Daily prayer in Easter 2025: 6, Friday 25 April 2025, Friday in Easter Week

The Risen Christ by the shore of Tiberias with the disciples and their catch of fish (John 21: 1-14) … a fresco in Saint Constantine and Saint Helen Church, Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

Our Easter celebrations continue in the Church Calendar, and this is still Easter week. In the Orthodox Church, today is known as ‘Bright Friday’, the Friday after Easter, and the feast day of the Theotokos the Life-giving Spring (Ζωοδόχος Πηγή). It is the only feast day that may be celebrated during Bright Week – although many places, in fact, celebrated Saint George on Wednesday.

Before today begins, 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.

A fisherman tends his boat and his nets in the old harbour in Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

John 21: 1-14 (NRSVA):

1 After these things Jesus showed himself again to the disciples by the Sea of Tiberias; and he showed himself in this way. 2 Gathered there together were Simon Peter, Thomas called the Twin, Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two others of his disciples. 3 Simon Peter said to them, ‘I am going fishing.’ They said to him, ‘We will go with you.’ They went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing.

4 Just after daybreak, Jesus stood on the beach; but the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. 5 Jesus said to them, ‘Children, you have no fish, have you?’ They answered him, ‘No.’ 6 He said to them, ‘Cast the net to the right side of the boat, and you will find some.’ So they cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in because there were so many fish. 7 That disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, ‘It is the Lord!’ When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on some clothes, for he was naked, and jumped into the lake. 8 But the other disciples came in the boat, dragging the net full of fish, for they were not far from the land, only about a hundred yards off.

9 When they had gone ashore, they saw a charcoal fire there, with fish on it, and bread. 10 Jesus said to them, ‘Bring some of the fish that you have just caught.’ 11 So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, a hundred and fifty-three of them; and though there were so many, the net was not torn. 12 Jesus said to them, ‘Come and have breakfast.’ Now none of the disciples dared to ask him, ‘Who are you?’ because they knew it was the Lord. 13 Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them, and did the same with the fish. 14 This was now the third time that Jesus appeared to the disciples after he was raised from the dead.

A variety of fish in a taverna at the old harbour in Rethymnon … Aristotle taught that there were 153 different species of fish in the Mediterranean (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Today’s Reflection:

This morning’s Easter Gospel reading at the Eucharist (John 21: 1-14) might ask us to think about we mean by success?

The disciples that Sunday morning are not very successful, are they (John 21: 3)? So unsuccessful, indeed, that they are willing to take advice from someone they do not even recognise (verse 4 ff).

The disciples are at the Sea of Galilee or the Sea of Tiberias, back at their old jobs as fishermen. Peter, who denied Christ three times during his Passion, Thomas, who had initially doubted the stories of the Resurrection (see John 20: 24-29), Nathanael, who once wondered whether anything good could come from Nazareth (see John 1: 46), James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who once wanted to be so close to Jesus that they wanted to be seated at his right hand and his left in the kingdom, and two other disciples who remain unnamed … how about that for fame, lasting recognition and success?

They are back on the same shore where there once were so many fish, so much bread left over after feeding the multitude, that they filled 12 baskets (John 6: 1-13). There are not so many fish around this time, at first. But then John tells us that after Christ arrives 153 fish were caught that morning (verse 11).

This number is probably a symbol meaning a complete number. The number 153 is divisible by the sum of its own digits, and it is the smallest number that can be expressed as the sum of cubes of its digits, since 153 = 1³ + 5³ + 3³. Aristotle is said to have taught that there were 153 different species of fish in the Mediterranean.

Whatever they say, the disciples must have thought they had managed the perfect catch that morning.

But the perfect catch was Christ – and, of course, they were the perfect catch for him too. When they came ashore once again he invites them to share bread and fish, to dine with the Risen Lord (21: 12-13).

To eat with the Risen Lord and to invite others to the Heavenly Banquet, so that every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea can say ‘Amen’ before the Throne of God … now that is what I call success (Revelation 5: 11-14).

And when others ask us, Do we love Christ?, when others ask us, Do we love them?, when others ask us, Do we love one another?, will we hesitate, like Peter, not knowing how to answer?

Or when they ask, will the answers be obvious in the ways we worship, in the way we live our lives, in the way we respond to others?

Χριστὸς ἀνέστη!
Christ is Risen!

A lone fishing boat in the old harbour in Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Today’s Prayers (Friday 25 April 2025, Friday in Easter Week):

‘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 on Sunday with reflections by the Revd Debbie Sawyer, Pastoral Chaplain in the Church in Wales and Airport Chaplain, Manchester.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Friday 25 April 2025, Friday in Easter Week) invites us to pray:

In the likeness of Saint Mark, we pray for ourselves, that we may be true disciples of Christ, boldly proclaiming his Gospel and living humbly with open minds and tender hearts.

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 Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

In the dim light, where would we see or recognise Jesus? … by the shores below the Fortezza in Rethymnon earlier this week (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

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 icon of Saint Irene, a friend’s present in Rethymnon, symbolises hope for peace at Easter

An icon of Aghia Irini (Αγία Ειρήνη) or Saint Irene by Alexandra Kaouki … completed in 2012 and a present from Rethymnon at Easter (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

I came back from Rethymnon earlier this week laden down with presents and gifts from friends during my five-day ‘mini-retreat’ in Crete in Holy Week and Easter.

During the weekend, I had coffee one morning in Galero, near the Rimondi Fountain, with Alexandra Kaouki (Αλεξανδρα Καουκι), one of the foremost icon writers in Rethymnon today. We had a lengthy conversation that included the theology of icons, the place of women in the church, ministry and political and economic life in Greece.

One of her gifts was one of her early icons, depicting Aghia Irini (Αγία Ειρήνη) or Saint Irene, completed in 2012.

She told me that morning how she had kept this icon at home after working on it because it had a special meaning and special significance for me. She had long felt it should only go to a special home or special person, and she held on to it all those years.

But on the morning before we met, she told me, she felt Saint Irene’s eyes were fixed on her and telling her: ‘Give me to Patrick’.

Saint Irene seemed such a special choice for me last weekend. I was back in Rethymnon to pray and remind me of my own need for spiritual peace. But Alexandra also thought it was appropriate for me, because of my campaigning past, as the saint’s name ‘Peace’, and also because I had written appreciatively in the past about Aghia Irini convent in the hills above Rethymnon.

A fresco depicting Saint Irene or Aghia Irini by Alexandra Kaouki in a church in Rethymnon

I first got to know Alexandra Kaouki when she had a workshop on Melissinou Street, beneath the slopes of the Venetian Fortezza. She began writing icons at the early age of 20, and on that first visit she proudly showed me her first completed work. On a shelf beside her, a new icon of Saint Catherine of Alexandria was ready for the final touches, while on a second easel she was preparing to work of an icon of the Dormition.

Alexandra’s work includes icons and frescoes and is marked by its spirituality, simplicity, the expression of the figures and the brightness of her colours. She works throughout the day with care, faith and passion. There she crafts icons using traditional Byzantine techniques and the faithful to traditions of the Cretan school.

The raw materials she uses for her icons are of the highest quality, with natural and industrial woods, traditionally-prepared canvases, 22 carat gold leaf coating, mineral colours and tempera, which uses the yolk of an egg according to Byzantine and Orthodox traditions.

She believes an icon in the Byzantine tradition should not only be an aid to worship, ‘but a diachronic work of art, of beauty and aesthetics.’

Alexandra Kaouki was born in Le Mans in France in 1973. At the age of 20, she moved with her family to Athens, and there she took her first steps in the holy art of writing icons.

She is self-taught, but has also learned at the hands of well-known icon writers in Athens from 1997 to 2000. She has lived in Rethymnon since 2006, and she took her first professional steps in 2007 when she opened her first art studio in Atsipopoulo, before moving in 2013 to studio on Melissinou Street, a narrow street close to the slopes beneath the old Venetian Fortezza.

Her icon of the Four Martyrs of Rethymnon hangs over the desk of the Bishop of Rethymnon in his office, and her icons and frescoes can be seen in churches throughout Crete.

The first of her icons that I bought was a small copy of that icon of the Four Martyrs of Rethymnon, and for years it stayed on the bookshelves in my study at the Church of Ireland Theological Institute and then on a wall in the Rectory in Askeaton, Co Limerick.

Saint Irene (left), Saint Catherine and Saint Barbara … three women saints in a fresco in the Church of Panagia Dexia in Thessaloniki (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Saint Irene, Saint Catherine and Saint Barbara are three saints who are often found together in icons and frescoes in Greek churches. They form a traditional grouping, such as the Apostles Peter and Paul, as an icon of Church Unity, Saint Paul and Sant Barnabas, the Cappadocian Fathers (Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa and Gregory of Nazianzus), and the Three Holy Hierarchs (Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian and John Chrysostom).

Saint Irene is one of three saints and sisters – Irene, Agape and Chioni – who were born in Thessaloniki and who were martyred there for their faith in the year 304 CE. Their names mean Peace, Love and Purity, and their feast day was earlier this month, 3 April.

The story of their martyrdom is the subject of Dulcitius, a 10th-century Latin drama by Hrotsvitha of Gandersheim, the first-known female playwright.

Irene, Agape and Chione were brought before Dulcitius, governor of Macedonia, on the charge of refusing to eat food that had been offered in sacrifice to the gods. When Agape and Chionia again refused to eat this food, they were burned alive.

Dulcitius then found that Irene was keeping Christian books prohibited by the law. She declared that when the decrees against Christians had been published, she and several others fled to the mountains. She refused to name the people who had fled with her and said all she alone knew where the books were being kept. Dulcitius then ordered Irene to be stripped and exposed in a brothel. But no one mistreated her in the brothel. The governor then gave Irene a second chance, but when she refused this Dulcitius then sentenced her to death, and the books found with her were burned as well.

There is a second significant Saint Irene in the Orthodox Calendar. This Saint Irene (752-803) was a Byzantine empress and was instrumental in restoring the use of icons in the Orthodox Church.

Saint Irene was the wife of the Byzantine emperor Leo IV, and when her husband died in 780, she became guardian of their 10-year-old son, Constantine VI, and co-emperor with him. Later that year she crushed a plot by the iconoclasts or opponents of the use of icons to put Leo’s half-brother, Nicephorus, on the throne.

The use of icons had been prohibited since 730. When one of Irene’s supporters, Tarasius, was elected patriarch of Constantinople, he summoned the Constantinople in 786 and then the Seventh Ecumenical Council in Nicaea in 787 and restored the reverence of images.

Constantine VI banished his mother from court, but she later had her son arrested and blinded . From 797, she reigned alone as emperor for five years until she was deposed in 802 and exiled to the island of Lesbos. She is remembered for her zeal in restoring icons and her feast day is celebrated on 9 August.

A quiet corner in the monastery of Agia Irini, 5 km south of Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Monastery of Aghia Irini, about 5 km south of Rethymnon in the mountains above the town, is one of the oldest monasteries in Crete. Various accounts say it was founded sometime between 961 and 1204, and it was certainly built before 1362, when a Venetian document testifies to its existence.

The monastery was destroyed several times during the many revolutions in Crete against Ottoman rule. During the last Cretan revolution of 1897-1898, the Turks burnt the monastery, the ruined monastery was formally closed in 1900, and the ruins remained deserted throughout most of the 20th century.

At first, the monastery lands were granted to the monastery of Arsani, but in 1925 the lands were distributed among local Greek war veterans. Sister Akaterina, who brought once brought me on a tour of the monastery, told of how the Metropolitan of Rethymnon, the late Bishop Theodoros Tzedakis, had a vision in 1989 for its restoration and invited a group of nuns to form a new community at Aghia Irini.

The nuns moved into the buildings and restoration work began in 1990. At the time, Aghia Irini was a jumble of dilapidated buildings. Today, it must be one of the most beautiful monasteries in Crete, and the restoration work has received architectural and cultural awards. The church was officially opened in 2003, and was consecrated in 2011 by Patriarch Theodoros of Alexandria. The buildings include an older three-aisled church of Saint Irene, Saint Catherine and Saint Euphemia.

In their shop, the nuns sell traditional handicrafts of weaving and needlework, their own almond-flavoured drink, candles, religious books and icons, including unusual icons written on odd pieces of ceramic.

To outsiders, the Orthodox Church can sometimes seem behind the times in its attitude to women, exemplified in debates about the ordination of women or the exclusion of women from Mount Athos. But the exclusion of women from Mount Athos is more about protecting and honouring the celibacy of the men in the monastic communities.

The work of iconographers like Alexandra Kaouki and the work of the women at Aghia Irini leave me confident that the Orthodox Church has the capacity to move forward in time in the debates about the place of women in the Church.

Alexandra Kaouki at work on an icon of Saint Catherine of Alexandria

Daily prayer in Easter 2025: 5, Thursday 24 April 2025, Thursday in Easter week

The Widow of Nain … a window by Hardman at the west end of the south aisle in Saint Mary’s Church, St Neots, Cambridgeshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

Our Easter celebrations continue in the Church Calendar, and this is still Easter week. There are a number of opportunities in my diary today, including the ‘Last Thursday’ history group meeting in Stony Stratford this afternoon, looking at VE Day, and the Stony Stratford Annual Town Meeting later this evening.

Before this day begins, however, 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.

The resurrection of the young man of Nain, by Lucas Cranach (1569)

Luke 7: 11-17 (NRSVA):

11 Soon afterwards he [Jesus] to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd went with him. 12 As he approached the gate of the town, a man who had died was being carried out. He was his mother’s only son, and she was a widow; and with her was a large crowd from the town. 13 When the Lord saw her, he had compassion for her and said to her, ‘Do not weep.’ 14 Then he came forward and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, ‘Young man, I say to you, rise!’ 15 The dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother. 16 Fear seized all of them; and they glorified God, saying, ‘A great prophet has risen among us!’ and ‘God has looked favourably on his people!’ 17 This word about him spread throughout Judea and all the surrounding country.

Jesus Raising the Widow’s Son at Nain (James Tissot, ca 1890)

Today’s Reflection:

This morning’s Gospel reading at the Eucharist (Luke 7: 11-17) could be read as a ‘prequel’ of the Resurrection, and so is an appropriate reading in Easter Week.

Funeral stories and the stories of children being raised to life, like the one in this Gospel reading today, are not always the most cheerful Bible readings. This reading was particularly difficult when I was preaching one Sunday morning many years ago in Saint Patrick’s Church, Donabate, Co Dublin, when I was baptising a little baby boy.

Saint Luke’s Gospel has many accounts of healing and wholeness, and when we read any of these stories it is always good to ask a few basic questions, like who, what, where, when and why.

When I watch film or read a book, for example, I should be asking a few basic questions such as:

• What’s the story all about?

• Who are the principal characters, the main actors?

• In other words, is there anything in this for me?

In a similar way, if we are to find anything in a Gospel story that not only makes it interesting but makes it relevant for me, then I suppose I could approach a Gospel reading with the same questions:

• What’s the story all about?

• Who are the main characters?

• Where is the action?

In today’s Gospel story, there is a lot of action, and a lot of people. In fact, there are two large crowds, and the drama is created in the way they meet each other, in an unexpected and unplanned way.

The first crowd is made up of those following Jesus, who have just arrived after a long, 20-mile walk with him from Capernaum.

This group includes not just those who are his disciples. But a lot of other people too – people are there to see what he is doing, what’s going on. Like many Netflix or television viewers later this evening or after a hard day’s work, they are looking for the entertainment, looking for the drama, perhaps even hoping for a miracle or too … after all, at Capernaum they have seen Jesus heal the centurion’s servant.

And we ought not to be too dismissive of this crowd following Jesus, or their motives. After all, that is the way a lot of people end up coming to church. They go with the flow, they like what is on offer for their children, it gives them a sense of identity. And, in coming along, they find out who Jesus really is, why it matters to follow him.

Perhaps they were expecting nothing. Perhaps they were just tired, and after a 20-mile walk are anxious about whether there are enough beds in the tiny village of Nain for them all to stay overnight.

And, unexpectedly – in a way that no-one could have planned – this large crowd bumps into another, second large crowd. Nain is called a town here, but it was more like a village, about nine or 10 miles south of Nazareth. Until the mid-20th century, it had a population of less than 100 or 200, and we can imagine a tiny place in the days of Jesus.

So, one large crowd bumps into another large crowd. And it is bad news for the large crowd that has been following Jesus.

In a tiny place like Nain, to have a large crowd they must have been drawn from every house and dwelling place, every family in the village. If they are all in mourning, not only are they unlikely to be able to offer anyone bed and breakfast for the night, they probably are ritually unable to do so: a dead body, a corpse, a funeral, a burial, all make a practising, observant Jew ritually unclean.

The disciples and the other people who are following Jesus on the road from Capernaum to Nain must have taken pity on themselves. Where are they going to go tonight? What can they do? Where can they stay?

Perhaps the appeal of following Jesus, waiting for the miracle to happen, suddenly evaporated as this reality dawned on them.

Perhaps they even thought that Jesus should have pity on them, pity on their plight.

But instead, Jesus takes pity, not on them, and not even on the poor young lad who has died either. Instead, he takes pity on the boy’s widowed mother. He has compassion for her, he tells her not to weep.

However, having compassion and doing something about it make two separate sets of demands.

The love of a mother for her young son is incomparable, as people knew too that Sunday morning at that child’s baptism in Donabate.

Jesus recognises, Jesus identifies with, Jesus is consumed with, the love of this widowed, probably young widowed, mother. As a widow, left financially ruined, her only hope of survival in this world may have been in the livelihood her son would eventually attain.

She has already been widowed, now her son has died. She faces not only emotional devastation, but financial destruction and social ruin … she will have no-one to work her fields, no-one to provide an income, no-one to guarantee her safety and security.

Jesus recognises her plight … and he does something about it. First he does something that is shocking in his day, shocking behaviour for a rabbi in those days. He touches the bier, he touches the dead body. It is no wonder the bearers stood still. He has identified so much with the widow’s plight that he too becomes ritually unclean. In Christ, God’s identification with our humanity is so complete that he takes on everything about us. God so identifies with us in Christ that he even identifies with us in birth, in life, and in death.

The miracle is amazing. The fact that God identifies so much with us is even more amazing. God’s compassion should be more amazing than God’s miracles. It is because of his love and compassion in the first place that there are miracles.

No wonder the crowds, the two large crowds, all of them, are seized with fear. It is awesome.

And yet, in telling this story, Luke rises to some of his most poetic language in this Gospel.

He looks back to the words of the pregnant Mary and ageing Zechariah in the canticles Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis, when Saint Luke says they glorified God (7: 16, cf Luke 1: 47-48), when they realised a great prophet had risen among them (cf Luke 1: 69-70), when they said God has looked favourably on his people (cf Luke 1: 48), when they realised a new day had dawned. She has been shown mercy, she has been saved from the hands of her enemies, she has received the tender mercy of God.

Luke looks forward to that moment when the suffering Christ meets the weeping women outside the gates of Jerusalem (Luke 23: 28-29). And he looks forward to that moment on the Cross, in Saint John’s Gospel, when the dying Jesus takes pity on his widowed mother and entrusts her and the Beloved Disciple to the mutual care of each other (John 19: 26-27). But he is also looking forward to the Resurrection on Easter Day.

What we are invited to be witnesses to this morning is not some old-fashioned miracle show. That’s what the large crowd was hanging around Jesus for what the large crowd was hanging around the funeral procession for.

What we are being invited to this morning is the realisation that in his compassion, in his actions, in his caring, Jesus shows us that God loves us, each of us individually, as a mother loves her only and precious child.

If you imagine for one moment the love that little boy who was being baptised in Donabate that morning could expect from his parents, then you can catch, just catch, a glimpse of the love that God has for each of us, individually. God loves you and God loves me as if were the only child in the world that matters … and even more than that.

This is a new dawn. That is what the promise of baptism is, this what the Easter hope is: it is about dying to sin, to the old ways, rising to new life in Christ, and continuing for ever.

Χριστὸς ἀνέστη!
Christ is Risen!

The raising of the son of the widow of Nain … a modern icon in a Greek Orthodox church

Today’s Prayers (Thursday 24 April 2025, Thursday in Easter Week):

‘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 on Sunday with reflections by the Revd Debbie Sawyer, Pastoral Chaplain in the Church in Wales and Airport Chaplain, Manchester.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Thursday 24 April 2025, Thursday in Easter Week) invites us to pray:

Let us pray today for all the displaced people moving through our world as they flee from poverty and war. May a haven of hope and peace await them at journey’s end.

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 Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

The raising of the son of the widow of Nain … a modern fresco in a Greek Orthodox church

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

Who were the first Irish visitors to Greece? And who were the first Greeks to visit Ireland?

Antika Irish Bar in the heart of the old town in Rethymnon … but who were the earliest Greeks to visit Ireland? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

I have written extensively in the past about the Irish Philhellenes, those Irish people who devoted major parts of their lives and significant parts of careers to the cause of Greek independence, mainly in the early and mid-19th century.

I have written too about some of the figures we may see as the first Irish travellers to write about their experiences in the Greek world, going back to Symon Semeonis, a Franciscan friar with a Greek-sounding name but who seems to have been from Clonmel, Co Tipperary. He travelled through Corfu and Crete 700 years ago in in 1323-1324, and has provided the earliest-known account to reach Ireland or England of the Greek islands.

The name Symon Semeonis might be rendered in Ireland today as Simon FitzSimon or Simon FitzSimmons. He travelled through Corfu and Kephallonia before landing in western Crete in August 1323. From Chania, he travelled by boat along the north coast of the Crete, past Rethymnon and Mylopotamos, near present-day Panormos and Bali, to Candia, modern Iraklion, which he describes as a prosperous city that ‘abounds in most excellent wine, in cheese and in fruit.’

Church domes and minarets on the skyline of Rethymnon … Symon Semeonis from Clonmel visited Rethymnon in 1323 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

I got back late on Monday night or very early yesterday morning from Crete, where I spent most of Holy Week and Easter in Rethymnon, and visiting Iraklion, Panormos, Platanias and Tsesmes. I have been visiting Crete regularly since the 1980s, and I have wondered at times whether the first Irish tourist to visit Rethymnon was Richard Pococke (1704-1765). He visited Crete almost 400 years after Symon Semeonis. He was the Church of Ireland Bishop of Ossory (1756-1765) and briefly, before his death, was Bishop of Meath (1765), and he is best known for his travel writings and diaries.

Pococke spent much of his time in Crete in 1739 in Chania and Kissamou, but also visited Rethymnon and Iraklion. In Rethymon, he noted that the town had 500 Christian families and six or seven Jewish families. When Pococke visited Arkadi Monastery in the mountains above Rethymnon in 1739, he said: ‘It is a charming structure built around an extensive courtyard. They have a very fine refectory and in the centre of the courtyard a very pretty church with a wonderful facade in the Venetian architectural style.’

Detailed accounts of his travels have been published in three volumes edited by Dr Rachel Finnegan of Waterford Institute of Technology, who once taught me Classical Greek in Trinity College Dublin.

The travels of Symon Semeonis and Richard Pococke counter the ideas some people seem to have that Irish people were first introduced to Crete only half a century ago, through package holidays sold by Budget Travel from the early 1970s.

But during this past week in Rethymnon, I have also wondered who were the first Greeks to visit Ireland and Britain and to leave accounts of their travels?

Tending to a boat in the harbour in Rethymnon … who was the first Greek to set sail for Britian and Ireland? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Ptolemy’s map of Ireland is a part of his ‘first European map’ depicting the islands of Britain and Ireland in the series of maps included in his Geography, compiled in the second century CE in Roman Egypt. Although Ptolemy’s own map does not survive, it is the oldest surviving map of Ireland. and it is known from manuscript copies made during the Middle Ages and from the text of the Geography which gives coordinates and place names.

Claudius Ptolemy (ca 100 to ca 160s or 170s CE) had a Roman name, indicating his status as a free Roman citizen, and a Greek name. There are suggestions that he was born in Ptolemais Hermiou, a Greek city in the Thebaid region of Egypt (now El Mansha), and he died in Alexandria.

Given the creation process, the time period involved, and the fact that the Greeks and Romans had limited contact with Ireland, his map is considered remarkably accurate. But it is almost certain that Ptolemy almost certainly never visited Ireland, instead compiling his map from military, trader, and traveller reports, along with his own mathematical calculations.

The earliest Greek to have possibly visited Ireland and Ireland and to have bee familiar with eir coastlines appears to have been Pytheas of Massalia, a geographer from the Greek colony of Massalia, the modern-day city of Marseille in southern France. He was the first-ever Mediterranean person to reach and explore not only both Britain and Ireland but also the Arctic Circle.

The ancient Greeks were sailors and traders. A shortage of good farming land, and a rapid increase in population in the Greek city-states, led to overseas expansion, and setting up colonies and trading ports around the Mediterranean and on the Black Sea coasts between ca 800 BCE and 400 BCE. They had a deep interest in the world, and Anaximander, born ca 610 BCE, produced perhaps the first map showing the world according to the Greeks.

The story of Pytheas is still relatively unknown, but his achievements continue to inspire scientists today because of his determination to explore what was then viewed as the wild and unknown north, the home of people known only as the Hyperboreans. As far as the ancient Greeks were concerned, they could only use myth and legend to describe the harsh and inhospitable conditions of the European north.

One of these myths suggested that the northerners were a race of giants who lived in the region where Boreas, the Greek god of the north winds, lived. Boreas is still the word used in Greek to describe the cold, northerly winds that blow in Greece during the winter.

The Hyperboreans were the unknown peoples who lived in the region to the north of Thrace. However, the term soon became synonymous with those who dwelt in the northern extremities of Europe in what is today known as Britain and Ireland, Northern Europe and Scandinavia.

Pytheas wanted to explore these northern areas and decided that to sail north and explore the Britain and Ireland, the northern European shoreline, Scandinavia, and even up to the Arctic Circle.

Pytheas wrote a book about his travels, but this work has been lost. However, much is known about his adventures through later authors who quoted him by name, including Strabo, Dicaerchs, Timaeus Pliny and Diodorus of Sicily.

The Lighthouse guards the entrance to the old Venetian harbour of Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Pytheas is known to have travelled around the entire island of Britain in the mid-4th century BCE. However, it is still unclear how much time this took and how much of his journey was spent on the land itself as opposed to his time at sea. Nonetheless, because of his tour of discovery, Pytheas is responsible for the first known written mention of the word ‘Britain.’

In his work Periplus (Greek for circumnavigation), quoted in Strabo’sGeographica, in Pliny’s Natural History and by Diodorus of Sicily in his Bibliotheca historica, Pytheas uses the epithet Bretannike (Βρεταννική), the Greek for ‘Britannic.’ Etymologically, the term is not Greek, but a Greek transliteration of what some of the Celts who lived on the island at the time called their land: Ynys Prydein, most likely from the Welsh for ‘the island of Britain.’

Pytheas also referred to the ‘Three corners of Britain’: Kantion, Belerion (Belerium) and Orkas. Kantion is what is now Kent, in south-east England; Belerion may be Cornwall as Pytheas mentioned its triangular perimeter, according to Diodorus; Orkas was, most likely, the Orkney Islands north of Scotland.

Pytheas may not have been the first continental European to arrive on the shores of Britain and Ireland. However, he was the first Mediterranean explorer to meticulously explore and describe what he saw in Britain and the rest of the northern shores of Europe. His observations on the way of life offered invaluable information to ancient scholars, who used his work as the foundation for their own books.

Pytheas is now respected as a navigator, geographer, astronomer, the first Greek to visit and describe Britain and Ireland and the Atlantic coast of Europe, the first known scientific visitor to see and describe the Arctic, polar ice, and the Celtic and Germanic tribes, and the first person on record to describe the midnight sun.

Pytheas’ likely travel route around Britian and Ireland (Credit: Fschwarzentruber / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0)

Daily prayer in Easter 2025: 4, Wednesday 23 April 2025, Wednesday in Easter week (Saint George’s Day)

The Supper at Emmaus … a window by Daniel Bell of Bell and Almond in Holy Trinity Church, Old Wolverton (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

The Easter celebrations continue in the Church Calendar, and this is still Easter week. The Church Calendar usually celebrates Saint George on this day. But because this is Easter week, the calendar of the Church of England has transferred these celebrations to next Monday (28 April).

However, the Orthodox Church continues to celebrate Saint George today, and it is also being marked today in the Prayer Diary of USPG.

Regardless of what the calendar of the Church of England may say, Saint George’s flag is flying from the tower of Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church in Stony Stratford and the Saint George’s Day celebrations are going ahead in many parts of England today. At Saint George’s Court, in the Guildhall, Lichfield, at 12 noon, the Mayor and councillors instal two High Constables, seven Dozeners (or petty constables), two Pinners and two Ale Tasters, continuing a traditional custom in a light-hearted way in an event filled with good humour and fun each year.

Meanwhile, before this day begins, 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.

‘The Road to Emmaus’, an icon by Sister Marie Paul Farran OSB (1930-2019) of the Mount of Olives Monastery, Jerusalem (1990)

Luke 24: 13-35 (NRSVA):

13 Now on that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, 14 and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. 15 While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, 16 but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. 17 And he said to them, ‘What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?’ They stood still, looking sad. 18 Then one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answered him, ‘Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?’ 19 He asked them, ‘What things?’ They replied, ‘The things about Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, 20 and how our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him. 21 But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things took place. 22 Moreover, some women of our group astounded us. They were at the tomb early this morning, 23 and when they did not find his body there, they came back and told us that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive. 24 Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said; but they did not see him.’ 25 Then he said to them, ‘Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! 26 Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?’ 27 Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.

28 As they came near the village to which they were going, he walked ahead as if he were going on. 29 But they urged him strongly, saying, ‘Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over.’ So he went in to stay with them. 30 When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. 31 Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight. 32 They said to each other, ‘Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?’ 33 That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven and their companions gathered together. 34 They were saying, ‘The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!’ 35 Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.

The Supper at Emmaus … a mosaic in the Church of the Holy Name, Beechwood Avenue, Ranelagh, Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

This morning’s Gospel reading at the Eucharist (Luke 24: 13-35) is the much-loved Easter story of the Risen Christ travelling on the road to Emmaus with two disciples, who return to Jerusalem and proclaim ‘how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread’ (verse 35). This is a story that is a rich one and one that offers a model for Christian life and mission.

After seeing all their hopes shattered on Good Friday, two disciples – Cleopas and another unnamed disciple – head out of Jerusalem, and are walking and talking on the road as their make their way together.

Emmaus was about 11 km (seven miles) from Jerusalem, so it would have taken them two hours, perhaps, to get there, maybe more if they were my age.

Somewhere along the way, they are joined by a third person, ‘but their eyes were kept from recognising him’ (verse 16, NRSV), or to be more precise, as the Greek text says, ‘but their eyes were being held so that they did not recognise him.’

They cannot make sense of what has happened over the last few days, and they cannot make sense of the questions their new companion puts to them. When Jesus asks them a straight question, they look sad and downcast.

I get the feeling that Cleopas is a bit cynical, treating Jesus as one of the visitors to Jerusalem for the feast of the Passover, and asking him if he really does not know what has happened in the city. In his cynicism, Cleopas almost sounds like Simon the Pharisee asking his visitor Jesus whether he really knows who the woman with the alabaster jar is.

Like Simon, Cleopas and his friend – perhaps one of the many unnamed women in the Gospels – thought that Jesus was a Prophet. But now they doubt it. And the sort of Messiah they hoped for was not the sort of Messiah Jesus had been preparing them for, was he?

And they have heard the report of the women visiting the tomb, and finding it empty. Hearing is not believing. Seeing is not believing. And believing is not the same as faith.

When I find myself disagreeing fundamentally with people, I wonder do I listen to them even half as patiently as Jesus did with these two.

There are no interruptions, no corrections, no upbraiding. Jesus listens passively and patiently, like all good counsellors should, and only speaks when they have finished speaking.

And then, despite their cynicism, despite their failure to understand, despite their lack of faith, these two disciples do something extraordinary. They press the stranger in their company not to continue on his journey. It is late in the evening, and they invite him to join them.

On re-reading this story I found myself comparing their action and their hospitality with the Good Samaritan who comes across the bruised and battered stranger on the side of the road, and offers him healing hospitality, offering to pay for his meals and his accommodation in the inn.

These two have also come across a bruised and battered stranger on the road, and seeing the marks and wounds inflicted on his body they offer him healing hospitality, offering him a meal and accommodation in the inn.

Jesus had once imposed himself on Zacchaeus and presumes on his hospitality. Now Cleopas and his friend insist on imposing their hospitality on Jesus. The guest becomes the host and the host becomes the guest, once again.

He goes in to stay with them. And it is not just a matter of finding him a room for the night. They dine together. And so, in a manner that is typical of the way Saint Luke tells his stories, the story of the road to Emmaus ends with a meal with Jesus.

And at the meal – as he did with the multitude on the hillside, and with the disciples in the Upper Room – Jesus takes the bread, blesses it, breaks it, and gives it to those at the table with him (verse 30).

Their time in the wilderness is over, the Lenten preparation has been completed, the one who has received their hospitality now invites them to receive the hospitality of God, and to join him at the Heavenly Banquet.

Their journey continues. Our journey continues. Christ is not physically present with us on the road. But we recognise him in the breaking of the bread. And we, being many, become one body, for we all share in the one bread.

Χριστὸς ἀνέστη!
Christ is Risen!

He was made ‘known to them in the breaking of the bread’ (Luke 24: 35) … bread baked for the Easter Eucharist at Mount Athos (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Wednesday 23 April 2025, Wednesday in Easter Week):

‘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 on Sunday with reflections by the Revd Debbie Sawyer, Pastoral Chaplain in the Church in Wales and Airport Chaplain, Manchester.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Wednesday 23 April 2025, Wednesday in Holy Week, Saint George’s Day) invites us to pray:

On this saint’s day let us pray for the Church of England and churches in Ethiopia and Georgia.

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 Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

Saint George’s Manorial Court is being held today in the Guildhall in Lichfield (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

Climbing the walls of Iraklion at Easter to visit the simple grave of Nikos Kazantzakis

The grave of Nikos Kazantzakis on the Martinengo Bastion of the Venetian walls surrounding Iraklion (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

While I was in Iraklion last weekend, I climbed the old Venetian walls to see the panoramic view across the city and out to the Mediterranean and to visit the grave of the Greek writer and philosopher Nikos Kazantzakis (1883-1957).

It was a warm sunny day in Iraklion and I had spent part of my time visiting Saint Minas Cathedral and some of the older churches in the city. It was that quiet day between Good Friday and the celebrations on Easter night when little happens anywhere in Greece, when most of the cafés and restaurants are closed, and when tourists are at a loss about what to do.

When a friend I had arranged to meet for lunch found unexpectedly that she had to delay our arrangements for an hour or two, I decided to walk on through the colourful narrow streets of the older parts of Iraklion, and to visit the grave, which is found on the southernmost bastion, built by the Venetians in the 16th century.

I had last visited this grave almost 12 years ago (5 September 2013). It stands alone on top of the great walls and bastions that were part of the Venetian defences of the city they called Candia.

Two of the great city gates have survived to this day: the Pantocrator or Panigra Gate, also known now as the Chania Gate (1570), at the west edge; and the Jesus Gate or Kainouryia Gate (ca 1587), at the south edge. Between them, at the south-west corner of these great walls, is the grave of Nikos Kazantzakis on the Martinengo Bastion.

The roof tops of Iraklion and the dome and towers of Aghios Minas seen from the grave of Nikos Kazantzakis (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The grave, with its plain cross of two unadorned wooden beams and a simple, carved epitaph, is a tranquil oasis looking north across the roof tops of the city, pierced by the dome and the baroque towers of Aghios Minas. Beyond, the blue of the Mediterranean stretches out to meet the blue of the sky on the horizon.

To the south is Mount Iouktas: it looks like the head of a man in profile and so is said to have given rise to the Cretan legend that this was the head of the dead and buried god Zeus, a prequel to many thoughts in Crete on the death and resurrection of Christ at Easter.

This simple grave is so beloved of Greeks that it is a work of art in itself, visited by countless people who may never have read any books by Kazantzakis, or perhaps only know of him through films such as Zorba the Greek or The Last Temptation of Christ.

The grave is marked by a simple cross and a pithy epitaph carved in his own handwriting, with his own words:

Δεν ελπίζω τίποτα.
Δε φοβάμαι τίποτα.
Είμαι λέφτερος

(Den elpizo tipota. Den fovamai tipota. Eimai leftheros, ‘I hope for nothing, I fear nothing, I am free’).

The epitaph carved in the handwriting of Nikos Kazantzakis, with his own words (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Nikos Kazantzakis is a giant of modern Greek literature, and he was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature on nine separate occasions. He is best known, probably, for Zorba the Greek (1946, Βίος και Πολιτεία του Αλέξη Ζορμπά). But his other works include Christ Recrucified (1948, Ο Χριστός Ξανασταυρώνεται); Kapetan Michalis (1950, Καπετάν Μιχάλης), also published in English as Freedom or Death; The Last Temptation of Christ (1951, Ο Τελευταίος Πειρασμός); and Saint Francis or God’s Pauper: St Francis of Assisi (1956, Ο Φτωχούλης του Θεού). Report to Greco (1961, Αναφορά στον Γκρέκο), is both autobiographical and fictional.

Kazantzakis also published plays, travel books, poetry, memoirs, encyclopaedia entries and philosophical essays such as The Saviours of God: Spiritual Exercises, and translated Dante. His children’s books include Alexander the Great and At the Palaces of Knossos. His epic version of the Odyssey occupied Kazantzakis for his last 10 years.

After spending six months in a monastery, Kazantzakis published his Spiritual Exercises (Ασκητική) in 1927, which was translated into English and published posthumously in 1960 as The Saviours of God.

When The Last Temptation of Christ was published 1951, the Roman Catholic Church placed it on the Index of Prohibited Books. Kazantzakis’ reaction was to send a telegram to the Vatican quoting Tertullian: ‘Ad tuum, Domine, tribunal appello’ (I lodge my appeal at your tribunal, Lord, Στο δικαστήριό σου ασκώ έφεση, ω Kύριε).

When the Church of Greece condemned Kazantzakis in 1955 and anathematised him, his response was prompt and clear: ‘You gave me a curse, Holy fathers, I give you a blessing: may your conscience be as clear as mine and may you be as moral and religious as I.’ (‘Μου δώσατε μια κατάρα, Άγιοι πατέρες, σας δίνω κι εγώ μια ευχή: Σας εύχομαι να ‘ναι η συνείδηση σας τόσο καθαρή, όσο είναι η δική μου και να ‘στε τόσο ηθικοί και θρήσκοι όσο είμαι εγώ.’).

In his later years, Kazantzakis was banned from entering Greece for long periods. By one vote, he lost the Nobel Prize for Literature to Albert Camus a few days before he died in exile in Germany on 26 October 1957. When his body was brought back from Freiburg, the Greek Orthodox Church refused to allow any priests to provide rites or ceremonies in Athens.

The Martinengo Bastion on the Venetian walls surrounding Iraklion (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Western writers often claim Kazantzakis was denied an Orthodox burial because of his unorthodox views, or because of The Last Temptation. But Aristotle Onassis provided a plane to take his coffin to Iraklion, where Kazantzakis lay in state in the Cathedral of Aghios Minas.

Those who came to pay tribute included the Archbishop of Crete and the resistance leader and future prime minister, George Papandreou. A priest officiated at the burial, giving lie to the popular claim that Kazantzakis had died an excommunicate.

His widow Eleni later lived in Geneva, and from 1967 until 1974 she was unable to travel to Greece until the fall of the colonels’ junta. She died on 18 February 2004 in the Henry Dunant Hospital in Athens, holding the hand of her adopted son, Patroclos Stavrou. I was visiting Athens at the time, and had arranged to meet her, only to find she died on the night I arrived and the day before we were due to meet. She was buried with her husband on the walls looking across Aghios Minas and the city.

The funeral of Nikos Kazantzakis in Iraklion in 1957

My friend Manolis Chrysakis, the proprietor of Mika Villas in Piskopiano, and his family in Iraklion and Piskopiano are proud of their kinship with Nikos Kazantzakis: they are descended from the sister-in-law of ‘Kapetan Mihailis’, the eponymous hero of the Kazantzakis novel based on his father’s adventures published in English as Freedom and Death.

One balmy summer’s evening with the Chrysakis family in Piskopiano almost 30 years ago, Manolis’ uncle, the late Kostas Chrysakis, pored over old family photographs, postcards and letters, sharing childhood memories of his famous ‘Uncle Nikos.’

Kostas Chrysakis shared his family’s treasured photographs of his uncle’s funeral. They show men in traditional island costumes, like Dirk Bogarde in Ill Met by Moonlight, in a procession led by robed Orthodox priests through the narrow thronged streets up to the city walls.

Kostas claimed that when the Vatican and the Archbishop of Athens demanded the excommunication of Kazantzakis following the publication of The Last Temptation of Christ, the Patriarch of Constantinople insisted that the Church of Crete was independent from the Church of Greece and under his direct oversight. A year later, a priest led the traditional family prayers at the graveside.

Visiting Manolis Chrysakis of Iraklion in Mika Villas in Piskopiano (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

To mark the 60th anniversary of his death, the Greek Ministry of Culture declared 2017 as the ‘Year of Nikos Kazantzakis,’ with cultural events in Crete, throughout Greece and across the world.

In Ireland, the events included a public lecture by his adopted granddaughter, Dr Niki Stavrou, in University College Dublin. Niki Stavrou is the publisher of Kazantzakis’s works and the Director of Kazantzakis Publications since May 2014. Her godmother, Eleni Kazantzakis, gave her the name Niki to honour and commemorate her late husband, Nikos Kazantzakis.

In her research on the life of Nikos Kazantzakis and the real people behind the characters of Report to Greco, Niki Stavrou identified the first love of Nikos Kazantzakis as Kathleen Forde from Ireland.

Peter Bien of Dartmouth, who translated many of his novels, once wondered whether Kazantzakis would be read 50 years after his death. But after his death, his fame spread in the English-speaking world because of the film adaptations of Zorba the Greek (1964) and The Last Temptation of Christ (1988).

For many people in Crete, his outstanding works remain his semi-autobiographical but posthumous Report to Greco (1960) and his Freedom and Death (1946), set in Iraklion during the struggle against Ottoman oppression.

Freedom and Death first appeared in Greek as Kapetan Michailis, and the eponymous hero is the author’s own father. The characters are the people of 19th century Iraklion, the settings are its streets, churches, harbour, fountains, mosques, and houses, which I had strolled through in the sunshine last weekend.

His home town of Iraklion provides the setting for much of the work of Nikos Kazantzakis (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The simplicity of the cross on his grave reminds me of the simplicity of the Cross of Nails in Coventry Cathedral. The simplicity and the quiet spirituality expressed in the setting and the epitaph on the grave reflect his personality and style and his life and work.

Throughout his writings, he wrestles with his ideas about God and Humanity, and at different times he spent months in monasteries on Mount Athos and on Mount Sinai in prayer and contemplation.

At his grave, I recalled how he prefaced Report to Greco with a prayer:

Three kinds of souls, three kinds of prayers: 1, I am a bow in your hands, Lord, draw me lest I rot. 2, Do not overdraw me, Lord, I shall break. 3, Overdraw me, Lord, and who cares if I break!’

The figure of Christ is ever-present in his thoughts, from his youth to his final days. In his introduction to Report to Greco, Kazantzakis says ‘My entire soul is a cry, and all my work the commentary on that cry.’ In The Fratricides (1964), I came across this beautiful line: ‘I said to the almond tree: ‘Speak to me of God.’ and the almond tree blossomed.’

In The Last Temptation of Christ, he presents a tragic Christ wrestling all his life with the conflicting claims of his divine mission and duty and his human desire to live a normal life, to love and be loved, and to have a family. In this book, Christ summarises his purpose and mission: ‘I said only one word, brought only one message: ‘Love. Love – nothing else’.’

Writing about this book, Kazantzakis said: ‘I am certain that every free man who reads this book, so filled as it is with love, will more than ever before, love Christ.’

Some years ago, I wrote about Kazantzakis and his brief love affair with Kathleen Ford, the daughter of an Irish rector, which he recalls in his semi-autobiographical Report to Greco. He prefaces that book with a prayer: ‘Three kinds of souls, three kinds of prayers: 1, I am a bow in your hands, Lord, draw me lest I rot. 2, Do not overdraw me, Lord, I shall break. 3, Overdraw me, Lord, and who cares if I break!’

During my climb to his grave last weekend, in the space between Good Friday and Easter on my climb up the walls of Iraklion, I was reminded that Kazantzakis says in Report to Greco: ‘Every man worthy of being called a son of man bears his cross and mounts his Golgotha. Many, indeed most, reach the first or second step, collapse pantingly in the middle of the journey, and do not attain the summit of Golgotha, in other words the summit of their duty: to be crucified, resurrected, and to save their souls. Afraid of crucifixion, they grow fainthearted; they do not know that the cross is the only path to resurrection. There is no other path.’

Later in the book, he writes: ‘Whoever climbed the Lord’s mountain had to possess clean hands and an innocent heart; otherwise the Summit would kill him. Today the doorway is deserted. Soiled hands and sinful hearts are able to pass by without fear, for the Summit kills no longer.’

And he advises: ‘Tomorrow, go forth and stand before the Lord. A great and strong wind will blow over you and rend the mountains and break in pieces the rocks, but the Lord will not be in the wind. And after the wind and earthquake, but the Lord will not be in the earthquake. And after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord will not be in the fire. And after the fire a gentle, cooling breeze. That is where the Lord will be. This is how the spirit comes. After the gale, the earthquake, and fire: a gentle, cooling breeze. This is how it will come in our own day as well. We are passing through the period of earthquake, the fire is approaching, and eventually (when? after how many generations?) the gentle, cool breeze will blow.’

I said only one word, brought only one message: ‘Love. Love – nothing else’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Saint Mary Major, where Pope Francis is being buried, is one of the Papal basilicas in Rome

The Basilica of Saint Mary Major … Pope Francis is to be buried there on Saturday (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Pope Francis is to be buried in the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore or the Basilica of Saint Mary Major in Rome after his funeral in Saint Peter’s Basilica on Saturday. Pope Francis had long made the arrangements for his funeral and, despite some media comments, Saint Mary Major is not so unusual a choice for his funeral.

The high altar, by tradition, is reserved for Mass celebrated by the Pope, who is the archpriest of the basilica, and it is the burial place of a number of previous popes, Pope Sixtus V and Pope Pius V. The crypt is the burial place of Saint Jerome, who translated the Bible into Latin. It is also an appropriate place for the burial of the first Jesuit Pope: after his ordination as a priest, Saint Ignatius of Loyola celebrated his first Mass there on 25 December 1538.

Saint Mary Major is also the largest church in Rome dedicated to the Virgin Mary. Of all the great churches in Rome, it has the most successful blend of different architectural styles, and has magnificent mosaics.

Saint Mary Major contains a successful blend of different architectural styles (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore or Basilica of Saint Mary Major is a Papal basilica, along with Saint John Lateran, Saint Peter’s, and Saint Paul outside the Walls.

Under the Lateran Treaty signed in 1929 by the Holy See and Italy, Saint Mary Major stands on Italian sovereign territory and not the territory of the Vatican City State. However, the Vatican fully owns the basilica, and in Italian law it enjoys full diplomatic immunity.

This ancient basilica enshrines the image of Salus Populi Romani, depicting the Virgin Mary as the protector of the Roman people.

The Basilica is sometimes known as Our Lady of the Snows, with a feast day on 5 August. The church has also been called Saint Mary of the Crib because of a relic of the crib or Bethlehem brought to the church in the time of Pope Theodore I (640-649).

A popular story says that during the reign of Pope Liberius, a Roman patrician named John and his wife, who had no heirs and decided to donate their possessions to the Virgin Mary. They prayed about how to hand over their property, and on the night of 5 August, at the height of summer, snow fell on the summit of the Esquiline Hill. That night, this childless couple resolved to build a basilica in honour of the Virgin Mary on the place that was covered in snow.

However, this story only dates from the 14th century and has no historical basis. Even in the early 13th century, a tradition had common currency that Pope Liberius had built the basilica in his own name, and for long it was known as the Liberian Basilica. The feast of the dedication was inserted for the first time into the General Roman Calendar as late as 1568.

But the legend of the snowfall and the bequest it inspired is still commemorated each year on 5 August when white rose petals are dropped from the dome during Mass and the Second Vespers of the feast.

The canopied high altar in Saint Mary Major is reserved for Mass said by the Pope (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Despite appearances, the earliest building on the site was the Liberian Basilica or Santa Maria Liberiana, named after Pope Liberius (352-366). It is said Pope Liberius transformed a palace of the Sicinini family into a church, which was known as the Sicinini Basilica.

A century later, Pope Sixtus III (432-440) replaced this first church with a new church dedicated to the Virgin Mary. Santa Maria Maggiore, one of the first churches built in honour of the Virgin Mary, was built in the immediate aftermath of the Council of Ephesus in 431, which proclaimed the Virgin Mary the Mother of God.

The present church retains the core of this structure, despite several later building projects and damage caused by an earthquake in 1348, and Saint Mary Major was restored, redecorated and extended by successive popes, including Eugene III (1145-1153), Nicholas IV (1288-1292), Clement X (1670-1676), and Benedict XIV (1740-1758).

When the Popes returned to Rome after the papal exile in Avignon, the Lateran Palace was in such a sad state of disrepair, and Saint Mary Major and its buildings provided a temporary Palace for the Popes. Later they moved to the Palace of the Vatican on the other side of the River Tiber.

Between 1575 and 1630, the interior of Santa Maria Maggiore underwent a broad renovation encompassing all its altars. In the 1740s, Pope Benedict XIV commissioned Ferdinando Fuga to build the present façade and to modify the interior. The 12th-century façade was masked during this rebuilding project, with a screening loggia added in 1743. However, Fuga did not damage the mosaics of the façade.

Although Saint Mary Major is immense in area, it was built to plan. The design of the basilica was typical for Rome at that time. It has a tall and wide nave, an aisle on either side. and a semi-circular apse at the end of the nave, with beautiful mosaics on the triumphal arch and nave.

The Athenian marble columns supporting the nave may have come from the first basilica, or from another antique Roman building. They include 36 marble and four granite columns that were pared down or shortened to make them identical by Ferdinando Fuga, who provided them with identical gilt-bronze capitals.

The 16th century coffered ceiling, designed by Giuliano da Sangallo, is said to be gilded with the first gold brought back from the Americas by Christopher Columbus and presented by Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain to Pope Alexander VI.

The canopied high altar is reserved for Mass said by the Pope, the basilica’s archpriest and a small number of priests. Customarily, the Pope celebrates Mass there each year on the feast of the Assumption (15 August). Pope Francis visited Saint Mary Major a day after his election.

The Coronation of Mary depicted in the apse mosaic (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The unique treasure in Saint Mary Major must be the fifth century mosaics, commissioned by Pope Sixtus III. The mosaics include some of the oldest depictions of the Virgin Mary in Christian art, celebrating the declaration of her as the Theotokos or Mother of God at the Council of Ephesus in 431. The nave mosaics recount four cycles of sacred history featuring Abraham, Jacob, Moses and Joshua; seen together, they tell of God’s promise to the Jewish people and his assistance as they strive to reach it.

The story, which is not told in chronological order, starts on the left-hand wall near the triumphal arch with the Sacrifice of Melchisedek. The next scenes illustrate earlier episodes from the life of Abraham. The stories continue with Jacob, with whom God renews the promise made to Abraham, Moses, who liberates the people from slavery, and Joshua, who leads them into the Promised Land.

The journey concludes with the two final panels. These frescoes date from the restoration commissioned by Cardinal Pinelli and show David leading the Ark of the Covenant into Jerusalem and the Temple of Jerusalem built by Solomon.

Christ’s childhood, as told in apocryphal Gospels, is illustrated in four images in the triumphal arch. The first, in the upper left, shows the Annunciation, with the Virgin Mary robed like a Roman princess. The story continues with the Annunciation to Joseph, the Adoration of the Magi and the Massacre of the Innocents. The upper right illustrates the Presentation in the Temple, the Flight into Egypt and the meeting between the Holy Family and the Governor of Sotine. The last scene represents the Magi before Herod.

At the bottom of the arch, Bethlehem is depicted on the left and Jerusalem on the right. Between these scenes, the empty throne waiting for the Second Coming is flanked by Saint Peter and Saint Paul. Together they will form the church of which Peter is the leader, and Sixtus III is his successor.

In the 13th century, Pope Nicholas IV, the first Franciscan pope, decided to destroy the old apse and build the present one, placing it several meters back in order to create a transept for the choir between the arch and the apse. The decoration of the apse is the work of the Franciscan friar Jacopo Torriti, and the work was paid for by Cardinals Giacomo and Pietro Colonna.

Torriti’s mosaic, dating from 1295, is divided into two parts. The central medallion in the apse shows the Coronation of the Virgin Mary, while the lower band illustrates the most important moments of her life. In the centre of the medallion, enclosed by concentric circles, Christ and Mary are seated on a large oriental throne. Christ is enthroned like a young emperor and he is placing a jewelled crown on her head; she is dressed in a colourful veil, like a Roman empress. The sun, the moon and a choir of angels are arranged around their feet, while Saint Peter, Saint Paul, and Saint Francis of Assisi along with Pope Nicholas IV flank them on the left. On the right, Torriti portrays Saint John the Baptist, Saint John the Evangelist, Saint Anthony and the donor, Cardinal Colonna.

In the lower apse, mosaic scenes to the left and the right show the life of the Virgin Mary, while the central panel represents the Dormition, telling the story in a way that is typical of Byzantine iconography rather than western narratives. She is lying on a bed, as angels prepare to lift her soul to Heaven, the apostles watch astonished and Christ takes her soul into his arms. Torriti embellishes the scene with two small Franciscan figures and a lay person wearing a 13th century cap.

The Crypt of the Nativity is said to contain wooden relics from the Crib in Bethlehem (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Under the High Altar, the Crypt of the Nativity or Bethlehem Crypt has a crystal reliquary designed by Giuseppe Valadier and said to contain wooden relics from the Crib of the Christ Child in Bethlehem.

The statue in the crypt of Pope Pius IX in prayer is by Ignazio Jacometti, ca 1880, and is over the tomb of Saint Jerome (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The crypt is also the burial place of Saint Jerome, who translated the Bible into Latin or Vulgate version and died in 420. Above his burial place is a kneeling statue of Pope Pius IX, who proclaimed the dogma of the Immaculate Conception on 8 December 1854 and who ordered the reconstruction of the crypt.

In the right transept, the Sistine Chapel or chapel of the Blessed Sacrament, is named after Pope Sixtus V. This chapel, which was designed by Domenico Fontana, includes the tombs of Pope Sixtus V and Pope Pius V. After his ordination as a priest, Saint Ignatius of Loyola celebrated his first Mass in this chapel on 25 December 1538.

Just outside the Sistine Chapel is the tomb of Gian Lorenzo Bernini and his family.

The Assumption of Mary was painted inside the cupola of the Borghese Chapel by Galileo’s friend Ludovico Cardi (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The celebrated icon of the Virgin Mary in the Borghese Chapel is known as Salus Populi Romani, or Health of the Roman People. The icon is said to have saved the people of Rome from the plague. Tradition attributes the icon to Saint Luke the Evangelist, and this richly decorated chapel was designed for Pope Paul V Borghese.

The Assumption of Mary was painted inside the cupola of the chapel by Ludovico Cardi nicknamed Il Cigoli. Above the clouds, the Virgin Mary is seen being transported towards Heaven. The moon beneath her feet is painted as it was seen through the telescope of Galileo, who was a friend of Cigoli.

The floor of the church is paved in opus sectile mosaic, featuring the Borghese heraldic arms of an eagle and a dragon.

The 1995 rose window symbolises the link between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

In 1995, a new, rose window in stained glass was created for the main façade by Giovanni Hajnal. It reaffirms the declaration of the Second Vatican Council that Mary, the exalted daughter of Zion, is the link that unites the Church as the New Covenant to the Old Testament and the Covenant with the Children of Israel. To symbolise the Old Testament, Hajnal used the two tablets of the Ten Commandments and the seven-branched Menorah or candlestick, and for the New Testament he used the Cross, the Host and the Chalice of the Eucharist.

The 14th century campanile or bell tower is the highest in Rome at 75 metres. It was erected by Pope Gregory XI after his return from Avignon.

Outside, the column in Piazza Santa Maria Maggiore came from the Basilica of Constantine in the Forum and was designed by Carlo Maderno. It was erected in 1615 and has since become the model for numerous Marian columns throughout the Catholic world.

The church is served by Redemptorist and Dominican priests. In the portico, there is a fine statue by Bernini and Lucenti of King Philip IV of Spain, one of the benefactors of the church. The King of Spain is ex officio a lay canon of the basilica. In a similar manner, the President of France is ex officio an honorary canon of Saint John Lateran.

The development of the city has taken away the impact of Santa Maria Major’s commanding position on the summit of the Esquiline Hill, but the church is still considered by many to be the most beautiful church in Rome after Saint Peter’s.

Inside the Baptistery in Saint Mary Major (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)