Patrick Comerford
Today is known in the Orthodox Church as Great Friday rather than Good Friday, and I have spent much of the morning at the morning services in the Cathedral in Rethymnon (18 April 2025).
This is the most solemn day in the calendar of the Orthodox Church, and, despite the sunshine and the large throngs of tourists, many of the shops and cafés in Rethymnon closed for a few hours this morning.
People who remember the solemnity of Good Friday commemorations in Ireland that continued into the 1970s, perhaps even the 1980s, will understand the solemnity with which this day is marked in Greece.
The commemorations in the cathedral today were presided over by the Metropolitan of Rethymnon, Bishop Prodromos (Xenakis), who has been in office for the past three years. He is a former Bishop of Knossos, and I got to know him when he was a post-graduate student in Maynooth in 2010-2012. He was following a programme in Biblical studies leading to the MTh degree, and was attached to the Greek Orthodox Church in Dublin.
During those post-graduate student days in Maynooth, we took part together in Greek community events in Dublin, a broadcast service on RTÉ, and he came to the Church of Ireland Theological Institute when I was presiding at the Community Eucharist on the day the Church Calendar remembers Saint Polycarp of Smyrna.
After meeting a good friend for coffee this afternoon, I went to this morning’s main service in the cathedral, which included the veneration of the Cross and the Bier and Christ, and the Epitaphios (Ἐπιτάφιον), the large, embroidered and richly adorned cloth that is woven with the image of the dead Christ.
The priests and deacons had already places the Epitaphios on the Holy Table or altar, had anointed the Epitaphios with perfumed oil, and had placed a chalice veil and the Gospel Book on top of it.
During the reading of the Gospel accounts of the death and burial of Christ, the icon depicting the body of Christ was taken down from the cross, wrapped in a white cloth and taken into the sanctuary.
As the service was drawing to its end, the priest and deacon, accompanied by acolytes with candles and incense, carried the Epitaphios in procession from the Holy Table the church, placed it on the bier, richly decorated with white, red, and purple flowers, beneath the kouvouklion, an elaborately carved canopy, and laid the Gospel Book on the Epitaphios. In some Greek churches. Finally, Metropolitan Prodromos, scattered more petals on bier and the Epitaphios, and sprinkled the congregation with holy water.
The largest commemorations take place this evening so that the largest number of people can attend. The Epitaphios will vary be processed through the streets, with bands and solemn music. Sometimes, young people crawl under the bier, perhaps representing that they too are entering into death with Christ.
This evening’s procession ends with drama and solemnity at the steps at the steps leading up to the Church of the Four Martyrs.
As I was leaving the cathedral this afternoon, people were still joining a long queue to venerate the Epitaphios as the choir chanted. The bells of the cathedral and the neighbouring churches are continuing to toll this afternoon, and there is a constant stream of people coming to venerate the Epitaphios in the cathedral and churches in Rethymnon.
The hustle and bustle of daily life has resumed in the city, and few tourists have probably glimpsed this dimension of Greek life and piety today. But everything grinds to a halt this evening to mark the climax of this, the most solemn day in Crete.
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