22 June 2021

Praying in Ordinary Time 2021:
24, the churches of Torcello

The mosaics in the main east apse in the Basilica in Torcello are among the finest Byzantine mosaics (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

During this time in the Church Calendar known as Ordinary Time, I am taking some time each morning to reflect in these ways:

1, photographs of a church or place of worship;

2, the day’s Gospel reading;

3, a prayer from the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel).

My photographs this week are from churches in Venice. This morning (22 June 2021), my photographs are from the Basilica of Santa Maria Assunta on Torcello and the Church of Santa Fosca.

The Church of Santa Fosca seen through the arches and the colonnades of the Basilica of Santa Maria Assunta (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Torcello is just five minutes from Burano and the most northerly island in the Lagoon of Venice. This is the island to which Venice traces its cultural and ecclesiastical roots, and the seventh century cathedral is the oldest building in the Lagoon.

The first people settled on Torcello in the fifth or sixth century, and over time it grew into a thriving colony with a cathedral, churches, palaces, and a population that peaked at 20,000 people.

Today, just a few dozen people at most live on the clustered islands that make up Torcello, and they depend mainly on tourism for their livelihood. But this is an attractive island, with its sites, restaurants, cafés, vineyards, and tiny bridges crossing from one islet to the next.

Torcello was once the largest and most important settlement in the Venetian Lagoon. It was first settled in the year 452 and is the parent island from which Venice was populated. It was a town with a cathedral and bishops long before Saint Mark’s Basilica was built.

After the downfall of the Western Roman Empire, Torcello was one of the first islands in the lagoon to be populated by people who fled the mainland to seek shelter from wave after wave of barbarian invasions, especially after Attila the Hun destroyed the city of Altino and the surrounding settlements in 452.

Although the Veneto region belonged to the Byzantine Exarchate of Ravenna from the end of the Gothic War, it remained unsafe because of frequent Germanic invasions and wars. During the following 200 years, the Lombards and the Franks drove urban refugees to the relative safety of Torcello, including the Bishop of Altino.

Torcello became the bishop’s official seat in 638, and it remained so for more than 1,000 years. The people of Altino brought with them the relics of Saint Heliodorus, now the patron of the island and now kept in a Roman sarcophagus below the High Altar.

Torcello had close cultural, political and economic ties with Constantinople. However, it was a distant outpost and established de facto autonomy from the Eastern Empire.

Torcello grew rapidly as a political and trading centre, and for centuries was a more powerful trading centre than Venice. In the 10th century, it had a population of up to 20,000. Salt became Torcello’s economic backbone and it was an important post in east-west trade, controlled largely by Byzantium.

The Black Death devastated Venice in 1348 and again in 1575-1577. In three years, the plague killed 50,000 people. The Italian plague of 1629-1631 killed a third of Venice’s 150,000 citizens.

Another crisis for Torcello developed when that the swamp area of the lagoon around the island increased from the 14th century, partly because of the lowering of the land level. Silt from rivers on the mainland filled up the shallow waters around Torcello, navigation in the laguna morta (dead lagoon) was impossible before long and traders ceased calling at the island. The growing swamps also seriously aggravated malaria.

Many people left Torcello for Murano, Burano and Venice, the bishopric was transferred to Murano in 1689, and by 1797 the population of Torcello had dropped to about 300. Many of Torcello’s numerous palazzi, its 12 parish churches and its 16 cloisters were purloined for building material by the Venetians and almost all have disappeared.

The only remaining mediaeval structures are one small palazzo, the cathedral, its bell-tower, the adjacent church, the town’s former council chamber and archives.

The Byzantine-Italian Basilica of Santa Maria Assunta dates from 639 AD (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The magnificent Byzantine-Italian cathedral, the Basilica of Santa Maria Assunta, dates back to 639 AD and rises above the island, with the Bell Tower and Church of Santa Fosca alongside.

The Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta was founded in 639, but underwent radical rebuilding in 1008. The present basilica is of basilica-form with side aisles but no crossing. It includes many earlier features, and has much 11th and 12th century Byzantine work.

One of the most moving mosaics in Venice is the 13th century mosaic in the central apse of the Virgin Hodegetria or the Virgin Mary in a blue robe with gold fringing, cradling the Christ Child, with the 12 Apostles at their feet.

A highly decorative and vivid Domesday mosaic depicting the Last Judgment covers the entire west wall, although when I visited it was being restored and was hidden from view by scaffolding.

The mosaic in the right apse depicts Christ Pantocrator enthroned between two archangels, Saint Michael and Saint Gabriel, with the Lamb of God in a medallion of the vault.

The pulpit is made from fragments from the first, seventh century church. The Byzantine marble panels of the iconostasis or rood screen are carved with peacocks, lions and flowers. The finely carved capitals on the nave columns date from the 11th century.

The flooring of the basilica is a vivid swirl of colours in bright tesserae of stone and glass, with cubes, semicircles and triangles laid in square designs.

The Church of Santa Fosca, standing beside the basilica, dates from the 11th and 12th century. It is built in the form of a Greek cross, is surrounded by a five-sided, semi-octagonal colonnaded portico, and a Byzantine interior.

The central dome and cross sections are supported on columns of Greek marble with fine Corinthian columns.

On the left side of the square, the Museo Provinciale di Torcello is housed in two 14th century palaces, the Palazzo dell’Archivio and the Palazzo del Consiglio, built in Gothic style as the seat of government of the island.

A marble stone chair in the square is known as Attila’s Throne. Legend says it was used as a throne by the fifth century King of the Huns. It is more likely that it belonged to the Bishops of Torcello, or the podestà, a city governor, or, perhaps, the seat where chief magistrates were inaugurated.

Torcello is also the setting for Daphne du Maurier’s short story, Don’t Look Now, made into a film starring Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie (1973).

The mosaic in the right apse depicts Christ Pantocrator enthroned between two archangels (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Matthew 7: 6, 12-14 (NRSVA):

[Jesus said:] 6 ‘Do not give what is holy to dogs; and do not throw your pearls before swine, or they will trample them under foot and turn and maul you.

12 ‘In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets.

13 ‘Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction, and there are many who take it. 14 For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it.’

The Church of Santa Fosca dates from the 11th and 12th century (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Prayer in the USPG Prayer Diary:

The Prayer in the USPG Prayer Diary today (22 June 2021, Saint Alban, Windrush Day) invites us to pray:

Let us give thanks for the life of Saint Alban, and for the contributions of immigrants to our society. May we recognise their works and offer hospitality to all who migrate to the UK today.

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued tomorrow

Inside the Church of Santa Fosca (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org

In the semi-octagonal portico of the Church of Santa Fosca (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

In search of Ireland’s
most southerly churches
on Cape Clear Island

Cape Clear Island off the coast of Co Cork is intimately linked with the legends surrounding the life Saint Ciarán (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

Patrick Comerford

Clear Island or Cape Clear Island ( Cléire or Oileán Chléire), 8 miles off the south-west coast of Co Cork, is the most southerly inhabited part of Ireland. Cape Clear is 3 miles long by 1 mile wide. Most of the 147 residents are bilingual in Irish and English, making this Ireland’s southern-most inhabited Gaeltacht island.

Mizen Head, the mainland’s most southerly point, is to the north-west. The nearest neighbouring island is Sherkin Island, 2 km to the east, and the solitary Fastnet Rock, with its lighthouse, is three miles west of the island. The boat trip from Baltimore took only 40 minutes, with views of the rugged coastline West Cork and occasional sightings of dolphins.

Little did I realise when this island-hopping boat trip was being booked as part of last week’s road trip or ‘staycation’ that I would end up visiting Ireland’s most southerly churches.

The South Harbour on the seaward side is often a berth for yachts and pleasure boats (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

The island is divided into east and west by an isthmus called the Waist, with the North Harbour to the landward side and the South Harbour on the seaward side.

Ferries from Schull and Baltimore arrive into the North Harbour, while the South Harbour is often a berth for yachts and pleasure boats.

Arriving on the ferry from Baltimore into the North Harbour the first archaeological and ecclesiastical site the visitor sees are the ruins of a 12th-century church, close to the main pier, with Saint Ciaran’s Well beside it.

Saint Ciarán of Saighir gives his name to the ruined church and holy well at the North Harbour (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

Saint Ciarán, the island’s patron saint, is allegedly one of Ireland’s four, early pre-Patrician saints. He is said to have been born on the shoreline beside the harbour, Trá Chiaráin, in front of the well, and the islanders gather there to mark his feast on 5 March each year.

Saint Ciarán of Saighir was one of the ‘Twelve Apostles of Ireland’ and was the founding Bishop of Saighir (Seir-Kieran). He remains the patron saint of its successor, the Diocese of Ossory.

Sometimes he is called Saint Ciarán the Elder, to distinguish him from another sixth century Saint Ciarán, Abbot of Clonmacnoise. He shares the feast date of 5 March with his mother, Saint Liadán, and his disciple and episcopal successor, Saint Carthach the Elder.

The reverence for Saint Ciarán is reflected in the proliferation of his name on the island: Saint Ciarán’s beach (Trá Chiaráin), Saint Ciarán’s Well (Tobar Chiaráin), Saint Ciarán’s Church (Séipéal Chiaráin) and Saint Ciarán’s Graveyard (Reilg Chiaráin); indeed, almost every family includes someone with the name Ciarán.

Saint Ciarán is said to have been born on the shoreline beside the North Harbour (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

Saint Ciarán’s life has inspired some colourful stories. Before he was conceived, his mother, Saint Liadán, dreamt a star had fallen into her mouth. She related this dream to the tribal elders, who told her she would give birth to a son whose fame and virtues would spread around the world.

It is said that when Ciarán heard from sailors about a new religion in Rome he went there and embraced Christianity. He was ordained in Rome and after 30 years there returned as Bishop of Ireland. He built his first church on the island, and legends claim the people of Cape Clear were the first in Ireland to accept Christianity.

His first disciples included a boar, a fox, a brock and a wolf: they all became monks and worked together to build the community.

The ruins of the 12th century church beside the North Harbour … Saint Ciarán’s life has inspired colourful stories (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

The ruins of Saint Ciaran’s Church, a 12th century rectangular church surrounded by a graveyard, face the North Harbour. The east gable and north and south walls survive to near full height (1.8 metres), but the upper part of west gable is missing.

There is an arched doorway near the west end of the south wall, a lintelled window near the east end, a single-light window in the east gable with an unusual foil or drop in the centre, and small aumbries in the north and south walls near the east gable.

The church was in ruins by 1693, but it remains Ireland’s southern-most church.

Toberkieran or Saint Ciarán’s well is a few steps away from the church ruins and churchyard. Beside the well, a flat-topped standing stone has a cross-like carving in relief. On the north-east face is an incised Latin cross, with expanded shaft terminals. On the south-west face is a very worn Latin cross with expanded terminals. There is a slight trace of another incised cross on the south-east face, with an indecipherable incised carving beneath.

Saint Ciarán’s Church, built in 1839 … the southern-most church still in use in Ireland (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

A steep climb leads north-east behind the harbour, with a 15-minute walk to island’s present church. Saint Ciarán’s Roman Catholic Church was built in 1839. It is part of the parish of Skibbereen, Rath and the Islands, and is the southern-most church still in use in Ireland.

This simple church is typical of earlier 19th century churches that are plain in style and modest in scale. Despite replacement windows and doors, it retains notable features, including a bellcote at the west end.

This is a single-cell, double-height church, with a four-bay nave and a recent single-storey sacristy. The pointed arch openings have replacement uPVC windows, a replacement timber battened door and tympanum. Inside, there is a fine open truss roof, polychrome tiles and a carved timber confessional.

Inside Saint Ciarán’s Church … part of the parish of Skibbereen, Rath and the Islands (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

The other sites on the island include megalithic standing stones, a 5,000-year-old Neolithic passage grave, the ruins of Dún an Óir, a 14th promontory fort or castle built by the O’Driscolls in the 14th century and destroyed by cannon in the early 1600s, and a signal tower dating from the Napoleonic Wars.

More modern additions to the island include a lighthouse, a bird observatory and two Irish summer colleges for secondary school pupils, Coláiste Phobal Chléire and Coláiste Chiaráin. Students stay in local houses or dorms and improve their spoken Irish as part of their immersion courses.

The island had a population of over 1,052 before the Great Famine, but the current population of is about 140. The primary school was built in 1897. Cape Clear’s electricity was once produced by diesel generators, but these were replaced ca 1995 with a n underwater cable from the mainland. The island has a restaurant, shop and pubs, and a new café overlooking the harbour opened at the beginning of this summer.

The wild scenery contributes to the island’s unspoilt charm (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

Since 1994, the island has hosted the Cape Clear Island International Storytelling Festival on the first weekend of September.

Cape Clear’s remote location and its proximity to the continental shelf make the island an important centre for bird watching. Whales, leatherback turtles, sun fish, dolphins and sharks are spotted regularly every year.

The wild scenery, the sparkling harbours, the cliffs, bogs and the lake all contribute to the island’s unspoilt charm. The bird life includes black and common guillemots, cormorants and storm petrels. Heather, gorse and wild flowers cover the rugged hills, while myriad stone walls give a patchwork effect to the landscape.

Cape Clear Island is colourful in the summer sunshine (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)