COMERFORD WAY: Patrick Comerford’s online journal on Anglicanism, theology, spirituality, history, architecture, travel, poetry, beach walks ... and more
The Monument of the Unknown Soldier outside Parliament in Athens … the quotations are from the Funeral Oration by Pericles, recounted by Thucydides in ‘The History of the Peloponnesian War’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Patrick Comerford
When Xi Jinping and Donald Trump met in Beijing last week, the Chinese leader recalled another conflict between superpowers of the past, when he referred to the Peloponnesian War in ancient Greece, a decades long conflict that between Athens and Sparta that began in 431 BCE.
In a reference to classical rivalry, Xi asked: ‘Can China and the United States transcend the so-called “Thucydides Trap” and forge a new paradigm for major-power relations?’
I doubt that Trump had much of a classical education, and the reference must have gone over his head, presuming he was awake and listening at the time. If he was listening, I cannot imagine that he connected with the Peloponnesian War, still less that he ever heard of Thucydides or Pericles, just as I imagine that throughout the illegal war that has been waged continuously against Iran for weeks now, he has been incapable of knowing about the Persian Wars, still less that Persia was once one of the great classical civilisations.
Trump took a pack of ambitious business deal-makers with him on the jolly to Beijing, but few actual members of his administration, and probably no-one who was educated enough to understand the reference to the Thucydides Trap or anyone who was wise enough to grasp the significance of the citation.
The Thucydides Trap refers to the idea that when a rising power threatens to displace an established one, the result is often war. ‘It was the rise of Athens and the fear that this instilled in Sparta that made war inevitable,’ Thucydides wrote in The History of the Peloponnesian War. Just as Athens was once at war with Sparta, the implication is that China’s rise provokes anxiety and potential conflict with the US.
But the term the ‘Thucydides Trap’ was not devised by Thucydides. Instead, the label was first used by the US political scientist Graham Allison of Harvard in a feature in the Financial Times in 2012 to describe an apparent tendency towards war when an emerging power, such as Athens, threatens to displace an existing great power, such as Sparta, as a regional or international dominant power. The term has been widely used since 2015, and it primarily applies to analyses of China-US relations.
Graham Allison led a study at Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs which found that, among a sample of 16 historical instances of an emerging power rivalling a ruling power, 12 ended in war. Allison expanded his theory in 2017 in his book Destined for War, where he argues that ‘China and the US are currently on a collision course for war’.
However, Allison’s theory has come under considerable criticism, and scholars remain divided on the value of the ‘Thucydides Trap’, particularly as it relates to a potential military conflict between the US and China.
If anybody is brave enough to explain to Trump the meaning of the ‘Thucydides Trap’, they might also be well-advised to explain how the concept and values of democracy – so under threat in Trump’s America today – emerged and were consolidated around the same time as Thucydides and the Peloponnesian War.
The term democracy first appeared in Greek political and philosophical thought in the city-state of Athens (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
The Greek word δημοκρατία (dēmokratía), a compound of δῆμος (demos, people) and κρατία (kratía, power or rule). The term first appeared in Greek political and philosophical thought in the city-state of Athens. The first attested use of the word democracy is found in prose works in the 430s BCE, such as Herodotus’ Histories. But its usage was older by several decades, and Aeschylus strongly alludes to the word in his play The Suppliants (ca 463 BCE), in which he mentions ‘the demos’s ruling hand.’
Athenian democracy took the form of a direct democracy, and it had two distinguishing features: the random selection of ordinary citizens to fill the few existing government administrative and judicial offices, and a legislative assembly consisting of all Athenian citizens.
All eligible citizens could speak and vote in the assembly, which set the laws of the city state. However, Athenian citizenship excluded women, slaves, foreigners, and youths below the age of military service. Effectively, only 1 in 4 residents in Athens qualified as citizens.
During the run-up to this week’s election, I have been re-reading one of the greatest Greek speeches about democracy and democratic values. For many years I had a T-shirt, bought in Athens, with quotes from that funeral oration by Pericles in the cemetery in Kerameikos in Athens at the height of the Peloponnesian War.
The funeral oration by Pericles has been handed down in history by Thucydides in his History of the Peloponnesian War. He tells us Pericles delivered his oration in the cemetery in Kerameikos – not only to bury the dead, but to praise democracy.
There are excerpts from the speech on the Monument of the Unknown Soldier on Parliament Square (Plateia Voulis) on Vasilissis Amalias avenue, facing onto Syntagma Square. The monument, designed by the architect Emmanuel Lazaridis in 1929-1930, includes a large bas-relief of a dying Greek soldier by Kostas Demetriadis (1881-1943) and the Greek text of the funeral oration delivered by Pericles in 431 or 430 BCE.
Part of the Parthenon frieze in the Acropolis Museum in Athens (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Pericles was a Greek leader and statesman and a supporter of democracy during the Peloponnesian War. He was so important for Athens that his name defines the age – the Periclean Age – during which Athens rebuilt what had been destroyed during the recent war with Persia.
The people of Athens, including those from the countryside whose land was being pillaged by their enemies, were kept in crowded conditions within the walls of Athens. Near the start of the Peloponnesian War, a plague swept through the city. Pericles succumbed to this plague and died.
Before he died, though, Pericles delivered his rousing speech about the virtues of democracy. Thucydides puts in Pericles’ mouth key democratic values that are worth remembering today when democracy is under threat:
• Democracy allows humanity to advance because of merit instead of wealth or inherited class.
• In a democracy, citizens behave lawfully while doing what they like without fear of prying eyes.
• In a democracy, there is equal justice for all in private disputes.
Pericles, in his ‘Funeral Oration’ in Athens, uses ‘the many,’ οἱ πολλοί (hoi polloi), in a positive way when praising the Athenian democracy. He contrasts them with ‘the few’ (οἱ ὀλίγοι, hoi oligoi), who abuse power and create an oligarchy, rule by the few. He advocates equal justice for ‘the many’, ‘the all’, before the law, against the selfish interests of the few.
And that’s what democracy should have at its heart despite all the threats it faces from the Trump autocracy in the US and from the far-right in Britain and across Europe: equal justice for ‘the many’ and ‘the all’, before the law, against the selfish interests of the few.
A grave in Kerameikós, Athens, where Pericles delivered his funeral oration (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
The Hill of the Areopagos in Athens, looking across to the Acropolis (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Patrick Comerford
An early Christian thinker, Tertullian, once asked, ‘What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?’
What have the ways of the world got to do with the way we live our life as Christians?
How does God respond to the cry of the poor?
How is God present in our lives?
How do we live a life of love that shows we know the love of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit?
How do we respond in love and in faith and love to suffering in the world and to suffering of those we love?
Where do we find God in the midst of all this?
All these questions are asked regularly, and the first morning reading at the Eucharist this morning was a reminder that God never leaves us alone.
Saint Paul’s words inscribed on a plaque on the Areopagos in Athens (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Today has been the Sixth Sunday of Easter (10 May 2026), and at the Parish Eucharist in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford, this morning I read the first readings (Acts 17: 22-31), in which the Apostle Paul is at the Areopagos in Athens.
The people who worshipped the unknown God on the slopes beneath the shadow of the Acropolis were assured that God had heard their prayers, and they are now being invited to join in communion with this God through Saint Paul’s proclamation.
The Stoa of Attalos is one of the many splendid buildings beneath the slopes of the Acropolis in Athens. This stoa (στοά), a covered walkway or portico in the Agora, was built by and named after Attalos II (159-138 BCE), King of Pergamon. Its arcades were divided into shops and stalls, and it was a popular place for wealthy Athenians to meet and gossip.
There were many stoas in Athens, including the Stoa Poikile or Painted Porch, built in the fifth century BCE on the north side of the Agora.
‘What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?’ (Tertullian) … the Stoa of Attalos, beneath the slopes of the Acropolis in Athens (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
This is where we find Saint Paul in today’s morning, in one of the most famous sites in ancient Athens. Its fame was enhanced by the paintings and loot from wars displayed there. It was in this porch that Zeno of Citium (ca 333-262 BCE) taught Stoicism, the philosophical school that takes its name from this place.
The Stoics believed in a god, and this god played an important role in their general philosophy. But Stoic theology was fluid in its concept of god. Zeno argued that the cosmos is an intelligent being, although he seems not to have explicitly identified that intelligent being as God.
According to the Roman orator and philosopher Cicero, the Stoics recognised four main questions in theology: they prove that the gods exist; they explain their nature; they show that the world is governed by them; and that they care for the fortunes of humanity.
Essentially, Stoicism is a philosophy of personal ethics. It teaches that the path to happiness is found in accepting this moment as it presents itself, by not allowing ourselves to be controlled by our desire for pleasure or our fear of pain, by using our minds to understand the world around us and to do our part in nature’s plan, and by working together and treating others in a fair and just manner.
The Stoics taught that emotions resulted in errors of judgment that were destructive, due to the interaction between cosmic determinism and human freedom, and the belief that it is virtuous to maintain a will that is in accord with nature. To live a good life, they taught, one had to understand the rules of the natural order since they taught that everything is rooted in nature.
Later Stoics believed that virtue is sufficient for happiness.
The steps leading up to the top of the Areopagos (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
During his visit to Athens, the Apostle Paul debates with Stoic and Epicurean philosophers in the stoa, the marketplace or the agora. They take him to the shrine of the unknown god at the Areopagos (see Acts 17: 16-19).
Saint Paul tells them that they already know God in their hearts, they just have to come to realise who God is. In his speech at the Areopagos, Saint Paul also quotes the Cretan philosopher Epimenides: ‘In him we live and move and have our being.’
Epimenides was a poet and philosopher from Knossos, so he was familiar with the ancient Greek myths. All of his works are now lost, but he is remembered because he popularised the story in Crete that Zeus was dead, which led him to being condemned as a liar by his Greek contemporaries, and because he is quoted by Saint Paul not once but twice in the New Testament.
At the Areopagos in Athens (see Acts 17: 22-34), Saint Paul, quotes from Epimenides, referring him as one of ‘your own poets,’ when he says: ‘For “In him we live and move and have our being”.’
Later, when Saint Paul writes to Saint Titus about his mission in Crete, he commits a logical fallacy by quoting Epimenides: ‘It was one of them, their very own prophet, who said, “Cretans are always liars, vicious brutes, lazy gluttons.” That testimony is true’ (Titus 1: 12-13a).
The ‘lie’ of the Cretans is that Zeus was mortal, for Epimenides believed that Zeus is dead. The logical inconsistency of a Cretan asserting that all Cretans are always liars may not have occurred to Epimenides, nor to Callimachus, who both used the phrase to emphasise their point, without irony.
However, Saint Paul must have thought long about the idea of a dead god and the dead god’s tomb as he sought to preach the Resurrection Athens and in Crete.
The American theologian John Piper is a fundamentalist whose views on women and Jews I find misogynist and bordering on the antisemitic. Dismissing the horrors of domestic violence, he has said, ‘If her husband isn’t requiring her to sin, but simply hurting her, then i think she endures verbal abuse for a season, she endures perhaps being smacked one night, and then she seeks help from the church.’
In one of his books, Coronavirus and Christ, Piper claimed that Covid-19 was God’s judgment on society, and he singled out, among other things, gay people as a deserving ‘due penalty.’ When I hear things like this, I wonder whether preachers like this believe in the dead Zeus rather than the Risen Christ and the God in whom ‘we live and move and have our being.’
The old myths and superstitions are dead and gone, and with them the false expectations and demands they made on us. But the one true God has been with us always. This is Saint Paul’s message to the people of Athens in the first century. We do not believe in a superstitious way in a god like Zeus who exerts his control over weak humans in an angry and vengeful way, sending plagues and viruses to wipe us out as a way of asserting his control. We look to a loving God who has always been at work among people who seek to do God’s will: the Samaritan woman at the well comes to understand this; the Ethiopian eunuch who meets Saint Philip comes to understand this.
During the pandemic lockdown, as people asked where God was in the middle of that crisis, many of us, hopefully, realised that God is at work through everyone who is already doing God’s work. And we should rejoice in this and affirm this.
Epimenidou Street in Rethymnon … the philosopher from Crete gives his name to streets in towns and cities throughout Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Acts 17: 22-31 (NRSVA)
22 Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, ‘Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way. 23 For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, “To an unknown god.” What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. 24 The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, 25 nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things. 26 From one ancestor[a] he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, 27 so that they would search for God[b] and perhaps grope for him and find him – though indeed he is not far from each one of us. 28 For “In him we live and move and have our being”; as even some of your own poets have said,
“For we too are his offspring.”
29 Since we are God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals. 30 While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere to repent, 31 because he has fixed a day on which he will have the world judged in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.’
Looking across the Hill of the Areopagos and Athens from the Acropolis (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
A new interpretation by Stephen Sharkey of ‘Iphegnia’ by Euripides, adapted and directed by Serdar Biliş, opens tonight in the Arcola Theatre in London
Patrick Comerford
The Arcola Theatre in London is staging Iphigenia by Euripides in a new English version by Stephen Sharkey, adapted and directed by Serdar Biliş. It opens tonight (9 April) and continues until 2 May 2026.
Iphigenia is a story of sacrifice, parenthood and the human cost of war – then and now.
A young girl stands at the altar. A nation holds its breath. The winds have stopped. The Greek fleet is stranded. King Agamemnon is told by the gods that there is only one way for his army to reach Troy: he must sacrifice his daughter, Iphigenia.
It is a stark, contemporary reimagining of Euripides’ classic text and confronts the timeless question: what do we owe our country – and what do we owe our children? Blending the brutal beauty of ancient tragedy with voices of today, this new production replaces the traditional chorus with filmed testimonies from women across cultures, interwoven with live contemporary folk music that bridges East and West.
In this production, Mithra Malek plays Iphigenia, Indra Ové is Clytemnestra, Simon Kunz is Agamemnon and Kalia Lyraki is the Musician. The director and adaptor Serdar Biliş was born in Istanbul, and moved to London for a career in directing. He has an MA from Middlesex University, has been an associate director at Arcola Theatre and Liverpool Everyman, artistic director of Pürtelaş Theatre, and teaches at Kadir Has University in Istanbul and in Florence.
The translator Stephen Sharkey has updated and adapted a wide variety of classic and contemporary stories for the stage. His translation of Euripides’s Ion was produced by the Gate Theatre and directed by Erica Whyman.
The 1977 film ‘Iphigenia’ by the Greek director Michael Cacoyannis was the third in his Greek Tragedy trilogy
The name Iphigenia (Ἰφιγένεια) means ‘strong-born’, ‘born to strength’, or ‘she who causes the birth of strong offspring’. In Homer’s Iliad, Iphianassa (Ἰφιάνασσα) is the name of one of Agamemnon’s three daughters (Iliad ix.145, 287), a name that may be simply an older variant of the name Iphigenia.
For Euripides, Iphigenia is a daughter of King Agamemnon and Queen Clytemnestra, and so a princess of Mycenae. On his way to the Trojan War, Agamemnon offends the goddess Artemis by hunting and killing one of her sacred stags. She retaliates by preventing the allied troops from reaching Troy unless Agamemnon kills Iphigenia, his eldest daughter, at Aulis as a human sacrifice. In some versions, Iphigenia dies at Aulis, and in others, Artemis rescues her. In the version where she is saved, she goes to the Taurians and meets her brother Orestes.
Iphigenia in Aulis or Iphigenia at Aulis (Ἰφιγένεια ἐν Αὐλίδι) is the last of the surviving plays by Euripides. Written between 408 BCE, after Orestes, and 406 BCE, the year Euripides died, the play was first produced the following year in a trilogy with The Bacchae and Alcmaeon in Corinth by his son or nephew, Euripides the Younger, and won first place at the City Dionysia in Athens.
Mikis Theodorakis composed the score for Michael Cacoyannis’s film Iphigenia
Iphigenia in Aulis has had a significant influence on modern art. I became aware of that impact through the 1977 film Iphigenia (Ιφιγένεια) by the Greek director Michael Cacoyannis. It was the third in his Greek Tragedy trilogy, following Electra (1962) and The Trojan Women (1971), and Mikis Theodorakis composed the score. Cacoyannis adapted his film from his stage production of Iphigenia at Aulis.
Iphigenia tells the story of events immediately before the Trojan War. Helen, the wife of Menelaus, ran away to Troy with Paris, Priam’s son. Agamemnon, Menelaus’s brother and the King of Argos, gathered a large Greek expedition at Aulis to bring back Helen.
However, Artemis, the goddess of hunting, angered by an offence from Agamemnon’s father, King Atreus, caused storms to hinder the Greek fleet. This sets the stage for the film’s beginning.
The Greek armies have been waiting for far too long for the winds to rise and blow eastward, carrying their boats to Troy. They are tired, bored, hungry, and eager for battle. In an attempt to appease them, Agamemnon (Costa Kazakos) allows them to take sheep from a nearby temple dedicated to Artemis. In the chaos that ensues, Artemis’s sacred deer is accidentally killed. This angers Calchas (Dimitris Aronis), the high priest of Artemis’s temple, who delivers an oracle to Agamemnon in the presence of Menelaus (Kostas Karras) and Odysseus (Christos Tsagas).
Artemis was the daughter of Zeus and Leto, and twin sister of Apollo. She was the patron and protector of young children, especially young girls, and the goddess of marriage and childbirth. Her great temple at Ephesus was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and she was also revered in Didyma, Delos and Delphi.
According to Calchas, the oracle demands that Agamemnon offer a sacrifice to atone for defiling holy ground and for killing the sacred stag. Once the sacrifice is made, Artemis will allow the winds to blow east so the armies can sail to Troy. The sacrifice demanded is Agamemnon's first-born daughter, Iphigenia (Tatiana Papamoschou). News of the deal spreads quickly among the army, although for some time they do not know the exact nature of the sacrifice.
After a heated argument between the two brothers, Agamemnon sends a message to his wife Clytemnestra (Irene Papas) in Argos. In the letter, Agamemnon asks his wife to send their daughter Iphigenia alone to Aulis, supposedly to marry Achilles (Panos Mihalopoulos), who is part of Agamemnon’s expeditionary force. Despite her husband’s instructions, Clytemnestra decides to accompany her daughter to Aulis.
From then on, the tension and the tragedy intensify. Agamemnon begins to doubt his plan. After admitting his deception to his old servant (Angelos Yannoulis), Agamemnon sends him with another letter to Clytemnestra, revealing the deal and urging her to cancel Iphigenia’s journey. However, Menelaus’s men intercept the servant on the road and bring him back to Aulis. In the confrontation that follows, Menelaus condemns his brother for sacrificing Greece’s honour for personal interests.
Agamemnon challenges this argument, persuading Menelaus that no war is worth the life of a child. Following their agreement, Agamemnon decides to deliver the letter to Clytemnestra personally, but it is too late. A messenger announces the imminent arrival of the wedding party, including Clytemnestra. Agamemnon is stunned by the news and resigns himself to fate: ‘From now on, fate rules. Not I.’
When Clytemnestra arrives at Aulis, she is filled with happiness about her daughter’s imminent marriage to Achilles. However, Iphigenia’s first meeting with her father is fraught with double entendre, which is devastating. As she speaks of the wedding she expects, he speaks of her impending sacrifice. Although they use the same words, their meanings could not be more tragically divergent.
When Agamemnon meets Clytemnestra, he tries in vain to persuade her to return to Argos without witnessing the ‘wedding’. Clytemnestra and Achilles soon discover the truth from Agamemnon’s old servant.
Achilles is overwhelmed with shame and anger when he learns of the deception that has ensnared him in this tragedy. Clytemnestra is furious and, in desperation, confronts her husband one last time.
However, Agamemnon is ensnared in his own trap and cannot retreat, as Odysseus has threatened to disclose the true nature of the sacrifice to the army if Agamemnon fails to comply with the oracle’s demand. Meanwhile, preparations for the sacrifice progress swiftly. ‘Let's not delay; the wind is picking up,’ declares Calchas.
Odysseus finally acts by revealing the chosen sacrificial victim to the army. Now there is no turning back. Iphigenia briefly manages to escape, but is soon captured by Odysseus’s soldiers. In a poignant scene reminiscent of the dying sacred stag at the beginning of the film, Iphigenia is seen lying exhausted and breathless on the forest floor, evoking a sense of impending tragedy. Her captors return her to the camp to face her fate.
Resigned to her destiny, she has a heart-rending final meeting with her father before ascending the hill to her fate. Meanwhile, Agamemnon, surrounded by his jubilant army, watches helplessly from below as Iphigenia reaches the summit and is swiftly seized by Calchas. At that moment, as the wind rises, Agamemnon rushes up the steps. At the top, his expression reflects the assumed sight of his daughter’s death.
With a strong wind now blowing, the men rush to the beach, and launch their ships to set sail for Troy and its promised riches.
The play as it exists in the manuscripts ends with a messenger reporting that Iphigenia has been replaced on the altar by a deer. However, most critics accept that this is not an authentic part of Euripides’s original text but the work of an interpolator. A fragment of the play may indicate that Artemis appeared to console Clytemnestra and assure her that her daughter had not been sacrificed after all. But if this is a surviving reference to Euripides’s original ending which has not survived.
Cacoyannis made a number of changes to Iphigenia at Aulis to adapt it for modern cinema, with some significant divergences from the original plot. He does away with the traditional Greek tragic chorus originally used to explain key scenes, replacing it in some cases with a chorus of Greek soldiers. He introduces as dramatis personae Odysseus and Calchas, who are not present but are mentioned in the original play, to further the plot and voice certain themes.
As in Euripides’s original play, Cacoyannis is deliberately ambiguous in his ending. Although Greek myth says Iphigenia was miraculously saved at the moment of her death, this is not depicted in either the play or the film. Her true fate is left in question, but Agamemnon’s expression leaves little doubt that his daughter has been killed.
In Euripides’s Iphigenia at Aulis, Iphigenia’s rescue is described second-hand by a messenger. In the film, there is no overt reference to this event: the audience sees clouds and mist, followed by a shot of Agamemnon’s shocked expression.
A stall in Ephesus sells souvenir statues of Artemis, alongside figurines of Greek philosophers and the Virgin Mary (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
The testimonies woven into Stephen Sharkey’s new interpretation of Iphigenia opening at the Arcola Theatre in London tonight are said to be raw, intimate and fiercely honest. They speak of motherhood, loss, duty and war, and they reframe this classical play by Euripides for a modern world and offer a powerful counterpoint to a story shaped by the decisions of men.
The role of gender in Iphigenia in Aulis becomes clear in the play. Classical Greek was a male-dominated culture, the majority of Greek warriors and heroes were male, and women had no political rights or rights over their own bodies – their role was to bear children and listen to their husbands or, if they are unmarried, their fathers.
As a woman, Iphigenia has no true choice in who she marries, as it is her father’s role to select and approve of a husband. Even when Achilles and Agamemnon reveal the truth, Iphigenia knows she has no choice and is forced to beg her father to change his mind.
Eventually, she concludes that her sacrifice would be worth the furthering of the war. She notes that it would be better that her life was lost than the lives of all the soldiers gathered there, as a woman's life bears a lot less value than the life of a man. She feels obliged to make the decision because of the subservient role she is expected to play to the men in her life. Euripides’s Iphigenia in Aulis highlights the importance of gender roles in both the decision Iphigenia makes and in how she is treated by her father, Agamemnon.
The play also deals with the themes of sacrifice and duty. Iphigenia is willing to make a great sacrifice to further the Trojan War, a war that she is not involved in directly herself.
Many major Greek artworks depict the Greek warrior or the art of warfare, including buildings, statues, coins, and vases. A major theme in war is sacrifice, and it was regarded as a great honour to die in battle as a hero.
Iphigenia recognises this when she chooses to make the sacrifice so that the Greek warriors could sail onwards to Troy. She bears a great sense of duty to her country, and she chooses to lay her life down not for her sake, but for the sake of the war and her country. She only asks that her name is written in history for her great sacrifice, although she does not get this. In some translations, Artemis sees Iphigenia’s sense of duty and her willingness to die an honourable death.
A bust of Euripides in the Achilleon Palace in Corfu (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Euripides wrote Iphigenia in Aulis between 408 BCE and 406. Although the Trojan Wars in the 13th or 12th century BCE, provides the setting, the more immediate context is the Peloponnesian Wars between Athens and Sparta fought in 431-421 BCE and 413-404 BCE, or the earlier Persian Wars that lastedfrom 499 until 449 BCE.
As wars and conflicts unfold and intensify in those regions in recent weeks, Euripides and his Iphigenia in Aulis become even more relevant today.
The German historian Heinz Richter (1939-2024) speculated that the debate over who is Greek and who is Turk, who is European and who is non-European, may have started as early as the Persian Wars, perhaps even from the Trojan War, and continued into modern times. The US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth posted ‘Back to the Stone Age’ on X a week ago (2 April 2026), echoing Trump’s threat to bring Iran ‘back to the Stone Ages, where they belong.’ Iranian diplomats responded directly: ‘Stone Age? At a time when you were still in caves searching for fire, we were inscribing human rights on the Cyrus Cylinder. We endured the storm of Alexander and the Mongol invasions and remained; because Iran is not just a country, it is a civilisation.’
The Cyrus Cylinder, dating to 539 BCE, is one of the earliest declarations of human rights.
Other official Iranian responses added: ‘We will not be driven back to the Stone Age by your bombings. We are a nation with 7,000 years of civilisation.’
Trump, in his crude and illiterate failure to understand the very foundations of civilisation that have endured for so long, shows no appreciation of the place of Persian culture in shaping the classical world and our cultural identity today.
Once again, the demands of another Artemis (this time Artemis II) distract from the real lessons of the futility and tragedy of war, from the consequences of impetuous and capricious decision-making by rulers who would be kings and who are driven more by their own needs to project a sense of self-importance, of the way the decision to go to war impulsively sets off a chain of events that are soon beyond control, of the dangers of listening to voices that claim to be divinely inspired or sanctioned, of the ways war divide and destroy families, and of the deadly consequences of war for young people who have had no say in the decision-making processes yet are sacrificed on the altar not of a god but of a blustering and ill-advised king.
Trump has set in motion a future chain of events over which he has no control. Like Agamemnon, he may yet rue the future he has cursed us with and cry out: ‘From now on, fate rules. Not I.’
Christ appearing to his disciples at the table, Duccio (ca 1308-1311)
Patrick Comerford
Our Easter celebrations continue in the Church Calendar, and this is still Easter week.
Before this day begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:
1, reading today’s Gospel reading;
2, a short reflection;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
Jesus … stood among them and said to them, ‘Peace be with you’ (Luke 24: 36) … ‘Humanity’s Contempt for Humanity’ by Peter Walker in the ‘Consequence of War’ exhibition in Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Luke 24: 35-48 (NRSVA):
35 Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.
36 While they were talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, ‘Peace be with you.’ 37 They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost. 38 He said to them, ‘Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? 39 Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.’ 40 And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. 41 While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering, he said to them, ‘Have you anything here to eat?’ 42 They gave him a piece of broiled fish, 43 and he took it and ate in their presence.
44 Then he said to them, ‘These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you – that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.’ 45 Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, 46 and he said to them, ‘Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, 47 and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. 48 You are witnesses of these things.’
‘They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate in their presence’ (Luke 24: 42-43) … a variety of fish in a seafood shop at Easter in Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Today’s Reflections:
This morning’s Gospel reading at the Eucharist (Luke 24: 35-48) is a Resurrection story that continues on immediately from yesterday’s reading about the encounter of two disciples on the road to Emmaus with the Risen Christ.
In today’s reading, as the those two report back to their friends in Jerusalem of their encounter, the Risen Christ appears and greets his disciples, ‘Peace be with you’ (verse 36). He goes on to ask them, ‘Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? (verse 38).
I have to admit to being not just frightened but absolutely terrified for the future of the world with the direction Donald Trump has taken the conflict in the Gulf and the Middle East, despite his claims he has agrred to a ceasefire for two weeks.
Tomorrow is Great and Good Friday in the calendar of the Greek Orthodox Church. So I have a second opportunity to celebrate Easter this year with the Greek Orthodox community in Stony Stratford this coming weekend. Easter is so important in the Greek calendar that our celebrations in England or Ireland pale into insignificance.
The common Easter greeting in Greece is Χριστός ἀνέστη! (Christós anésti!), Christ is Risen! And the automatic, reflex response, between friends and strangers alike, on the streets and in the shops, is Ἀληθῶς ἀνέστη! (Alithós anésti!), He is Risen Indeed!
And this is not just for Easter Day, or even a week or two after. Easter is celebrated for 50 days.
It is often forgotten here that Easter is not just for Easter Day. The Risen Christ is not put back into the tomb, nor is the stone rolled back across it after Easter Day or after the Easter holiday is over.
The Easter Season is a celebration of our new creation in the Risen Christ, and it is a full season of 50 days. It brings together the three dimensions of the Resurrection, the Ascension, and the sending of the Spirit.
These 50 days amount to one-seventh of the year, and they form our great ‘Sunday’ of the year. Just as Sunday is the first and the eighth day, so the ‘great Sunday’ of the 50 days of Easter begins with the day of the Resurrection and continues through eight Sundays, or an octave of Sundays, a ‘week of weeks’.
But the Easter promise of peace that we hear this morning is in sharp contrast to the Trump’s threat this Easter-tide that the people of Iran will ‘be living in Hell.’ His vulgar language shows no appreciation or understanding of the fact that the Persian civilisation is one of the oldest great classical cultures.
During the Babylonian exile, Persian thinking and philosophy interacted creatively with Jewish religious concepts, and contributed to many thoughts in Second Temple Judaism such as the resurrection of the dead, the sharp contrasts between angels and demons, reward and punishment and heaven and hell, and the concept of a final judgment, and the ultimate triumph of good over evil.
Hebrew adopted several Persian loanwords, such as our word paradise which comes from an old Persian word meaning an enclosed or walled garden or orchard.
In the first fourth century BCE, Xenophon adapted the Persian phrase into Greek as παράδεισος (paradeisos). Xenophon provides an early description of a Persian garden in his Οἰκονομικός (Oeconomicos), in which Socrates recalls the visit of the Spartan general Lysander to the Persian prince Cyrus the Younger and his ‘paradise at Sardis.’
Lysander is ‘astonished at the beauty of the trees within, all planted at equal intervals, the long straight rows of waving branches, the perfect regularity, the rectangular symmetry of the whole, and the many sweet scents which hung about them as they paced the park.’
Xenophon is writing about household management and agriculture in one of the earliest-known works on economics. It is also a treatise on leading an army and a state.
As another catastrophic conflict in the Middle East continues, it still holds the potential of developing into a global conflagration.
Often, the rush to war abroad can be a symptom of ineffective leadership at home, offering bravado abroad as an alternative to delivering on election promises at home.
The Prussian general Clausewitz famously declared: ‘War is the continuation of politics by other means.’ But, as Tony Benn told the House of Commons in 1991: ‘All war represents a failure of diplomacy.’
War represents the failure of diplomacy, the failure of politics and the failures of politicians. When inept leaders who cannot meet their responibilities and commitments resort to blaming some outsiders, people then believe the scapegoat is the real problem, and demand resolution through war. War is an aberration of politics rather than an extension of politics.
It was only in the Second Temple era Judaism that the Persian and Greek word paradise came to be associated with the Garden of Eden, and by extension its meaning was transferred to heaven.
In the New Testament, the word paradise is used only three times: by Christ on the cross, in response to the penitent thief, ‘Truly, I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise’ (Luke 23: 42-43); by Saint Paul in his visionary description of being ‘caught up into Paradise’ (II Corinthians 12: 3-4), and in the Book of Revelation in a reference to ‘the tree of life that is in the paradise of God’ (Revelation 2: 7; see Genesis 2: 9).
The Persian, Greek, classical and Biblical images, which bring together the concepts of a garden, the enclosed place of peace, Eden, a restored earth, the coming kingdom and beatific visions of heaven are in sharp contrast to the Valhalla of Norse mythology, which is ruled over by Odin, the god of war, and is reward for those who die in conflict and combat.
In time, I hope to see Trump and his collaborators facing charges of war crimes, crime and against humanity. Bombing the people of Iran in their hospitals, schools and homes is hardly going to bring solace, comfort or peace to the over-bombed and much-victimised people of Iran, certainly not going to bring them into paradise. Instead, there is a real danger of creating a Valhalla or even a hell on earth rather than bringing the people of Iran closer to a place of peace and comfort.
Meanwhile, some lines come to mind that are so familiar that they often seem trite:
The kiss of the sun for pardon,
The song of the birds for mirth,
One is nearer God’s heart in a garden
Than anywhere else on Earth.
This verse is on a plaque on a wall in Saint Mary’s Cathedral, Limerick, and must be inscribed on millions of garden plaques, bird baths and sundials. The lines were penned by the English poet and hymnwriter Dorothy Gurney (1858-1932).
Dorothy Gurney was the daughter and wife of Anglican priests, her grandfather and her brother were both Anglican bishops, and ‘God’s Garden’ is her best-known poem. Quotations from her popular poem often miss the next and final verse that tells us why we are near to God in the garden:
For he broke it for us in a garden
Under the olive-trees
Where the angel of strength was the warden
And the soul of the world found ease.
Where is the soul of the world to find this peace in the face war in Iran and the Gulf?
Dorothy Gurney wrote her best-known hymn, O Perfect Love, in 1883 for her sister’s wedding:
O perfect Love, all human thoughts transcending,
lowly we kneel in prayer before thy throne,
that theirs may be the love which knows no ending
whom thou for evermore dost join in one …
Grant them the joy which brightens earthly sorrow;
grant them the peace which calms all earthly strife;
grant them the vision of the glorious morrow
that will reveal eternal love and life.
With imagination, Dorothy Gurney might have composed still another verse for ‘God’s Garden’, pointing out that when Mary Magdalene went to the empty tomb on the first Easter morning, she mistakenly supposed the Risen Christ to be the gardener (John 20: 15). As the Easter Gospel stories remind us, the constant words of the Risen Christ are ‘Peace be with you’ (Luke 24: 36; John 20: 19, 21, 26) and ‘Do not be afraid’ (Matthew 28: 10).
Saint Luke portrays the Risen Christ granting the disciples that ‘joy which brightens earthly sorrow,’ that ‘peace which calms all earthly strife,’ that ‘vision of the glorious morrow that will reveal eternal love and life.’
He eats with us, he dispels fear, he proclaims peace, and on the Easter morn he commissions us to be his witnesses (Luke 24: 47-48). We are to do the same.
Today the scripture has been fulfilled in our hearing, every time we eat with him, proclaim his word and invite the world into the kingdom. Today – like every one of the 50 days in this season of Easter – is the day of resurrection, of the in-breaking of God’s kingdom.
Χριστὸς ἀνέστη!
Christ is Risen!
In the gardens at the Hedgehog Vintage Inn in Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Today’s Prayers (Thursday 9 April 2026, Thursday in Easter Week):
‘In the Garden’ provides the theme this week (5-11 April 2026) in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), pp 44-45. This theme was introduced on Sunday with Reflections by Rachel Weller, Communications Officer, USPG.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (Thursday 9 April 2026, Thursday in Easter Week) invites us to pray:
Merciful God, we pray for schools and families who receive fresh vegetables from the garden. Protect the wellbeing of each person and help the church meet the practical needs of children and households.
The Collect:
Lord of all life and power,
who through the mighty resurrection of your Son
overcame the old order of sin and death
to make all things new in him:
grant that we, being dead to sin
and alive to you in Jesus Christ,
may reign with him in glory;
to whom with you and the Holy Spirit
be praise and honour, glory and might,
now and in all eternity.
The Post-Communion Prayer:
God of Life,
who for our redemption gave your only-begotten Son
to the death of the cross,
and by his glorious resurrection
have delivered us from the power of our enemy:
grant us so to die daily to sin,
that we may evermore live with him in the joy of his risen life;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Additional Collect:
God of glory,
by the raising of your Son
you have broken the chains of death and hell:
fill your Church with faith and hope;
for a new day has dawned
and the way to life stands open
in our Saviour Jesus Christ.
Who hears the voice of those who cannot speak out for themselves? … street art in Leighton Buzzard (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Patrick Comerford
We are in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar. This week began with the Fourth Sunday before Lent (8 February 2026), and Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent are only five days away (18 February 2025).
Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:
1, today’s Gospel reading;
2, a short reflection;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
Who hears the voice of the oppressed? Whose cries are we deaf to?
Mark 7: 31-37 (NRSVA):
31 Then he returned from the region of Tyre, and went by way of Sidon towards the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis. 32 They brought to him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they begged him to lay his hand on him. 33 He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue. 34 Then looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, ‘Ephphatha’, that is, ‘Be opened.’ 35 And immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. 36 Then Jesus ordered them to tell no one; but the more he ordered them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. 37 They were astounded beyond measure, saying, ‘He has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.’
Martin Niemöller’s cell in Sachsenhausen … if we do not speak out today, who is going to speak out for us? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Today’s Reflections:
Jesus returns from region of Tyre and Sidon, where he has healed the daughter of a Greek-speaking Syrophoenician woman in Tyre, which we read about yesterday (Mark 7: 24-30). In this morning’s reading, he is still in a culturally Hellenised region, the Decapolis. But, from a very dramatic healing, that I have compared with the best of Greek classical drama, we move to what is intended to be a very private, one-to-one healing, that was not even meant to be a sideshow.
There are two languages at play in these two readings: Greek and Aramaic. The single word Jesus uses in verse 34, Ephphatha (Εφφαθα) is not so much an Aramaic word as the Greek form of a Syro-Chaldaic or Aramaic word, meaning ‘Be opened’. It is as though Mark has to regularly translate the Aramaic words he hears so that they can be heard by his Greek-speaking readers (see Mark 3: 17; 5: 41; 7: 11; 14: 36; 15: 34).
But this word is so guttural that even in polite parishes it can sound vulgar as people try to read it out. No matter how polite they try to be, the double F (Φ) sound can sometimes cause blushes and giggles, or even embarrass the reader.
English is such a polite language, and the translators add their own polite priorities and good manners to how they translate what Jesus says in the original and very direct Greek into palatable, modern English.
During this week, we have heard a Gospel reading on Tuesday in which Jesus is being rude to some very religious people, who come with real doubts and with polite questions and end up being called hypocrites (Mark 7: 1-13). The blunt conversations continued on Wednesday (Mark 7: 14-23), with Jesus speaking about human waste, and then about fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride and folly … hardly safe topics for most Sunday services.
To add to that, in the Gospel reading yesterday (Mark 7: 24-30), Jesus later goes on to compare a woman who comes to him in distress with dogs, and he seems to call her daughter what amounts to – in the original Greek – a ‘little bitch’ (Mark 7: 24-30, 13 February 2025).
Then in the reading today, he meets a man who is deaf and dumb – and he sticks his fingers in his ears and spits on him. (Mark 7: 31-37).
It is interesting how Jesus calls this man aside for a private one-to-one. How did he do this? If the man is deaf, how could he hear what Jesus is saying to him, both in public and in private? In this area, as a deaf mute, how had he learned to speak both Greek and Aramaic?
Yes, with one, single, perhaps even coarse word, the man can hear and speak.
It has become very difficult for people in the US in the past year to speak out about events at the moment, with one disastrous and catastrophic edict following another. Children have been detained cruelly, family lives are being destroyed, protesters have been shot dead in their cars and on the streets. Many are now afraid to speak out in case they become be the victims of the next diktat signed in the Oval Office by that capricious and vengeful President. Who sees and hears what he does, but is afraid to speak out?
But if people do not speak out now, who is going to be left to speak out three years from now?
Perhaps one, simple, blunt and direct word from Jesus may empower some people to speak out before it is too late. That word may be εφφαθα. But perhaps, on the eve of Saint Valentine’s Day, we might also need to be reminded that that word may simply be ‘Love!’
I am reminded again of the words of the German theologian and Lutheran pastor Martin Niemöller (1892-1984), whose cell I once visited in Sachsenhausen:
They came first for the Communists,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me,
and by that time no one was left to speak up.
The two healing stories of the mother and her daughter and the deaf mute find their context in – are sandwiched between – the two stories about feeding the crowds. The two feeding stories and the healing store in Tyre involve feeding with bread. Christ’s invitation to the Eucharist needs to be opened out, from being a rite of the Church to being a banquet for the world.
Only when we break down our limitations or prejudices, and when we are bold enough to speak out, can Christ’s healing message be brought to a world that cries out for God’s healing, God’s mercy, God’s justice … that cries out to be called into God’s Kingdom.
The Collect today prays that God who has ‘created the heavens and the earth ‘and made us in’ God’s own image my teach us ‘to discern your hand in all your works and your likeness in all your children.’
‘Christ’s invitation to the Eucharist needs to be opened out, from being a rite of the Church to being a banquet for the world’ … one of three monochrome round paintings of Christ the Pantocrator by Hanna-Leena Ward in her current exhibition in Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)
Today’s Prayers (Friday 13 February 2026):
The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is: ‘Safe Routes’ (pp 26-27). This theme was introduced on Sunday with a Programme Update by Bradon Muilenburg, Anglican Refugee Support Lead.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (Friday 13 February 2026) invites us to pray:
Inspire local leaders, the EU and UK authorities to choose hospitality over harmful policies. May decisions protect all who are stranded and in danger.
The Collect of the Day:
Almighty God,
you have created the heavens and the earth
and made us in your own image:
teach us to discern your hand in all your works
and your likeness in all your children;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who with you and the Holy Spirit reigns supreme over all things,
now and for ever.
The Post-Communion Prayer:
God our creator,
by your gift
the tree of life was set at the heart of the earthly paradise,
and the bread of life at the heart of your Church:
may we who have been nourished at your table on earth
be transformed by the glory of the Saviour’s cross
and enjoy the delights of eternity;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Additional Collect:
Almighty God,
give us reverence for all creation
and respect for every person,
that we may mirror your likeness
in Jesus Christ our Lord.
Classical masks on sale near the Acropolis in Athens … the word ‘hypocrite’ comes from the Greek word for an actor who masked or hid his face (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Patrick Comerford
We are in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar. This week began with the Second Sunday before Lent (8 February 2026), and Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent are just over a week away (18 February 2025).
The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today remembers Saint Scholastica (ca 543), sister of Saint Benedict, Abbess of Plombariola. Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:
1, today’s Gospel reading;
2, a short reflection;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
‘There are also many other traditions that they observe, the washing of cups, pots, and bronze kettles’ (Mark 7: 4) (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Mark 7: 1-13 (NRSVA):
1 Now when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him, 2 they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, without washing them. 3 (For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands, thus observing the tradition of the elders; 4 and they do not eat anything from the market unless they wash it; and there are also many other traditions that they observe, the washing of cups, pots, and bronze kettles). 5 So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, ‘Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?’ 6 He said to them, ‘Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written,
“This people honours me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me;
7 in vain do they worship me,
teaching human precepts as doctrines.”
8 You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.’
9 Then he said to them, ‘You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition! 10 For Moses said, “Honour your father and your mother”; and, “Whoever speaks evil of father or mother must surely die.” 11 But you say that if anyone tells father or mother, “Whatever support you might have had from me is Corban” (that is, an offering to God) – 12 then you no longer permit doing anything for a father or mother, 13 thus making void the word of God through your tradition that you have handed on. And you do many things like this.’
‘Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?’ (Mark 7: 5) (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Today’s Reflection:
Sometimes our comfortable differences can trip us up in ways that surprise or even embarrass us.
I was talking to a priest colleague, who is not from these islands, who once told me how, within weeks, he came a cropper in a new parish. He comes from a society and a culture where people speak openly and directly. He regards this as a mark of efficiency and a sign of his honesty.
But when he arrived in that new parish, this did not go down well at all.
When he told parishioners what he wanted to do, he thought he was being frank, honest and direct.
But his parishioners immediately saw him as abrupt, abrasive and rude.
In his next parish, he knew he needed to be a little less direct and a lot more diplomatic.
We all know what diplomats mean when they say talks have been frank and honest: bruising encounters with no one behaving in what we might call a civilised manner, or behaving towards each other like Christians.
We respond instinctively as if we expect to be treated politely and that others expect us to treat them politely too.
I offer two examples of how I think England and Ireland are unique in this respect. In other countries, when people pay for a service, they feel that they are doing someone a favour, giving them their custom and their money, and so walk away when the transaction is complete. It is a bonus for them if the person at the till says as they leave, ‘Thank you.’
But here, on these islands, we respond differently: when we pay in a shop or café, or get off a bus or train, it is we, the paying customers, who say ‘Thank You!’
Or again: How often have I asked someone for information that I know or expect them to have – looking for directions on the street, or asking for information at an airport or a train station.
And every now and then we meet someone who is curmudgeonly, who got out on the wrong side of the bed, or is just downright rude. And they answer brusquely, ‘I don’t know,’ or ‘Look at the timetable.’
And what do I say in reply? I say, ‘Thank You!’ Or I do the apologising.
I am just too Anglo-Saxon with my manners for my own good at times. I put on a polite mask, and I put up.
And sometimes we confuse those good manners with the answer we expect to that perennial question, ‘What Would Jesus Do?’
Well, look at what Jesus does over in our Gospel readings over these two weeks, and we’re in for something of a shocker.
Over these two weeks, we are going to come across what appear to be interesting, front-parlour meetings with Jesus. But that’s because English is such a polite language, and the translators add their own polite priorities and good manners to how they translate what Jesus says in the original and very direct Greek into palatable, modern English.
In today’s reading, we hear what sounds like Jesus being very rude to some very religious people, who come with real doubts and with polite questions.
How does he respond? He calls them hypocrites.
And to add to that, in the reading on Thursday, Jesus goes on to compare a woman who comes to him in distress with dogs, and he seems to call her daughter what amounts to – in the original Greek – a ‘little bitch’ (Mark 7: 24-30, 12 February 2026).
Then in the reading on Friday, he meets a man who is deaf and dumb – and he sticks his fingers in his ears and spits on him (Mark 7: 31-37, 13 February 2026).
Hypocrites, dogs, little bitches, poking at someone, spitting at them. Now, imagine if I responded in any one of these ways to someone who gives me a curt answer when I try to find my way through a busy train station or a crowded airport, or if they responded to me like that!
In today’s reading, the Pharisees come to Jesus with a genuine question that arises from rules they apply in their religious life, and rules that are radical, reforming, and easy for us to identify with when the reasons behind them are explained.
We need to keep in mind that the Pharisees are very religious, pious and good people. Too often we forget that Saint Paul boasts he is a Pharisee, that among the different Jewish groups of the day the Pharisees are the closest in tradition and practice to Jesus, and that Pharisaic Judaism is the spiritual ancestor of all modern forms of Judaism today.
The Pharisees looked at the demands the religious law of the Book of Leviticus made on the priests in the Temple. This priestly class included some of Jesus’ own family, such as Zechariah, the father of Saint John the Baptist.
Purity and cleanliness were part of their role in the Temple. Before they ate or handled any sacred food, they had to wash their hands thoroughly. But these rules only applied when they were on the rota for priestly duties in the Temple. They took it in turn, and outside that turn, those rules did not apply. Nor did they apply to the people in general, the average, everyday Jew on the street or at home.
But after the people return from exile in Babylon to Jerusalem, the Pharisees see the whole people as a royal people, a holy priesthood. And to make the people conscious of how holy the whole nation is, they suggest people should take on those priestly practices, to show they are holy.
In time, this becomes so accepted that people who do not bother washing their hands ritually before they eat are seen as being hypocrites if, at the same time, they are supposed to be holy and religious people.
The word hypocrite comes from classical Greek drama. This word ὑποκριτής (hypokrités) was used for an actor who on stage puts on a mask and speaks the words of someone else. The actor with the mask could have subtitles with a disclaimer: ‘These are not my words, I am only using the words of Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes … or one of the other great playwrights.’
So, a hypocrite was an actor, a pretender, a dissembler, a hypocrite puts on a mask and says something that represents someone else’s ideas, but that he does not necessarily believe himself.
Jesus is saying that the Pharisees are using someone else’s words but do not necessarily understand why those rules and regulations came about.
It is not that washing my hands before I eat is a bad idea, or that I am a hypocrite if I do so. If I habitually fail to wash my hands before I eat, I am going to get sick, quickly and often.
But if I forget why I have to wash my hands, I am a hypocrite if I then expect others to do so. And sometimes we leave ourselves in danger of going hungry if we insist on washing our hands before we eat: the facilities to wash my hands properly are not always to hand conveniently on a long train journey or a long flight.
The Pharisees had their own rituals, and I would be silly to think that only they had these problems. We all have our own rituals associated with eating and cleanliness.
It is said one of the principal causes of domestic arguments in the kitchen is about what way to stack the dishwasher, and how to empty it. Should the knives stand up or down? Which sides do you place the glasses and the cups on? Do you rinse the plates before they go in?
To tell the truth, it probably does not matter. But it is still irritating to open the dishwasher and to find someone else has packed it.
The level of questioning from the Pharisees is about a ritual that is probably more important than how you and I stack the dishwasher. And the level of response from Jesus is not as rude as we might first think.
But when he says the Pharisees are hypocrites, Jesus is challenging them to drop the mask and to own the words they speak and to own the reasons for those rituals.
Can you imagine how much more positively people at large would view the churches if every parish and church put as much care into seeing that our children are not abused or infected with racism or discrimination or hatred as much as we put into seeing that the cups are clean for the tea and coffee after church, or as much as we attend to the cleanliness of the sacred vessels used for the Eucharist or Holy Communion?
If we are worried about how clean the patten and chalice are at Holy Communion, how clean the church is, how clean the coffee cup is when it comes out of the dishwasher, how much more should be worried about how clean the Church is as an institution, how worthy it is to be called – for us to be called – the Body of Christ.
How we stack the dishwasher can be a domestic ritual of cleanliness … and the cause of many domestic arguments (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Today’s Prayers (Tuesday 10 February 2026):
The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is: ‘Safe Routes’ (pp 26-27). This theme was introduced on Sunday with a Programme Update by Bradon Muilenburg, Anglican Refugee Support Lead.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (Tuesday 10 February 2026) invites us to pray:
Guard the children and parents separated across the English Channel. Shine your light on them, especially those waiting to be reunited safely.
The Collect of the Day:
Almighty God,
you have created the heavens and the earth
and made us in your own image:
teach us to discern your hand in all your works
and your likeness in all your children;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who with you and the Holy Spirit reigns supreme over all things,
now and for ever.
The Post-Communion Prayer:
God our creator,
by your gift
the tree of life was set at the heart of the earthly paradise,
and the bread of life at the heart of your Church:
may we who have been nourished at your table on earth
be transformed by the glory of the Saviour’s cross
and enjoy the delights of eternity;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Additional Collect:
Almighty God,
give us reverence for all creation
and respect for every person,
that we may mirror your likeness
in Jesus Christ our Lord.
A classical Greek mask in a museum in Naxos in Sicily … the word ‘hypocrite’ comes from the Greek word for an actor who masked or hid his face as he said someone else’s words (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Looking forward to tomorrow … sunset at the Sunset Taverna, below the slopes of the Fortezza in Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Patrick Comerford
There is an old joke in Crete that tells of how a tourist, eager to learn a few phrases of Greek, asks whether there is a word in Greek that is equivalent to the Spanish mañana.
‘Yes’ says his Greek friend. But he stops, ponders a little, and then, after a few moments of deep thought, he draws a deep breath, and adds hesitantly: ‘Yes, but, but it doesn’t convey the same sense of urgency.’
It is no accident that the Greek word αύριο (avrio, tomorrow) lacks the sense of urgency conveyed in mañana.
Although the word avrio means ‘tomorrow’ or ‘not today’, it often carries a cultural connotation of a relaxed approach to time, meaning ‘when life allows’, not just the next calendar day. It is an integral part of an approach to life that values living in the present without giving in to the deadlines set by others.
The literal meaning of avrio is the day after today. It comes from the Classical Greek word αὔριον (aúrion), a derivative from ἀήρ, meaning a breeze or the morning air. The word is used, for example, by Homer in the Iliad and the Odyssey, Sophocles (Oedipus Tyrannus, Ichneutae and Trachiniae), Euripides (Alcestis and Hippolytus) and Xenophon (Economics). It is found too throughout the New Testament, for example in two verses in the Gospel reading next Sunday (8 February 2026):
But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you – you of little faith? (Matthew 6: 30).
Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. (Matthew 6: 34).
However, in its Greek cultural context today, the word is imbued with concepts of living without rigid deadlines, embracing a slower pace of life, and understanding that things happen when they are meant to.
In everyday conversation in Greek, the word is frequently used to say ‘not today’, ‘later’, or ‘not now’.
Many popular Greek songs have the word avrio in their title or as their theme, including songs by Stelios Kazantzidis, Ίσως αύριο (Isos Avrio, ‘Maybe Tomorrow’), a classic Zeibekiko song, and in traditional songs like those by Aspasia Stratigou, or in songs such as Σήμερα και Αύριο (Símero ke Avrio, ‘Today and Tomorrow’), a common theme, often with lyrics about love lasting forever.
Ίσως αύριο (Isos Avrio, Maybe Tomorrow) by Stelios Kazantzidis, a classic zeibekiko
Ίσως αύριο (Isos Avrio, Maybe Tomorrow) by Stelios Kazantzidis
Όλοι με ρωτούν πώς έχω καταντήσει
κι εγώ με απορία τους κοιτώ
κλάψε καρδιά μου σήμερα
τη μαύρη σου τη μοίρα
κλάψε για τον κατήφορο
που στη ζωή μου πήρα
Ίσως αύριο χτυπήσει πικραμένα
του θανάτου η καμπάνα και για μένα
Έχω απ’ τη ζωή παράπονο μεγάλο
δεν ένιωσε τον πόνο μου κανείς
μη με κατηγορήσετε
αφού κανείς δεν ξέρει
πριν πέσω τόσο χαμηλά
τι έχω υποφέρει
Ίσως αύριο χτυπήσει πικραμένα
του θανάτου η καμπάνα και για μένα
What will again happen tomorrow,
For years I’ve asked,
New troubles, new sorrows
Await me, the poor soul.
May tomorrow never dawn,
For new misfortunes
And pain it will bring me.
Everyone awaits tomorrow
With hope in their hearts,
But for me, no hope remains
In this world, no hope at all.
May tomorrow never dawn,
For new misfortunes
And pain it will bring me.
If only you knew, my dear mother, how much I suffer in life,
In this unjust and deceitful world
You’d never have brought a child into it.
May tomorrow never dawn,
For new misfortunes the wicked will give me.
Waiting for tomorrow … sunset behind the Fortezza and the harbour in Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Αύριο πάλι (Avrio páli, ‘Tomorrow Again’) is a poem by the Greek poet, translator and lyricist Nikos Gatsos (1911-1992) that has been set to music and recorded by singers such as Maria Farantouri, as well as Grigoris Bithikotsis, Manolis Mitsias, Yannis Parios, Dimitra Galani and Dimitris Mitropanos.
Nikos Gatsos had a profound influence on the post-war generation of Greek poets. His blend of surrealism, symbolism and folk song was widely admired and made him one of the great 20th century Greek poets, alongside his friends the Nobel laureates Odysseas Elytis and George Seferis.
Nikos Gatsos (Νίκος Γκάτσος) was born on 8 December in 1911 in Asea in Arcadia in the Peloponnese, where he finished primary school. He attended secondary school (gymnasio) in Tripoli, and then moved to Athens, where he studied literature, philosophy and history at the University of Athens for two years.
By then, he was familiar with the poetry of Kostis Palamas and Dionysios Solomos, Greek folk songs, and trends in European poetry. In Athens, he became part of the literary circles of the day becoming a lifelong friends of Odysseus Elytis and published some of his poems in the magazines Nea Estia (1931-1932) and Rythmos (1933). He also published literary criticism in Μακεδονικές Ημέρες (Makedonikes Imeres), Ρυθμός (Rythmos), and Νέα Γράμματα (Nea Grammata). He met Odysseus Elytis in 1936, and became his literary ‘brother’ in poetry.
In 1943, Aetos published his long poem ‘Amorgos’, a major contribution to modern Greek poetry and praised combining surrealism and traditional Greek folk poetry motifs. He went on to publish three more poems: ‘Elegeio’ (1946) in Filologika Chronika, ‘The Knight and Death; (Ο ιππότης κι ο θάνατος) (1947), and ‘Song of Old Times’ (Τραγούδι του παλιού καιρού) (1963), dedicated to Seferis, in the magazine Tachydromos.
After World War II, he worked as a translator with the Greek-British Review and as a radio director with Ellinikí Radiofonía. He also began writing lyrics for Manos Hatzidakis, and collaborated with Mikis Theodorakis and other Greek composers. He translated various plays, and his magnum opus was his translation into Greek of the Spanish tragedy Blood Wedding by Federico Garcia Lorca.
He was close to the composer Manos Hadjidakis and the singer Nana Mouskouri, and his friends included Philip Sherrard, Peter Levi, Peter Jay and the Limerick-born poet Desmond O’Grady (1935-2014), who translated the poetry of CP Cavafy. He died in Athens on 12 May 1992 at the age of 80.
Αύριο πάλι: Νίκος Γκάτσος
Αύριο πάλι, αύριο πάλι θα 'ρθω να σε βρω
Κρίμα που δεν με πιστεύεις
Κρίμα που μ' αφήνεις μόνο μου να ζω
Αύριο πάλι, αύριο πάλι θα 'ρθω να σου πω
Κρίμα που δεν με πιστεύεις
Κρίμα που δεν ξέρεις πόσο σ' αγαπώ.
Αύριο πάλι, αύριο πάλι θα 'ρθω να σε βρω
Κρίμα που δεν με πιστεύεις
Κρίμα που μ' αφήνεις μόνο μου να ζω
Αύριο πάλι, αύριο πάλι θα 'ρθω να σου πω
Κρίμα που δεν με πιστεύεις
Κρίμα που δεν ξέρεις πόσο σ' αγαπώ
Tomorrow again (translated by Marina Boronina)
Tomorrow again, tomorrow again I will come to find you
It’s a pity that you don’t trust me
It’s a pity that you leave me alone to live
Tomorrow again, tomorrow again I will come to tell you
It’s a pity that you don’t trust me
It’s a pity that you don’t know how I love you.
Yesterday was χθες (chthés); the day before yesterday was προχθές (prochthés); today is σήμερα (simera); tomorrow is αύριο (avrio); the day after tomorrow is μεθαύριο (methávrio).
Yes, of course, αύριο can mean tomorrow. But waiting for tomorrow can sometimes feel like waiting for ever. Relax, sit back, and enjoy it … until tomorrow.
Αύριο.
Tomorrow’s woes … a sign in a taverna in Tsesmes, near Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
A grave in Kerameikós, Athens, where Pericles delivered his funeral oration (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
