Patrick Comerford
Today has been a solemn day in Crete, marking the 160th anniversary of the tragic and cataclysmic destruction of the Monastery of Arkadi on 8 November 1866, which became a pivotal event in the Cretan Revolt against Ottoman rule.
On this day 160 years ago, 966 Cretans – mostly unarmed women children, and monks, alongside fewer than 260 resistance fighters – died tragically while they were seeking refuge within the monastery walls from a 15,000-strong Ottoman army.
Every year on 8 November, the people of Rethymnon solemnly commemorate this anniversary. After a three-day battle, the besieged Cretan rebels, women and children who sought shelter in the monastery blew up barrels of gunpowder in a store on 8 November 1866,, choosing death rather than surrender.
Ever since, the Monastery of Arkadi people in Crete have closely identified the monastery with the struggle for Greek Independence. The day is a regional holiday and a memorial, not a festival, marked with a series of events, including a memorial service at the monastery mausoleum, as well as speeches, wreath-laying and the raising of the flag at the Monument to the Unknown Soldier in Rethymnon.
The monastery is the focal point of these commemorations. The ossuary and museum are open to visitors throughout the year, and visitors are welcome at the public ceremonies this.
Arkadi stands on a fertile plateau in the foothills of Psilorítis, 23 km south-east of Rethymnon. I have regularly visited this monastery since I first started staying in Rethymnon almost 40 years ago. It is a pleasant journey through Platanias up through the bright mountain villages of Adele, Pigi, Loutra, Pigi and Kirianna, taking about half an hour through olive groves and vineyards, and along the side of the Arkadi Gorge.
The main church or katholikon dates back to the 16th century but shows Roman, Venetian, Renaissance and Baroque elements in its architecture. This church is unusual with its two aisles, and is dedicated to both the Transfiguration and to Saint Constantine and Saint Helen.
Since the 16th century, the monastery has been a centre for the sciences, art and learning. The church was built in 1587, replacing a smaller church dating from the 13th century. The façade, which was designed in renaissance style, was influenced by the work of the architects Sebastiano Serlio and Andrea Palladio.
Today there only seven monks living in the monastery. But despite the constant arrival of tourists and visitors and the dwindling number of monks, it remains a working monastery.
A new museum opened in Arkadi in 2016. Although most visitors want to see display items that tell the story of the horrific events over a century and a half ago, the museum includes books from the monastery library, icons, the liturgical items, vestments, stoles, patens, chalices and crosses.
Most of the items come from smaller monastic houses (metochia) and chapels that were once dependencies of Arkadi. They date from 1629 to the mid-19th century, and the earliest are fine examples of the Late Cretan School.
Embroidered inscriptions on the liturgical vestments include the names of abbots, priests and deacons. They show an interesting mixture of western and eastern traditions: the monks used purple silk textiles as the background for Byzantine-style flat embroidery and western-style relief embroidery created with gold and silver wire and thread and gold or silver-wrapped cord. The iconography followed the Byzantine tradition, while the decorative motifs and details were inspired by western art.
Arkadi once had a rich monastic library, but only a fragment of this collection have survived. Some of the volumes on display have elaborate covers, and many were produced on printing presses in Venice, which shows how the connection between Crete and Venice continued long after the Ottoman Turks captured Crete in the 17th century.
The museum is housed on the ground floor of the south-west wing of the monastery. This is one of the oldest parts of the monastery buildings, and was originally used for storing wine and olive oil.
Arkadi once featured on the Greek 100 Drachmai banknote, and the monastery’s image was restored to popular currency with the issue of 750,000 new €2 coins in Greece in 2016 to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the destruction of Arkadi.
One side of the coin shows the monastery with inscriptions bearing its name and the name of Greece in Greek, along with the monogram of the artist George Stamatopoulos.
The journey back down from Arkadi often takes me through the villages of Roupes and Nea Magnisia, which takes its name from the classical Greek city near Ephesus in western Anatolia. The village was founded by Greek-speaking refugees, expelled from present-day Manisa, about 65 km north-east of Smyrna in Turkey in the 1920s – a reminder that the conflicts that almost destroyed Arkadia in 1866 continued for more than half a century after.
