Patrick Comerford
The Easter celebrations in Rethymnon over the past few days have been truly moving experiences. This is Easter Monday (21 April 2025) and I awoke this morning, once again, to the peals of the bells of the Church of the Four Martyrs, which is almost next door to the Hotel Brascos where I am staying, and of the cathedral nearby.
I have been in Rethymnon for the past five days on my own ‘Holy Week and Easter retreat’ and I spent yesterday afternoon with a visiting friend from Ireland in the harbour village of Panormos, east of Rethymnon.
But this ‘retreat’ comes to an end today and I am catching a flight from Chania to Luton tonight. Before this day begins, though, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:
1, reading today’s Gospel reading;
2, a short reflection;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
Matthew 28: 8-15 (NRSVA):
8 So they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples. 9 Suddenly Jesus met them and said, ‘Greetings!’ And they came to him, took hold of his feet, and worshipped him. 10 Then Jesus said to them, ‘Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.’
11 While they were going, some of the guard went into the city and told the chief priests everything that had happened. 12 After the priests had assembled with the elders, they devised a plan to give a large sum of money to the soldiers, 13 telling them, ‘You must say, “His disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep.” 14 If this comes to the governor’s ears, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.’ 15 So they took the money and did as they were directed. And this story is still told among the Jews to this day.
Today’s Reflection:
As this Easter stay in Crete comes to an end, I should tell a legend that is linked to this morning’s Gospel reading at the Eucharist (Matthew 28: 8-15) and with traditions in Crete.
We read this morning how ‘some of the guard went into the city and told the chief priests everything that had happened’ (verse 11). We read in Friday’s Gospel reading that Caiaphas was ‘the high priest that year’ and that he gave the opinion ‘that it was better to have one person die for the people’ (see John 18: 13-14).
Annas questioned Jesus and then sent him bound to Caiaphas the high priest (John 18: 24), and from the house of Caiaphas they took Jesus to Pilate’s headquarters (John 18: 28). Caiaphas was probably a Sadducee, who did not believe in the resurrection of the dead. The Mishnah condemns him for opposing the Pharisees ( Parah 3: 5). Later in the Biblical narratives, Peter and John are brought before Annas and Caiaphas after healing a beggar (see Acts 4).
Joseph ben Caiaphas was the High Priest from the year 18 to 36 CE. But there is a local tradition or legend that says he was buried in Crete, and people here argue that this idea is not beyond belief considering Saint Paul visited the island twice on his missionary journeys.
According to this old tradition in Crete, Caiaphas was summoned to Rome along with Pontius Pilate to account for their wrongdoings. Caiaphas fell fatally ill while his ship was off the coast of Crete. A storm blew up and the ship was wrecked. Nevertheless, the crew managed to get ashore, and they buried him near Iraklion.
The tradition says he was buried seven times, but each time the Cretan soil refused to accept him and his body was thrown up seven times. Finally local people got together and buried him south of Iraklion under a pile of stones, and this became the tomb of Caiaphas.
Until the year 1882, this supposed tomb remained at the entrance to Knossos. An old settlement near Knossos was known as ‘Kaiafa’. It is referred to in the Byzantine period as one of the fiefs of the Archbishop of Crete, in a Venetian text from 1208 and in contracts and Turkish documents.
Richard Pococke the intrepid traveller who visited Greece extensively between 1737 and 1741, reported seeing a ‘square building’ at the site of the supposed tomb of Caiaphas at Knossos. Pococke was the Church of Ireland Bishop of Ossory (1756-1765) and Bishop of Meath (1765). Pococke spent much of his time in Crete in 1739 in Chania and Kissamou, but also visited Rethymnon and Iraklion. In 1739 he described a square building on the site where Caiaphas was supposedly buried.
The area were the ship with Caiphas is said to have first arrived is known as Aforesmenos (meaning expelled from the Church or damned). The lighthouse of the Cape of Agios Ioannis or Aforesmenos is 27 km from of Agios Nikolaos, close to the village of Vrouchas and the church of Agios Ioannis. The lighthouse was built in 1864 by the French Lighthouse Company and joined the Greek lighthouse network in 1912.
The landscape in the area is typical of Crete, with bare mountains, rugged coastlines, and too much wind. It is said that the sea is never calm there and several 19th-century nautical guides suggested that it was preferable for ships to navigate a mile off the cape.
Χριστὸς ἀνέστη!
Christ is Risen!
Today’s Prayers (Monday 21 April 2025, Easter Monday):
‘Cross-Cultural Mission at Manchester Airport’ provides 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).’ This theme was introduced yesterday with reflections by the Revd Debbie Sawyer, Pastoral Chaplain in the Church in Wales and Airport Chaplain, Manchester.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (Monday 21 April 2025, Easter Monday) invites us to pray:
Help us Lord, to accept into our care anyone who may cross our path in need of support, help and guidance. May we offer to them, all that Jesus would offer through our hospitality and love.
The Collect:
Lord of all life and power,
who through the mighty resurrection of your Son
overcame the old order of sin and death
to make all things new in him:
grant that we, being dead to sin
and alive to you in Jesus Christ,
may reign with him in glory;
to whom with you and the Holy Spirit
be praise and honour, glory and might,
now and in all eternity.
The Post-Communion Prayer:
God of Life,
who for our redemption gave your only-begotten Son
to the death of the cross,
and by his glorious resurrection
have delivered us from the power of our enemy:
grant us so to die daily to sin,
that we may evermore live with him in the joy of his risen life;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Additional Collect:
God of glory,
by the raising of your Son
you have broken the chains of death and hell:
fill your Church with faith and hope;
for a new day has dawned
and the way to life stands open
in our Saviour Jesus Christ.
Yesterday’s Reflection
Continued Tomorrow
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 ship carrying Caiaphas to Rome is said to have been wrecked off Aforesmenos in Crete
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