Seeing the legacy of Venice, without getting your feet wet

The fortezza in Réthymnon is the most imposing Venetian structure in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2010)

Patrick Comerford

Venice is one of the world’s most beautiful cities. It should be seen with a loved one, and it should be seen before it disappears completely into the surrounding waters. Reports say Venice is sinking slowly, while the waters of the canals, the Lido and the sea are rising.

With water levels rising, flooding is contributing to the sinking of Venice. During the high tides in autumn and winter, the Piazza San Marco and the lowest areas of the islands that make up the city are totally flooded, the streets are blocked with water, and makeshift wooden walkways are set up for the safety of nimble pedestrians. The high water level has now reached what city officials see as a critical point.

Venice has always been sinking, slowly – over the last 1,000 years it has sunk an average 7 cm each century. But recent reports suggest that in the last century alone the city has lowered by about 24 cm, so that the level it is sinking to is now critical. To stop Venice sinking, the city is debating investing in huge steel gates to block the floods. The cost may be as much as €2-€4 billion. But will this be enough to stop Venice sinking?

For years, Venice has been one of my own favourite cities. But during the summer in Greece this year I was reminded that the glory of Venice is not confined to one city, and that it is possible to see Venice without getting your feet wet by visiting three charming cities in Crete – Iráklion, Réthymnon and Aghios Nikóloas.

A jewel in the crown

The remains of the Venetian bastion on the shoreline in Iráklion ... the city was fortified by the Venetians with walls, gates, arsenal, bastion, and fortress (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2010)

During the Fourth Crusade in 1204, the Crusaders turned against the Byzantine Empire, and to satisfy the ambitions of the Venetians sacked and burned the New Rome, Constantinople. For a nominal sum, the leader of the Crusade, Prince Boniface of Montferrat, ceded Crete to Venice.

To the Venetians, Crete was known as Candia, and for four or five centuries – despite initial resistance from the rival Genoese – the island was the jewel in the crown of the Doges of Venice, offering them control of the trade routes in the Eastern Mediterranean, along with wealthy agricultural lands, supplies of timber for shipbuilding and other rich resources.

The 17th-century Loggia was once the meeting place of Réthymnon’s Venetian nobles (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2010)

Within a century, many of the descendants of the Venetian settlers had intermarried and integrated with local Greek-speaking families. After the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in 1453, Crete was culturally enriched anew with the fresh arrival of a stream of refugees.

Byzantine culture and Venetian finesse combined in Crete in a creative outpouring over the subsequent two centuries in architecture, engineering, art, poetry, music and scholarship. This Cretan Renaissance gave Europe poets like Vitsentzos Kornaros, author of the epic poem Erotókritos, and icon writers like Mikhailis Damaskinós and his pupil El Greco, who was born Domenikos Theotokopoulos.

But this Renaissance came to an end in the second half of the 17th century as a sustained Ottoman assault saw one Venetian city after another fall into Turkish hands: Hanía, Réthymnon and Aghios Nikóloas fell one-by-one in 1645; finally Candia, or Iráklion, the island capital, fell in 1669; the last offshore bastions and islets fell in 1715, depriving Europe of one of its great cultural impulses.

Crete was formally reunited with the modern Greek state in 1913. But for four or five centuries the Venetian presence on Crete was more resilient and lasted longer than the Minoan Golden Age and the Palace of Knossós.

The Candy of ‘Twelfth Night’

Saint Mark’s Basilica, the former Venetian cathedral in Iráklion, is now used for art exhibitions (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2010)

This summer, I was staying within commuting distance of the island capital, Iráklion, known for generations to the Venetians as Candia, and to Shakespeare as Candy while he was writing Twelfth Night.

Most tourists visit Iráklion as a stop-off point on their way to the Minoan ruins and the Labyrinth at Knossós, or passing through on their way to the popular package holiday resorts strung along the coast to the east of Iráklion. But the city itself is treasure of hidden delights.

The Loggia in Iráklion has been painstakingly restored after wars and earthquakes (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2010)

In all essentials, Iráklion remains a fortified Venetian city, with its walls, gates, arsenal, bastion, fortress and harbour defences. A first impression of the solid fortress standing above the harbour is sufficient to explain why the city’s Venetian defenders were able to resist the Turkish assaults for decades. But inside the walls of the old city Iráklion is also decorated with Venetian churches, palazzos, squares and a well-preserved loggia.

Iráklion recovered its status as the island capital in 1971, and today – despite Greece’s economic woes – its people are the wealthiest population in Crete based on the average wealth of its residents.

The Morosini Fountain, once the main water source in Iráklion stands in the former Piazza San Marco (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2010)

The secrets of Réthymnon

Iráklion is the political and economic capital of Crete, but Réthymnon is the intellectual and cultural capital. One of my favourite journeys is the 85 km road from Iráklion, arriving in Réthymnon as the summer or autumn sun is setting behind the Venetian fortezza and is filling the landscape with hues of red, orange and purple that are so reminiscent of Edward Lear’s watercolours.

The Rimóndi Fountain is half-hidden in a quiet corner of a bustling piazza (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2010)

The fortezza in Réthymnon is the most imposing Venetian structure on the island. Below it, a labyrinth of narrow, tangled laneways and alleys is rich with Turkish fountains, hidden Venetian palaces, overhanging Ottoman balconies, and carved doorways inviting you into secret gardens.

Despite the massive tourist developments to its east, Réthymnon has retained much if its charm and many of its traditions. For many years, I enjoyed staying here for weeks on end at the end of summer, taking a small apartment over a jeweller’s shop. A balcony on one side looked out across the harbour; on the other side, I looked into those tangled streets of the old Venetian town, where women sat in groups making lace and old men in their traditional black headscarves and baggy trousers played backgammon or simply watched life passing by … slowly.

A carved Venetian doorway in the labyrinth of narrow, tangled laneways and alleys in the old town of Réthymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2010)

The Venetians knew this city as Castel Vecchio and held it for four and a half centuries. The fortezza is said to be the largest castle ever built by the Venetians. It was erected in the late 16th century in response to the pirate raids of Barbarossa, and took ten years to build. It was designed by the Sforza Pallavicini, but it failed its purpose and Réthymnon fell to the Ottoman fleet in less than 24 hours in 1645. The fortezza was adapted to Turkish uses, and the Venetian cathedral became a mosque, dedicated to the ruling sultan Ibrahim and with a truly fabulous dome.

A mixed heritage

The old Venetian harbour in Réthymnon, below the fortezza, is now lined with restaurants, cafés and tavernas (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2010)

Below the fortezza, the old Venetian harbour, with an elegant 16th-century lighthouse, is now filled with small fishing caiques and pleasure boats. Its function has been replaced by a new harbour, and the old harbour is lined with restaurants, cafés and tavernas.

The Porta Guora was once the main entrance through the thick Venetian walls of Réthymnon, built by Michele Sanmicheli (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2010)

Beyond the harbour, the town’s surviving Venetian heritage includes the 17th-century Loggia, once the meeting place of Venetian nobles. The Rimóndi Fountain, built in 1588 and rebuilt in 1626, is named after a Venetian governor. It is half-hidden under a blocked-off arcade in a quiet corner of an otherwise bustling and busy piazza, and has spouting lions’ heads, a marble bowl and four fluted Corinthian columns. The Porto Guora, once the main entrance to the city through the thick Venetian walls, was built by Michele Sanmicheli, the best military architect of the day, and was once crowned by the Venetian Lion of Saint Mark.

The Kara Musa Pasha Mosque, close to the Heroes’ Square in Réthymnon, now houses the Cretan Department of Byzantine Archaeology (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2010)

The Turks too left their architectural legacy in the old quarter, including the Kara Musa Pasha Mosque, with a small garden and vaulted fountain; the Veli Pasha Mosque, with its minaret; and the Nerantzés Mosque, which was converted from a Franciscan church in 1657 and now houses the Hellenic Conservatory, with its music school and concert hall. The minaret of the Nerantzés Mosque was built as late as 1890 and once offered breathtaking views across the town. But it was being restored when I visited it a few weeks ago and was closed for repairs.

The minaret of the Nerantzés Mosque offers breathtaking views across Réthymnon, but is now closed for repairs (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2010)

Throughout the town, Turkish fountains appear in the most surprising and hidden corners, some elaborate, many simple. The former Turkish cemetery is now laid out as the Public Gardens.

A Turkish fountain near the Public Gardens in Réthymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2010)

The Turks held on to Réthymnon until 1897. After the ethnic cleansing of the early 1920s, the town’s artistic, intellectual and cultural life was enhanced from 1923 on following the arrival of new waves of Greek-speaking refugees from Smyrna in Asia Minor, and life in Réthymnon was captured charmingly by Pandelis Prevelakis in his book Tale of a Town (Το χρονικό μιας Πολιτείας, 1937), a nostalgic depiction of life there from 1898 to 1924. Strolling through the streets of Réthymnon recently, it is hard to imagine at times that much has changed.

The beauty of Mirabéllo

Lake Voulisméni in the centre of Aghios Nikólaos is said to be bottomless (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2010)

Aghios Nikólaos lies 65 km east of Iráklion. Although it has no fortezza, and little of the heritage or hidden Venetian and Ottoman charms of the other island cities, it has a charming setting on a hilly peninsula surrounding Lake Voulisméni, a supposedly bottomless lake, and looking out to bay the Venetians name the Gulf of Mirabéllo or “Beautiful View.”

This is the centre of upmarket tourism in Crete, and experiences little of the brash or vulgar nightlife that is part of the packages in the resorts between here and Iráklion.

When the Venetians acquired Crete in the early 13th century, Castel Mirabéllo was built on this site. Each time it was levelled by earthquakes and burned by pirates the castle was rebuilt, on the last occasion by Sanmicheli in the mid-16th century. But when the Venetians surrendered Castel Mirabéllo to the Turks in 1645, they blew up the castle rather than hand it over, and left it in ruins.

Today, nothing remains of the area’s Venetian heritage. But a Venetian presence lingers in the names of towns, villages, islands and islets around, including Eloúnda, Spinalónga and Neápoli, Crete’s very own “Naples” and the birthplace in 1339 of Petros Philargos, who became the only Cretan-born pope, Alexander V.

A faith that survives

An old church in Aghios Nikólaos ... a reminder of how the Christian faith and the Christmas message have survived since the days of the first ‘Santa Claus’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2010)

The town’s Byzantine heritage has been more persistent than its Venetian legacy. Many years ago, when two small boys were beginning to doubt the story of Santa Claus, we walked up the hill from the bottomless lake to the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity. There, where a few elderly women were women were praying and lighting candles, was an icon of Aghios Nikólaos, the original Saint Nicholas of Myra, who gave his name to the town in the eight century.

They took delight in the story of a saint whose name survives in the town’s name and whose faith persists to this day. The cathedral is a reminder of how the Christian faith and the Christmas message survive the changes and turbulence of the centuries.

Canon Patrick Comerford is Director of Spiritual Formation, the Church of Ireland Theological Institute. This essay was first published in the Church Review (Dublin and Glendalough) and the Diocesan Magazine (Cashel and Ossory) in December 2010.

The legacy of Spinalónga, Europe’s last leprosy colony

Spinalónga … Europe’s last leprosy colony, continued until 1957 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2010)

Patrick Comerford

The “must read” book in Crete this summer – for local people and tourists alike – was The Island by Victoria Hislop. Although it was first published in 2005, the award-winning novel enjoyed renewed popularity in Crete this year because it is being turned into a television drama series and the Greek channel Mega begins airing it on prime-time slots this month.

The book is set on the island of Spinalónga, off the north-east coast of Crete, and tells the fictional story of a family from the coastal village of Pláka and their sad engagement with the life and story of Europe’s last active leprosy colony.

Without spoiling the pleasure of those planning to read the book, let me just say The Island tells the story of Alexis Fielding, an English archaeologist who knows little or nothing about her family’s past and resents her mother’s refusal to share it. She knows only that her mother, Sofia, grew up in Pláka, a small village in Crete, before moving from Greece to London.

On her first visit to Crete, Alexis visits the Minoan ruins at Knossós and then travels on to her mother’s childhood village. There she finds that Pláka looks out onto Spinalónga, and is surprised to learn that the small, deserted island was a leprosy colony for much of the 20th century. In Pláka, she meets her mother’s childhood friend, Fotini, who for the first time tells Alexis the shocking and tragic story that Sofia has concealed: the story of Eleni, her great-grandmother, and of a family torn apart by tragedy, war and passion. She discovers how intimately she is connected with Spinalónga and with the horror and pity of the leprosy colony. She learns too how secrets from the past can change the future.

A visit to the island

Knossós, the beginning of Alexis Fielding’s journey … Oloús was an early outpost (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2010)

I was back in Crete this summer for the first time in almost a decade. Like Alexis Fielding, I too visited the ruins of the Minoan palace at Knossós outside Iráklion before visiting Spinalónga, which has no inhabitants but it is one of the main tourist attractions in Crete.

Spinalónga (officially Νέα Καλυδών, New Kalidon) is set in the calm Bay of Mirabello, within easy reach of the small fishing ports of Pláka and Eloúnda and directly north of the popular resort of Ayios Nikólaos. Tourist boats leave the harbours of Eloúnda and Ayios Nikólaos every day throughout the holiday months – boats from Eloúnda take about 15 minutes, trips from Ayios Nikólaos can take up to an hour. Greeks love Spinalónga for its clear blue waters and its small pebble beaches. However, as no one lives on the island and there is no place to stay overnight, all tours last only a few hours.

The harbour front at Eloúnda is only 15 minutes from Spinalónga (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2010)

On the morning I arrived in Ayios Nikólaos, the ferry had already left. But a spirited and speedy taxi driver, realising what had happened, ensured I got to Eloúnda in time for the next boat to Spinalónga. Stepping ashore, I soon understood that apart from the abandoned leprosy colony and the Venetian fortress, the island has a centuries-old history dating back to classical times.

It is a story peopled by Arab pirates, Venetian architects, engineers and nobles, Ottoman conquerors, Turkish-speaking merchants and seafarers who became refugees, Greek rebels and freedom fighters, German war-time occupiers, and conscientious and heroic priests and doctors.

Homeric city

The waters around Spinalónga are now known for their blue seas (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2010)

The Venetian cartographer Vincenzo Coronelli wrote that Spinalónga was not always an island, and that it was once linked with the adjacent peninsula of Kolokytha. Because of its position, the island was fortified at an early stage in its history, protecting the entrance to the ancient but now submerged port of Oloús, one of the 100 cities of Crete mentioned by Homer. Oloús, south east of Eloúnda, may have been a Minoan port, providing the city and palace of Knossós with an important trading link with the island of Rhodes.

The sites of two Christian churches at Oloús date from the fifth century. But the menacing presence of Arab pirate raiders in the eastern Mediterranean from the mid-seventh century forced people to withdraw in large numbers from the area, abandoning the city and migrating inland. Oloús was deserted throughout the Second Byzantine period (961-1204), until the mid-15th century.

After taking Crete from Byzantium in the Fourth Crusade in 1204, the Venetians began building salt-pans in the shallow and salty waters of the bay, and fortifying strategic points along the northern coast of Crete.

According to Vincenzo Coronelli, the Venetian mapmaker, the island was formed in 1526 when the Venetian Republic severed a portion of the peninsula. It is a tale not accepted by historians. But Venetian documents tell us that the popular name of the island comes from the Greek phrase στην Ελούντα (“to Eloúnda”). The Venetians could not understand the words, and so they adapted it to their own language, and called it spina (thorn) longa (long), which in turn was adapted by local people as the Greek Σπιναλόγκα (Spinalónga). Interestingly, the island of Giudecca in Venice was once known as Spinalónga too.

Venetian fortifications

Spinalónga has fine beaches and clear blue waters (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2010)

As the region acquired new commercial importance with the Venetians, people returned to live around the Bay of Mirabello. But the new commercial life of Crete also attracted the attention of the rapidly expanding Turkish empire, and the Venetians were forced to fortify Spinalónga following the fall of Constantinople in 1453 and in the face of the Turkish capacity to use gunpowder.

In 1578, the Venetians put the engineer Genese Bressani in charge of fortifying Spinalónga. He built blockhouses at the highest points of the northern and southern side of the island, and a fortification ring along the coast that closed off any hostile landings. A new fortress was built on the ruins of the acropolis on Spinalónga, and in 1579 the Provveditore of Crete, Luca Michiel, laid the foundation stone of the new fortifications. Two surviving inscriptions mark this event: one at the main gate of the castle, the other on the base of the rampart at the north side of the castle.

The Venetian fortifications guarded the entrance to the Bay of Mirabello (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2010)

However, the Venetians soon realised the coastal fortifications were not strong enough to repel an attack from the nearby hills. The Venetian military governor of Crete, Latino Orsini, was severely critical of the buildings when he visited the island in 1584, and the defences were then strengthened in the hope of making Spinalónga an impregnable sea fortress and one of the most important of Venetian defences in the Mediterranean.

A lone priest remained on Spinalónga for five years after the last priests left (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2010)

The Venetians kept control of the island long after they lost the rest of Crete to the Ottoman Turks. Following the Turkish invasion of Crete in 1645 and its capture in 1669, the Venetians signed a treaty with the Ottoman Empire on 16 September 1669, leaving only the fortresses of Spinalónga, Gramvoúsa and Soúdha in Venetian hands. These three fortresses continued to defend Venetian trade routes in the Eastern Mediterranean.

As well as serving as a military camp, Spinalónga became an important place for Cretan refugees to settle, and seven separate neighbourhoods, each with its own church, developed on the small island. By 1699, it was the only Venetian naval base in the region. But in 1715, the Ottoman Turks besieged and captured the island. The Venetian garrison withdrew in safety, but over 700 Greek men, women and children were taken captive, with many then sold in the slave markets. A mosque was built where the Roman Catholic Church of Saint Barbara had been razed to the ground.

As Ottoman rule in Crete began to crumble in the mid-19th century, Spinalónga became a haven for Turkish-speaking families seeking refuge, many of them Cretan Muslims whose ancestors had converted to Islam. After the Cretan revolution of 1866, they were joined by more families from the towns and villages around the Bay of Mirabello. In 1881, the 1,112 Turks on Spinalónga formed their own community. But most of them abandoned the island in 1897, moving to the west coast of Anatolia.

The last leprosy colony

Former Turkish houses became the homes of the patients on Spinalónga (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2010)

After the last 272 remaining Turks left, Spinalónga was transformed into a leprosy colony in 1903. Until then, Crete’s leprosy patients had often lived in caves or were banished to areas known as meskinies, away from their families and civilisation, without appropriate or adequate medical care.

At his own personal expense, the Prime Minister, Eleftheríos Venizélos, sent a doctor to India and the Philippines to learn about the latest methods of treating leprosy, but subsequent governments did little to change the conditions of the inhabitants.

Entering “Dante’s Gate” … fretful patients did not know what fate awaited them (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2010)

There were two entrances to Spinalónga: the “lepers’ entrance” was a tunnel known as “Dante’s Gate” because fretful patients did not know what would happen to them after their arrival. Once on the island, they received food, water, medical attention and social security payments. But they were forbidden family visits, fishing was prohibited, and letters were callously disinfected before being posted. The residents ran their own shops, cafés and bazaar, but they were forbidden to marry, and children born on the island were soon separated from their parents.

Little was done to change those conditions even when the discovery of a new drug in America in 1948 offered the hope of a cure. Spinalónga remained a leprosy colony for nine more years, although these advances in medicine meant isolation was no longer appropriate, and care remained rudimentary. The priests who lived with the people were often their most vocal advocates, and the Brotherhood of the Sick of Spinalónga led to many of their demands being met.

A colony closes

Saint Panteleímon … the patron saint of leprosy patients (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2010)

The colony finally closed in 1957. The last inhabitant to leave the island was a priest – he had stayed on until 1962 to continue the traditions and rites of the Greek Orthodox Church, in which a dead person is commemorated at intervals of 40 days, six months, a year, three years and five years after death.

The Church of Saint Panteleímon is visited by the families of former patients, who pray and leave their votive offerings (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2010)

Three of the Venetian-era churches survive to this day: Ayios Nikólaos, Ayios Geórgios and Ayios Panteleímon. Ayios Nikólaos served both Venetian Catholic and Greek Orthodox needs. Saint Panteleímon was the patron saint of leprosy patients, and the island’s inhabitants restored the church in 1953. To this day it is visited by the families of former patients, who pray there and leave behind their votive offerings.

Back in Ayios Nikólaos, there were many lingering questions (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2010)

There are no souvenir shops on the island, no trinkets to buy and take away. But back in Ayios Nikólaos, over lunch beside “the bottomless lake,” I had many questions: Who do we isolate in cruel ways today? Who do we cast outside our community, pretending they pose the risk of contamination? Who, like the priests of Spinalónga are going to speak out for them in the Church today, and to stay with them long after death?

Canon Patrick Comerford is Director of Spiritual Formation, the Church of Ireland Theological Institute. This essay was first published in the October 2010 editions of the Church Review (Dublin and Glendalough) and the Diocesan Magazine(Cashel and Ossory).

A surprising experience of interfaith relations

Patrick Comerford

I am constantly asked in Greece and in Turkey whether I am a priest. I am conscious in the Eastern Mediterranean that my beard allows this presumption on first impression, but sometimes, when they realise I live in Ireland, people are surprised that they guessed rightly at the beginning.

It happened again and again this year in Crete, in Samos and in Turkey, sometimes leading to conversations that could be both amusing and deep. But on one occasion in Turkey there was a surprising outcome to what usually begins and ends as a superficial conversation.

A young member of the staff at the hotel where I was staying asked me on the first evening whether I was a “Pappas.” He used the colloquial Greek word for a priest, Παππάς.

I presumed, once again, it was my beard. Once or twice he muttered that we must talk, but he was busy and no real conversation developed for most of the week.

On the last evening, as I was about to catch the bus to Izmir (Smyrna) airport, he joined the table I was at. He wanted to talk again.

He is from Ankara and is a student in Istanbul. And once again, he wanted to confirm that I was a Παππάς.

And then a fascinating family story unfolded.

When he first saw me, he said, I reminded him of his grandfather in Thessaloniki.

He was surprised when I told him too that my grandfather had been in Thessaloniki. But then he insisted that his grandparents lived in Thessaloniki. In fact, his father was born in Thessaloniki.

I was surprised. I know Muslims who live in Kos and Rhodes. But I did not know that any Muslims were still living in Thessaloniki.

No, he said, his father was born a Christian, was a Greek by birth. His father and mother met in Rhodes. Marriage was impossible, and they moved to Turkey – his father gave up everything for love of his mother, including his identity.

He took out family photographs of his parents and his grandparents. His English was good, but he regretted he had no Greek. He has been to Thessaloniki to see his grandparents, and would like to go again.

And then, just as I was about to leave – he had a present for me: a tapestry icon of Christ the Pantocrator, with five pendant crucifixes. He thought that as a Παππάς, as a priest, I would appreciate it not as a souvenir but for its religious significance.

It is now hanging over my desk.

I have been visiting Greece and Turkey constantly for decades. I remember when tensions were at their highest, and visited Imia in 1996 when Turkey and Greece were close to war in the Aegean.

But at present relations between Greece and Turkey are at their best for almost 90 years. It is palpable. People in Samos spoke about friends they have in Kusadasi, and visits to Ephesus and Sirince. One man spoke eloquently of how it is governments and not people who have problems with each other.

Earlier this month, even the Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, defended the rights of Turkey’s Christian minority, saying: “Our country will gain more if it allows greater religious freedom.” His comments came after the Ecumenical Patriarch celebrated the liturgy on 15 August for 3,000 people in the Black Madonna Monastery at Sumel, near Trabzon (Trebizond).

Marriage, family divisions and unity, the use of religion in political agendas, and the place of Muslims in European society are important issues in interfaith dialogue.

The challenges and opportunities of interfaith relations in 21st century Ireland are the focus of a special conference in the Church of Ireland Theological Institute in Dublin this Wednesday and Thursday [1 and 2 September]. The conference is organised by the Interfaith Working Group of the Church of Ireland’s Commission on Christian Unity and Dialogue and includes national and international experts, as well as visits to the Dublin Islamic Centre in Clonskeagh and the Dublin Jewish Synagogue in Terenure.

The guests of honour at conference dinner on Wednesday evening are the two Archbishops of Dublin, Archbishop John Neill and Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, and the guest speaker is the Minister of State, Conor Lenihan TD.

The Bishop of Clogher, the Right Revd Dr Michael Jackson, who chairs the Interfaith Working Group, says: “The aim of this conference is to open up areas of understanding and of difference particularly at points and places where people of many faiths meet. These include educational and healthcare institutions; civic occasions; birth and initiation, marriage and the rearing of children; end of life and burial matters.”

“We expect that, as well as representatives of the twelve dioceses of the Church of Ireland, there will be ecumenical and interfaith participation; involvement on the part of chaplains to second and third level educational establishments and hospitals and residential homes together with those working on RE curricula and other persons who are interested.”

The conference speakers include: Clare Amos, Co-ordinator of the Anglican Communion’s Network for Inter Faith Concerns; the Ven Michael Ipgrave, Archdeacon of Southwark and a leading expert in the Church of England on interfaith issues; Canon Joanna Udal, who is the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Secretary for Anglican Communion Affairs; the Revd Dr Brendan Leahy, Professor of Systematic Theology at Saint Patrick’s College, Maynooth; Bishop Michael Jackson as chair of the Interfaith Working Group; and Bishop Trevor Williams of Limerick and Killaloe, who steered the ‘Hard Gospel’ programme in the Church of Ireland.

The conference ends on Thursday afternoon with a panel discussion on interfaith events and dialogue with Bishop Jackson and myself as secretary of the Interfaith Working Group. The conference secretary is the Revd Darren McCallig, Dean of Residence at Trinity College Dublin.

Canon Patrick Comerford is Director of Spiritual Formation, the Church of Ireland Theological Institute, and and a canon of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin

The olive tree: a miracle of nature and a symbol of the cycle of life

An olive grove on a hillside in Crete this summer, looking out over the Mediterranean (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2010)

Patrick Comerford

For the past week I was enjoying the Aegean sun and waters, based in the Palmin Sunset Plaza Hotel outside Kuşadasi, and moving easily and joyfully between Turkey and Greece.

Back in the cold climes of northern Europe, what am I going to miss? I’m certainly going to miss the long days filled with warm sunshine, the beach walks along sandy Mediterranean shores, and swimming in the warm waters.

I’m going to miss the flowers, the fruit and the vegetation – the combination of warm sunshine and an abundance of water means there is a plentiful supply of peaches, grapes, almonds, melons, oranges, lemons, tomatoes, cucumbers, aubergines, figs and olives.

In Greece and Turkey this month and last, I’ve started every meal, morning and evening, with a small plate of olives, from small crinkly, delicate olives to full fat, fleshy green ones. I suppose I truly miss the olive trees of the Eastern Mediterranean when I’m back in Ireland. I wonder, could I grow an olive tree in my own garden? But even if I could, I would still miss the impact olive groves have on the landscape.

Just like us, the olive tree grows and matures slowly. The olive tree has grey green and silver leaves that remain intact throughout the year. The olive tree wakes when the early Spring dawns, in February or March, and the tips of the branches begin to sprout between March and April. From April to June, the olive tree sprouts delicate yellow and white flowers with a distinctive scent. The flowers soon turn into fruit, and the growing fruit matures in September and October.

The fruit is ready for harvesting between September and February. When the olives turn in colour from green to purple or from dark pink to black, oil is now present. In the Winter months, from November to February, the olive tree sleeps and rests, and then the cycle begins once again. An olive tree that produces fruit in plenty one year, produces less the next.

Olives are collected by hand, often by beating the tree with sticks or shaking it, and collecting the fruit in nets spread on the ground below. Many families have owned their olive groves for generations, and trees are spoken of affectionately, tenderly cared for, even tended lovingly, as members of the family. And the realisation of this makes reports of the often-wanton, and sometimes deliberate, confiscation and destruction by Israeli troops of the olive trees and groves of Arab Israeli and Palestinian families sad and desolate news.

According to legend, there are two trees in heaven: one is the fig tree, “the tree of truth”; the other is the olive tree, “the tree of life.” In all the holy books of the Eastern Mediterranean, the olive tree symbolises holiness, abundance, justice, health, pride, victory, prosperity, wisdom, intellect, purification, new birth, it is the symbol of the important virtues and values of humanity.

The cultivation of olives probably began in Anatolia about 6,000 years ago, and olive trees have had an almost sacred status in this part of the world for thousands of years.

In the myths of classical Greek and Roman myths, the gods are often born under an olive tree. It is said the twin children of Zeus were born in an olive grove: Artemis had her principal shrine half an hour east of Kuşadasi in Ephesus, where the Temple of Artemis was one of the seven wonders of the classical world; Apollo had one of his principal shrines south of Kuşadasi at Didyma.

The Greeks and Romans would grow an olive tree to honour their dead, and battle heroes and triumphant athletes were crowned with wreaths made from intertwined olive branches.

Table olives come in a variety of shapes, colours and flavours. Most of the olive oils on sale in Greece and Turkey are blended oils: olive oils with a strong aroma are suitable for salads; olive oils with bite are suitable for pastas and grilled meat and fish. But each part of the olive tree is a miracle in itself. The wood is used to make plates, spoons, forks and furniture. The oil is used as a dressing for food, for cooking, for fuel, for making soap and shampoo, and is a soothing balm when rubbed into the skin. The seeds are used for making prayer beads. Why, even the residue pulp can be used as fertiliser and fuel.

The Palmin Sunset Plaza has converted its hotel water heating system to use a locally produced renewable energy biomass fuel. This fuel is made from olive residue, essentially the solids that are left over after olive oil has been extracted from the fruits. This olive residue fuel is CO2 neutral, but it is not entirely odour neutral – although the smell of olives is totally harmless.

And so the olive, from tree to fruit, from leaf to seed, serves as food and medicine, fuel and furniture. The olive is one of the miracles of nature, it is part of life itself.

Saying goodbye to Koutouloufári and Piskopianó

Wandering through the narrow backstreets, these two villages are picture-postcard Greece (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2010)

Patrick Comerford

Before leaving Crete early this morning [Saturday], I spent time on Friday saying my goodbyes to some old friends, and strolling through the backstreets of Koutouloufári and Piskopianó.

These two villages are part of a cluster of three traditional village – the third is Ano Hersónisos – about 25 km east of Iraklion and set 1 km above the coastal resort of Hersónisos, on the slopes of Mount Harakas, making them great places to sit on a restaurant or hotel balcony enjoying the panoramic view.

Traditional Cretan arches have been retained in many of the restored and renovated village houses (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2010)

Koutouloufári and Piskopianó have about 450 residents each throughout the year, but they experience a population explosion each summer with a bustling influx of tourists. Tourism began spreading up from the coast from the 1950s on, and has brought great changes to these mountain-side villages.

As the local people moved away from farming to the tourism industry, old buildings were turned into hotels, shops and restaurants. But many of the old houses still stand and in renovation and restoration a considerable number have retained their traditional Cretan arches.

Z, the book and movie about the murder of Gregóris Lambrákis, inspired resistance to the colonels in the 1960s and 1970s (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2010)

Wandering through the narrow backstreets and alleyways of these two villages, this is picture-postcard Greece. The street names commemorate great Greek poets like Giannis Ritsos or heroes of political resistance such as Gregóris Lambrákis, whose murder in 1963 inspired the novel Z by Vassílis Vassilikós, which was turned into a movie by Costa Garvas in 1969.

In Koutouloufári, I had lunch in the Villa Iokasti, a restaurant with a romantic setting on a wooden balcony overlooking a deep blue pool and with dramatic views out to the Mediterranean.

The restaurant at the Villa Iokasti has a romantic setting, perched on a wooden balcony with dramatic views out to the Mediterranean (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2010)

Late in the afternoon, I strolled down to Piskopianó, which – despite its “young and lively” reputation – dates back to the Middle Ages, when pirate raids drove people away from the coast to seek the safety of the hills, far from the sea.

The village was first mentioned in 1379, when it was part of the possessions of the Ventian Catholic Bishop of Hersónisos (casale Piscopiano de Chersonisso). In 1583, it appears again as a small village of 111 inhabitants.

The Turks captured Crete from the Venetians in 1669, and in the first Turkish census of the island two years later in 1671, Piskopianó had been reduced to 15 taxable Christian families. Today, Piskopianó has 450 permanent residents and with its the two neighbouring villages is part of Hersónisos Municipality.

The bells of the new village church in Piskopianó (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2010)

Towering over the whole village, on a terraced square that also hosts Kostas Taverna, the modern Greek Orthodox parish church of Piskopianó is an imposing edifice. At another corner of the square stands the former parish church, Aghios Ioánnis (Saint John), first built in the 16th century and renovated many times since.

I had dinner in Lychnos, on a balcony overlooking the lower stretches of the village and out onto Hersónisos below and the blue sea beyond.

After a perfect week in Greece, I am back in Dublin today, and the rain has been pouring down since I arrived this morning. Perhaps I hope I have taken a little bit of the sunshine back with me and a little piece of the blue skies and seas, and memories of good friends, good food, good music and good poetry.

Days on the beach and by the pool

Strolls on the beach have added to my sense of well-being this week (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2010)

Patrick Comerford

My week-long holiday in Crete is coming to an end, with a flight to Dublin very early tomorrow [Saturday] morning.

It’s been a culturally packed week, with visits to the Minoan Palace in Knossos, the former leper colony in Spinalónga, the Venetian houses, palaces and fountains of Iraklion, the lake and harbour of Aghios Nikólaos, and churches throughout the island

Perhaps I tried to pack in a little too much into one week. But I managed to have dinner with my son on a few evenings, visited friends in their homes and their villages, and walked and walked and walked.

Because of my severe Vitamin B12 deficiency, I have had a constant sensation of pins- and-needles under my feet, every day for the past few years. The combination of B12 deficiency and sarcoidosis means my joints are in constant pain, particularly my knees and ankles, for the last two or three years at least. But I know I have walked too much over the past week and pushed myself to my physical limits because I’m complaining more about the blisters under my feet and on my toes than about my other symptoms.

But the sensation of being under direct sunshine every day is wonderful for my well being. My apartment in Koutouloufári has two balconies, one looking out towards the sunrise and the blue Aegean waters of the Mediterranean, the other looking out towards the sunset, the swimming pool here at Astra Village, and the Cretan mountains.

Each day has been a blessing here, with time by the pool or time to stroll along the beaches everywhere I have visited.

Nobody has prescribed swimming or beach walks for my conditions, but they make me feel happier, lighter in spirit, and full of the joys of God’s creation.

The sea is never more than 30 km away no mater where you are in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2010)

You are never more than 30 km away from the sea at any point in Crete, and for the past week it has been difficult at times to know exactly where the blue of the sky and the blue of the sea meet on the horizon.

Hersónisos would never be a first choice for a holiday destination for me. But on a few afternoons and evenings, I have walked along both the sandy and pebbly beaches, beneath the overhanging balconies of the restaurants on the tourist strip. Hersónisos has a “young-and-lively” reputation that makes it difficult for people of my age to appreciate its supposed charms. But as the sun sets in the west, and the sky fills with delicate, merging hues of blue, purple and amber, it looks as beautiful as any picture-postcard image from more sophisticated destinations, such as Mykonos.

The bus from Hersónisos to Iráklion passes by some of the most beautiful stretches of beach, including Tobroúk, or rocky inlets, where the water swirls around in mixtures of aquamarine, turquoise, deep azure, sea green and the “wine-red sea” of Homer.

The beach In Réthymnon stretches for about 20 km to the east of the marine (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2010)

In Réthymnon, the old town beach where I first learned to swim is now in an abandoned and deserted state. But to the east of the marina, the beach stretches for about 20 km, is sandy and clean, and the water was inviting when I dipped in for a swim.

The joys of the beaches on Spinalónga defy the sad history of the island (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2010)

Later in the week, in Spinalónga, a few visitors defied the swirling crowds and the demands of history, and got into the clear water below the main fortress gate for a swim.

I’m looking forward to resuming my beach walks in the coastal villages near Dublin after I return home. But it’s been nine years since I was last in Crete ... and I don’t think I can leave it so long again.

A day on Spinalónga and in the Bay of Mirabello

The success of Victoria Hislop’s The Island has increased the popularity of day trips to Spinalónga (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2010)

Patrick Comerford

The success of Victoria Hislop’s book, The Island, is a matter of pride for many people in Crete. The book may be fiction, but it restores the lost dignity and retells the sad stories of many people who were forced into internal exile on the tiny island of Spinalónga (Σπιναλόγκα) when they were diagnosed with leprosy, living the rest of their days in social isolation.

Since the publication of The Island, day trips to Spinalónga have become increasingly popular. That popularity is going to grow now that Mega Channel in Greece is producing a miniseries for television based on Victoria Hislop’s book and is due to be broadcast in October

I took the bus to Aghios Nikólaos yesterday morning, and from there I made my way along the coast of the Bay of Mirabello to the small fishing port and resort town of Eloúnda (Ελούντα), where ferries leave every hour for Spinalónga.

Originally, Spinalónga served as a strategic Venetian fortress, guarding the waters around the northern shores of eastern Crete and protecting the bays of Mirabello and Eloúnda.

This massive fortress was long considered impregnable and withstood Turkish attacks longer than the rest of Crete. It finally fell to the Ottomans in 1715 – a full 40 years after they had captured everywhere else in Crete.

The lepers’ entrance to Spinalónga was through a tunnel known as Dante’s Gate, because patients did not know what was going to happen to them once they arrived (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2010)

The last Turkish inhabitants left the island in 1903, and for over 50 years Spinalónga was a leper colony. This was the last remaining leper colony in Europe until it closed in 1957.

The last Turkish inhabitants left the island in 1903, and for over 50 years Spinalónga was a leper colony. The former mosque became the colony hospital, and conditions were fearsome if not cruel. The lepers’ entrance was through a tunnel known as Dante’s Gate, because the patients did not know what was going to happen to them once they arrived. Relatives found it difficult to get permits to visit family members. The patients’ clothes could not be brought off the island for washing. Only the doctor could send out any post, once he had disinfected the letters. Fishing was forbidden, the dead were buried on the island instead of their home villages, a yellow flag was flown each day as a warning to passing boats, and petty rules governed every aspect of daily life.

The last inhabitant, a priest, stayed on to look after funerals and memorial services for another five years. He finally left in 1962, and ever since the island has remained uninhabited.

It takes less than an hour to walk around the island, using the suggested route. There is no overnight accommodation, but – after circling the full island – the small boat took only 15 or 20 minutes to make the return journey to Eloúnda.

Local lore says Voulisméni is a bottomless lake (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2010)

Back in Aghios Nikólaos (Άγιος Νικόλαος), I had lunch in Okeanós, which prides itself on serving authentic Greek food in the midst of all the restaurants and cafés encircling Lake Voulisméni (Λίμνη Βουλισμένη). Local lore says this is a bottomless lake, but it is in fact 64 metres deep and it drains into the nearby harbour through a small channel dug in 1870.

A long and lingering lunch by the shores of Lake Voulisméni (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2010)

It was a long and a lingering lunch. Looking out on the lake, I could have stayed here for hours on end, enjoying the view and watching the passing tourists.

A day in the Candy of Twelfth Night

Looking down Odhós 25 Avgoústou, the Street of the Martyrs of 25 August, towards the Venetian Harbour of Iráklion (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2010)

Patrick Comerford

Iráklion (Ηράκλειον) is only a short distance west of Hersónisos, but it has none of the brashness of the cheap resorts. Once you get into its everyday streets you realise this is a true and real working Greek city.

As I strolled through Iráklion yesterday, I realised that tourists occasionally end up here, but usually by accident, on their way to somewhere else, or after a visit to Knossos nearby and to the Archaeological Museum. And yet, when you get to know it, this hectic city is delightful, with its Byzantine, Venetian and Turkish treasures, its thriving restaurants and cafés, its pedestrianised streets, its fountains and parks, and its newly-redesigned seafront walks.

For Greeks in the past it was Ἡράκλειον, for the Romans Heraclium, for both of them the city of Heracles. But this is also El Khandak of the Saracens, Candia of the Venetians, the Candy of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, and Chandax (Χάνδαξ, moat) of later years. For many people here, though, it is simply Κάστρο (Kástro, castle) and the people who live here are known as Καστρινοί (Kastrinoí, “castle dwellers”).

In 1204, the city was bought by the Republic of Venice as part of a complicated political deal that involved the Crusaders óf the Fourth Crusade restoring the deposed Emperor Isaac II Angelos to the Byzantine throne.

Because of the Venetian name for the city, the whole island came to be known as Candia. But the city was besieged by the Ottoman Turks from 1648, and eventually fell in 1669, after the longest siege in history.

In modern Greek literature, Iráklion provides the dramatic backdrop for Freedom and Death (in Greek, Καπετάν Μιχάλης), a part-fictional, part-historical account by Nikos Kazantzakis of his father’s role in the Cretan war of independence at the end of the 19th century. An autonomous Cretan state was created in 1898, the city reverted to its classical Greek name, and Crete eventually became part of the modern Hellenic state in 1913.

Close to the former Venetian Loggia, the former Venetian cathedral is appropriately named San Marco. It stands on the former Saint Mark’s Square, now Platía Venizélou, and is now used for exhibitions and lectures. On the same square, the Morosini Fountain, with its spouting lions, is a reminder of the lingering Venetian legacy of Iráklion.

The Church of Aghios Títos has been an Orthodox Church under the Byzantines, a Catholic Church under the Venetians, a mosque under the Turks, and is a Greek Orthodox church once again (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2010)

Behind San Marco is a quieter, sleepier and more pleasant plaza with the Church of Aghios Títos. Through the centuries this has been an Orthodox church under the Byzantines, a Catholic church under the Venetians, and a mosque under the Ottoman Turks. After the exchange of populations between Greece and Turkey, it was re-consecrated in 1925 as an Orthodox church. Its prized treasure and relic is the head of Saint Titus, who accompanied the Apostle Paul to Crete and who is now hailed as the island’s first bishop.

In the plaza beside Aghios Títos, a great old plane tree provides shelter for a restaurant that is appropriately called Geroplatanos.

El Greco Park, a few paces north of Platía Venizélou, is small and disappointing, and hardly a worthy tribute to the greatest artist born in Crete.

The tiny church of Aghia Ekateríni was at the heart of the Cretan Renaissance (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2010)

But Iráklion’s greatest hidden treasure is the Museum of Religious Art, housed in the tiny 16th century Church of Aghia Ekateríni (Saint Catherine of Mount Sinai). It is generally missed by tourists, and is overshadowed by the large and imposing Greek Orthodox Cathedral of Aghios Mínas, in whose shade it seems to sleep.

Tiny Aghia Ekateríni was at the heart of the Cretan Renaissance. The monks and teachers here first came from Mount Sinai and the students at the school here included the poet Vitzentzos Kornaros, author of the epic Erpotokritos, the icon writer Mihailis Dhamaskinós and his contemporary Domenikos Theotokopoulos – better known to the world beyond Crete as El Greco.

The core of the collection is six works by Dhamaskinós, but I was disappointed yesterday afternoon to find the church and museum are closed this summer – the whole collection is on loan to an exhibition in New York while the building is being refurbished, although there are plans to reopen it this autumn.

And so after strolling along the elegant pedestrianised streets of 25 Avgoustou and Handakos, through the backstreets of the former Turkish quarter, which is still waiting and hoping for development proposals to bear fruit, and along the seafront, it was off to a late lunch in O Vrakas, at a junction on Plateia Angelon, looking out onto the sea.

The charming Venetian backstreets of Réthhymnon

Réthymnon’s charming Venetian harbour (Photograph: Patrick Comerford 2010)

Patrick Comerford

The road from Iraklion to Réthymnon is one of my favourite all-time journeys, and Réthymnon is my favourite town in Greece. This town provided my first introduction to Greece, and I stayed in Réthymnon for weeks on end throughout the 1980s and the 1990s. I brought my two sons back there about ten years ago, when we stayed in old Acheillion Hotel, which has since closed but which was then the oldest hotel in town.

I was back in Rethymnon this week, and it is as charming as ever. I spent most of Monday strolling through its maze of narrow streets and laneways, gazing up at its overhanging Ottoman balconies, many bedecked with floral baskets, staring at its Turkish minarets, enjoying its Venetian and Turkish fountains,peeping into its hidden palaces with their ornate wooden doors and secret courtayrds, stepping through the tables of the restaurants encircling its elegant harbour, withs its lighthouse, the harbour, and admiring the fortezza with its Venetian and Ottoman ruins, jutting out and up above the town. And there was time too to stop in some of the churches in the old town and to pray and give thanks for being back in Crete again.

Réthymnon (Ρέθυμνο) is a city of about 30,000 people on the north coast of Crete. It has its origins in antiquity but was never an important Minoan centre. Its modern history begins in the Venetian period (1210-1646): today’s old town (paliapoli) is almost entirely Venetian in its origins and is one of the best-preserved old towns in Crete, with many buildings dating back to the 16th century, with their arched doorways, stone staircases, incorporating Byzantine, Ottoman and sometimes even Hellenic-Roman remains.

The Rimondi Fountain, with its spouting lion heads and Corinthian columns, in the heart of old Venetian Réthymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2010)

The Venetians renamed the town Castel Vecchio (Old Castle) and built the harbour. The commercial and strategic importance of the town then increased because of its location mid-way between Iraklion and Chania.

The Fortezza, a large Venetian castle, is one of the best preserved castles in Crete. The Venetian Loggia housed the archaeological museum when I first stayed in Réthymnon, but it now houses an expensive souvenir shop and an centre information run by the Ministry of Culture. Other Venetian remains include the Great Gate (megali porta, Porta Guora), the Piazza Rimóndi (Rimóndi Square) and the Venetian Loggia.

After a 22-day siege, the town was captured by Turks in 1646 and it remained under Ottoman rule for two and a half centuries until 1897. The town’s Turkish architectural heritage includes the Nerandzés Mosque, which had been a Franciscan church until 1657, and is now the Hellenic Conservatory; the Veli Pasha Mosque, with its fine minaret, south-east of Platía Martíron; and the former Kara Pasha Mosque.

In literature, the town was cast by Pandelis Prevelakis as the setting for Το χρονικό μιας πολιτείας, The Chronicle of a Town (1938), a nostalgic depiction of Réthymnon from the establishment of the Cretan state in 1898 to the expulsion of the Cretan Turks in 1924). But in the bookshops in the old town yesterday, I could only find copies of this book in the original Greek and in German translations ... no English version remains in print.

Today, the town’s principal income comes from tourism, but there is a lively student life during the rest of the year and the Réthymnon campus of the University of Crete hosts the School of Philosophy, the School of Social and Political Sciences and the University Library, as well as the Academic Institute of Mediterranean Studies.

The long sandy beach stretches for miles to the east of Réthymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2010)

In the afternoon, it was a pleasure to swim at the long, lengthy, sandy beach ... the old town beach, where I learned to swim in the 1980s, is still a long stretch of sand but is no longer a good place to swim because of the construction of the new marina.

Later, I tried to pick out the four or five different places I had stayed in Réthymnon, but most of them have changed beyond recognition over the decades: there was the small apartment over a tiny bar or the rented rooms nearby, the cheap hotel room that was available for weeks, all provided views over the old town beach on one side, and the charming Venetian houses and the shops of Arkadiou Street on the other side. They have faded or been transformed, but still have a happy place in my memory of those first summers in Greece.

In the evening, the harbour provides an elegant setting for the restaurants that cluster around it. The sun was setting behind the Fortezza as I headed back on the bus to Iraklion.