15 million Greeks worldwide, 15 million sq m in Knossos, 15 million fake facts from Trump and 15 million blog readers

The Greek island of Pserimos in the Dodecanese, which I last visited 25 years ago, covers 15 million sq m, and has a permanent resident population of 80

Patrick Comerford

This blog reached yet another new peak early yesterday (25 July 2025), totalling up 15 million hits since I first began blogging about 15 years ago, back in 2010.

This is yet another humbling statistic and a sobering figure, and once more I am left with a feeling of gratitude to all who read and support this blog and my writing.

After I began blogging, it took almost two years until July 2012 to reach half a million readers. It was over a year before this figure rose to 1 million by September 2013. It climbed steadily to 2 million, June 2015; 3 million, October 2016; 4 million, November 2019; 5 million, March 2021; 6 million, July 2022; 7 million, 13 August 2023; 8 million, April 2024; and 9 million, October 2024.

But the rise in the number of readers has been phenomenal this year, reaching 9.5 million on 4 January 2025, 10 million over a week later (12 January 2025), 10.5 million two days after that (14 January 2025), 11 million a month later (12 February 2025), 11.5 million a month after that (10 March 2025), and 12 million early in May (3 May 2025).

The figures claimed steadily throughout last month and this month from 12.5 million early in June (6 June 2025), 13 million less than two weeks later (17 June 2025), 13.5 million a week after that (24 June 2025), 14 million a week later (1 July 2025), 14.5 million ten days later (11 June), and 15 million two weeks after that.

For the third time, this blog has had more than a million hits in one single month, reaching that figure on Wednesday morning (23 July). Last month (June 2025) was the second month that this blog had more than 1 million hits in one month, with 1,618,488 hits by the end of the month. These figures follow January’s record of 1 million hits by the early hours of 14 January, and a total of 1,420,383 by the end of that month (31 January 2025). July is not yet over, but the figures for this month were 1,096,946 hits by late this afternoon (26 July 2025).

In recent months, the daily figures have been overwhelming on occasions. Seven of the 12 days of busiest traffic on this blog were in June alone, four were in January 2025, and one was in this month (1 July 2025):

• 289,076 (11 January 2025)
• 285,366 (12 January 2025)
• 261,422 (13 January 2025)
• 100,291 (10 January 2025)
• 82,043 (23 June 2025)
• 81,037 (21 June 2025)

• 80,625 (22 June 2025)
• 79,981 (19 June 2025)
• 79,165 (20 June 2025)
• 69,722 (18 June 2025)
• 69,714 (30 June 2025)
• 69,657 (1 July 2025)

This blog has already had more than 5.5million hits this year, more than one-third (almost 37 per cent) of all hits ever.

The total worldwide Greek population is about 15 million people, including 10 million in Greece and a diaspora of five million … evening in the side streets of Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

I’m still acutely aware that some of these days were in the week before and after Trump’s inauguration, the others were in the days around his damp-squib military parade in Washington DC on 14 June and his hair-brained decision to attack Iran. Indeed, the overwhelming number of hits are not from Ireland, the UK and Greece, as I might expect, but from the US.

My criticisms of Trump, Rubio, Vance, Hegseth and Musk are not going to make it easy for me to get a visa to visit the US over the next four years, should I ever want to visit the place under the present dystopian regime. I’d prefer to boost my ego and convince myself that my popularity is growing and that I have become a ‘must-read’ writer for so many people every day. But, sadly, I don’t think that’s so.

On the other hand – and in this lies my greatest fear – if a minor critic of the Trump regime outside the US such as me is feeling watched and intimidated at this level, try to imagine how many critics of the Trump regime and ICE inside the US feel they really are being trolled, monitored, intimidated and bullied into silence.

Putting all this aside, with this latest landmark figure of 15 million hits this week, I once again find myself asking questions such as:

• What do 15 million people look like?
• Where do we find 15 million people?
• What does £15 million, €15 million or $15 million mean?
• What would it buy?

The Minoan Palace and archaeological site at Knossos outside Iraklion in Crete covers a land area of about 15 million sq m or 15 sq km (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The world’s Jewish population is estimated to be around 15 million. The Jewish Agency for Israel reports that the core Jewish population, which includes those who identify as Jewish, is approximately 15.2 million.

The Greek diaspora population is estimated at 5 million, which, when added to the population of Greece (approximately 10 million), gives a total worldwide Greek population of approximately 15 million.

Cities with populations of about 15 million people include Buenos Aires in Argentina and Chongqing in China.

Barcelona is experiencing an unprecedented wave of tourist arrivals, with more than 15 million tourists in 2024.

More than 15 million people – 30% of the UK population – live with one or more long-term conditions, and more than 4 million of these people also have mental health problems.

About 15 million people died during the first two years of the Covid-19 pandemic, according to figures from the World Health Organisation (WHO).

Estimates suggest 15 to 55 million people died in the Great Chinese Famine in China between 1959 and 1961.

In last year’s election campaign, Trump made a host of unrelated claims, including one that the number of migrants who had crossed the border during Joe Biden's presidency had reached almost 15 million people. But fact-checking by Newsweek produced no evidence to support this figure, or anything near it – so that’s 15 million lies.

A recent study has found that over 15 million people in the world born between 2008 and 2017 might develop gastric cancer at some point in life. The study for the WHO was published in the journal Nature Medicine and says that two-thirds of these cases could be concentrated in Asia, followed by Americas and Africa.

More than 15 million people in the UK are now at risk of retirement poverty, according to a recent retirement report.

There has been a rise in the number of people living in temporary accommodation in Milton Keynes, with more than 900 households are now staying in temporary premises in the city, leaving Milton Keynes City Council with a £15 million bill.

Professor Lucie Green’s book 15 Million Degrees: A Journey to the Centre of the Sun (2016) tells the story of the star of our solar system, 110 times wider than Earth and 15 million degrees at its core.

The filmmaker Peter Jackson, director of The Lord of the Rings, is spending $15 million to support a project to genetically engineer living birds to resemble an extinct creature called the moa. Jackson owns one of the largest private collections of bones of the moa, a flightless, ostrich-like extinct bird from New Zealand.

The Greek island of Pserimos in the Dodecanese measures almost 15 million sq m or 15 sq km. It lies between Kalymnos and Kos near the coast of Turkey, and I visited Pserimos, Kalymnos, Leros and Plati in 1996, during the Imia crisis, and again in 2000 when I was staying on Kos. Pserimos has a resident population of about 80 people with a daily ferry from Pothia on Kalymnos, and the island is also visited by cruise boats throughout the tourist season.

The Minoan Palace and archaeological site at Knossos outside Iraklion in Crete covers a land area of about 15 million sq m (15 sq km).

One of the most warming figures personally in the midst of all these statistics is the one that shows my morning prayer diary reaches an average of 80-85 people each day in the past month. It is over three years now since I retired from active parish ministry. But I think many of my priest-colleagues would be prayerfully thankful if the congregations in their churches averaged or totalled 560 to 580 people a week.

Today, I am very grateful to all 15 million readers of this blog to date, and for the small and faithful core group among you who join me in prayer, reading and reflection each morning.

The world’s Jewish population is estimated to be around 15 million … the Sephardic Museum in Seville (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2025: 78, Saturday 26 July 2025

‘The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field’ (Matthew 13: 24) … fields at Frating Hall Farm, near Colchester, Essex, at the end of the day (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church and tomorrow is the Sixth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity VI, 27 July 2025). Today, the Church Calendar remembers Anne and Joachim, Parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary (26 July).

Before today 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 reflection on the Gospel reading;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.

‘Gather the wheat into my barn’ (Matthew 13: 30) … a barn near Comberford Hall, between Lichfield and Tamworth in rural Staffordshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Matthew 13: 24-30 (NRSVA):

24 He [Jesus] put before them another parable: ‘The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field; 25 but while everybody was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and then went away. 26 So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared as well. 27 And the slaves of the householder came and said to him, “Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where, then, did these weeds come from?” 28 He answered, “An enemy has done this.” The slaves said to him, “Then do you want us to go and gather them?” 29 But he replied, “No; for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. 30 Let both of them grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn”.’

‘Gather the wheat into my barn’ (Matthew 13: 30) … an old barn at Comberford Manor Farm, between Lichfield and Tamworth in rural Staffordshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

This morning’s reflection:

Like many of my neighbours, I have been excited by the performance of the Lionesses, the English team in the UEFA European Women’s Championship. The last two matches have been nail-biting to the very last minute, the very last kick, and I am looking forward to tomorrow’s final between England and Spain.

England’s 2025 squad has four players with Black ancestry that equates to 17%. Compared to the 64% in the recent England men’s squad, the diversity in the Lionesses appears to be low. But there may be greater diversity when we take into account the family names of many of the players: Chloe Kelly, for example, has Irish parents.

Michelle Agyemang, the star player in the semi-final, grew up in South Ockendon in Essex, and her parents of Ghanaian descent. So much vile racism and misogyny has directed at Jess Carter is unacceptable that many MPs have signed a cross-party letter calling on social media companies to step up and take responsibility.

In the Church, we have become very vocal in condemning racism and in promoting ethnic and culutural diversity, I hope. But, when it comes to other areas of life where we need to promote tolerance, diversity and peace, how good are we at valuing and respecting difference? Are there othere areas of life wehere we concentrate too much on our divisions, seeking perfection within the church at the expense of respect, tolerance, diversity, understanding and love?

These are questions I am challenged to ask as I read this morning’s Gospel passage.

In the Gospel reading at the Eucharist today (Matthew 13: 24-30), Christ speaks by the lake first to the crowd, telling them the parable of the wheat and the weeds (verse 24-30). The word that we have traditionally translated as tares or weeds (verses 25, 26, 27, 29, 30, 36, 38, 40) is the Greek word ζιζάνια (zizania), a type of wild rice grass, although Saint Matthew is probably referring to a type of darnel or noxious weed. It looks like wheat until the plants mature and the ears open, and the seeds are a strong soporific poison.

In the verses that follow, Christ then withdraws into a house, and has a private conversation with the Disciples (verses 36-43), in which he explains he is the sower (verse 37), the good seed is not the Word, but the Children of the Kingdom (verse 38), the weeds are the ‘Children of the Evil One’ (verse 38), and the field is the world (verse 38).

The harvest is not gathered by the disciples or the children of the kingdom, but by angels sent by the Son of Man (verses 39, 41).

It is an apocalyptic image, describing poetically and dramatically a future cataclysm, and not an image to describe what should be happening today.

It is imagery that draws on the apocalyptic images in the Book of Daniel, where the three young men who are faithful to God are tried in the fires of the furnace, yet come out alive, stronger and firmer in their faith (see Daniel 3: 1-10).

The slaves or δοῦλοι (douloi), the people who want to separate the darnel from the wheat (verse 27-28), are the disciples: Saint Paul introduces himself in his letters with phrases like Παῦλος δοῦλος Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ (Paul, a doulos or slave, or servant of Jesus Christ), (see Romans 1: 1, Philippians 1: 1, Titus 1: 1), and the same word is used by James (see James 1: 1), Peter (see II Peter 1: 1) and Jude (see Jude 1), to introduce themselves in their letters.

In the Book of Revelation, this word is used to describe the Disciples and the Church (see Revelation 1: 1; 22: 3). In other words, the Apostolic writers see themselves as slaves in the field, working at Christ’s command in the world.

This is one of eight parables about the last judgment found only in Saint Matthew’s Gospel, and six of the seven New Testament uses of the phrase ‘weeping and gnashing of teeth’ (ὁ κλαυθμὸς καὶ ὁ βρυγμὸς τῶν ὀδόντων) occur in this Gospel (Matthew 8: 12; 13: 42; 13: 50; 22: 13; 24: 51; and 25: 30; see also Luke 13: 28).

When it comes to explaining the parable to the disciples in the second part of our verses that follow this reading (verses 36-43), the references to the slaves in the first part (verses 27-28) are no longer there. It is not that the slaves have disappeared – Christ is speaking directly to those who would want to uproot the tares but who would find themselves uprooting the wheat too.

The weeding of the field is God’s job, not ours. The reapers, not the slaves, will gather in both the weeds and the wheat, the weeds first and then the wheat (verse 30).

As I travelled through the Staffordshire countryside yesterday, around Tamworth and Lichfield, I could see how farmers are already baling the hay and taking in the harvest in many places. In the coming weeks, many farmers will be seen burning off the stubble on their fields to prepare the soil for autumn sowing and the planting of new crops. In this sense, the farmer understands burning as purification and preparation – it is not as harsh as city dwellers think.

It is not for us to decide who is in and who is out in Christ’s field, in the kingdom of God. That is Christ’s task alone.

Christ gently cautions the Disciples against rash decisions about who is in and who is out. Gently, he lets them see that the tares are not damaging the growth of the wheat, they just grow alongside it and amidst it.

But so often we decide to assume God’s role. We do it constantly in society, and we do it constantly in the Church, deciding who should be in and who should be out.

The harvest comes at the end of time, not now, and I should not hasten it even if the reapers seem to tarry.

The weeds we identify and want to uproot may turn out to be wheat; what we presume to be wheat because it looks like us may turn out to be weeds.

We assume the role of the reapers every time we decide we would be better off without someone in our society or in the Church because we disagree with them about issues like sexuality, women bishops and priests, and other issues that we mistake for core values.

The core values, as Christ himself explains, again and again, are loving God and loving others.

It is not without good reason that the Patristic writers warn that schism is worse than heresy (see Saint John Chrysostom, Patrologia Græca, vol. lxii, col. 87, On Ephesians, Homily 11, §5). We do not need to demythologise this reading. Christ leaves that to the future. This morning we are called to grow and not to worry about the tares. That growth must always emphasise love first.

When some members of the Church have sought to ‘out’ or ‘throw out’ people because of their sexuality, they have caused immense personal tragedy for individuals and their families and friends – weeping and gnashing of teeth indeed.

How painful it is that in the wars waged in the name of democracy and freedom we have eventually violated the basic concepts of human rights and dignity. In recent decades, across the word, we have seen murdered innocent children murdered while playing on a beach, innocent women and children murdered in their homes, in hospitals, in schools and at weddings. There have been disturbing rises in antisemitism and Islamophobia across the western world in these recent years.

When I want a Church or a society that looks like me, I eventually end up living on a desert island or as a member of a sect of one – and there I might just find out too how unhappy I am with myself!

But if I allow myself to grow in faith and trust and love with others, I may, I just may, to my surprise, find that they too are wheat rather than weeds, and they may discover the same about me.

An empty barn on my grandmother’s former farm near Cappoquin, Co Waterford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Saturday 26 July 2025):

The theme this week (20 to 26 July) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), has been ‘Diversity in Sarawak’ (pp 20-21). I introduced this theme last Sunday with reflections from Sarawak and the Diocese of Kuching.

The USPG prayer diary today (Saturday 26 July 2025) invites us to pray:

We pray that ecumenical relations and inter-faith dialogue in Kuching and throughout Sarawak and Malaysia may be enriched by the role of the Diocese of Kuching and may continue to bring new insights and fresh hope.

The Collect:

Lord God of Israel,
who bestowed such grace on Anne and Joachim
that their daughter Mary grew up obedient to your word
and made ready to be the mother of your Son:
help us to commit ourselves in all things to your keeping
and grant us the salvation you promised to your people;
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.

Post Communion Prayer:

Father,
from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name,
your servants Anne and Joachim revealed your goodness
in a life of tranquillity and service:
grant that we who have gathered in faith around this table
may like them know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge
and be filled with all your fullness;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Collect on the Eve of Trinity VI:

Merciful God,
you have prepared for those who love you
such good things as pass our understanding:
pour into our hearts such love toward you
that we, loving you in all things and above all things,
may obtain your promises,
which exceed all that we can desire;
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

‘We pray that … inter-faith dialogue in Kuching and throughout Sarawak and Malaysia may be enriched by the role of the Diocese of Kuching’ (USPG Prayer Diary) … the ‘Floating Mosque’ in Kuching (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