‘Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you’ (John 17: 27) … the peace bell at Holy Trinity Church, Micklegate, York (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)
Patrick Comerford
Easter is a 50-day season that continues until the Day of Pentecost (19 May 2024). The week began with the Fifth Sunday of Easter (Easter V), although this is still the Season of Great Lent in Greece, and this is Holy Week in the calendar of the Greek Orthodox Church.
Throughout this Season of Easter, my morning reflections each day include the daily Gospel reading, the prayer in the USPG prayer diary, and the prayers in the Collects and Post-Communion Prayer of the day.
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The Calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today remembers Pandita Mary Ramabai (1858-1922) Translator of the Scriptures. Before this day begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:
1, today’s Gospel reading;
2, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
3, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
‘Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you’ (John 17: 27) … a sign seen in Coventry Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
John 17: 27-31 (NRSVA):
[Jesus said:] 27 ‘Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid. 28 You heard me say to you, “I am going away, and I am coming to you.” If you loved me, you would rejoice that I am going to the Father, because the Father is greater than I. 29 And now I have told you this before it occurs, so that when it does occur, you may believe. 30 I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming. He has no power over me; 31 but I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father. Rise, let us be on our way.’
‘Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you’ (John 17: 27) … a banner in the Methodist Church, Stony Stratford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)
Today’s Prayers (Tuesday 30 April 2024):
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 ‘The Sacred Circle.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday with a programme update adapted from the Autumn edition of Revive magazine.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (30 April 2024) invites us to pray:
Let us pray for Indigenous communities throughout the world, for the atrocities they have faced and the displacement and pain they have suffered. Forgive us O Lord.
The Collect:
Almighty God,
who through your only-begotten Son Jesus Christ
have overcome death and opened to us the gate of everlasting life:
grant that, as by your grace going before us
you put into our minds good desires,
so by your continual help
we may bring them to good effect;
through Jesus Christ our risen Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Post Communion Prayer:
Eternal God,
whose Son Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life:
grant us to walk in his way,
to rejoice in his truth,
and to share his risen life;
who is alive and reigns, now and for ever.
Additional Collect:
Risen Christ,
your wounds declare your love for the world
and the wonder of your risen life:
give us compassion and courage
to risk ourselves for those we serve,
to the glory of God the Father.
Collect on the Eve of Saint Philip and Saint James:
Almighty Father,
whom truly to know is eternal life:
teach us to know your Son Jesus Christ
as the way, the truth, and the life;
that we may follow the steps
of your holy apostles Philip and James,
and walk steadfastly in the way that leads to your glory;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Yesterday’s reflection
Continued Tomorrow
‘Our soul rests in God our true peace’ … a bench in Saint Julian’s Church, Norwich (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
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
30 April 2024
Aghios Anargyron beside
Rethymnon Hospital is
a tiny church engulfed by
the surrounding buildings
Aghios Anargyron, a tiny chapel near Rethymnon General Hospital, is engulfed by the surrounding buildings (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
Patrick Comerford
Many visitors to Athens are fascinated by the sight of Agia Dynami Church, a tiny Byzantine-era church that is completely surrounded by a modern, multi-storey city centre building.
The church is on the corner of Mitropoleos street and Pantelis street, close to Athens Cathedral and 200 metres from Syntagma Square and the Greek Parliament. It is a popular place for pregnant women to pray for a safe birth. Many Athenians pop in and out of the church on their way to and from work to say a quick prayer or to light a candle.
Agia Dynami (Holy Power) Church was built in the 16th century. Archaeological evidence suggests the little church was built on the site of an ancient temple dedicated to Heracles, known for his strength and his ‘12 labours’.
During the War of Independence, Greek munitions experts were forced to make bullets for the Turks in the church. However, they were successful in also making large quantities of bullets for the Greek revolutionaries, smuggling them out through the garbage each night.
After the Greek War of Independence, in the 1830s, the buildings around the church were demolished so the street could be widened to serve the growing needs of the city.
The church was renovated in 1912 and again in the 1950s. When the area was being redeveloped again in the 1950s, the Greek government tried to acquire the site of the church to build new headquarters for the Ministry of Education and Religion.
Agia Dynami Church is a tiny church in Athens that is completely surrounded by the Electra Metropolis Hotel
When the Greek Orthodox Church refused to dispose of the church, it was decided to build over it and around it. The small single-aisle church found itself almost entirely ensconced by a modern municipal building, wedged between the supporting pillars of the new building.
A 15-metre tunnel was found under the church connecting it to a large cave system that some say reaches to the Acropolis and the Kaisariani Monastery on the north side of Mount Hymettus. A bell tower was built over the entrance to the tunnel in 1963, blocking any future access.
For many years, the large office building enveloping the tiny church remained vacant abandoned until 2016, when it was converted into the Electra Metropolis Hotel. The church is now a much-photographed curiosity at the entrance to the five-star hotel. The church holds the relics of Saint Nikolas Planas, a late 19th century priest known for his work to protect thousands of orphaned children.
The tiny Church of the Holy Anargíron on Koumoundourou Streetis almost opposite the entrance to Rethymnon General Hospital (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
I was reminded of Agia Dynami in Rethymnon last week when I found myself at the Church of the Holy Anargíron (Ιερος Ναος Αγios Αναργύρων) on Koumoundourou Street. This tiny chapel is a few paces west of the Brascos Hotel, where I was staying, and the Municipal Gardens, and close to the entrance of Rethymnon General Hospital. In its location on the edge of the street, it is overwhelmed by and engulffed by the surrounding buildings, including street shops and businesses and multi-storey apartmnt blocks.
The name Αγios Αναργύρων refers not to some Saint Anargyron but to the ‘Holy Unmercenaries’ or ‘Holy Unsilvered’ (Άγιοι Ανάργυροι, Agioi Anárgyroi) – a number of saints who received no payment for the medical services they offered to people. They include healers or physicians who, contrary to medical practice of the day, tended to the sick, free of charge or payment.
There are many saints who received this epithet, including Cosmas and Damian, Cyrus and John, Panteleimon and Ermolaos, Samson and Diomedes. There is a similarly named small church of the Holy Unmercenaries (Agion Anargyron) at the Monastery of Christ the Saviour at Koumpe, on the western fringes of Rethymnon. It celebrates Saint Cosmas (Κοσμᾶς) and Saint Damian (Δαμιανός).
An inelegant and clumsy extension obscures the west front of the Church of the Holy Anargíron in Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
The Saints Anargyri Cosmas and Damian were twin brothers and doctors who only wanted to be paid by faith. They were arrested by Lysias, governor of Cilicia, during the reign of the Emperor Diocletian because of their faith and fame as healers. They were hung on a cross, stoned and shot by arrows, and finally beheaded in Aegeae ca 287 or 303.
The dedication that hints at the story of Saint Cosmas and Saint Damian seems so appropriate for a chapel so close to the hospital in Rethymnon.
A small inscription above the west door reads: Ιησος Χριστός, Θεον Υιός του Θεού, Cωτήρ, ‘Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour.’ However, a clumsy and inelegant extension at the west front obscures half of one of the paired ICXC NIKA Christograms on each side of these opening words of the Jesus Prayer.
‘It is forbidden to enter the church indecently dressed (women in pants, shorts, etc). Issued by the church’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
The gates outside this small chapel were locked and I searched but failed to find some information about its history or details of when it was opened. All I could find was a fading notice in ecclesiastical Greek lettering that warns: ‘It is forbidden to enter the church indecently dressed (women in pants, shorts, etc). Issued by the church.’
Hardly the welcome patients and their families at the nearby hospital need, hardly comparable to the everyday, popular use of Agia Dynami in Athens by pregnant women and office workers.
Nor is it hardly the open and generous attitude I associate with the ‘unsilvered’ or ‘unmercenaried’ Saints Cosmas and Damian.
The bells of the Church of the Holy Anargíron on Koumoundourou Street in Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
Patrick Comerford
Many visitors to Athens are fascinated by the sight of Agia Dynami Church, a tiny Byzantine-era church that is completely surrounded by a modern, multi-storey city centre building.
The church is on the corner of Mitropoleos street and Pantelis street, close to Athens Cathedral and 200 metres from Syntagma Square and the Greek Parliament. It is a popular place for pregnant women to pray for a safe birth. Many Athenians pop in and out of the church on their way to and from work to say a quick prayer or to light a candle.
Agia Dynami (Holy Power) Church was built in the 16th century. Archaeological evidence suggests the little church was built on the site of an ancient temple dedicated to Heracles, known for his strength and his ‘12 labours’.
During the War of Independence, Greek munitions experts were forced to make bullets for the Turks in the church. However, they were successful in also making large quantities of bullets for the Greek revolutionaries, smuggling them out through the garbage each night.
After the Greek War of Independence, in the 1830s, the buildings around the church were demolished so the street could be widened to serve the growing needs of the city.
The church was renovated in 1912 and again in the 1950s. When the area was being redeveloped again in the 1950s, the Greek government tried to acquire the site of the church to build new headquarters for the Ministry of Education and Religion.
Agia Dynami Church is a tiny church in Athens that is completely surrounded by the Electra Metropolis Hotel
When the Greek Orthodox Church refused to dispose of the church, it was decided to build over it and around it. The small single-aisle church found itself almost entirely ensconced by a modern municipal building, wedged between the supporting pillars of the new building.
A 15-metre tunnel was found under the church connecting it to a large cave system that some say reaches to the Acropolis and the Kaisariani Monastery on the north side of Mount Hymettus. A bell tower was built over the entrance to the tunnel in 1963, blocking any future access.
For many years, the large office building enveloping the tiny church remained vacant abandoned until 2016, when it was converted into the Electra Metropolis Hotel. The church is now a much-photographed curiosity at the entrance to the five-star hotel. The church holds the relics of Saint Nikolas Planas, a late 19th century priest known for his work to protect thousands of orphaned children.
The tiny Church of the Holy Anargíron on Koumoundourou Streetis almost opposite the entrance to Rethymnon General Hospital (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
I was reminded of Agia Dynami in Rethymnon last week when I found myself at the Church of the Holy Anargíron (Ιερος Ναος Αγios Αναργύρων) on Koumoundourou Street. This tiny chapel is a few paces west of the Brascos Hotel, where I was staying, and the Municipal Gardens, and close to the entrance of Rethymnon General Hospital. In its location on the edge of the street, it is overwhelmed by and engulffed by the surrounding buildings, including street shops and businesses and multi-storey apartmnt blocks.
The name Αγios Αναργύρων refers not to some Saint Anargyron but to the ‘Holy Unmercenaries’ or ‘Holy Unsilvered’ (Άγιοι Ανάργυροι, Agioi Anárgyroi) – a number of saints who received no payment for the medical services they offered to people. They include healers or physicians who, contrary to medical practice of the day, tended to the sick, free of charge or payment.
There are many saints who received this epithet, including Cosmas and Damian, Cyrus and John, Panteleimon and Ermolaos, Samson and Diomedes. There is a similarly named small church of the Holy Unmercenaries (Agion Anargyron) at the Monastery of Christ the Saviour at Koumpe, on the western fringes of Rethymnon. It celebrates Saint Cosmas (Κοσμᾶς) and Saint Damian (Δαμιανός).
An inelegant and clumsy extension obscures the west front of the Church of the Holy Anargíron in Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
The Saints Anargyri Cosmas and Damian were twin brothers and doctors who only wanted to be paid by faith. They were arrested by Lysias, governor of Cilicia, during the reign of the Emperor Diocletian because of their faith and fame as healers. They were hung on a cross, stoned and shot by arrows, and finally beheaded in Aegeae ca 287 or 303.
The dedication that hints at the story of Saint Cosmas and Saint Damian seems so appropriate for a chapel so close to the hospital in Rethymnon.
A small inscription above the west door reads: Ιησος Χριστός, Θεον Υιός του Θεού, Cωτήρ, ‘Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour.’ However, a clumsy and inelegant extension at the west front obscures half of one of the paired ICXC NIKA Christograms on each side of these opening words of the Jesus Prayer.
‘It is forbidden to enter the church indecently dressed (women in pants, shorts, etc). Issued by the church’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
The gates outside this small chapel were locked and I searched but failed to find some information about its history or details of when it was opened. All I could find was a fading notice in ecclesiastical Greek lettering that warns: ‘It is forbidden to enter the church indecently dressed (women in pants, shorts, etc). Issued by the church.’
Hardly the welcome patients and their families at the nearby hospital need, hardly comparable to the everyday, popular use of Agia Dynami in Athens by pregnant women and office workers.
Nor is it hardly the open and generous attitude I associate with the ‘unsilvered’ or ‘unmercenaried’ Saints Cosmas and Damian.
The bells of the Church of the Holy Anargíron on Koumoundourou Street in Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
29 April 2024
Daily prayer in Easter 2024:
30, 29 April 2024
‘I ask … that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one’ (see John 17: 20- 23) … the iconostasis or icon screen in Saint Nektarios Church, Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
Patrick Comerford
Easter is a 50-day season that continues until the Day of Pentecost (19 May 2024). The week began with the Fifth Sunday of Easter (Easter V), although this is still the Season of Great Lent in Greece, and Holy Week in the calendar of the Greek Orthodox Church began yesterday with Palm Sunday.
Throughout this Season of Easter, my morning reflections each day include the daily Gospel reading, the prayer in the USPG prayer diary, and the prayers in the Collects and Post-Communion Prayer of the day.
/> The Calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today remembers Saint Catherine of Siena (1380) as a Teacher of the Faith. Before this day begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:
1, today’s Gospel reading;
2, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
3, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
John 17: 12-26 (NRSVA):
[Jesus said:] 12 ‘While I was with them, I protected them in your name that you have given me. I guarded them, and not one of them was lost except the one destined to be lost, so that the scripture might be fulfilled. 13 But now I am coming to you, and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves. 14 I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. 15 I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one. 16 They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. 17 Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. 18 As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. 19 And for their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth.
20 ‘I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, 21 that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, 23 I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. 24 Father, I desire that those also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.
25 ‘Righteous Father, the world does not know you, but I know you; and these know that you have sent me. 26 I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.’
The Transfiguration depicted in the ceiling of the Church of the Transfiguration in Piskopianó in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
Today’s Prayers (Monday 29 April 2024):
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 ‘The Sacred Circle.’ This theme was introduced yesterday with a programme update adapted from the Autumn edition of Revive magazine.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (29 April 2024) invites us to pray:
We pray for the important and peaceful work of the Sacred Circle and for all who are taking part.
The Collect:
Almighty God,
who through your only-begotten Son Jesus Christ
have overcome death and opened to us the gate of everlasting life:
grant that, as by your grace going before us
you put into our minds good desires,
so by your continual help
we may bring them to good effect;
through Jesus Christ our risen Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Post Communion Prayer:
Eternal God,
whose Son Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life:
grant us to walk in his way,
to rejoice in his truth,
and to share his risen life;
who is alive and reigns, now and for ever.
Additional Collect:
Risen Christ,
your wounds declare your love for the world
and the wonder of your risen life:
give us compassion and courage
to risk ourselves for those we serve,
to the glory of God the Father.
Yesterday’s reflection
Continued Tomorrow
The Basilica of San Domenico in Siena is also known as the Basilica Cateriniana … Saint Catherine of Siena is commemorated in ‘Common Worship’ on 29 April (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
Patrick Comerford
Easter is a 50-day season that continues until the Day of Pentecost (19 May 2024). The week began with the Fifth Sunday of Easter (Easter V), although this is still the Season of Great Lent in Greece, and Holy Week in the calendar of the Greek Orthodox Church began yesterday with Palm Sunday.
Throughout this Season of Easter, my morning reflections each day include the daily Gospel reading, the prayer in the USPG prayer diary, and the prayers in the Collects and Post-Communion Prayer of the day.
/> The Calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today remembers Saint Catherine of Siena (1380) as a Teacher of the Faith. Before this day begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:
1, today’s Gospel reading;
2, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
3, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
John 17: 12-26 (NRSVA):
[Jesus said:] 12 ‘While I was with them, I protected them in your name that you have given me. I guarded them, and not one of them was lost except the one destined to be lost, so that the scripture might be fulfilled. 13 But now I am coming to you, and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves. 14 I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. 15 I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one. 16 They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. 17 Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. 18 As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. 19 And for their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth.
20 ‘I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, 21 that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, 23 I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. 24 Father, I desire that those also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.
25 ‘Righteous Father, the world does not know you, but I know you; and these know that you have sent me. 26 I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.’
The Transfiguration depicted in the ceiling of the Church of the Transfiguration in Piskopianó in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
Today’s Prayers (Monday 29 April 2024):
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 ‘The Sacred Circle.’ This theme was introduced yesterday with a programme update adapted from the Autumn edition of Revive magazine.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (29 April 2024) invites us to pray:
We pray for the important and peaceful work of the Sacred Circle and for all who are taking part.
The Collect:
Almighty God,
who through your only-begotten Son Jesus Christ
have overcome death and opened to us the gate of everlasting life:
grant that, as by your grace going before us
you put into our minds good desires,
so by your continual help
we may bring them to good effect;
through Jesus Christ our risen Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Post Communion Prayer:
Eternal God,
whose Son Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life:
grant us to walk in his way,
to rejoice in his truth,
and to share his risen life;
who is alive and reigns, now and for ever.
Additional Collect:
Risen Christ,
your wounds declare your love for the world
and the wonder of your risen life:
give us compassion and courage
to risk ourselves for those we serve,
to the glory of God the Father.
Yesterday’s reflection
Continued Tomorrow
The Basilica of San Domenico in Siena is also known as the Basilica Cateriniana … Saint Catherine of Siena is commemorated in ‘Common Worship’ on 29 April (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
28 April 2024
‘Never on Sunday’:
Manos Hatzidakis,
the composer and
his links with Rethymnon
The composer Manos Hatzidakis was born into a family from the village of Myrthios, 20 km south of Rethymno in Crete
Patrick Comerford
I was writing yesterday about the philologist Georgios Nicolaou Chatzidakis (1848-1941), who is celebrated as the father of linguistics in Greece, and his statue outside the town hall in Rethymnon. He was born in the small mountain village of Myrthios, 20 km south of Rethymnon, and his family took part in the many Cretan revolts against the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century.
But another member of the Chatzidakis family from Myrthios near Rethymnon – and one who is better known in Northern Europe – is the Greek composer Manos Hatzidakis (1925-1994).
He is often associated with the title song of the film ‘Never on Sunday’ … so, perhaps, his story is appropriate to tell on a Sunday afternoon. He is widely considered one of the greatest Greek composers, and was one of the main proponents of the ‘Éntekhno’ form of music, along with Mikis Theodorakis.
Manos Hatzidakis (also spelled Hadjidakis) was born Μάνος Χατζιδάκις on 23 October 1925 in Xanthi, Greece. His father to lawyer Georgios Hatzidakis was a lawyer from the village of Myrthios, 20 km south of Rethymno in Crete; his mother Aliki Arvanitidou was came from Adrianoupolis.
The family prospered from sales of tobacco grown locally, but Georgios Hatzidakis died in 1931 and the boy’s mother took Manos to live in Athens, where they lived in comparative poverty.
Hatzidakis studied music theory with Menelaos Pallandios, in the period 1940-1943. At the same time, he studied philosophy at the University of Athens. However, he never completed this course.
He met and connected with other musicians, writers, and intellectuals including George Seferis, Odysseas Elytis, Angelos Sikelianos, Yannis Tsarouchis and especially the poet Nikos Gatsos, who became a close friend.
During the last stages of the Axis occupation of Greece, Hatzidakis was active in the Greek Resistance through the United Panhellenic Organisation of Youth (EPON), the youth branch of the major resistance organisation EAM. There he met the composer Mikis Theodorakis and the two soon developed a strong friendship.
Hatzidakis’s first composition was the tune for the song ‘Paper Moon’ (Χάρτινο το Φεγγαράκι) in Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire staged by Karolos Koun’s Art Theatre of Athens. His first piano piece, ‘For a Little White Seashell’ (Για μια Μικρή Λευκή Αχιβάδα), came out in 1947, and in 1948 he set a collection of poetry by Nikos Gatsos to music, ‘Blood Wedding’.
Hatzidakis co-founded the Greek Dance Theatre Company with the choreographer Rallou Manou in 1949.
That year, he shook the musical establishment in Greece with an influential lecture on rembetika, the urban folk songs that flourished in Greek cities, mainly Piraeus, after the influx of refugees from Asia Minor in 1922. He focused on the economy of expression, the deep traditional roots and the genuine emotions displayed in rembetika, and by composers such as Markos Vamvakaris and Vassilis Tsitsanis.
Hatzidakis put theory to practice and adapted classic rembetika in his 1951 piano work, ‘Six Popular Pictures’ (Έξι Λαϊκές Ζωγραφιές), later also presented as a folk ballet.
At this point, he began writing immensely popular songs and film soundtracks alongside more serious works, such as ‘The CNS Cycle’ (O Kyklos tou CNS), a song cycle for piano and voice in 1954. He wrote the score for Michael Cacoyannis’s film Stella (1955) with Melina Mercouri singing the film’s best-known song ‘Love that became a double-edged knife’ (Αγάπη που 'γινες δίκοπο μαχαίρι). A year later, he composed the score for the film Laterna (Λατέρνα, φτώχεια και φιλότιμο) in 1955.’
Hatzidakis met Nana Mouskouri in 1958, and described her as his first ‘ideal interpreter’.
Manos Hatzidakis refused to collect his Academy Award in 1961
Hatzidakis achieved international fame and success in 1960 with his song ‘Never on Sunday’, or ‘The Children of Piraeus’ (Τα παιδιά του Πειραιά), sung by Melina Mercouri in Jules Dassin’s film Never on Sunday (Ποτέ την Κυριακή).
The song won Hatzidakis an Academy Award for Best Original Song and became a worldwide hit. But he did not attend the Academy Award ceremony in 1961, and refused to collect his award, saying the film with a prostitute as its protagonist reflected negatively on Athens and misrepresented Athens.
Hatzidakis founded a music competition to encourage Greek composers in 1962, with the first award going to Iannis Xenakis in 1963. At this time, he produced the musical Street of Dreams (Οδός Ονείρων) and completed his score for Aristophanes’ Birds (Όρνιθες), an Art Theatre production that caused an uproar over Koun’s revolutionary direction. The score was later used by Maurice Béjart’s Ballet of the 20th Century.
Hatzidakis wrote the music for ‘All Alone Am I’, for which Arthur Altman added the English lyrics and then gave to Brenda Lee. His album 15 Vespers (Δεκαπέντε Εσπερινοί), including the song ‘Mr Antonis’ (‘Ο Κυρ Αντώνης’), was released in 1964. His album Gioconda’s Smile (Το Χαμόγελο της Τζιοκόντας) was released in 1965.
Hatzidakis went to New York in 1966 for the premiere of Illya Darling, a Broadway musical based on Never on Sunday and starring Melina Mercouri. He then lived in the US from 1966 to 1972, when which he completed several more major compositions and compilations, including Rhythmology, Gioconda’s Smile and the song cycle Magnus Eroticus (Megalos Erotikos), in which he drew on classical works by Sappho, and Euripides, mediaeval folk songs, George Hortatzis’s romance ‘Erophile’, works by modern poets, including Dionysios Solomos, Constantine Cavafy, Odysseus Elytis and Nikos Gatsos, as well as the Biblical ‘Song of Songs’.
His album Reflections was a collaboration with the New York Rock and Roll Ensemble.
Despite his opposition to the colonels’ regime, Hatzidakis returned to Greece in 1972 and recorded Magnus Eroticus with Fleury Dantonaki and Dimitris Psarianos.
After the junta collapsed in 1974, he became active in public life and assumed a number of leadership positions in the Athens State Orchestra (KOA), the Greek National Opera (ELS/GNO), and the Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation (ERT). In 1989, he founded and directed the Orchestra of Colours, an ensemble performing lesser-known works and the music of Greek composers.
Hatzidakis influenced a broad swathe of Greek culture through his writings and radio broadcasts. In his later years, he explained that his work was meant not to entertain but to reveal and disclaimed part of his work, written for the Greek cinema and theatre, as unrepresentative.
Manos Hatzidakis died in Athens 30 years ago from a heart attack on 15 June 1994 at the age of 68. He was buried in Paiania.
Patrick Comerford
I was writing yesterday about the philologist Georgios Nicolaou Chatzidakis (1848-1941), who is celebrated as the father of linguistics in Greece, and his statue outside the town hall in Rethymnon. He was born in the small mountain village of Myrthios, 20 km south of Rethymnon, and his family took part in the many Cretan revolts against the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century.
But another member of the Chatzidakis family from Myrthios near Rethymnon – and one who is better known in Northern Europe – is the Greek composer Manos Hatzidakis (1925-1994).
He is often associated with the title song of the film ‘Never on Sunday’ … so, perhaps, his story is appropriate to tell on a Sunday afternoon. He is widely considered one of the greatest Greek composers, and was one of the main proponents of the ‘Éntekhno’ form of music, along with Mikis Theodorakis.
Manos Hatzidakis (also spelled Hadjidakis) was born Μάνος Χατζιδάκις on 23 October 1925 in Xanthi, Greece. His father to lawyer Georgios Hatzidakis was a lawyer from the village of Myrthios, 20 km south of Rethymno in Crete; his mother Aliki Arvanitidou was came from Adrianoupolis.
The family prospered from sales of tobacco grown locally, but Georgios Hatzidakis died in 1931 and the boy’s mother took Manos to live in Athens, where they lived in comparative poverty.
Hatzidakis studied music theory with Menelaos Pallandios, in the period 1940-1943. At the same time, he studied philosophy at the University of Athens. However, he never completed this course.
He met and connected with other musicians, writers, and intellectuals including George Seferis, Odysseas Elytis, Angelos Sikelianos, Yannis Tsarouchis and especially the poet Nikos Gatsos, who became a close friend.
During the last stages of the Axis occupation of Greece, Hatzidakis was active in the Greek Resistance through the United Panhellenic Organisation of Youth (EPON), the youth branch of the major resistance organisation EAM. There he met the composer Mikis Theodorakis and the two soon developed a strong friendship.
Hatzidakis’s first composition was the tune for the song ‘Paper Moon’ (Χάρτινο το Φεγγαράκι) in Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire staged by Karolos Koun’s Art Theatre of Athens. His first piano piece, ‘For a Little White Seashell’ (Για μια Μικρή Λευκή Αχιβάδα), came out in 1947, and in 1948 he set a collection of poetry by Nikos Gatsos to music, ‘Blood Wedding’.
Hatzidakis co-founded the Greek Dance Theatre Company with the choreographer Rallou Manou in 1949.
That year, he shook the musical establishment in Greece with an influential lecture on rembetika, the urban folk songs that flourished in Greek cities, mainly Piraeus, after the influx of refugees from Asia Minor in 1922. He focused on the economy of expression, the deep traditional roots and the genuine emotions displayed in rembetika, and by composers such as Markos Vamvakaris and Vassilis Tsitsanis.
Hatzidakis put theory to practice and adapted classic rembetika in his 1951 piano work, ‘Six Popular Pictures’ (Έξι Λαϊκές Ζωγραφιές), later also presented as a folk ballet.
At this point, he began writing immensely popular songs and film soundtracks alongside more serious works, such as ‘The CNS Cycle’ (O Kyklos tou CNS), a song cycle for piano and voice in 1954. He wrote the score for Michael Cacoyannis’s film Stella (1955) with Melina Mercouri singing the film’s best-known song ‘Love that became a double-edged knife’ (Αγάπη που 'γινες δίκοπο μαχαίρι). A year later, he composed the score for the film Laterna (Λατέρνα, φτώχεια και φιλότιμο) in 1955.’
Hatzidakis met Nana Mouskouri in 1958, and described her as his first ‘ideal interpreter’.
Manos Hatzidakis refused to collect his Academy Award in 1961
Hatzidakis achieved international fame and success in 1960 with his song ‘Never on Sunday’, or ‘The Children of Piraeus’ (Τα παιδιά του Πειραιά), sung by Melina Mercouri in Jules Dassin’s film Never on Sunday (Ποτέ την Κυριακή).
The song won Hatzidakis an Academy Award for Best Original Song and became a worldwide hit. But he did not attend the Academy Award ceremony in 1961, and refused to collect his award, saying the film with a prostitute as its protagonist reflected negatively on Athens and misrepresented Athens.
Hatzidakis founded a music competition to encourage Greek composers in 1962, with the first award going to Iannis Xenakis in 1963. At this time, he produced the musical Street of Dreams (Οδός Ονείρων) and completed his score for Aristophanes’ Birds (Όρνιθες), an Art Theatre production that caused an uproar over Koun’s revolutionary direction. The score was later used by Maurice Béjart’s Ballet of the 20th Century.
Hatzidakis wrote the music for ‘All Alone Am I’, for which Arthur Altman added the English lyrics and then gave to Brenda Lee. His album 15 Vespers (Δεκαπέντε Εσπερινοί), including the song ‘Mr Antonis’ (‘Ο Κυρ Αντώνης’), was released in 1964. His album Gioconda’s Smile (Το Χαμόγελο της Τζιοκόντας) was released in 1965.
Hatzidakis went to New York in 1966 for the premiere of Illya Darling, a Broadway musical based on Never on Sunday and starring Melina Mercouri. He then lived in the US from 1966 to 1972, when which he completed several more major compositions and compilations, including Rhythmology, Gioconda’s Smile and the song cycle Magnus Eroticus (Megalos Erotikos), in which he drew on classical works by Sappho, and Euripides, mediaeval folk songs, George Hortatzis’s romance ‘Erophile’, works by modern poets, including Dionysios Solomos, Constantine Cavafy, Odysseus Elytis and Nikos Gatsos, as well as the Biblical ‘Song of Songs’.
His album Reflections was a collaboration with the New York Rock and Roll Ensemble.
Despite his opposition to the colonels’ regime, Hatzidakis returned to Greece in 1972 and recorded Magnus Eroticus with Fleury Dantonaki and Dimitris Psarianos.
After the junta collapsed in 1974, he became active in public life and assumed a number of leadership positions in the Athens State Orchestra (KOA), the Greek National Opera (ELS/GNO), and the Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation (ERT). In 1989, he founded and directed the Orchestra of Colours, an ensemble performing lesser-known works and the music of Greek composers.
Hatzidakis influenced a broad swathe of Greek culture through his writings and radio broadcasts. In his later years, he explained that his work was meant not to entertain but to reveal and disclaimed part of his work, written for the Greek cinema and theatre, as unrepresentative.
Manos Hatzidakis died in Athens 30 years ago from a heart attack on 15 June 1994 at the age of 68. He was buried in Paiania.
Daily prayer in Easter 2024:
29, 28 April 2024
The True Vine … an icon in the parish church in Piskopianó in the mountains east of Iraklion in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Patrick Comerford
Easter is a 50-day season that continues until the Day of Pentecost (19 May 2024). This is the Fifth Sunday of Easter (Easter V), although this is still the Season of Great Lent in Greece, and today (28 April 2024) is Palm Sunday in the calendar of the Greek Orthodox Church.
Throughout this Season of Easter, my morning reflections each day include the daily Gospel reading, the prayer in the USPG prayer diary, and the prayers in the Collects and Post-Communion Prayer of the day.
/> Later this morning, I hope to be present at the Parish Eucharist in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church in Stony Stratford. Before this day begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:
1, today’s Gospel reading;
2, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
3, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
‘Fruit of the vine and work of human hands. It will become our spiritual drink’ … grapes ripening on a vine in Platanias, near Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
John 15: 1-8 (NRSVA):
[Jesus said:] 1 ‘I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine-grower. 2 He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit. 3 You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you. 4 Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. 5 I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. 6 Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. 7 If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8 My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.’
‘I am the vine, you are the branches’ … autumn grapes and branches clinging to vines at the Hedgehog on the northern edge of Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Today’s Prayers (Sunday 28 April 2024):
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 ‘The Sacred Circle.’ This theme is introduced today with a programme update adapted from the Autumn edition of Revive magazine:
On the banks of Lake Couchiching in Ontario, Canada, the Sacred Circle gathered last year. Amongst the number were local partners of the Anglican Church of Canada; The Most Revd Marinez Bassotto, Primate of the Episcopal Anglican Church of Brazil; and The Most Revd Don Tamihere (Pihopa o Aotearoa) of the Māori strand of the Anglican Church of Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia. All had come to the four-day event to learn, share and partner with the Indigenous community of Canada.
Around the Sacred Circle, many shared some of the challenges they faced. For centuries, European colonial exploits have been branded as conquests, and their legacies ignore the emotional and spiritual dislocation caused to local people who first occupied and stewarded the land. Tragically, the resulting generational trauma is reflected through high rates of depression, low access to opportunity and, worst of all, suicide rates amongst First Nations communities that total twice the Canadian average. Whilst formal apologies from church leaders regarding the historic abuse and neglect of Indigenous peoples have been welcomed, conversations – be they around a fire or a table – are productive spaces of partnership and learning.
The Anglican Church of Canada has demonstrated a clear commitment to ensure that the voices, histories and perspectives of Indigenous communities are heard and respected within the Church. From this flows the engagement of Indigenous elders and theologians in decolonising the church’s theology, liturgy, music, artwork and governance structures. For the Sacred Circle, all land, waters and people are seen as relatives, who all owe their existence to the Creator God of the Bible. As a result, in the place of dominance, there is stewardship. Instead of consumption, preservation.
It is essential to partner with our Indigenous brothers and sisters, our ‘relatives’, and walk, listen and witness to the same unifying Gospel. Just like Archbishop Linda Nicholls of the Anglican Church of Canada, may we say of the Sacred Circle: ‘The rest of the Church needs you’.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (28 April 2024, Easter V) invites us to pray thinking about these words:
‘Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me’ (Matthew 25: 40).
The Collect:
Almighty God,
who through your only-begotten Son Jesus Christ
have overcome death and opened to us the gate of everlasting life:
grant that, as by your grace going before us
you put into our minds good desires,
so by your continual help
we may bring them to good effect;
through Jesus Christ our risen Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Post Communion Prayer:
Eternal God,
whose Son Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life:
grant us to walk in his way,
to rejoice in his truth,
and to share his risen life;
who is alive and reigns, now and for ever.
Additional Collect:
Risen Christ,
your wounds declare your love for the world
and the wonder of your risen life:
give us compassion and courage
to risk ourselves for those we serve,
to the glory of God the Father.
Yesterday’s reflection
Continued Tomorrow
A Mediterranean village vineyard … grapes ripening in Tsesmes, near Rethymnon in Crete (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
Patrick Comerford
Easter is a 50-day season that continues until the Day of Pentecost (19 May 2024). This is the Fifth Sunday of Easter (Easter V), although this is still the Season of Great Lent in Greece, and today (28 April 2024) is Palm Sunday in the calendar of the Greek Orthodox Church.
Throughout this Season of Easter, my morning reflections each day include the daily Gospel reading, the prayer in the USPG prayer diary, and the prayers in the Collects and Post-Communion Prayer of the day.
/> Later this morning, I hope to be present at the Parish Eucharist in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church in Stony Stratford. Before this day begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:
1, today’s Gospel reading;
2, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
3, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
‘Fruit of the vine and work of human hands. It will become our spiritual drink’ … grapes ripening on a vine in Platanias, near Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
John 15: 1-8 (NRSVA):
[Jesus said:] 1 ‘I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine-grower. 2 He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit. 3 You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you. 4 Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. 5 I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. 6 Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. 7 If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8 My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.’
‘I am the vine, you are the branches’ … autumn grapes and branches clinging to vines at the Hedgehog on the northern edge of Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Today’s Prayers (Sunday 28 April 2024):
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 ‘The Sacred Circle.’ This theme is introduced today with a programme update adapted from the Autumn edition of Revive magazine:
On the banks of Lake Couchiching in Ontario, Canada, the Sacred Circle gathered last year. Amongst the number were local partners of the Anglican Church of Canada; The Most Revd Marinez Bassotto, Primate of the Episcopal Anglican Church of Brazil; and The Most Revd Don Tamihere (Pihopa o Aotearoa) of the Māori strand of the Anglican Church of Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia. All had come to the four-day event to learn, share and partner with the Indigenous community of Canada.
Around the Sacred Circle, many shared some of the challenges they faced. For centuries, European colonial exploits have been branded as conquests, and their legacies ignore the emotional and spiritual dislocation caused to local people who first occupied and stewarded the land. Tragically, the resulting generational trauma is reflected through high rates of depression, low access to opportunity and, worst of all, suicide rates amongst First Nations communities that total twice the Canadian average. Whilst formal apologies from church leaders regarding the historic abuse and neglect of Indigenous peoples have been welcomed, conversations – be they around a fire or a table – are productive spaces of partnership and learning.
The Anglican Church of Canada has demonstrated a clear commitment to ensure that the voices, histories and perspectives of Indigenous communities are heard and respected within the Church. From this flows the engagement of Indigenous elders and theologians in decolonising the church’s theology, liturgy, music, artwork and governance structures. For the Sacred Circle, all land, waters and people are seen as relatives, who all owe their existence to the Creator God of the Bible. As a result, in the place of dominance, there is stewardship. Instead of consumption, preservation.
It is essential to partner with our Indigenous brothers and sisters, our ‘relatives’, and walk, listen and witness to the same unifying Gospel. Just like Archbishop Linda Nicholls of the Anglican Church of Canada, may we say of the Sacred Circle: ‘The rest of the Church needs you’.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (28 April 2024, Easter V) invites us to pray thinking about these words:
‘Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me’ (Matthew 25: 40).
The Collect:
Almighty God,
who through your only-begotten Son Jesus Christ
have overcome death and opened to us the gate of everlasting life:
grant that, as by your grace going before us
you put into our minds good desires,
so by your continual help
we may bring them to good effect;
through Jesus Christ our risen Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Post Communion Prayer:
Eternal God,
whose Son Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life:
grant us to walk in his way,
to rejoice in his truth,
and to share his risen life;
who is alive and reigns, now and for ever.
Additional Collect:
Risen Christ,
your wounds declare your love for the world
and the wonder of your risen life:
give us compassion and courage
to risk ourselves for those we serve,
to the glory of God the Father.
Yesterday’s reflection
Continued Tomorrow
A Mediterranean village vineyard … grapes ripening in Tsesmes, near Rethymnon in Crete (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
Three sculptures in
Rethymnon celebrate
the literary, cultural and
political life of Crete
The statue of the writer Pantelis Prevelakis on the corner of Kountouriotou street and Kallergis street in Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
Patrick Comerford
Two statues outside the town hall on Kountouriotou street in the centre of Rethymnon celebrate two of the leading literary figures in the cultural life of the city, the writer Pantelis Prevelakis and the linguist Georgios Nicolaou Chatzidakis. And they face a large statue of perhaps the most important 20th century politician from Crete.
A statue of Pantelis Prevelakis shows the writer seated by the corner with Kallergis street, facing the mountains and with his back to the sea. He was a novelist, poet, dramatist and essayist, and one of the leading writers associated with the ‘Generation of the ‘30s’ movement in Greece. His best-known work, The Tale of a Town, which I first read in the 1980s, celebrates Rethymnon in a way that could be compared with the way in which James Joyce celebrates Dublin.
Pantelis Prevelakis was born Παντελής Πρεβελάκης in Rethymnon on 18 February 1909. He studied law, philosophy, literature and art in Athens Paris and Thessaloniki and became known for his poetry, prose, drama and essays. Most of his works are set in Crete.
From about 1930, Prevalakis was a friend and agent of the writer and poet Nikos Kazantzakis (1883-1957), who was born in Iraklion, and eventually Pantelis wrote a biography of Kazantzakis, Nikos Kazantzakis and His Odyssey. A Study of the Poet and the Poem.
His best-known book, Το χρονικό μιας Πολιτείας (The Tale of a Town or The Chronicle of a Town), was published in 1937 and is a nostalgic depiction of life in Rethymnon from 1898 to 1924.
The statue of Eleftherios Venizelos facing the town hall and the statues of Prevalakis and Chatzidakis in Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
Prevalakis published an historical novel, The Death of the Medici, in 1939. After World War II, he published Wretched Crete: a chronicle of the rising of 1866 (1945). This was followed by his trilogy, The Cretan (1948-1950), which refers to events in Cete between 1866 and 1910 and introduces historical characters such as Eleftherios Venizelos (1864-1936).
Venizelos, whose statue faces the town hall, the statues of Prevalakis and Chatzidakis, and the sea, was also born in Crete and was a towering figure in Greek politics at the end of the 19th and in early 20th century.
Other works by Prevalakis include The Sun of Death (1959), in which a boy comes to terms with human mortality. He also wrote four plays, all based on historical themes.
His biography of Kazantzakis was translated from Greek into English by Philip Sherrard, with a preface by Kimon Friar, and was published in 1961, four years after Kazantzakis died.
In academic life, Prevelakis was a professor of art history in the Academy of Arts in Athens from 1939 to 1975. He died in Athens on 15 March 1986. However he was brought back to Crete and was buried in Rethymnon in a churchyard near the top of the hill on Kazantzakis Street.
The statue of the philologist and linguist Georgios N Chatzidakis in front of the town hall in Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
The second literary sculpture on the terrace in front of Rethymnon Town Hall is a bust of Georgios Nicolaou Chatzidakis (1848-1941), the philologist who is celebrated as the father of linguistics in Greece.
Georgios Nicolaou Chatzidakis was born Γεώργιος Νικολάου Χατζιδάκις on 23 November (OS 11 November) 1843 in the small mountain village of Myrthios, 20 km south of Rethymnon. The family took part in the many Cretan revolts against the Ottoman Empire, and his grandfather Kyriakos Chatzidakis was a captain in the uprising in 1821.
Georgios Chatzidakis went to school in Rethymnon, and at the age of 18 fought alongside his father in the uprising of 1866-1869. After three years further education in Athens, he enrolled in the faculty of philosophy of the University of Athens to study classics and philology. A scholarship enabled him to study linguistics in Germany at the University of Leipzig with some of the most famous specialists of the day.
After returning to Greece, Chatzidakis was first a grammar school teacher in Athens and then received his doctorate with his thesis on the history of the Greek language. He was the first chair of Linguistics and Indian Philology at the University of Athens in 1890-1923. His book in German, Introduction to the Grammar of Modern Greek (1892) brought him to the attention of academic circles throughout Europe.
Chatzidakis was a 50-year old in the University of Athens when he enlisted again as a volunteer in the new Cretan uprising in 1897.
Chatzidakis was also a successful academic administrator, and in 1925 he became the first President of Greece’s second university, the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.
Chatzidakis is best-known today for his contribution to the serious study of the history and morphology of the modern Greek language. He put to rest older theories that modern Greek derives from the ancient Dorian and Aeolic dialects, and showed instead that modern Greek evolved from the Hellenistic koine Greek.
He opposed advocates of the archaïzousa, in effect an artificial form of Attic Greek promoted by extreme conservatives. However, Chatzidakis was a lifelong supporter of the katharévousa, the archaically tinged formal Greek used by many scholars and government officials.
Unlike progressive political radicals at the time, he did not approve of dhimotikí, the vernacular form of Greek spoken everyday outside official contexts.
He died on 28 June 1941 in Athens, but he is remembered with pride in his home town with the sculpture outside the town hall in Rethymnon.
Another member of the Chatzidakis family from Myrthios near Rethymnon was the composer Manos Hatzidakis (1925-1994). He is often associated with the title song of the film ‘Never on Sunday’ … so, perhaps, his story is more appropriate tomorrow on Sunday afternoon.
The statue of the writer Pantelis Prevelakis in front of the Town Hall in Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
Patrick Comerford
Two statues outside the town hall on Kountouriotou street in the centre of Rethymnon celebrate two of the leading literary figures in the cultural life of the city, the writer Pantelis Prevelakis and the linguist Georgios Nicolaou Chatzidakis. And they face a large statue of perhaps the most important 20th century politician from Crete.
A statue of Pantelis Prevelakis shows the writer seated by the corner with Kallergis street, facing the mountains and with his back to the sea. He was a novelist, poet, dramatist and essayist, and one of the leading writers associated with the ‘Generation of the ‘30s’ movement in Greece. His best-known work, The Tale of a Town, which I first read in the 1980s, celebrates Rethymnon in a way that could be compared with the way in which James Joyce celebrates Dublin.
Pantelis Prevelakis was born Παντελής Πρεβελάκης in Rethymnon on 18 February 1909. He studied law, philosophy, literature and art in Athens Paris and Thessaloniki and became known for his poetry, prose, drama and essays. Most of his works are set in Crete.
From about 1930, Prevalakis was a friend and agent of the writer and poet Nikos Kazantzakis (1883-1957), who was born in Iraklion, and eventually Pantelis wrote a biography of Kazantzakis, Nikos Kazantzakis and His Odyssey. A Study of the Poet and the Poem.
His best-known book, Το χρονικό μιας Πολιτείας (The Tale of a Town or The Chronicle of a Town), was published in 1937 and is a nostalgic depiction of life in Rethymnon from 1898 to 1924.
The statue of Eleftherios Venizelos facing the town hall and the statues of Prevalakis and Chatzidakis in Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
Prevalakis published an historical novel, The Death of the Medici, in 1939. After World War II, he published Wretched Crete: a chronicle of the rising of 1866 (1945). This was followed by his trilogy, The Cretan (1948-1950), which refers to events in Cete between 1866 and 1910 and introduces historical characters such as Eleftherios Venizelos (1864-1936).
Venizelos, whose statue faces the town hall, the statues of Prevalakis and Chatzidakis, and the sea, was also born in Crete and was a towering figure in Greek politics at the end of the 19th and in early 20th century.
Other works by Prevalakis include The Sun of Death (1959), in which a boy comes to terms with human mortality. He also wrote four plays, all based on historical themes.
His biography of Kazantzakis was translated from Greek into English by Philip Sherrard, with a preface by Kimon Friar, and was published in 1961, four years after Kazantzakis died.
In academic life, Prevelakis was a professor of art history in the Academy of Arts in Athens from 1939 to 1975. He died in Athens on 15 March 1986. However he was brought back to Crete and was buried in Rethymnon in a churchyard near the top of the hill on Kazantzakis Street.
The statue of the philologist and linguist Georgios N Chatzidakis in front of the town hall in Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
The second literary sculpture on the terrace in front of Rethymnon Town Hall is a bust of Georgios Nicolaou Chatzidakis (1848-1941), the philologist who is celebrated as the father of linguistics in Greece.
Georgios Nicolaou Chatzidakis was born Γεώργιος Νικολάου Χατζιδάκις on 23 November (OS 11 November) 1843 in the small mountain village of Myrthios, 20 km south of Rethymnon. The family took part in the many Cretan revolts against the Ottoman Empire, and his grandfather Kyriakos Chatzidakis was a captain in the uprising in 1821.
Georgios Chatzidakis went to school in Rethymnon, and at the age of 18 fought alongside his father in the uprising of 1866-1869. After three years further education in Athens, he enrolled in the faculty of philosophy of the University of Athens to study classics and philology. A scholarship enabled him to study linguistics in Germany at the University of Leipzig with some of the most famous specialists of the day.
After returning to Greece, Chatzidakis was first a grammar school teacher in Athens and then received his doctorate with his thesis on the history of the Greek language. He was the first chair of Linguistics and Indian Philology at the University of Athens in 1890-1923. His book in German, Introduction to the Grammar of Modern Greek (1892) brought him to the attention of academic circles throughout Europe.
Chatzidakis was a 50-year old in the University of Athens when he enlisted again as a volunteer in the new Cretan uprising in 1897.
Chatzidakis was also a successful academic administrator, and in 1925 he became the first President of Greece’s second university, the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.
Chatzidakis is best-known today for his contribution to the serious study of the history and morphology of the modern Greek language. He put to rest older theories that modern Greek derives from the ancient Dorian and Aeolic dialects, and showed instead that modern Greek evolved from the Hellenistic koine Greek.
He opposed advocates of the archaïzousa, in effect an artificial form of Attic Greek promoted by extreme conservatives. However, Chatzidakis was a lifelong supporter of the katharévousa, the archaically tinged formal Greek used by many scholars and government officials.
Unlike progressive political radicals at the time, he did not approve of dhimotikí, the vernacular form of Greek spoken everyday outside official contexts.
He died on 28 June 1941 in Athens, but he is remembered with pride in his home town with the sculpture outside the town hall in Rethymnon.
Another member of the Chatzidakis family from Myrthios near Rethymnon was the composer Manos Hatzidakis (1925-1994). He is often associated with the title song of the film ‘Never on Sunday’ … so, perhaps, his story is more appropriate tomorrow on Sunday afternoon.
The statue of the writer Pantelis Prevelakis in front of the Town Hall in Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
27 April 2024
Daily prayer in Easter 2024:
28, 27 April 2024
‘Raise us, who trust in him, from the death of sin to the life of righteousness’ (Collect of the Day) … looking out towards the sea through a window in Saint George’s Church in Panormos, Crete, earlier this week (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
Patrick Comerford
Easter is a 50-day season that continues until the Day of Pentecost (19 May 2024). Tomorrow is the Fifth Sunday of Easter (Easter V), although this is still the Season of Great Lent in Greece, and tomorrow (28 April 2024) is Palm Sunday in the calendar of the Greek Orthodox Church.
Today, the Calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship celebrates the life and witness of the poet Christina Rossetti (1830-1894), who was closely identified with the Pre-Raphaelite Movement, and often remembered for her poem and Christmas carol ‘In the bleak mid-winter’.
Throughout this Season of Easter, my morning reflections each day include the daily Gospel reading, the prayer in the USPG prayer diary, and the prayers in the Collects and Post-Communion Prayer of the day.
/> Before this day begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:
1, today’s Gospel reading;
2, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
3, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
Tomorrow is Palm Sunday in the calendar of the Greek Orthodox Church … a fresco in Analipsi Church in Georgioupoli in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
John 14: 7-14 (NRSVA):
[Jesus said:] 7 If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.’
8 Philip said to him, ‘Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.’ 9 Jesus said to him, ‘Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, “Show us the Father”? 10 Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works. 11 Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves. 12 Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. 13 I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.’
‘Ἐγώ εἰμι ὁ ποιμὴν ὁ καλός … I am the Good Shepherd …’ (John 10: 11; see the Post-Communion Prayer) … Christ the Great High Priest depicted in Saint Nektarios Church in Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
Today’s Prayers (Saturday 27 April 2024):
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), has been ‘Living by faith is hard, and it is never the obvious path.’ This theme was introduced last Sunday with an extract taken from a sermon by the Revd Chris Parkman, Chaplain at Saint John’s Menton, and volunteer for A Rocha France at Les Courmettes.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (27 April 2024, South Africa Freedom Day) invites us to pray:
Let us pray for all who are oppressed. May the remembrance of South Africa’s first post-apartheid elections inspire us to work for the self-determination of every nation and person.
The Collect:
Almighty God,
whose Son Jesus Christ is the resurrection and the life:
raise us, who trust in him,
from the death of sin to the life of righteousness,
that we may seek those things which are above,
where he reigns with you
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Post Communion Prayer:
Merciful Father,
you gave your Son Jesus Christ to be the good shepherd,
and in his love for us to lay down his life and rise again:
keep us always under his protection,
and give us grace to follow in his steps;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Additional Collect:
Risen Christ,
faithful shepherd of your Father’s sheep:
teach us to hear your voice
and to follow your command,
that all your people may be gathered into one flock,
to the glory of God the Father.
Collect on the Eve of Easter V:
Almighty God, who through your only–begotten Son Jesus Christ
have overcome death and opened to us the gate of everlasting life:
grant that, as by your grace going before us
you put into our minds good desires,
so by your continual help
we may bring them to good effect;
through Jesus Christ our risen Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Yesterday’s reflection
Continued Tomorrow
Christina Rossetti, by her brother Dante Gabriel Rossetti … she is remembered in ‘Common Worship’ on 27 April
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
Patrick Comerford
Easter is a 50-day season that continues until the Day of Pentecost (19 May 2024). Tomorrow is the Fifth Sunday of Easter (Easter V), although this is still the Season of Great Lent in Greece, and tomorrow (28 April 2024) is Palm Sunday in the calendar of the Greek Orthodox Church.
Today, the Calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship celebrates the life and witness of the poet Christina Rossetti (1830-1894), who was closely identified with the Pre-Raphaelite Movement, and often remembered for her poem and Christmas carol ‘In the bleak mid-winter’.
Throughout this Season of Easter, my morning reflections each day include the daily Gospel reading, the prayer in the USPG prayer diary, and the prayers in the Collects and Post-Communion Prayer of the day.
/> Before this day begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:
1, today’s Gospel reading;
2, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
3, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
Tomorrow is Palm Sunday in the calendar of the Greek Orthodox Church … a fresco in Analipsi Church in Georgioupoli in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
John 14: 7-14 (NRSVA):
[Jesus said:] 7 If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.’
8 Philip said to him, ‘Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.’ 9 Jesus said to him, ‘Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, “Show us the Father”? 10 Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works. 11 Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves. 12 Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. 13 I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.’
‘Ἐγώ εἰμι ὁ ποιμὴν ὁ καλός … I am the Good Shepherd …’ (John 10: 11; see the Post-Communion Prayer) … Christ the Great High Priest depicted in Saint Nektarios Church in Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
Today’s Prayers (Saturday 27 April 2024):
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), has been ‘Living by faith is hard, and it is never the obvious path.’ This theme was introduced last Sunday with an extract taken from a sermon by the Revd Chris Parkman, Chaplain at Saint John’s Menton, and volunteer for A Rocha France at Les Courmettes.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (27 April 2024, South Africa Freedom Day) invites us to pray:
Let us pray for all who are oppressed. May the remembrance of South Africa’s first post-apartheid elections inspire us to work for the self-determination of every nation and person.
The Collect:
Almighty God,
whose Son Jesus Christ is the resurrection and the life:
raise us, who trust in him,
from the death of sin to the life of righteousness,
that we may seek those things which are above,
where he reigns with you
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Post Communion Prayer:
Merciful Father,
you gave your Son Jesus Christ to be the good shepherd,
and in his love for us to lay down his life and rise again:
keep us always under his protection,
and give us grace to follow in his steps;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Additional Collect:
Risen Christ,
faithful shepherd of your Father’s sheep:
teach us to hear your voice
and to follow your command,
that all your people may be gathered into one flock,
to the glory of God the Father.
Collect on the Eve of Easter V:
Almighty God, who through your only–begotten Son Jesus Christ
have overcome death and opened to us the gate of everlasting life:
grant that, as by your grace going before us
you put into our minds good desires,
so by your continual help
we may bring them to good effect;
through Jesus Christ our risen Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Yesterday’s reflection
Continued Tomorrow
Christina Rossetti, by her brother Dante Gabriel Rossetti … she is remembered in ‘Common Worship’ on 27 April
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
The Capsali family:
generations of
rabbis and scholars
for 300 years in Crete
The name of Kapsali Street, off Tombazi Street in Crete, evokes memories of the Capsali family, one of the leading Jewish families in Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
Patrick Comerford
I searched without results in Rethymnon over the past week for any signs or remains of the Jewish quarter in the town. The records of the Jewish community in Crete, which extend from 1228 to 1583, show a remarkably stable elite of families with names such as Capsali, Casani and Delmedigo, who were dominant in Jewish life in Crete for five or six centuries.
Kapsali Street, off Tombazi Street, is just three minutes walk from where I was staying, and the name of the street evokes memories of the Capsali family, one of the leading Jewish families in Rethymnon.
The Capsali family were a distinguished Romaniote family of scholars in Crete, Venice and Constantinople in the 15th and 16th centuries. They took their family name from Capsali, a village in the southern part of the Greek island of Kythira. Members of the Capsali family served as constables (condestabile) and heads of the Jewish community in Crete on several occasions, and they included a number of distinguished rabbis and scholars known for their work in the Torah and the Talmud and as historians and philosophers.
By 1320, the Jewish community in Rethymnon lived in the old burgus or suburb, outside the Byzantine city. Sabateus Capsali, the Jewish owner of several houses abutting the walls of the suburb, was then authorised to open windows in this wall by Pietro Bragadin, the rector or governor of Rethymnon.
Some time later, two Jews were granted vacant land on the other side of the wall, in parte exterior dicti burgi … extra burgum, and allowed to build houses. Later they received permission to build the houses along the wall where Capsali had opened the windows.
References in documents in 1328 to Parnas Capsali ben Solomon ben Joseph indicate, perhaps, that by the early 14th century the Capsali family had been living in Crete for at least three generations.
By the 15th century, the Jewish population of Crete was estimated at 1,160. From that time on, the Capsali family included leading rabbis such as Moses ben Elijah Capsali (1420-1495), Elijah Capsali (ca 1483-1555) and Elkanah Capsali. Moses Capsali became Hakham Bashi or Chief Rabbi of the Ottoman Empire, while Elijah Capsali later wrote histories of Crete and Venice.
Elijah Capsali, who was living in Crete in the early 15th century, was the father of two distinguished sons Moses and David Capsali, a distinguished grandson Elkanah Capsali, and a learned great-grandson Elijah Capsali.
Moses ben Elijah Capsali (1420-1495) was the Chief Rabbi of the Ottoman Empire in the 15th century. He born in Crete in 1420 and as a young man left Iraklion to study in Germany. He is next mentioned as a rabbi in Constantinople ca 1450. He rose to prominence during the reign of Sultan Mehmed II, who appointed him Chief Rabbi and gave him seat in the divan or Ottoman court beside the mufti, the Muslim religious leader, and above the Orthodox Patriarch of Constantinople.
The sultan’s respect for the rabbi is said to have come about when, disguised as a civilian, Mehmed II was present one day while Capsali was rendering his decisions. He was assured himself that the rabbi was incorruptible and impartial in his judgments. It is said the rabbi prompted the sultan’s plans improve the moral conditions of some parts of Constantinople.
Capsali dealt very severely with Jewish youths who imitated the un-Jewish and immoral lifestyles of the janissaries lives. Some of these youths, enraged by the corporal punishment Capsali inflicted on them, attempted to kill him during a street riot in 1481, but he escaped by fleeing.
Capsali was equally influential at the court of Sultan Bayezid II, Mehmed II’s son and successor. This resulted in the ready reception of Jewish exiles who had been expelled from Spain.
Capsali directed communal affairs with considerable skill, and commanded general respect. He lived an ascetic lifestyle, fasting frequently and sleeping on a bare floor.
He was an advocate of rigorous rabbinical Judaism, severely criticising the attempt of some rabbis to instruct the Karaites in the Talmud. However, Capsali’s critics accused him of being an ignorant and unscrupulous rabbi, and addressed their complaints to Joseph Colon in Italy, one of the greatest rabbinical authorities of the time. They accused Capsali of being careless in deciding cases dealing with marital troubles.
However, in the ensuing controversy, men like Judah Minz and the three learned Del Medigo brothers (Elkanah, Moses, and Elijah), and many other rabbis supported Capsali. He died ca 1495 in Constantinople.
Moses Capsali was a kinsman of Eliezer Capsali, a Talmudist in Constantinople in the second half of the 15th century. In answer to the appeal of the Karaites, whose literary degeneracy was then notorious, he consented to instruct them in rabbinic traditions. The only conditions he imposed on his pupils should refrain from vilifying the Talmudic authorities, and from desecrating the holy days of the rabbinical calendar.
This attempt to reconcile the Karaites with Talmudic Judaism, or at least to soften their hostile attitude toward it, did not meet with the approval of the rigorists among the rabbis. Even Moses Capsali, who certainly was independent enough otherwise, stoutly opposed his kinsman Eliezer Capsali, perhaps chiefly because it was not customary to treat the Karaites in a friendly manner.
Moses Capsali’s brother, David Capsali, was the father of Elkanah ben David Capsali, a Talmudist and philanthropist in the second half of the 15th century. He studied under his uncle, Moses Capsali, in Constantinople, and in Padua. When he returned to Iraklion, he married another family member, Pothula Capsali, and became one of the most prominent members of the Jewish community in Venetian-ruled Crete.
He was condestable (‘high constable’), one of the highest officers in the Jewish community in Iraklion, in 1493. In that role, he was active in relieving the sufferings of Jewish exiles expelled that year from Spain who arrived in Iraklion, then the Venetian city of Candia. In one day alone, 22 July 1493, he collected 250 Venetian gulden, a large sum at that time, for their relief.
Elkanah Capsali’s eldest son, David Capsali, travelled to Constantinople and may have been among the 17 people who wrote the statutes of the Jewish community in Iraklion in 1574.
Elkanah Capsali was also the father of Elijah ben Elkanah Capsali (ca 1485-1490 to post 1550), a notable rabbi, Talmudist and historian. His chronicle of Venice may be the first example of a diasporic Jew writing a history of their own location (Venice).
Elijah ben Elkanah Capsali was born in Iraklion ca 1485-1490. He left Crete in 1508 or 1509 to study in Padua in the yeshiva of Judah Minz. However, Judah Minz died eight days after Capsali's arrival, and so he went to study with Meïr Katzenellenbogen, Minz’s son-in-law and successor.
When his studies were interrupted by the occupation of Padua by German troops in 1509, Elijah then moved to Venice, but returned to Crete in 1510 to study under Isaac Mangelheim.
He was the leader of the Jewish community in Iraklion by 1522, with three assistants. Soon after, the plague devastated Iraklion, and the sufferings of Jews in the city was aggravated by their enforced isolation in the Jewish quarter, and Capsali worked unselfishly to relieve the stricken.
When the Chief Rabbi of Crete, Menahem del Medigo, became too old to officiate, Elijah Capsali and Judah del Medigo were appointed rabbis of the community. He became the Chief Rabbi of Crete ca 1528, and in office he associated himself with several great scholars of his time such as, Jacob Berab and Joseph Karo.
When the Jews of Iraklion were threatened with massacre by the Greek populace in 1538, Capsali took the lead in intervening with the Venetian authorities. When they were saved, he instituted a special local Purim on 18 Tammuz.
Capsali had a learned correspondence with the great Talmudists of his day. He showed remarkable independence of spirit, both in his relations with high authorities and in regard to ancient, time-honoured customs. For example, he abolished the widespread custom in Crete of selling by auction the honour of ‘bridegroom of the Torah.’ Instead, he ordered that this honour should be conferred on a scholar or other prominent person in the community.
Capsali showed independence and self-confidence in his decisions, but was opposed by many of his colleagues and contemporaries, including prominent rabbis and his associate rabbi in Iraklion, Judah del Medigo.
Elijah Capsali was the author of a number of works, including a history of Venice. The original manuscript is in the British Museum and includes material on other Italian cities and a section on the persecutions of the Jews in Germany.
He also wrote a history of the Turkish empire from the earliest times up to 1522. The manuscript is in the Bodleian Library and in the British Museum. It throws much light on the history of Jews in Turkey, and a section on Spain and Portugal down to the expulsion of the Jews at the end of the 15th century. He died in Crete ca 1555.
Capsali is remembered today for his ecstatic sentiment, exuberant messianism and exaggerated claims have dominated Jewish historiography for five centuries. He cast the Ottoman sultans in the redemptive image of Cyrus the Great, who allowed the Jews to return to Jerusalem after the Babylonian captivity, and he believed the world in his time was facing a final apocalyptic conflict between Islam and Christianity, Gog and Magog, that would usher in the Messiah and a messianic age.
Looking down Kapsali Street towards the Cathedral … could this have been part of the old Jewish quarter of Rethymnon? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
Shabbat Shalom
Next Friday: the Delmedigo family in Crete
Patrick Comerford
I searched without results in Rethymnon over the past week for any signs or remains of the Jewish quarter in the town. The records of the Jewish community in Crete, which extend from 1228 to 1583, show a remarkably stable elite of families with names such as Capsali, Casani and Delmedigo, who were dominant in Jewish life in Crete for five or six centuries.
Kapsali Street, off Tombazi Street, is just three minutes walk from where I was staying, and the name of the street evokes memories of the Capsali family, one of the leading Jewish families in Rethymnon.
The Capsali family were a distinguished Romaniote family of scholars in Crete, Venice and Constantinople in the 15th and 16th centuries. They took their family name from Capsali, a village in the southern part of the Greek island of Kythira. Members of the Capsali family served as constables (condestabile) and heads of the Jewish community in Crete on several occasions, and they included a number of distinguished rabbis and scholars known for their work in the Torah and the Talmud and as historians and philosophers.
By 1320, the Jewish community in Rethymnon lived in the old burgus or suburb, outside the Byzantine city. Sabateus Capsali, the Jewish owner of several houses abutting the walls of the suburb, was then authorised to open windows in this wall by Pietro Bragadin, the rector or governor of Rethymnon.
Some time later, two Jews were granted vacant land on the other side of the wall, in parte exterior dicti burgi … extra burgum, and allowed to build houses. Later they received permission to build the houses along the wall where Capsali had opened the windows.
References in documents in 1328 to Parnas Capsali ben Solomon ben Joseph indicate, perhaps, that by the early 14th century the Capsali family had been living in Crete for at least three generations.
By the 15th century, the Jewish population of Crete was estimated at 1,160. From that time on, the Capsali family included leading rabbis such as Moses ben Elijah Capsali (1420-1495), Elijah Capsali (ca 1483-1555) and Elkanah Capsali. Moses Capsali became Hakham Bashi or Chief Rabbi of the Ottoman Empire, while Elijah Capsali later wrote histories of Crete and Venice.
Elijah Capsali, who was living in Crete in the early 15th century, was the father of two distinguished sons Moses and David Capsali, a distinguished grandson Elkanah Capsali, and a learned great-grandson Elijah Capsali.
Moses ben Elijah Capsali (1420-1495) was the Chief Rabbi of the Ottoman Empire in the 15th century. He born in Crete in 1420 and as a young man left Iraklion to study in Germany. He is next mentioned as a rabbi in Constantinople ca 1450. He rose to prominence during the reign of Sultan Mehmed II, who appointed him Chief Rabbi and gave him seat in the divan or Ottoman court beside the mufti, the Muslim religious leader, and above the Orthodox Patriarch of Constantinople.
The sultan’s respect for the rabbi is said to have come about when, disguised as a civilian, Mehmed II was present one day while Capsali was rendering his decisions. He was assured himself that the rabbi was incorruptible and impartial in his judgments. It is said the rabbi prompted the sultan’s plans improve the moral conditions of some parts of Constantinople.
Capsali dealt very severely with Jewish youths who imitated the un-Jewish and immoral lifestyles of the janissaries lives. Some of these youths, enraged by the corporal punishment Capsali inflicted on them, attempted to kill him during a street riot in 1481, but he escaped by fleeing.
Capsali was equally influential at the court of Sultan Bayezid II, Mehmed II’s son and successor. This resulted in the ready reception of Jewish exiles who had been expelled from Spain.
Capsali directed communal affairs with considerable skill, and commanded general respect. He lived an ascetic lifestyle, fasting frequently and sleeping on a bare floor.
He was an advocate of rigorous rabbinical Judaism, severely criticising the attempt of some rabbis to instruct the Karaites in the Talmud. However, Capsali’s critics accused him of being an ignorant and unscrupulous rabbi, and addressed their complaints to Joseph Colon in Italy, one of the greatest rabbinical authorities of the time. They accused Capsali of being careless in deciding cases dealing with marital troubles.
However, in the ensuing controversy, men like Judah Minz and the three learned Del Medigo brothers (Elkanah, Moses, and Elijah), and many other rabbis supported Capsali. He died ca 1495 in Constantinople.
Moses Capsali was a kinsman of Eliezer Capsali, a Talmudist in Constantinople in the second half of the 15th century. In answer to the appeal of the Karaites, whose literary degeneracy was then notorious, he consented to instruct them in rabbinic traditions. The only conditions he imposed on his pupils should refrain from vilifying the Talmudic authorities, and from desecrating the holy days of the rabbinical calendar.
This attempt to reconcile the Karaites with Talmudic Judaism, or at least to soften their hostile attitude toward it, did not meet with the approval of the rigorists among the rabbis. Even Moses Capsali, who certainly was independent enough otherwise, stoutly opposed his kinsman Eliezer Capsali, perhaps chiefly because it was not customary to treat the Karaites in a friendly manner.
Moses Capsali’s brother, David Capsali, was the father of Elkanah ben David Capsali, a Talmudist and philanthropist in the second half of the 15th century. He studied under his uncle, Moses Capsali, in Constantinople, and in Padua. When he returned to Iraklion, he married another family member, Pothula Capsali, and became one of the most prominent members of the Jewish community in Venetian-ruled Crete.
He was condestable (‘high constable’), one of the highest officers in the Jewish community in Iraklion, in 1493. In that role, he was active in relieving the sufferings of Jewish exiles expelled that year from Spain who arrived in Iraklion, then the Venetian city of Candia. In one day alone, 22 July 1493, he collected 250 Venetian gulden, a large sum at that time, for their relief.
Elkanah Capsali’s eldest son, David Capsali, travelled to Constantinople and may have been among the 17 people who wrote the statutes of the Jewish community in Iraklion in 1574.
Elkanah Capsali was also the father of Elijah ben Elkanah Capsali (ca 1485-1490 to post 1550), a notable rabbi, Talmudist and historian. His chronicle of Venice may be the first example of a diasporic Jew writing a history of their own location (Venice).
Elijah ben Elkanah Capsali was born in Iraklion ca 1485-1490. He left Crete in 1508 or 1509 to study in Padua in the yeshiva of Judah Minz. However, Judah Minz died eight days after Capsali's arrival, and so he went to study with Meïr Katzenellenbogen, Minz’s son-in-law and successor.
When his studies were interrupted by the occupation of Padua by German troops in 1509, Elijah then moved to Venice, but returned to Crete in 1510 to study under Isaac Mangelheim.
He was the leader of the Jewish community in Iraklion by 1522, with three assistants. Soon after, the plague devastated Iraklion, and the sufferings of Jews in the city was aggravated by their enforced isolation in the Jewish quarter, and Capsali worked unselfishly to relieve the stricken.
When the Chief Rabbi of Crete, Menahem del Medigo, became too old to officiate, Elijah Capsali and Judah del Medigo were appointed rabbis of the community. He became the Chief Rabbi of Crete ca 1528, and in office he associated himself with several great scholars of his time such as, Jacob Berab and Joseph Karo.
When the Jews of Iraklion were threatened with massacre by the Greek populace in 1538, Capsali took the lead in intervening with the Venetian authorities. When they were saved, he instituted a special local Purim on 18 Tammuz.
Capsali had a learned correspondence with the great Talmudists of his day. He showed remarkable independence of spirit, both in his relations with high authorities and in regard to ancient, time-honoured customs. For example, he abolished the widespread custom in Crete of selling by auction the honour of ‘bridegroom of the Torah.’ Instead, he ordered that this honour should be conferred on a scholar or other prominent person in the community.
Capsali showed independence and self-confidence in his decisions, but was opposed by many of his colleagues and contemporaries, including prominent rabbis and his associate rabbi in Iraklion, Judah del Medigo.
Elijah Capsali was the author of a number of works, including a history of Venice. The original manuscript is in the British Museum and includes material on other Italian cities and a section on the persecutions of the Jews in Germany.
He also wrote a history of the Turkish empire from the earliest times up to 1522. The manuscript is in the Bodleian Library and in the British Museum. It throws much light on the history of Jews in Turkey, and a section on Spain and Portugal down to the expulsion of the Jews at the end of the 15th century. He died in Crete ca 1555.
Capsali is remembered today for his ecstatic sentiment, exuberant messianism and exaggerated claims have dominated Jewish historiography for five centuries. He cast the Ottoman sultans in the redemptive image of Cyrus the Great, who allowed the Jews to return to Jerusalem after the Babylonian captivity, and he believed the world in his time was facing a final apocalyptic conflict between Islam and Christianity, Gog and Magog, that would usher in the Messiah and a messianic age.
Looking down Kapsali Street towards the Cathedral … could this have been part of the old Jewish quarter of Rethymnon? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
Shabbat Shalom
Next Friday: the Delmedigo family in Crete
26 April 2024
Daily prayer in Easter 2024:
27, 26 April 2024
‘In my Father’s house there are many dwelling-places’ (John 14: 2) … houses in the narrow back street of Rethymnon this week (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
Patrick Comerford
Easter is a 50-day season that continues until the Day of Pentecost. The week began here with the Fourth Sunday of Easter (Easter IV), although this is still the Season of Great Lent in Greece, and Sunday last was the Fifth Sunday in Lent in the calendar of the Greek Orthodox Church.
Throughout this Season of Easter, my morning reflections each day include the daily Gospel reading, the prayer in the USPG prayer diary, and the prayers in the Collects and Post-Communion Prayer of the day.
Before this day begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:
1, today’s Gospel reading;
2, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
3, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
‘Believe in God, believe also in me’ (John 14: 1) … an image of Christ the Pantocrator surrounded by the Four Evangelists in the Church of the Transfiguration in Piskopianó in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
John 14: 1-6 (NRSVA):
[Jesus said:] 1 ‘Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. 2 In my Father’s house there are many dwelling-places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. 4 And you know the way to the place where I am going.’ 5 Thomas said to him, ‘Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?’ 6 Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’
‘I am the way, and the truth’ (John 14: 6) … in the narrow streets of Koutouloufarí in Crete last weekend (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
Today’s Prayers (Friday 26 April 2024):
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 ‘Living by faith is hard, and it is never the obvious path.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday with an extract taken from a sermon by the Revd Chris Parkman, Chaplain at Saint John’s Menton, and volunteer for A Rocha France at Les Courmettes.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (26 April 2024) invites us to pray:
Let us pray for preachers, lay and ordained. May they be attentive to the needs of the world and have the courage to be prophets of our time.
The Collect:
Almighty God,
whose Son Jesus Christ is the resurrection and the life:
raise us, who trust in him,
from the death of sin to the life of righteousness,
that we may seek those things which are above,
where he reigns with you
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Post Communion Prayer:
Merciful Father,
you gave your Son Jesus Christ to be the good shepherd,
and in his love for us to lay down his life and rise again:
keep us always under his protection,
and give us grace to follow in his steps;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Additional Collect:
Risen Christ,
faithful shepherd of your Father’s sheep:
teach us to hear your voice
and to follow your command,
that all your people may be gathered into one flock,
to the glory of God the Father.
Yesterday’s reflection
Continued Tomorrow
Christ the Good Shepherd … an image in the narthex of Saint Nektarios Church on Milissionou Street in Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
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
Patrick Comerford
Easter is a 50-day season that continues until the Day of Pentecost. The week began here with the Fourth Sunday of Easter (Easter IV), although this is still the Season of Great Lent in Greece, and Sunday last was the Fifth Sunday in Lent in the calendar of the Greek Orthodox Church.
Throughout this Season of Easter, my morning reflections each day include the daily Gospel reading, the prayer in the USPG prayer diary, and the prayers in the Collects and Post-Communion Prayer of the day.
Before this day begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:
1, today’s Gospel reading;
2, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
3, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
‘Believe in God, believe also in me’ (John 14: 1) … an image of Christ the Pantocrator surrounded by the Four Evangelists in the Church of the Transfiguration in Piskopianó in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
John 14: 1-6 (NRSVA):
[Jesus said:] 1 ‘Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. 2 In my Father’s house there are many dwelling-places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. 4 And you know the way to the place where I am going.’ 5 Thomas said to him, ‘Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?’ 6 Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’
‘I am the way, and the truth’ (John 14: 6) … in the narrow streets of Koutouloufarí in Crete last weekend (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
Today’s Prayers (Friday 26 April 2024):
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 ‘Living by faith is hard, and it is never the obvious path.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday with an extract taken from a sermon by the Revd Chris Parkman, Chaplain at Saint John’s Menton, and volunteer for A Rocha France at Les Courmettes.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (26 April 2024) invites us to pray:
Let us pray for preachers, lay and ordained. May they be attentive to the needs of the world and have the courage to be prophets of our time.
The Collect:
Almighty God,
whose Son Jesus Christ is the resurrection and the life:
raise us, who trust in him,
from the death of sin to the life of righteousness,
that we may seek those things which are above,
where he reigns with you
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Post Communion Prayer:
Merciful Father,
you gave your Son Jesus Christ to be the good shepherd,
and in his love for us to lay down his life and rise again:
keep us always under his protection,
and give us grace to follow in his steps;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Additional Collect:
Risen Christ,
faithful shepherd of your Father’s sheep:
teach us to hear your voice
and to follow your command,
that all your people may be gathered into one flock,
to the glory of God the Father.
Yesterday’s reflection
Continued Tomorrow
Christ the Good Shepherd … an image in the narthex of Saint Nektarios Church on Milissionou Street in Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
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
An afternoon visit to
four churches and
the site of a basilica
in Panormos in Crete
The modern Church of Saint Agathopodos looms large above the small coastal town of Panormos in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
Patrick Comerford
The tourism business in Crete is waking slowly after a winter of hibernation. Cities like Rethymnon, Chania and Iraklion are busy already. But, although this is the end of April, many restaurants and hotels are still closed, and they are waiting until Easter, which is late in the Greek calendar this year (5 May 2024) before opening their doors this year.
The long winter recess gives hoteliers and restaurateurs extended opportunities to redecorate, redesign and refurbish, to rethink their menus and to clean out the wimming pools.
Platanias, on the lengthy coast stretch east of Rethymnon, seemed quiet over the last few days. There is a limited bus service from Rethymnon along the route that is known locally as ‘Hotels.’ When I visited some of the hotels and restaurants I have known for many years, everything seemed quiet from the street. But when I stepped inside, hotels like La Stella and restaurants like Merem, Myli, Vergina, Finikas and Pagona’s Place, they were hives of activity preparing for the new tourist season.
Panormos, east of Rethymnon in Crete, is ‘picture postcard’ Greece (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
The taxi rank in Platanias had a few white taxis every time I passed by, but the hourly shuttle bus was running between the bus station in Rethymnon and Panormos 20 km to the east had been reduced to one every two hours.
I spent last Thursday morning in Platanias, sipping cups of coffee with old friends before going for a long walk on the beach. Even there, there were no sun beds on the beach, and the small beach bar at Pavlos Beach had not yet opened.
On Sunday afternoon, I decided to catch the bus out to Panormos, once a fishing village but now a pretty resort. Panormos is picture-postcard Greece, with its neat blue-and-white doors and windows, colourful overhanging bougainvillea and hibiscus, old vines draped across crumbling gates, boutique hotels and shops, cobbled streets, ruined mediaeval Milopotamos castle, the small beaches and an old harbour.
The Church of the Ascension and Saint George in the heart of Panormos (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
On previous holidays in Rethymnon and Platanias, it had become something of a tradition to go to Panormos for Sunday lunch. Since then, life has changed, circumstances have changed, and I was on my own on last Sunday. But Panormos was still an inviting and welcoming place to visit that afternoon.
Few of the restaurants were opened last weekend. In the past, I have spent lazy Sunday afternoons over long, lingering lunches in Porto Parasiris (2019, 2021) and Ankyra (2016, 2017) overlooking Limanaki, the sandy beach. Both places had still not reopened last weekend, but I had yet another long, lingering lunch at the other end of the beach in the Captain’s House, overlooking the harbour and the crystal-clear waters.
But the real reason I wanted to visit Panormos last weekend was to see five churches: the Church of Aghios Georgios, with its splendid dome and majestic fresco of Christ Pantocrator; the ruins of the Basilica of Aghia Sophia, dating from the fifth or sixth century; the cemetery chapel; the church ruins in the mediaeval castle; and the recently-built Church of Saint Agathopodos, named after a saint from Panormos who is counted among the Ten Holy Martyrs of Crete.
The ruins of the Basilica of Aghia Sophia, dating from the fifth or sixth century (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
Crete has been a crossroads of civilisations since antiquity because of its geographical position between Asia, Europe and Africa. It is believed that Panormos stands on the site of the Roman city Panormus.
Panormos is also known as Kastelli of Milopotamos or the Castle of Milopotamos because the castle of Mylopotamos (Castello di Milopotamo) above the harbour was built by the Genoese pirate Enrico Pescatore ca 1206-1212.
Within decades, the Venetians captured castle during their conquest of Crete. The castle was besieged by the Kapsokalives family in 1341, when it was held for the Venetians by Alexios Kallergis, but they failed to capture it. Hayreddin Barbarossa and his pirates attacked the castle and set it on fire in 1538. But the Venetians restored it immediately because of its strategic location.
Venetian rule came to an end here in 1647 when the castle was seized by the Turks as they marched from Rethymnon on Iraklion (Candia), although the Venetian General Gildasi (Gil d’Has) tried in vain to retake it.
Today, all that is left of this once strategic Venetian fort is a small part of the wall that looks like a pile of stones on a rocky outcrop above the beach and harbour, with the ruins of a church, where the emblem of the Kallergis family can still be seen.
The Basilica of Aghia Sophia was once the largest church in Western Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
To the south-west of the village, a small road goes under the main road from Rethymnon to Iraklion and leads along a narrow country road to the remains of the Basilica of Aghia Sophia. It was built in the fifth or sixth century and was once the largest church in Western Crete, an indication of how Panormos was an important Church centre in early Christian times.
In the west, the word basilica is associated with a church that has received a specific papal recognition. But in the Orthodox Church, the word is an architectural description of churches built in an ancient style, and it makes no claims about the importance of a church or the priests associated with it.
According to archaeologists, the Basilica of Aghia Sophia in Panormos was the seat of the Diocese of Eleftherna, which transferred there after the destruction of the ancient city of Panormos. In time, the name Aghia Sophia was given to the entire area around the basilica.
Aghia Sophia was destroyed in a Saracen raid in the seventh century, but may have continued in use until the ninth century (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
Like most coastal basilicas of that era, this basilica was built in the fifth and sixth centuries, and was once one of the largest in Crete, measuring 54 metres in length and 23 metres in width, with a wooden roof.
This was a basilica with a nave, two aisles, a simple apse and transepts that gave it the shape of an archaic cross. The large dimensions are evidence that Panormos was once a powerful city. The aisles were separated by tall base blocks that supported four Corinthian and Ionic columns. There were pebble and slab floors, and a small container filled with bones found under the chancel floor may have been a foundation deposit.
In front of the church, at right angles to the aisles, a narthex and an atrium had a Corinthian colonnade around a cistern that may have been a baptistry.
The findings during the excavation included marble and limestone parts of the building, including Ionian and Corinthian columns, capitals and parapets, embossed ivy and fig tree leaves, and parts of a marble iconostasis. The discoveries also included coins, pottery and a large amount of glass pieces.
Aghia Sophia was violently destroyed during a Saracen raid in the seventh century. However, there is evidence that it continued to be used until the ninth century: coins from the reign of the Byzantine Emperor Leo VI the Wise (886-912) were found on the site as well as minuscule inscriptions on pillars and slabs in the church.
The graveyard chapel in Panormos looks almost like an Alpine ski chalet (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
The basilica was uncovered following research by the theologian Konstantinos Kalokiris, and the site was excavated in 1948-1955 by the archaeologist Professor N Platonas. However, every time I visit the site, the remains of Aghia Sophia have been fenced off and there is only one battered and fading sign indicating its importance.
Walking back from Aghia Sophia into Panormos, the village graveyard sits in a shaded area below the new main road linking an Rethymnon.
The graveyard chapel, nestled in among pine trees on a gentle slope, is of an unusual design, and looks almost like an Alpine ski chalet rather than a Greek Orthodox chapel.
The dome in Saint George’s Church has a majestic image of Christ the Pantocrator (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
The church most visitors see in Panormos is the recently-built church dedicated to the Ascension (Analipsi) and Saint George (Agios Georgios). Although it is a relatively small church, its dome has a modern, majestic fresco of Christ the Pantocrator that is one of the finest I know in Crete.
In particular, I wanted to see the Church of Saint Agathopodos (Εκκλησία του Αγίου Αγαθόποδου), an impressively large church for a village of this size. The church is in the western part of Panormos, close to the school and clearly visible from the road from Rethymnon to Iraklion.
Saint Agathopodos (23 December) is one of the Ten Holy Martyrs of Crete – Theodulus, Saturninus, Euporus, Gelasius, Eunician, Zoticus, Pompius, Agathopodos, Basilides and Evaristus – who suffered in the mid-third century during the reign of the Emperor Decius (249-251).
The Church of Saint Agathopodos is named in honour of a saint from Panormos who is one of the Ten Holy Martyrs of Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
The governor of Crete, also named Decius, had these 10 arrested in different places in Crete, including Agathopodos or Agathapos from Panormos. They were put on trial and they were tortured for 30 days before being beheaded in Alonion, the main amphitheatre of Gortyn. Saint Paul of Constantinople (6 November) visited Crete about 100 years later and moved their relics to Constantinople.
The large church in Panormos is named after Saint Agathopodos or Agathapos, and was built in recent years. I particularly wanted to see the large fresco of the Theotokos in the apse of the church. It is four metres high and was completed in 2019 by my friend the Rethymnon-based icon writer Alexandra Kaouki and has been highly praised.
Alexandra and I had coffee near the Rimondi Foountain in Rethymnon two days earlier, so I was disappointed that the church was closed on Sunday afternoon. On the other hand, I have another reason to look forward to a return visit to Panormos when I am back in Crete.
Alexandra Kaouki working on her large fresco of the Theotokos in the apse of Saint Agathopodos Church (Photograph:Alexandra Kaouki / Facebook)
Panormos has become into a prosperous tourist resort in recent years, with boutique hotels, apartments, restaurants, tavernas, coffee shops and tourist shops. Until recently, it was a small coastal village with about 400 residents, secluded off the national road.
Despite developments in recent decades, Panormos has kept its atmospheric charm and the small harbour continues to serve local fishing boats.
In the small sandy bay, the blue water was clear and inviting. But windy storms have hit Crete for the past week, and two young boys were the only people braving the water, while a family sheltered below the rocks overlooking the beach.
The wind was gathering pace, and after a short beach walk I climbed back up to the narrow streets of Panormos. I had another hour to wait before the next bus back to Rethymnon, and so I spent some welcome time sipping coffee at Locus café in its picture-postcard setting, before catching a later bus along the ‘Hotels’ route and through Platanias and back to Rethymnon.
The small sandy shore with its clear and inviting blue water (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
Patrick Comerford
The tourism business in Crete is waking slowly after a winter of hibernation. Cities like Rethymnon, Chania and Iraklion are busy already. But, although this is the end of April, many restaurants and hotels are still closed, and they are waiting until Easter, which is late in the Greek calendar this year (5 May 2024) before opening their doors this year.
The long winter recess gives hoteliers and restaurateurs extended opportunities to redecorate, redesign and refurbish, to rethink their menus and to clean out the wimming pools.
Platanias, on the lengthy coast stretch east of Rethymnon, seemed quiet over the last few days. There is a limited bus service from Rethymnon along the route that is known locally as ‘Hotels.’ When I visited some of the hotels and restaurants I have known for many years, everything seemed quiet from the street. But when I stepped inside, hotels like La Stella and restaurants like Merem, Myli, Vergina, Finikas and Pagona’s Place, they were hives of activity preparing for the new tourist season.
Panormos, east of Rethymnon in Crete, is ‘picture postcard’ Greece (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
The taxi rank in Platanias had a few white taxis every time I passed by, but the hourly shuttle bus was running between the bus station in Rethymnon and Panormos 20 km to the east had been reduced to one every two hours.
I spent last Thursday morning in Platanias, sipping cups of coffee with old friends before going for a long walk on the beach. Even there, there were no sun beds on the beach, and the small beach bar at Pavlos Beach had not yet opened.
On Sunday afternoon, I decided to catch the bus out to Panormos, once a fishing village but now a pretty resort. Panormos is picture-postcard Greece, with its neat blue-and-white doors and windows, colourful overhanging bougainvillea and hibiscus, old vines draped across crumbling gates, boutique hotels and shops, cobbled streets, ruined mediaeval Milopotamos castle, the small beaches and an old harbour.
The Church of the Ascension and Saint George in the heart of Panormos (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
On previous holidays in Rethymnon and Platanias, it had become something of a tradition to go to Panormos for Sunday lunch. Since then, life has changed, circumstances have changed, and I was on my own on last Sunday. But Panormos was still an inviting and welcoming place to visit that afternoon.
Few of the restaurants were opened last weekend. In the past, I have spent lazy Sunday afternoons over long, lingering lunches in Porto Parasiris (2019, 2021) and Ankyra (2016, 2017) overlooking Limanaki, the sandy beach. Both places had still not reopened last weekend, but I had yet another long, lingering lunch at the other end of the beach in the Captain’s House, overlooking the harbour and the crystal-clear waters.
But the real reason I wanted to visit Panormos last weekend was to see five churches: the Church of Aghios Georgios, with its splendid dome and majestic fresco of Christ Pantocrator; the ruins of the Basilica of Aghia Sophia, dating from the fifth or sixth century; the cemetery chapel; the church ruins in the mediaeval castle; and the recently-built Church of Saint Agathopodos, named after a saint from Panormos who is counted among the Ten Holy Martyrs of Crete.
The ruins of the Basilica of Aghia Sophia, dating from the fifth or sixth century (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
Crete has been a crossroads of civilisations since antiquity because of its geographical position between Asia, Europe and Africa. It is believed that Panormos stands on the site of the Roman city Panormus.
Panormos is also known as Kastelli of Milopotamos or the Castle of Milopotamos because the castle of Mylopotamos (Castello di Milopotamo) above the harbour was built by the Genoese pirate Enrico Pescatore ca 1206-1212.
Within decades, the Venetians captured castle during their conquest of Crete. The castle was besieged by the Kapsokalives family in 1341, when it was held for the Venetians by Alexios Kallergis, but they failed to capture it. Hayreddin Barbarossa and his pirates attacked the castle and set it on fire in 1538. But the Venetians restored it immediately because of its strategic location.
Venetian rule came to an end here in 1647 when the castle was seized by the Turks as they marched from Rethymnon on Iraklion (Candia), although the Venetian General Gildasi (Gil d’Has) tried in vain to retake it.
Today, all that is left of this once strategic Venetian fort is a small part of the wall that looks like a pile of stones on a rocky outcrop above the beach and harbour, with the ruins of a church, where the emblem of the Kallergis family can still be seen.
The Basilica of Aghia Sophia was once the largest church in Western Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
To the south-west of the village, a small road goes under the main road from Rethymnon to Iraklion and leads along a narrow country road to the remains of the Basilica of Aghia Sophia. It was built in the fifth or sixth century and was once the largest church in Western Crete, an indication of how Panormos was an important Church centre in early Christian times.
In the west, the word basilica is associated with a church that has received a specific papal recognition. But in the Orthodox Church, the word is an architectural description of churches built in an ancient style, and it makes no claims about the importance of a church or the priests associated with it.
According to archaeologists, the Basilica of Aghia Sophia in Panormos was the seat of the Diocese of Eleftherna, which transferred there after the destruction of the ancient city of Panormos. In time, the name Aghia Sophia was given to the entire area around the basilica.
Aghia Sophia was destroyed in a Saracen raid in the seventh century, but may have continued in use until the ninth century (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
Like most coastal basilicas of that era, this basilica was built in the fifth and sixth centuries, and was once one of the largest in Crete, measuring 54 metres in length and 23 metres in width, with a wooden roof.
This was a basilica with a nave, two aisles, a simple apse and transepts that gave it the shape of an archaic cross. The large dimensions are evidence that Panormos was once a powerful city. The aisles were separated by tall base blocks that supported four Corinthian and Ionic columns. There were pebble and slab floors, and a small container filled with bones found under the chancel floor may have been a foundation deposit.
In front of the church, at right angles to the aisles, a narthex and an atrium had a Corinthian colonnade around a cistern that may have been a baptistry.
The findings during the excavation included marble and limestone parts of the building, including Ionian and Corinthian columns, capitals and parapets, embossed ivy and fig tree leaves, and parts of a marble iconostasis. The discoveries also included coins, pottery and a large amount of glass pieces.
Aghia Sophia was violently destroyed during a Saracen raid in the seventh century. However, there is evidence that it continued to be used until the ninth century: coins from the reign of the Byzantine Emperor Leo VI the Wise (886-912) were found on the site as well as minuscule inscriptions on pillars and slabs in the church.
The graveyard chapel in Panormos looks almost like an Alpine ski chalet (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
The basilica was uncovered following research by the theologian Konstantinos Kalokiris, and the site was excavated in 1948-1955 by the archaeologist Professor N Platonas. However, every time I visit the site, the remains of Aghia Sophia have been fenced off and there is only one battered and fading sign indicating its importance.
Walking back from Aghia Sophia into Panormos, the village graveyard sits in a shaded area below the new main road linking an Rethymnon.
The graveyard chapel, nestled in among pine trees on a gentle slope, is of an unusual design, and looks almost like an Alpine ski chalet rather than a Greek Orthodox chapel.
The dome in Saint George’s Church has a majestic image of Christ the Pantocrator (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
The church most visitors see in Panormos is the recently-built church dedicated to the Ascension (Analipsi) and Saint George (Agios Georgios). Although it is a relatively small church, its dome has a modern, majestic fresco of Christ the Pantocrator that is one of the finest I know in Crete.
In particular, I wanted to see the Church of Saint Agathopodos (Εκκλησία του Αγίου Αγαθόποδου), an impressively large church for a village of this size. The church is in the western part of Panormos, close to the school and clearly visible from the road from Rethymnon to Iraklion.
Saint Agathopodos (23 December) is one of the Ten Holy Martyrs of Crete – Theodulus, Saturninus, Euporus, Gelasius, Eunician, Zoticus, Pompius, Agathopodos, Basilides and Evaristus – who suffered in the mid-third century during the reign of the Emperor Decius (249-251).
The Church of Saint Agathopodos is named in honour of a saint from Panormos who is one of the Ten Holy Martyrs of Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
The governor of Crete, also named Decius, had these 10 arrested in different places in Crete, including Agathopodos or Agathapos from Panormos. They were put on trial and they were tortured for 30 days before being beheaded in Alonion, the main amphitheatre of Gortyn. Saint Paul of Constantinople (6 November) visited Crete about 100 years later and moved their relics to Constantinople.
The large church in Panormos is named after Saint Agathopodos or Agathapos, and was built in recent years. I particularly wanted to see the large fresco of the Theotokos in the apse of the church. It is four metres high and was completed in 2019 by my friend the Rethymnon-based icon writer Alexandra Kaouki and has been highly praised.
Alexandra and I had coffee near the Rimondi Foountain in Rethymnon two days earlier, so I was disappointed that the church was closed on Sunday afternoon. On the other hand, I have another reason to look forward to a return visit to Panormos when I am back in Crete.
Alexandra Kaouki working on her large fresco of the Theotokos in the apse of Saint Agathopodos Church (Photograph:Alexandra Kaouki / Facebook)
Panormos has become into a prosperous tourist resort in recent years, with boutique hotels, apartments, restaurants, tavernas, coffee shops and tourist shops. Until recently, it was a small coastal village with about 400 residents, secluded off the national road.
Despite developments in recent decades, Panormos has kept its atmospheric charm and the small harbour continues to serve local fishing boats.
In the small sandy bay, the blue water was clear and inviting. But windy storms have hit Crete for the past week, and two young boys were the only people braving the water, while a family sheltered below the rocks overlooking the beach.
The wind was gathering pace, and after a short beach walk I climbed back up to the narrow streets of Panormos. I had another hour to wait before the next bus back to Rethymnon, and so I spent some welcome time sipping coffee at Locus café in its picture-postcard setting, before catching a later bus along the ‘Hotels’ route and through Platanias and back to Rethymnon.
The small sandy shore with its clear and inviting blue water (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
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