A moral tale of the threats to civilisation as we know it on a journey with another Ulysses

Patrick Comerford

And if the soul is about to know itself, it must gaze into the soul
– Plato, Alcybiades, 133B

Today is Bloomsday (16 June 2026), and I marked Bloomsday wandering through the streets of Oxford, through Christ Church Meadow, and by the river and the boathouses, vainly searching for any connections James Joyce may have had with the ‘City of Dreaming Spires’.

I have been disturbed since Sunday of the spectacle of a ‘cage fight’ on the lawn of the White House to celebrate the birthday of a maniacal and egocentric president and how it so thoroughly represents the collapse of culture in the US and the way the steady decline of western civilisation – at the very least in America.

In their own way, James Joyce’s Ulysses and Homer’s Odyssey represent, to a degree, the best of literature at different stages or epochs in western culture and civilisation. But is it too harsh to fear that the banality and tastelessness of the Trump administration a warning of the eventual collapse of western civilisation, culture?

My fears are added to by the violence on our city streets away, where the people who are loudest in vocalising their opposition to cultural, ethnic and religious diversity in these islands are the ones least likely to have any appreciation of the foundations of what might be called European and Western civilisation. It seem they are, in fact, the Barbarians, and that the Barbarians are inside the gates, destroying the city.

In some new way, I find myself understanding the words of the taxi driver in the film Ulysses’ Gaze, where he talks of Greek civilisation as a 3,000-year fall from glory and says: ‘Greece is dying. We are dying as a people.’ Perhaps, instead, I might say fretfully after that vulgar display on the White House lawn, ‘Western civilisation is dying. We are dying as a people.’



In the midst of my bleak fretting about the prospects and uncertain political future of our western civilisation, built on the bedrock of classical – especially Greek – culture, it seemed appropriate to sit back recently for three hours once again and watch Ulysses’ Gaze (Το βλέμμα του Οδυσσέα, To Vlémma tou Odysséa) the 1995 epic Greek film by Theo Angelopoulos.

Ulysses’ Gaze is both a beautiful and a bleak film, with powerful images and haunting memories. This 176-minute epic is challenging and demanding, with no clear border between imagination and reality. It makes a devastating statement about the tragic conflicts in the former Yugoslavia and the Balkans in the 1990s, and challenges the boundaries between ethnic identities that set up false borders and fail to recognise a shared humanity and a shared cultural heritage.



Angelopoulos, who died earlier this year, believed in shooting in the actual locations of his stories and felt he had no other option to take the risks involved, However, the UN refused Angelopoulos permission to film in Sarajevo, and so the scenes set there – including one supposedly in ‘Sniper Alley’ – were filmed in Mostar, Vukovar and the Krijena region. But all the other scenes were filmed on location in Albania, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (Fyrom or Skopje), Bulgaria, Romania and Serbia.

A key to engaging with this movie and journeying with the main character on his Odyssey may be found in words by the Greek poet CP Cavafy, who opens his poem ‘Ithaka’ (1911) with the words:

Σα βγεις στον πηγαιμό για την Ιθάκη,
να εύχεσαι νάναι μακρύς ο δρόμος,
γεμάτος περιπέτειες, γεμάτος γνώσεις.
Τους Λαιστρυγόνας και τους Κύκλωπας,
τον θυμωμένο Ποσειδώνα μη φοβάσαι,
τέτοια στον δρόμο σου ποτέ σου δεν θα βρεις,
αν μέν’ η σκέψις σου υψηλή, αν εκλεκτή
συγκίνησις το πνεύμα και το σώμα σου αγγίζει.

As you set out for Ithaka
hope the voyage is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
angry Poseidon – don’t be afraid of them:
you’ll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body..

Return from Troy



‘A’ is an unnamed exiled Greek filmmaker who has been living in exile in the US since his time as a conscript in the Greek army in his late teens or early 20s. He returns home to Florina, like Odysseus returning from the Trojan wars, after a 35-year absence, for a special screening of one of his controversial films. But the true purpose of his journey home is to set out on an epic journey across the war-battered Balkans searching for three lost reels of film by the Manachia or Manákias Brothers.

Yiannákis Manákias (Γιαννάκης Μανάκιας, 1878-1954) and his brother Miltiádes Manákias (Μιλτιάδης Μανάκιας, 1882-1964) were pioneering filmmakers in the Balkans at the beginning of the last century, and the search for the mythical reels first filmed by the Manákias brothers around 1905 serves as the backdrop for a search for the shared history of the Balkans.

‘Why A?’ Theo Angelopoulos asked himself. ‘It’s an alphabetical choice. Every filmmaker remembers the first time he looked through the viewfinder of a camera. It is a moment that is not so much the discovery of cinema – but the discovery of the world. But there comes a moment when the filmmaker begins to doubt his own capacity to see things, when he no longer knows if his gaze is right and innocent.’

In the early years of cinema, the Manákias brothers criss-crossed the Balkans tirelessly as they recorded the history and customs of the region, and they disregarded national and ethnic strife. But their primitive images were never developed, and ‘A’ must ask whether those three reels ever really existed. And if they still exist, where are they?

In a some way, these films are the first ‘gaze’ into the soul of the Balkans. As the title of the movie suggests, the story is an odyssey, but it begins in Greece and moves through Albania, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (North Macedonia), Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia and Bosnia.

Before the titles, the film opens with an old black and white silent film that shows the brothers’ 114-year-old grandmother spinning wool in their home village. In a voice-over, Harvey Keitel, who plays ‘A’, comments: ‘Weavers in Avdella, a Greek village, 1905, the first film made by the brothers Miltiades and Yiannákis Manákias, [who filmed] all the ambiguities, the contrasts, the conflicts in this area of the world.’



We then move to 1954 and Thessaloniki, where an old man stands at the west end of the seafront near the White Tower, preparing to film a sailing ship coming out of the harbour to the east.

The old man is Yiannákis Manákias, and the scene is recounted to ‘A’ by an old man who had once worked with Manákias as his assistant.

As the assistant recounts Manákias and his work, the films takes on colour and Manákias collapses from a heart attack and dies. His assistant continues to recall the past as ‘A’ arrives at the very place where Manákias had been filing with. In one long scene, Angelopoulos has covered 60 years of Greek filmmaking, and sets the tone for the whole journey that is about to unfold.

Finding Penelope at home



After the titles, ‘A’ has arrived in a rainy Florina in northern Greece, where one of his controversial films is being shown in the market place. All the cinemas have refused a screening , and religious fanatics are planning to protest in the streets. ‘A’ is advised to leave and as he is about to catch a taxi, a woman in her 30s (Maia Morgenstern) passes by.

The Romanian actress Maia Morgenstern plays the roles of four different women in this film, and ‘A’s’ four lovers also represent the four key women in the story of Odysseus. In this scene, she becomes ‘A’s’ old lover abandoned by him years ago, a Penelope figure. A stunned ‘A’ follows her, muttering to himself: ‘I did not expect to see you here.’



But she disappears into the crowds of demonstrators and counter-demonstrators. Like Penelope’s battling suitors, the two groups are marching towards each other, separated only by a thin line of police. But we do not see the clash that follows. Instead, the film cuts to a dreary, snow-covered winter day when ‘A’ has arrived in the taxi at an Albanian border crossing.

As the taxi driver (Thanassis Vengos) looks after formalities with the police, ‘A’ notices a frail elderly woman (Dora Volanaki) standing alone with a suitcase. She asks ‘A’ for a lift to a town across the border, where she plans to visit the sister she has not seen for 47 years.

‘A’ helps her into the taxi as a group of illegal Albanian migrants, who have been rounded up by the Greek police, arrive on a bus to be forced back across the border. As ‘A’ and the woman cross the border from Greece into Albania, hundreds of desolate Albanians are lining the roadside in the snow, waiting in desolate hope for a chance to slip across into Greece. The taxi reaches Korytsa, and in an empty square ‘A’ helps the elderly woman out.

She has returned from one exile to face a second exile in this vast open space, surrounded by concrete. Her silence gives way to an unseen muzzein’s call to prayer from a minaret, symbolising the return to the old religion in post-communist in Albania.



As the taxi leaves, the bleak image of an empty town creates a compelling sense of loss But non-Greek viewers are unlikely to make a connection with either the history of the Greek minority in Northern Epirus or with the capture of Korytsa by the Greek army in 1912 during the first Balkan War.

Calypso in Monastiri

The taxi continues on to the border with Skopje, but is forced to stop because of snow on the road. The taxi driver decides against crossing and waits for the snow to be cleared. As he and ‘A’ listen to Greek music and drink raki, cementing their friendship, the taxi driver says: ‘Greece is dying. We are dying as a people.’

‘A’ arrives by bus in Monastiri in search of the original home of the Manákias brothers. As he stands at their front door, we are brought back to black and white footage by the Manákias brothers from 1956.

The house is now a museum. Inside, ‘A” meets a young librarian (Maia Morgenstern in her second role), who remains distant and aloof in her refusal to help him. That evening, they meet again on the train to Skopje, and ‘A’ tells her in detail about the purpose of his journey.

The librarian’s name is Kali – and so she is about to become the nymph Calypso who held Odysseus captive for seven years on her island Ogygia. She tells ‘A’ that the Manákias films are not in the archives in Skopje.



In Skopje, ‘A’ boards the overnight express train to Sofia and Bucharest, but he continues talking to Kali on the station platform, telling her of an event two years earlier on Delos, when he tried to photograph the birthplace of Apollo. The train starts to leave and picks up speed, and Kali, enticed like Nausicaa by a story from Delos, is now running along the platform. Finally, ‘A’ grabs her on board. He continues his story, and Kali is so moved they cannot escape a passionate embrace – they are on a journey together.

When the train pulls in at the Bulgarian border, the guards say something is wrong with ‘A’s’ passport. Past and present mix again in a surreal scene as he is questioned by an official in 100-year-old clothing, as though he is Yiannákis Manákias, accused of sedition against Bulgaria. ‘A’ protests that he does not understand, but he is blind-folded in front of a firing squad. He is Odysseus captive to the half-blind Cyclops.

At the last moment, a messenger arrives, saying King Ferdinand of Bulgaria has commuted the sentence to exile until the Balkan war (1912-1913) is over.

He tells the modern Bulgarian border guard he is going to in Philippoupolis, but is corrected. Today it is Plovdiv.

Telemachos greets his father


‘A’ and Kali are reunited and board another train for Bucharest. As they step off the train, it is the 1940s and a young women (Mania Papadimitriou) comes forward and speaks to ‘A’ as if he were a child. She is his mother, and he apologises for missing her funeral. They are back in his childhood, and they travel on to their old home in Constanţa on the Romanian Black Sea. There, all his dead relatives are dancing. Like a well-mannered child, he greets each in turn.

His father appears in rags, back from a concentration camp. It is 1945, and ‘A’ is not only Telemachos, welcoming home his father Odysseus, but his memory has merged with that of the Manákias brothers. We witness a dance through a period of five years, 1945-1950, that signifies the end of the presence of the Greek, Armenian and Jewish minorities in Romania and the arrival of the new Stalinist regime.

Farewell to Calypso



‘A’ and Kali wake up together in bed in a modern hotel in Constanţa. They go down to the harbour, where a larger-than-life but broken statue of Lenin is being loaded on a barge, to be taken up the Danube to Germany. A tear-filled ‘A’ tells a sorrowing Kali: ‘I cannot love you’ – as Homer’s Odysseus tells Calypso when he leaves her. He boards the barge, leaving a bewildered Kali behind on the quay.

As the barge makes its way up the Danube, groups of people on the riverbank stand in awe of Lenin, paying their respects and many crossing themselves. This long travelling shot, with Lenin’s severed head gazing at the skies – almost like the floating ruins of Ozymandias – is a stark reminder of the ruins and failures of the past, the confusion created after the collapse of the Communist system. Like the muzzein’s call in Albania, the people on the riverbank crossing themselves as Lenin passes symbolise the passing of an old order and the return of the old religion.

Odysseus in Hades

When ‘A’ arrives in the Serbian capital Belgrade, he is met by an old journalist friend from Greece, Nikos (Giorgos Michalakopoulos). Nikos greets him quoting the Greek poet George Seferis (1900-1971): ‘When God created the world, the first thing he made were journeys.’

‘A’ replies: ‘And then came doubt … and nostalgia.’

In an old people’s home, they meet Yovisitsa, an old man who was in charge of the Belgrade Film Archives for many years. He admits he failed to develop the Manákias films but tells them they are now in the Sarajevo Film Archives in Bosnia.

In a café in Belgrade, Nikos and ‘A’ drink to the memory of old, now-dead friends, to poets and revolutionaries, to Cavafy, Che Guevarra, May 1968, and Santorini, and the departed giants of cinema: ‘To Orson Welles! To Dreyer! To Murnau!’ They continue their voyage into nostalgia while drinking ion the tram tracks and on the street. For ‘A’, Belgrade is Odysseus’ descent into Hades in the Odyssey, where he meets old friends and is given instructions to complete his journey. He decides, despite the dangers, to journey on to Sarajevo.

Nausicaa washes Odysseus’ clothes



Nikos helps ‘A’ to find a boat on the River Sava that will take him to Sarajevo. It is night time when ‘A’ is woken on the boat by a young woman (played again by Maia Morgenstern), who now is Naursicaa. Together they row up the River Sava in a small boat towards Sarajevo.

But we are brought back to 1915 and they are back in Philippoupolis (Plovdiv) in Bulgaria. They arrive at a ruined village and walk to the charred remains of the woman’s ruined home.

The grief-stricken woman cries out: ‘Vania! Vania! Vaniushka!’

In the debris, ‘A’ finds a framed wedding photograph. Is this the woman and Vania?

In the evening in the rubble, a table is set and she and ‘A’ dine together to the sound of gunfire and explosions in the background.



When he awakes, ‘A’ wraps himself in a blanket and walks outside to see the woman, like Nausicaa, washing his clothes in the river. Back in the house, she gives him her husband’s clothes, and then goes down to the river to break up the boat with an axe – now she is Circe is trying to keep Odysseus captive. She returns to the house, sees ‘A’ dressed in her husband’s clothes, pulls him to the floor and they make passionate love. But in the darkness, ‘A’ escapes and in the night drifts down the river in a small boat.

Nausicaa and Penelope in Sarajevo



Two hours into the film, ‘A’ arrives at dawn in Sarajevo, where the siege has left the city in ruins, and people risk their lives each day, braving Serbian snipers to fetch water.

‘A’ finds his way to the Film Archives, where a young boy takes him to meet the Jewish curator, Ivo Levy (Erland Josephson). Together, they walk back to the damaged archives building, each carrying a container of water.

‘A’ tells Levy he is in Sarajevo to find the three Manákias films. Although Levy has the films but has never been unable to develop them. Now he agrees to try one more but last time.

‘A’ falls asleep at the archives, and is awoken by Levy’s daughter, Naomi (Maia Morgenstern in her fourth role). Naomi is his Nausicaa, and we realise ‘A’ has projected his past lovers onto every woman he meets. When Naomi leaves, ‘A’ finds Levy at work in the lab. Later, Levy is successful and he and ‘A’ are overwhelmed with joy that, after almost 100 years, an image of Greece from the early 20th century has been brought to life once again.



Outside in the fog, they walk through the streets of Sarajevo, where a lull in sniping allows a small orchestra of young Muslims, Croats and Serbs to perform in a small square, while a small group of actors nearby us staging Romeo and Juliet. The lull in sniping also allows Muslims and Christians to bury their dead.

Further on, some couples are dancing to pop music, and Naomi appears through the fog, inviting ‘A’ to dance. The music changes to a 1950s tune, and Naomi becomes Penelope, left behind in Florina by ‘A’ so long ago.

‘A,” Naomi and Levy are joined by Levy’s family and they walk together in the fog towards the river, with Levy and ‘A’ straggling behind. Suddenly, a car pulls up, doors slam, and men shout. Levy tells “A” to stay where he is and runs in the fog towards the rest of the family. Naomi cries out: ‘Not the children!’ Gun shots are followed by splashes as bodies are dumped in the river. The car reverses and then speeds off.

There is total silence. We are left staring, guessing what has happened, what we have not seen.

‘A’ rushes to the scene of the massacre has taken place and be the riverbank he finds Levy dead in the snow, and then Naomi. He embraces her, embracing all the women he has loved and lost, and in primal screams we hear his helpless rage and anger.

As he walks back slowly to the archives, the orchestra is still playing in the snow-covered square in Sarajevo.

In the final scene, a film has just been shown on a blank projection screen, perhaps one of the Manákias films – if they ever existed. But the film reels have been burned and he faces the camera in tears, speaking the words of Odysseus to Penelope: ‘When I return, it will be with another man’s clothes.’

Fulfilling a vow

Ulysses’ Gaze received the Grand Jury Prize at the 1995 Cannes Film Festival, but has been largely ignored by film critics and distributors in Western Europe.

This was a response by Angelopoulos to the Balkan crises following the break-up of Yugoslavia. With the many allusions to images in Greek poetry that bring together the values of classical Greece and modern Greece, Angelopoulos is claiming a continuity between the ancient and modern Greek worlds, between the Hellenistic and the Byzantine worlds, but also expressing a nostalgia for a Balkan world once shared by all irrespective of religious or ethnic identities.

‘A’s’ belief in the innocence of Manákias brothers’ creative gaze may hold the key to lost innocence and essential truth, to an understanding of the Balkans. In his journey, this modern Odysseus is not seeking to return to a geographical homeland but is searching for rue meaning and true identity. Indeed, ‘A’s’ journey in search of the Manákias reels is less of a practical quest and more like the fulfilment of a vow, almost like a pilgrimage religious people undertake to honour the memory of a saint.

His wanderings have taken ‘A’ on a double journey: a journey through space, as he wanders across the Balkans at war; and a journey across time, as he revisits his past, the past of the Manákias brothers and the past of the Balkans. Those journeys across take him through a landscape peopled by ghostly figures and broken dreams, and take him to the heart of darkness.

Our modern Odysseus has reached his Ithaka, but his odyssey may not be over.

Cast:

Harvey Keitel (‘A’).
Maia Morgenstern (woman in Florina, Penelope; Kali, Calypso; widow, Circe; Naomi Levi, Nausica)
Erland Josephson (Ivo Levy) – the actor Gian Maria Volonté died during filming and was replaced by Josephson
Thanassis Vengos (taxi driver)
Giorgos Michalakopoulos (Nikos)
Dora Volanaki (old lady in Albania)
Mania Papadimitriou (‘A’s’ mother in Romania)



Music:

The score by Eleni Karaindrou, featuring Kim Kashkashian on viola, was recorded in December 1994 at Sound Studio, Athens, and was released on the ECM label in 1995.

Kim Kashkashian, viola soloist
Vangelis Christopoulos, oboe
Andreas Tsekouras, accordion
Socratis Anthis, trumpet
Vangelis Skouras, French horn
Christos Sfetsas, cello
Georgia Voulvi, voice
Lefteris Chalkiadakis, conductor

Theo Angelopoulos (1935-2012) died in an accident in Athens 24 January 2012, aged 76, while working on a new film.

28 million flights at risk, 28 million Venezuelans, 28 million sq m in Albania, and 28 million blog readers

Waiting for take-off in Muscat … 28 million outbound trips from the Middle East are at risk this year because of the war launched by the ‌US and Israel ⁠on Iran (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

The viewing and reading figures for this blog continue to surprise me, and these figures passed the 28 million mark shortly after 7 am this morning (20 March 2026). This is the fifth time this month alone that the half-million figure in readership numbers has been passed, reaching 27.5 million last Monday (16 March 2026), 27 million last week (12 March 2026), 26.5 million the week before (3 March 2026) and 26 million at the beginning of the month (Sunday 1 March 2026), when the hits that day were also the highest daily figure I have ever recorded (318,307).

This year so far has seen a phenomenal amount of traffic on this blog, reaching a volume of readers that I never have expected when I first started blogging 16 years ago. Half the total hits (14 million) have been within the past eight or nine months, and the total of hits last month (February 2026) was the highest monthly total ever (3,386,504), with this blog passing the half-million mark seven times in all in February.

At the end of last year, this blog had 21 million hits (31 December 2025). So far this year, there have been more than 6.5 million hits or visitors for 2026.

I first began blogging in 2010, and it took almost two years until July 2012 to reach half a million readers – a number reached five times this month alone. Half of the 28 million hits (14 million) have been within the last nine or ten months, since 1 July 2025.

Throughout last year and this year, the daily figures have been overwhelming on many occasions. Seven of the 12 days of busiest traffic on this blog were in February alone, three were this month (March) and two were in January 2025:

• 318,307 (1 March 2026)
• 314,018 (28 February 2026)
• 301,449 (2 March 2026)
• 289,076 (11 January 2025)
• 285,366 (12 January 2025)
• 280,802 (26 February 2026)

• 273,022 (27 February 2026)
• 261,422 (13 January 2026)
• 228,931 (18 March 2026)
• 195,391 (20 February 2026)
• 190,630 (23 February 2026)
• 190,467 (21 February 2026)

The number of readers has been overpowering this year and last, with the daily averages currently running at over 110,000 hits a day so far this month. Ten years ago, the daily average was around 1,000.

The Lloyds horse in Milton Keynes … a Lloyds report shows more than 28 million adults in the UK are turning to artificial intelligence to help manage their money (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

To put this figure of 28 million in context:

Venezuela has a population of about 28 million people, including Delcy Rodriguez, once a Maduro henchwoman, who has been installed by Trump as Venezuela’s acting president.

More than 28 million adults in the UK are now turning to artificial intelligence to help manage their money – making personal finance the nation’s number one use of AI, according to a report commissioned by Lloyds Banking Group. Lloyds Banking Group’s Consumer Digital Index is the UK’s largest study of digital and financial capability.

Air has been linked to a higher risk of Alzheimer’s in 28 million older Americans. Breathing polluted air may do more than harm your lungs – it could also increase your risk of Alzheimer’s disease, according to a study of almost 28 million older Americans published last month.

Google has agreed this week to pay $28 million to settle a class action lawsuit claiming that it favoured white and Asian employees by paying them more and putting them on higher career tracks than other workers.

Nearly 28 million outbound trips from the Middle East are at risk this year as a result of the disruption caused by the war launched by the ‌US and Israel ⁠on Iran, according to research on behalf of Oxford Economics.

Australia is projected to reach a population of 28 million by next year (2027), having passed 27 million in early 2024. The figure represents a significant milestone in Australia’s rapid post-pandemic growth, which has seen an average increase of one million people every two or three years.

Albania, Burundi, Equatorial Guinea (formerly Spanish Guinea), Guinea Bissau and Haiti each has a land area of about 28,000 sq km or 28 million sq metres.

Norway is often described as having a mainland coastline of roughly 2,500 km, but that figure stretches to over 28,000 km (28 million sq metres) when fjords, bays, and 50,000 islands are included. The 28,000 km figure is an example of the coastline paradox, which explains that as the unit of measurement becomes smaller, the measured length of a convoluted coast increases.

And 28 million minutes is equal to 53 years, 2 months, and 25 days, or 466,666.6 hours. In other words, if this blog was getting only one hit a minute, it would take more than 53 years, from the end of 1972, to reach this latest figure of 28 million .

It is four years since I retired from active parish ministry in March 2022. These days, though, about 100 people on average are reading my daily prayer diary posted on this blog each morning. I imagine many of my priest-colleagues would be prayerfully thankful if the congregations in their churches totalled 700 or more people each week.

Today, I am very grateful to the real readers among those 28 million hits on this blog to date, and in particular I remain grateful to the faithful core group of about 100 people who join me in prayer, reading and reflections each day.

By the shores of Lake Butrint in south Albania … Albania has a land area of about 28,000 sq km or 28 million sq metres (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Greece celebrates Oxi Day, but did Metaxas say ‘No’ 85 years ago, and was he truly opposed to fascism?

The Greek flag flying in the Ionian Sea off the coast of Paxos (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Today is Oxi Day in Greece, the 85th anniversary of the day Greece said No, Όχι, to fascism in 1940 and a day of national pride. In Greek, this day is known as Επέτειος του οχι, or ‘the anniversary of No’.

Oxi Day (sometimes spelt Ohi Day) is a national public holiday in both Greece and Cyprus and is celebrate by Greeks around the world.
On this day 85 years ago (28 October 1940), the Prime Minister of Greece, Ioannis Metaxas, said ‘No’ to Mussolini’s demand to allow Italian troops to cross the border into Greece.

In the days that followed, as news of this rejection by Metaxas spread around Athens and throughout Greece, Greeks took to the streets shouting ‘Oxi! Όχι!’ That refusal on 28 October 1940 is commemorated each year as a day that represents bravery, solidarity and heroism for millions of Greeks all around the world.

Although Greece had tried to remain neutral in the early days of World War II, increasing threats from Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy pushed the Greek dictatorship into turning to Great Britain and the allies. The Greek army emerged as a formidable force, holding back the Axis forces from entering Greece for almost six months. Churchill commented at the time: ‘Hence we will not say that Greeks fight like heroes, but that heroes fight like Greeks.’

The Greek Parliament facing onto Syntagma Square in Athens (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Oxi Day parade in Athens today included marching bands, clubs, societies and school children in their thousands marching through the city centre, along Leoforos Vassilissis Amalias Avenue, moving past the Parliament in Syntagma Square and then along Panepistimiou Street. This display of colour and national pride was repeated in every city and town in Greece.

Oxi Day was also celebrated with free entry into archaeological sites in Athens, including the Acropolis, the Acropolis Museum, the Byzantine Christian Museum and the National Archaeological Museum. Most shops were closed, but most restaurants and bars stayed open, particularly in the main tourist areas.

In Rethymnon in Crete, today also marks the Feast of the Four Martyrs of Rethymnon, commemorating four local men— Angelis, Manuel, George and Nicholas — who were martyred in 1824 for refusing to renounce their Christian faith under Ottoman rule.

Sunday last was the Feast of Saint Demetrios of Thessaloniki (26 October), and both his feast day and Oxi Day were marked with special celebrations in the Greek Orthodox Church in Stony Stratford last weekend, beginning with Vespers on Saturday, and concluding with themed performances by the children, parents and teachers in the Church Hall at lunchtime on Sunday.

Celebrating Oxi Day in the Greek Orthodox Church in Stony Stratford on Sunday morning (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Mussolini had been planning his war against Greece for several months. He never informed Hitler of his plans though, and notoriously said that Hitler was going to read about it in the papers.

On 15 August 1940, an Italian submarine fired three torpedoes against Elli, a Greek protected cruiser on the island of Tinos island, and nine people were killed. In an effort to avoid the conflict with Italy, the Greek government never officially acknowledged the nationality of the submarine.

Events escalated week-by-week, and on 28 October 1940 Mussolini gave an ultimatum to the Greek government through the Italian ambassador in Greece, Emanuele Grazzi.

Grazzi asked Metaxas, to allow the Italian troops to pass through Pindos mountains, in the region of Epirus. If the forces were not allowed through the Greek border and Greek territory, then there would be war, Mussolini warned. br />
Tradition says Metaxas replied to this ultimatum with a single word: OXI. This refusal marked the beginning of the Greco-Italian War. On the next day, Italian troops deployed in Albania forced their way into Greece. As the news spread, the whole nation joined forces to combat the foreign invader. People took to the streets, shouting ‘OXI’.

The high morale of the Greek troops and their extreme heroism were praised worldwide, and the Greek Resistance fought with determination against Axis occupation. World leader including the American president Franklin D Roosevelt, the British statesman Winston Churchill, the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin and the exiled leader of the French resistance Charles de Gaul all praised the Greek army.

But it is for historians to disentangle myth and history, and popular tellings of stories from the events of the past.

So, did Ioannis Metaxas (1871-1941) actually deliver that one-word rebuttal, Oxi?

And was he taking a principled stand against Fascism?

The Greek flag flying above the Fortezza in Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

When Mussolini demanded that Greece would consent to Italian troops crossing the border into Greece, the story goes, Metaxas responded brusquely and bluntly: ‘OXI!’

In reality, Grazzi and Metaxas had a longer dialogue in French, which is documented in Grazzi’s memoirs. Metaxas responded to the Italian ultimatum in French, the diplomatic language at the time: Alors, c’est la gueree!, ‘Well, then it is War!’

According to Metaxa’s daughter, the dialogue escalated as follows:

Grazzi: Pas nécessaire, mon excellence (Not necessarily, your excellency).

Metaxas: Non, c’est necessaire (No, it is necessary).

But, a long quotation in French does not really work as a slogan in Greek. On 30 October, a creative journalist published an article with the headline ‘ΟΧΙ,’ referring to Metaxas’ refusal. This, in turn, became a catchphrase of the Greek resistance, and it remained a remembered word among generations of Greeks ever after.

The Greek flag outside the church in the village of Tsesmes, east of Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

But was Metaxas a principled political opponent of Fascism and the threatened fascist invasion of Greece?

General Ioannis Metaxas (Ιωάννης Μεταξάς) was born on the island of Ithaka in 1871 into an aristocratic family. He entered the Greek army as a career office at an early age. He took part in the Greco-Turkish War (1897) and the Balkan Wars (1912-1913), and quickly rose through the ranks of the Greek army. He studied at the Berlin War Academy in 1899-1903 on the personal nomination of Crown Prince Constantine and became an admirer of Prussian militarism and an opponent of what he regarded as ‘intemperate parliamentarism’ in Greece.

When Eleftherios Venizelos became Prime Minister, he appointed Metaxas as his adjutant in 1910 as part of an effort at rapprochement with the monarchy. At the outbreak of World War I, Venizelos and King Constantine rejected a German request to join the Central Powers, and instead Venizelos approached the Entente Powers, Britain, France and Russia. Venizelos was shaken when Metaxas resigned in February 1915, and when King Constantine decided to keep Greece neutral Venizelos resigned.

Venizelos won the May 1915 elections, formed a new government and recalled Metaxas as deputy chief of staff. Venizelos received support in Parliament for Greek entry into the war and the presence of allied troops in Thessaloniki with a 152-102 vote on 22 September. However, the king dismissed Venizelos the next day, solidifying the rift between monarchists and Venizelists and creating the ‘National Schism’.

When Constantine and the army leadership allowed German and Bulgarian troops to occupy parts of east Macedonia in 1916, there was widespread popular anger throughout Greece. Venizelist officers launched a revolt in Thessaloniki in August 1916 and Venizelos formed a ‘Government of National Defence’. The new government entered the war on the Allies’ side, while the official Greek state and the royal government remained neutral, and King Constantine and Metaxas were accused of being pro-German.

Metaxas formed a monarchist paramilitary Epistratoi force during the events in Athens known as Noemvriana (November) or ‘Greek Vespers’. But King Constantine was deposed in June 1917 and was replaced by his son, King Alexander. Venizelos returned to office, and Greece officially joined the war.

Metaxas and other leading opponents of Venizelos were exiled to Corsica, but he escaped to Sardinia and later to Siena. He was sentenced to death in absentia in January 1920 for his role in the Noemvriana events. But after the electoral defeat of Venizelos in November 1920, Metaxas retuned to Greece and was reinstated in the army with the rank of major-general.

Following the defeat of Greek forces in Asia Minor, King Constantine was again forced into exile after a coup led by Colonel Nikolaos Plastiras. Metaxas entered politics and founded the Freethinkers’ Party in 1922. However, his role in a failed monarchist coup in October 1923 forced him into exile again. King George II was forced into exile too, the monarchy was abolished, and the Second Hellenic Republic was proclaimed in March 1924.

Metaxas soon returned to Greece, publicly declaring his acceptance of the new republic. But in elections in 1926, his party won 15.8% of the vote and 52 seats in Parliament, and Metaxas became Communications Minister in a coalition formed by Alexandros Zaimis.

His party became entangled in infighting and dropped to 1.6% of the vote and three seats in 1933, but he became Interior Minister in the cabinet of Panagis Tsaldaris. He soon became the most intransigent and extreme of all the Monarchist politicians with his call for an absolute monarchy. When there was a failed assassination attempt against Venizelos in 1933, Metaxas praised it in his newspaper Hellenki, expressing regret only that the attempt failed.

Greek flags at the church in the coastal village of Panormos, east of Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Venizelist officers attempted a coup in Thessaloniki on 1 March 1935. The city was known as a ‘hotbed of republicanism’ and had taken in the bulk of the 1.3 million Greeks expelled from Turkey in 1923, and the majority of the refugees there lived in extreme poverty.

After the failed coup, Metaxas called for a ‘new order’ in Greece. Tsaldaris called early elections and for a referendum on restoring the monarchy. Metaxas and his party took 20% of the vote in Athens, and the War Minister, General Georgios Kondylis, declared he was an admirer of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. The army was purged of Venizelist officers, Metaxas spoke openly of a civil war and there was a wave of strikes and protests across the country.

Kondylis staged a coup, Tsaldaris was deposed, and George II returned from exile in London after a heavily rigged plebiscite and took the throne in 1935. On 11 December 1935, the king met Ernst Eisenlohr, the German envoy in Athens, who reminded him that Germany was Greece’s largest trading partner and that ‘Greece could not live without her German customers.’

Venizelists and anti-Venizelists failed to form a government after elections on 26 January 1936, in which the Liberals or Venizelists won 141 seats, while the followers of Kondylis won 12 seats and the followers of Metaxas only seven seats. The big breakthrough was by the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) which took 15 seats. The army chief of staff, General Alexandros Papagos, threatened an immediate coup d’état if the Liberals formed an alliance with the KKE.

On 5 March 1936, George II appointed Metaxas the Minister of Defence, a post he held until he died in 1941. A government under Konstantinos Demertzis government was sworn in on 14 March, with Metaxas as vice-president of the government and Minister of Defence. When Demertzis died suddenly on 13 April, the king immediately appointed Metaxas as Prime Minister.

Even Plato’s ‘Republic’ was on the list of banned books under the Metaxas regime (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Parliament voted on 30 April to suspend its sittings. Stikes were called across Greece, and a general strike began in Thessaloniki on 9 May. Metaxas used the unrest to declare a state of emergency. He adjourned parliament indefinitely, suspended many articles of the constitution guaranteeing civil liberties, and declared he would hold ‘all the power I need for saving Greece’.

The regime became known as the ‘4 August Regime’ and Greece became a totalitarian state, in which Metaxas was presented as ‘the First Peasant’, ‘the First Worker’ and ‘the National Father’ of the Greeks. He adopted the title of Arkhigos, Greek for ‘leader’ or ‘chieftain’ and claimed he was initiating a ‘Third Hellenic Civilisation’, inspired by ancient Greece and the Byzantine Empire.

State propaganda portrayed Metaxas as a ‘Saviour of the Nation’, all political parties and strikes were banned, there was widespread censorship, the Communist leader Nikos Zachariadis was arrested, and many political activists were arrested and tortured.

Metaxas made himself Minister of Education in 1938 and had all school texts rewritten to fit the regime’s ideology. Book burnings targeted authors such as Goethe, Shaw, Freud and several Greek writers. Even Plato’s Republic was on the list of banned books. The Fascist salute was introduced, the Minoan double-axe was used in the way Mussolini used the Roman fasces in Italy, and regime propaganda constantly praised Hitler, Mussolini and Franco.

But Metaxas had no mass political party and his power depended on the army and the support of the king. Although most Greeks regarded Italy as their principal enemy, Metaxas saw Germany as a counterweight to Italy.

The crux came when the Italian Ambassador Emanuele Grazzi visited Metaxas at 3 in the morning and in the darkness of the night presented his demands on 28 October 1940, the night of Oxi Day. By morning, Greeks were taking to the streets in cities, towns and villages, chanting ‘Oxi! Όχι!’ A nation refused to bend the knee to fascism or to bow to military threats.

If Greeks had said Yes, Italian troops would have marched in unopposed, independence would have disappeared overnight, the Axis powers would have dominated the Mediterranean, the world would have lost a symbol of resistance, Greek pride and unity would have been silenced and would have dissolved. Greece would have been subugated. Later that morning, Italy invaded Greece from Albania. But Greece fought back, winning the first Allied victory in World War II, and Greeks became an inspiration for anti-fascist resistance throughout Europe.

Metaxas died in Athens on 29 January 1941, before the German invasion and the subsequent fall of Greece. Metaxism was undoubtedly a form of Fascism. During the colonels’ junta in 1967-1974, he was honoured as a patriot.

Many of his decisions and policies have uncanny reflections in the actions of the Trump regime in the US today, from banning books in schools, to overriding the elected members of parliament, ignoring the constitution, arresting political opponents, promising to make Greece great again, pretending to be a voice of the people, and proclaiming himself the ‘leader’, the ‘chieftain’ and the ‘Saviour of the Nation’.

Metaxas never said No, his reply was, in fact, a polite diplomatic démarche in French. It was ordinary Greeks who took to the streets shouting ‘Oxi! Όχι!’ and the word Όχι echoed throughout Greece. The word belongs to them, and the heroism was theirs. So, it is paradoxical but understandable that Metaxas has also become a symbol for Greeks across the political spectrum of resistance to Fascism, and for Cypriots this resistance to an Italian invasion has parallels to resistance to the Turkish invasion over half a century ago in 1974.

George Seferis and ‘Epiphany, 1937’: the poem that Mikis Theodorakis made a song of resistance to the colonels

Giorgos Seferis is a major figure in Greek literature and in 1963 became the first Greek Nobel laureate for literature

Patrick Comerford

TS Eliot’s poem ‘The Journey of the Magi’, which I was discussing yesterday, was written in 1927 after he joined the Church of England and is one of the five poems in his Ariel Poems published in 1930. The poem is truly a sermon in poem, and is one of the great works of English poetry in the 20th century.

Another Epiphany poem that comes to mind at this time of year is ‘Epiphany, 1937’, is a poem written in 1937 by Giorgos Seferis, a major figure in Greek literature who became the first Greek Nobel laureate for literature in 1963.

Seferis’s poem ‘Epiphany, 1937’ has had a lasting influence on Greek culture and identity. It was part of Epiphany, a collection that inspired the Greek composer Mikis Theodorakis 30 years later to write a cantata, with songs that are still popular in Greece. When the poem was set to music as an cantata or choral work by Theodorakis, ‘I Kept Hold of My Life’, it became an expression of resistance to the colonels’ junta from 1967 to 1974.

Seferis’s poem ‘Epiphany, 1937’ and its setting by Theodorakis, continue to be major important and influential cultural works in Greece, and Theodorakis has ensured that the lyrics are widely-known and are regularly performed, in his choral adaptation or setting Κράτησα τη ζωή μου (Kratêsa tê zôê mou, ‘I Kept Hold of My Life’. One of the most moving performances brings together the voice of Maria Farantouri and the jazz instrumentation of Charles Lloyd.



A diplomatic assignment in London for George Seferis influenced the direction of his poetic creativity and marked the beginning of a lifelong friendship between Eliot and Seferis, who translated the works of both Eliot and Ezra Pound into Greek.

George Seferis (1900-1971) was born Giorgos Seferiadis (Γεώργιος Σεφεριάδης) in Smyrna (now Izmir) in Asia Minor in 1900. He went to school in Smyrna and then to the Gymnasium in Athens. When his family moved to Paris in 1918, he studied law at the University of Paris and became interested in literature. He returned to Athens in 1925 and joined the Foreign Ministry the following year. He had a long and successful diplomatic career, that began with postings in England (1931-1934), where he was introduced to Eliot and Pound, and Albania (1936-1938), where he wrote ‘Epiphany, 1937.’

Seferis moved to Crete with the Free Greek Government during World War II, and then into exile in Egypt, South Africa and Italy. Meanwhile, in 1941 he married Marika Zannou, the mother of two young daughters from her previous marriage to Andreas Londos.

He returned to liberated Athens in 1944. He continued to work in the Foreign Ministry, followed by diplomatic postings in Ankara (1948-1950), London (1951-1953) and Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Iraq (1953-1956). He was back in London again as the Greek Ambassador from 1957 to 1961, his last post before he retired to Athens.

After the colonels’ coup in 1967, he went into voluntary seclusion and many of his poems were banned, including the musical versions written and arranged by the composer Mikis Theodorakis.

His poem ‘Denial’ (Άρνηση), first published in 1931 in his collection Turning Point (Στροφή, Strophe), became an anthem of resistance to the colonels. He died on 20 September 1971 and ‘Denial’ (Άρνηση) was sung by the crowds lining the streets of Athens at his funeral. He had become a popular hero for his resistance to the regime. His widow Marika cut off her hair and flung it into his grave.

Seferis’s exclusive use of demotic, or common, Greek as his language of choice earned him a privileged place among his generation of Greek poets, while his wide travels provide the backdrop and colour for much of Seferis’s writing.

As well as Strophe (1931), his early poetry includes E Sterna (The Cistern, 1932), and Mythistorema (1935). Later collections include Tetradio Gymnasmaton (Book of Exercises, 1940), Emerologio Katastromatos (Logbook I, 1940), Emerologio Katastromatos B (Logbook II, 1944), Kihle (Thrush, 1947), Emerologio Katastromatos Γ (Logbook III, 1955) and Tria Krypha Poiemata (Three Secret Poems, 1966).

Seferis first became acquainted with Eliot in London in Christmas 1931, when he found a copy of the poem ‘Marina’ in a bookshop on Oxford Street and was struck by its Mediterranean feeling. He published his translation of Eliot’s poetry in 1936 in The Waste Land and Other Poems, prefaced by his first essay in print, ‘Introduction to TS Eliot’, itself a major event in modern Greek literature. Seferis also translated WB Yeats, DH Lawrence, Ezra Pound and WH Auden.

In 1963, Seferis became the first Greek to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature. He received several honorary doctorates from Cambridge (1960), Oxford (1964), the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (1964), and Princeton (1965).

The icon of the Baptism of Christ in the new iconostasis in the Greek Orthodox Church in Stony Stratford … the Baptism of Christ is the main Epiphany theme in the Orthodox Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

I believe his poem ‘Epiphany, 1937’ shows strong influence from Eliot’s Epiphany poem ‘The Journey of the Magi’. In the Orthodox Church, the Baptism of Christ is principal theme in celebrating the Feast of the Epiphany. While Eliot’s poem draws on the Epiphany theme of the Visit of Magi, these two poems share similar imagery, although Seferis is writing in a secular, non-religious way.

The poem starts by addressing a second-person singular, as a shared reminiscence of a locus amoenus, with the sea flowering and the mountains in the moon’s waning (verses1-5).

As the reader proceeds from this introductory section to the main part of the poem, summer’s eutopia gradually yields to an icier landscape, culminating with the terse third-person closure: ‘The snow and the water frozen in the hoofmarks of the horses.’

The whole poem can be read as the personal, almost internal, voice of a lone walker, traveller, or hiker who at times encounters other, equally lonely, walking figures during his journey. The speaker is travelling among yellow trees, climbing the mountains, his road having no end, having no relief, at times meeting a woman bent as she walks giving her child the breast, or a man who walks blindly across the snows of silence.

A second-person singular shows up at key positions of this main section, following or preceding the recurring phrase ‘I’ve kept a rein on my life.’ Who is this second-person singular? The identity seems to fluctuate along the flow of the poem, at times appearing as the distant nostalgic memory of the beloved, at other times as an alternative to the speaker’s own persona, now addressing himself in the second person

One eventually realises that even if the whole poem is nothing but the utterance of a first-person speaker in love, this is love experienced in sheer loneliness.

With the date 1937, Seferis offers a landmark in his own life. In that year, he was the Greek consul in Korçë (Κορυτσά, Korytsa) in south-east Albania, near the border with Greece. It had once been one of the wealthiest communities in northern Epirus, Greek had remained the language of business and trade, and it was briefly held by Greece during the opening years of World War I.

During the summer before his posting to Korçë, Seferis had fallen deeply in love with Marika Zannou, the wife of Andreas Londos, a former naval officer, and the mother of two girls. Their affair began during mutual holidays on the island of Aegina, but was cut short when Seferis returned to Athens in September 1936 and found he had been appointed to Albania. He endured the winter of 1936-1937 in isolation, writing several times a week to his beloved Maro, then still unhappily attached to Andreas Londos back in Greece.

Perhaps ‘Epiphany, 1937’ marks an epiphanic landmark in the writer’s his own poetic itinerary. The word epiphany (ἐπιφάνεια, epiphania) has very specific reference points too. Epiphanies are moments of revelation. But linking this noun with the year in the title ‘Epiphany, 1937’ also seems to refer to the Feast of the Epiphany on 6 January, when the Greek Orthodox Church celebrates the baptism of Jesus by Saint John in the Jordan.

The continuing presence of water in Epiphany evokes this feast, where immersion in water is combined with bestowing identity on the person being baptised. January also provides the setting for the ice-covered landscape of the main part of the poem.

In classical Greek literature, epiphanies are associated with acquiring an authoritative poetic identity. In Hesiod’s Theogony, for example, the anonymous shepherd pasturing his flock on Mount Helicon appears in his own poem with the name Hesiod only at the moment when the Muses’ epiphany to him is being narrated.



In January 1968, 31 years after Seferis completed ‘Epiphany, 1937’, the composer Mikis Theodorakis conceived of it as a choral piece, Επιφάνια-Αβέρωφ (Epiphania-Averof), naming the cantata after the prison in central in Athens. He had been detained there since August 1967, after the colonels right-wing junta had seized power on 21 April 1967, and was denied the Christmas amnesty extended to many other political prisoners in December 1967.

Gail Holst’s book, Theodorakis: Myth and Politics in Modern Greek Music (Amsterdam, 1980), shows that for Theodorakis setting the entire ‘Epiphany, 1937’ to music was a tour de force, his own epiphanic moment in the junta’s jail cells.

Theodorakis worked on the poem as a cantata to be performed with the help of his fellow prisoners. Each evening, while other prisoners listened to the radio in a communal hall from 7:30 to 8:30, Theodorakis used the hour to train his choir of 10 prisoners.

The poem’s first-person-singular refrain Κράτησα τη ζωή μου (Kratêsa tê zôê mou) is translated into English by Keeley and Sherrard as ‘I’ve kept a rein on my life’. It could also be translated as ‘I’ve kept a hold on my life’. In this refrain, Theodorakis heard a multiplicity of voices, the universality of their utterance further enhanced by the composer’s preference for a mixed chorus of both men and women.

This recurring phrase throughout the main part of the poem struck Theodorakis’s sensitivity and curiosity. Seferis’ refrain creates a sense of monotony and repetition and at the same time the sense of one carrying something heavy.

Epiphany, 1937, by George Seferis, translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard:

The flowering sea and the mountains in the moon’s waning
the great stone close to the Barbary figs and the asphodels
the jar that refused to go dry at the end of day
and the closed bed by the cypress trees and your hair
golden; the stars of the Swan and that other star, Aldebaran.

I’ve kept a rein on my life, kept a rein on my life, travelling
among yellow trees in driving rain
on silent slopes loaded with beech leaves,
no fire on their peaks; it’s getting dark.

I’ve kept a rein on my life; on your left hand a line
a scar at your knee, perhaps they exist
on the sand of the past summer perhaps
they remain there where the north wind blew as I hear
an alien voice around the frozen lake.
The faces I see do not ask questions nor does the woman
bent as she walks giving her child the breast.

I climb the mountains; dark ravines; the snow-covered
plain, into the distance stretches the snow-covered plain, they ask nothing
neither time shut up in dumb chapels nor
hands outstretched to beg, nor the roads.

I’ve kept a rein on my life whispering in a boundless silence
I no longer know how to speak nor how to think; whispers
like the breathing of the cypress tree that night
like the human voice of the night sea on pebbles
like the memory of your voice saying ‘happiness’.

I close my eyes looking for the secret meeting-place of the waters
under the ice the sea’s smile, the closed wells
groping with my veins for those veins that escape me
there where the water-lilies end and that man
who walks blindly across the snows of silence.

I’ve kept a rein on my life, with him, looking for the water that touches you
heavy drops on green leaves, on your face
in the empty garden, drops in the motionless reservoir
striking a swan dead in its white wings
living trees and your eyes riveted.

This road has no end, has no relief, however hard you try
to recall your childhood years, those who left, those
lost in sleep, in the graves of the sea,
however much you ask bodies you’ve loved to stoop
under the harsh branches of the plane trees there
where a ray of the sun, naked, stood still
and a dog leapt and your heart shuddered,
the road has no relief;
I’ve kept a rein on my life.

The snow
and the water frozen in the hoofmarks of the horses.



Κρατησα Τη Ζωη Μου, Γιωργοσ Σεφερησ: Επιφανια

Τ' ανθισμένο πέλαγο και τα βουνά στη χάση του φεγγαριού
η μεγάλη πέτρα κοντά στις αραποσυκιές και τ' ασφοδίλια
το σταμνί πού δεν ήθελε να στερέψει στο τέλος της μέρας
και το κλειστό κρεββάτι κοντά στα κυπαρίσσια και τα μαλλιά σου
χρυσά· τ' άστρα του Κύκνου κι εκείνο τ' άστρο ο Αλδεβαράν.

Κράτησα τη ζωή μου,
κράτησα τη ζωή μου ταξιδεύοντας
ανάμεσα σε κίτρινα δέντρα κατά το πλάγιασμα της βροχής
σε σιωπηλές πλαγιές φορτωμένες με τα φύλλα της οξυάς,
καμμιά φωτιά στην κορυφή τους· βραδυάζει.

Κράτησα τη ζωή μου· στ' αριστερό σου χέρι μια γραμμή
μια χαρακιά στο γόνατό σου, τάχα να υπάρχουν
στην άμμο τού περασμένου καλοκαιριού τάχα
να μένουν εκεί πού φύσηξε ό βοριάς καθώς ακούω
γύρω στην παγωμένη λίμνη την ξένη φωνή.

Τα πρόσωπα πού βλέπω δε ρωτούν, μήτε η γυναίκα
περπατώντας σκυφτή, βυζαίνοντας το παιδί της.

Ανεβαίνω τα βουνά· μελανιασμένες λαγκαδιές· o χιονισμένος
κάμπος, ώς πέρα ο χιονισμένος κάμπος, τίποτε δε ρωτούν,
μήτε o καιρός κλειστός σε βουβά ερμοκκλήσια, μήτε
τα χέρια που απλώνονται για να γυρέψουν, κι οι δρόμοι.

Κράτησα τη ζωή μου ψιθυριστά μέσα στην απέραντη σιωπή,
δεν ξέρω πια να μιλήσω, μήτε να συλλογιστώ· ψίθυροι
σαν την ανάσα του κυπαρισσιού τη νύχτα εκείνη
σαν την ανθρώπινη φωνή της νυχτερινής θάλασσας στα χαλίκια
σαν την ανάμνηση της φωνής σου λέγοντας «ευτυχία».

Κλείνω τα μάτια γυρεύοντας το μυστικό συναπάντημα των νερών
κάτω απ τον πάγο το χαμογέλιο τής θάλασσας τα κλειστά πηγάδια
ψηλαφώντας με τις δικές μου φλέβες τις φλέβες εκείνες πού μου ξεφεύγουν
εκεί πού τελειώνουν τα νερολούλουδα κι αυτός ό άνθρωπος
πού βηματίζει τυφλός πάνω στο χιόνι τής σιωπής.

Κρατησα τη Ζωη Μου -Β

Κράτησα τη ζωή μου, μαζί του, γυρεύοντας το νερό πού σ' αγγίζει
στάλες βαρειές πάνω στα πράσινα φύλλα, στο πρόσωπό σου,
μέσα στον άδειο κήπο, στάλες στην ακίνητη δεξαμενή,
βρίσκοντας έναν κύκνο νεκρό μέσα στα κάτασπρα φτερά του,
δέντρα ζωντανά και τα μάτια σου προσηλωμένα.

Ο δρόμος αυτός δεν τελειώνει, δεν έχει αλλαγή, όσο γυρεύεις
να θυμηθείς τα παιδικά σου χρόνια, εκείνους πού έφυγαν, εκείνους
πού χάθηκαν μέσα στον ύπνο· τους πελαγίσιους τάφους,
όσο ζητάς τα σώματα πού αγάπησες να σκύψουν
κάτω από τα σκληρά κλωνάρια τών πλατάνων εκεί
πού στάθηκε μια αχτίδα τού ήλιου γυμνωμένη
και σκίρτησε ένας σκύλος και φτεροκόπησε ή καρδιά σου,
ο δρόμος δεν έχει αλλαγή·

Κράτησα τη ζωή μου.

Το χιόνι και το νερό παγωμένο στα πατήματα των αλόγων.



• Copyright acknowledgement: George Seferis, ‘Epiphany, 1937’ from Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard (trans and edit), George Seferis, Collected Poems (Princeton: Princeton University Press, revised ed, 1995).

Praying in Advent with Lichfield Cathedral and USPG: Friday 16 December 2022

‘Spend some time today asking yourself what news you need to hear from God?’ (Lichfield Cathedral Devotional Calendar) … newspapers at a kiosk in Rethymnon, Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

Patrick Comerford

The countdown to Christmas has gathered pace, the traditional counting of the ‘O Antiphons’ begins tomorrow, and there are just nine days to go to Christmas Day. Before today gets busy, I am taking some time this morning for reading, prayer and reflection.

During Advent, I am reflecting in these ways:

1, The reading suggested in the Advent and Christmas Devotional Calendar produced by Lichfield Cathedral this year;

2, praying with the Lichfield Cathedral Devotional Calendar;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary, ‘Pray with the World Church.’

‘How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messenger who announces peace’ (Isaiah 52: 7) …the mountains near Siranda, close to the border between southern Albania and northern Greece (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Isaiah 52: 7-10 (NRSVA):

7 How beautiful upon the mountains
are the feet of the messenger who announces peace,
who brings good news,
who announces salvation,
who says to Zion, ‘Your God reigns.’
8 Listen! Your sentinels lift up their voices,
together they sing for joy;
for in plain sight they see
the return of the Lord to Zion.
9 Break forth together into singing,
you ruins of Jerusalem;
for the Lord has comforted his people,
he has redeemed Jerusalem.
10 The Lord has bared his holy arm
before the eyes of all the nations;
and all the ends of the earth shall see
the salvation of our God.

‘For the Lord has comforted his people, he has redeemed Jerusalem’ (Isaiah 52: 9) … a restaurant sign in Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

The Lichfield Cathedral Devotional Calendar:

Advent is a season for alertness and preparation – spend some time today asking yourself what news you need to hear from God? How will I recognise the messenger? What horizon do I scan to see the bearers of good news? And what does the ‘salvation of our God’ look like and feel like?

Collect:

O Lord Jesus Christ,
who at your first coming sent your messenger
to prepare your way before you:
grant that the ministers and stewards of your mysteries
may likewise so prepare and make ready your way
by turning the hearts of the disobedient to the wisdom of the just,
that at your second coming to judge the world
we may be found an acceptable people in your sight;
for you are alive and reign with the Father
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Post Communion:

We give you thanks, O Lord, for these heavenly gifts;
kindle in us the fire of your Spirit
that when your Christ comes again
we may shine as lights before his face;
who is alive and reigns now and for ever.

Additional Collect:

God for whom we watch and wait,
you sent John the Baptist to prepare the way of your Son:
give us courage to speak the truth,
to hunger for justice,
and to suffer for the cause of right,
with Jesus Christ our Lord.

USPG Prayer Diary:

The theme in the USPG Prayer Diary this week is ‘Walking Together.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday by the Right Revd Maria Grace Tazu Sasamori, who became Bishop of Hokkaido in Japan in April 2022. She shared her reflections on this year’s Lambeth Conference with Archbishop Justin Welby.

The USPG Prayer Diary invites us to pray today in these words:

Let us pray for our brothers and sisters in the Anglican Communion. May we put aside our prejudices and open our hearts to understand our differences.

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued tomorrow

‘Break forth together into singing, you ruins of Jerusalem’ (Isaiah 52: 9) … Jerusalem in a painting in a restaurant in Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

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

Praying with the Psalms in Lent: 12 March 2022 (Psalms 31, 32, 33)

‘Praise the Lord with the lyre; make melody to him with the harp of ten strings’ (Psalm 33: 2) … lyres in a shop front on a street in Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Before today begins, I am taking some time early this morning for prayer, reflection and reading.

During Lent this year, in this Prayer Diary on my blog each morning, I am reflecting in these ways:

1, Short reflections on a psalm or psalms;

2, reading the psalm or psalms;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary.

‘Take me out of the net that they have laid secretly for me, for you are my strength’ (Psalm 31: 4) … a maze of fences at Lëkurësi Castle near Sarandë, Albania (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Psalm 31:

Psalm 31 was often known in English by its first verse in the Book of Common Prayer ‘In thee, O Lord, have I put my trust.’ There, it was headed with the Latin opening words, In te, Domine, speravi, and it was one of the two psalms appointed for Morning Prayer on Day 6. The first line in Latin, In te, Domine, speravi, is also the final line of the canticle, Te Deum, ‘In you, Lord, is our hope, let us never be put to shame.’

This psalm has been set to music often, both completely and using specific sections such as Illumina faciem tuam (‘Let your face shine’). Johann Crüger, Heinrich Schütz, Joseph Haydn, Felix Mendelssohn, and others, have written choral settings.

In Jewish tradition, verse 5 is part of Baruch Adonai L’Olam in the evening prayer, part of the bedtime Shema, and it starts the last verse of the traditional hymn Adon Olam:

Into his hand my soul I place,
when I awake and when I sleep.
God with me, I shall not fear;
body and soul from harm will he keep.

In addition, verses 15 and 17 are part of the preliminary morning prayers.

The four evangelists each cite the last words of Christ on the Cross, which have traditionally counted as the ‘Seven Last Words.’ Saint Luke is alone in telling us that Christ cried out a second time: ‘Father, into your hands I commend my spirit’ (Luke 23: 46), quoting Psalm 31: 5, which says in full: ‘Into your hand I commit my spirit; you have redeemed me, O Lord, faithful God.’ Tradition also says that these were the last words of Saint Polycarp, Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, the Hussite martyr Jerome of Prague, Martin Luther and Philip Melanchthon.

The Hebrew incipit at the opening of the text of this psalm indicates it was composed by David: ‘To the leader. A Psalm of David.’ Perhaps it was written by David when he was fleeing from Saul. Other commentaries suggest the author knew Jeremiah, Isaiah, Ezekiel, and many psalms of the Persian period. This would mean it was written at or after the reforms of Nehemiah ca 445 BC.

In this psalm, David calls God his ‘rock,’ his ‘fortress’ and his ‘refuge,’ guarding and protecting him on all sides, even when he feels as though a ‘net’ waits to ensnare him – either death or his enemies.

He knows his destiny depends on God, and he prays for God’s blessing:

Let your face shine upon your servant;
save me in your steadfast love (Psalm 31: 16).

‘Do not be like a horse or a mule, without understanding, whose temper must be curbed with bit and bridle’ (Psalm 32: 9) … ‘The Gaelic Chieftain’ by Maurice Harron off the N4, near Boyle, Co Roscommon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Psalm 32:

Psalm 32 tells us that happiness is found in knowing that God has forgiven us, leaving us without guilt.

The psalmist was seriously ill and in pain, which were signs of being alienated from God, ‘day and night.’ But when he acknowledged his sin, acknowledged his transgressions, confessed to God, and God forgave him.

Now he is now protected by God, and God promises to lead him, guide him and teach him, showing him mercy. For this, the psalmist is glad and rejoices, and his shouts of joy should be echoed by all who worship God.

‘The war horse is a vain hope for victory, and by its great might it cannot save (Psalm 33: 17) … horsemen on the Parthenon frieze in the Acropolis Museum in Athens (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Psalm 33:

Psalm 33 praises the Sovereignty of God in creation and in history and a song of praise.

Psalm 33 does not contain an ascription to any particular author in the Hebrew text, although the Septuagint ascribes it to David. Some manuscripts join this psalm with Psalm 32. Some commentators even suggest Psalm 33 dates from the time of the Maccabees.

We may divide this psalm in this way:

1, A call to worship in the temple with song, music, and shouting (verses 1-3), because of God’s righteousness and kindness (verses 4-5).

2, All humanity is called to fear God, the creator of all things, and disposer of all nations (verses 6-10).

3, God inspects all humanity from his heavenly throne inspects all mankind (verses 13-15); and victory is not due to armies or warriors (verses 16-17).

4, God delivers those who fear him (verse 18-19); therefore his people long for him, are glad in him, and trust in his name for victory (verses 20-22).

In addition, a gloss praises God’s plans as everlastingly secure, and also the happiness of his people (verses 11-12).

Psalm 31 (NRSVA):

1 In you, O Lord, I seek refuge; do not let me ever be put to shame; in your righteousness deliver me.
2 Incline your ear to me; rescue me speedily. Be a rock of refuge for me, a strong fortress to save me.
3 You are indeed my rock and my fortress; for your name’s sake lead me and guide me,
4 take me out of the net that is hidden for me, for you are my refuge.
5 Into your hand I commit my spirit; you have redeemed me, O Lord, faithful God.
6 You hate those who pay regard to worthless idols, but I trust in the Lord.
7 I will exult and rejoice in your steadfast love, because you have seen my affliction; you have taken heed of my adversities,
8 and have not delivered me into the hand of the enemy; you have set my feet in a broad place.
9 Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am in distress; my eye wastes away from grief, my soul and body also.
10 For my life is spent with sorrow, and my years with sighing; my strength fails because of my misery, and my bones waste away.
11 I am the scorn of all my adversaries, a horror to my neighbours, an object of dread to my acquaintances; those who see me in the street flee from me.
12 I have passed out of mind like one who is dead; I have become like a broken vessel. 13 For I hear the whispering of many – terror all around! – as they scheme together against me, as they plot to take my life.
14 But I trust in you, O Lord; I say, “You are my God.”
15 My times are in your hand; deliver me from the hand of my enemies and persecutors.
16 Let your face shine upon your servant; save me in your steadfast love.
17 Do not let me be put to shame, O Lord, for I call on you; let the wicked be put to shame; let them go dumbfounded to Sheol.
18 Let the lying lips be stilled that speak insolently against the righteous with pride and contempt.
19 O how abundant is your goodness that you have laid up for those who fear you, and accomplished for those who take refuge in you, in the sight of everyone!
20 In the shelter of your presence you hide them from human plots; you hold them safe under your shelter from contentious tongues.
21 Blessed be the Lord, for he has wondrously shown his steadfast love to me when I was beset as a city under siege.
22 I had said in my alarm, “I am driven far from your sight.” But you heard my supplications when I cried out to you for help.
23 Love the Lord, all you his saints. The Lord preserves the faithful, but abundantly repays the one who acts haughtily.
24 Be strong, and let your heart take courage, all you who wait for the Lord.

Psalm 32 (NRSVA):

1 Happy are those whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.
2 Happy are those to whom the Lord imputes no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit.
3 While I kept silence, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long.
4 For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. Selah
5 Then I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not hide my iniquity; I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,” and you forgave the guilt of my sin. Selah
6 Therefore let all who are faithful offer prayer to you; at a time of distress, the rush of mighty waters shall not reach them.
7 You are a hiding place for me; you preserve me from trouble; you surround me with glad cries of deliverance. Selah
8 I will instruct you and teach you the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you.
9 Do not be like a horse or a mule, without understanding, whose temper must be curbed with bit and bridle, else it will not stay near you.
10 Many are the torments of the wicked, but steadfast love surrounds those who trust in the Lord.
11 Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, O righteous, and shout for joy, all you upright in heart.

Psalm 33 (NRSVA):

1 Rejoice in the Lord, O you righteous. Praise befits the upright.
2 Praise the Lord with the lyre; make melody to him with the harp of ten strings.
3 Sing to him a new song; play skilfully on the strings, with loud shouts.
4 For the word of the Lord is upright, and all his work is done in faithfulness.
5 He loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full of the steadfast love of the Lord.
6 By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and all their host by the breath of his mouth.
7 He gathered the waters of the sea as in a bottle; he put the deeps in storehouses.
8 Let all the earth fear the Lord; let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him.
9 For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm.
10 The Lord brings the counsel of the nations to nothing; he frustrates the plans of the peoples.
11 The counsel of the Lord stands forever, the thoughts of his heart to all generations.
12 Happy is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people whom he has chosen as his heritage.
13 The Lord looks down from heaven; he sees all humankind.
14 From where he sits enthroned he watches all the inhabitants of the earth—
15 he who fashions the hearts of them all, and observes all their deeds.
16 A king is not saved by his great army; a warrior is not delivered by his great strength.
17 The war horse is a vain hope for victory, and by its great might it cannot save.
18 Truly the eye of the Lord is on those who fear him, on those who hope in his steadfast love,
19 to deliver their soul from death, and to keep them alive in famine.
20 Our soul waits for the Lord; he is our help and shield.
21 Our heart is glad in him, because we trust in his holy name.
22 Let your steadfast love, O Lord, be upon us, even as we hope in you.

Today’s Prayer:

The Prayer in the USPG Prayer Diary this morning (12 March 2022) invites us to pray:

Let us pray for the Church of the Province of Central Africa and its churches across Botswana, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued tomorrow

‘Sing to him a new song; play skilfully on the strings, with loud shouts’ (Psalm 33: 3) … street art near Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin (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