an early accommodation or adaptation of Jewish concepts.

But if Judaism influenced early Islam, Dr Sara Sviri of University College London pointed to areas where Islam had influenced the religious life of Jews. Speaking on “Medieval Jewish Mysticism and the Mysticism of Islam”, she showed how the mysticism of the Sufis had influenced Jewish mystics, including three generations of the Maimonides family in Spain and Egypt, who used Hebrew characters to write in Arabic on prayer and religious practices.

In Spain, Jews once lived in close proximity to their Muslim neighbours rather than on the margins, and she argued that “Jewish Sufism” was a significant movement. “Judaism takes quite a lot from Islam as well as the other way around,” Dr Sviri concluded, “so it is not anathema to learn and appropriate from each other.”

If Islam has borrowed from Judaism and Judaism has borrowed from Islam, then Dr Amnon Cohen tried to bridge the gap by looking at the interchange of ideas between Jews and Muslims in Ottoman Jerusalem. He argued that while the Jews of Jerusalem were segregated from the 16th century on, this was due to their own choices about living close to each other and to the synagogues in the city. But he insisted they were not persecuted. “There was no element of persecution”, he said. “They didn’t suffer, they didn’t complain … They were doing quite fine and were left to live their own lives.”

Why then did relations between Jews and Muslims begin to deteriorate? Dr Michel Abitbol argued that the climate began to change with the arrival of the Western colonial powers in North Africa and the Middle East after the end of the 18th century. With the de facto abrogation of the dhimmi status of Jews, their assimilation into the society of the colonists, with the benefits of education and employment, and their acceptance of the European languages and citizenship, widened the gap between Jews and their Muslims neighbours. The notable exception was in Iraq, where Jews were proud of their Babylonian and Arab heritage and were urged to feel part of the new Iraqi state.

The rise of Arab nationalism unsettled many Jews in North Africa and the Middle East, and he emphasised that the arrival of Jews from those regions in Israel dates primarily not from the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 but from the creation of the new Arab states in the 1950s.

Dr Amitai summarised how the contacts between Jews and Muslims over the centuries were not merely the daily contacts of neighbours and commerce. Over the centuries, Judaism and Islam influenced each other in many areas, including theology, mysticism, politics and law. The conflicts of the 20th century are hardly typical of those mutual contacts and influences, and sadly fail to reflect the encounter between Jews and Muslims through the generations.

● Rev Patrick Comerford is Foreign Desk Editor of The Irish Times and a Church of Ireland priest.

The ‘World View’ column was published in ‘The Irish Times’ on 9 February 2002.