Reading Saint Luke’s Gospel in Advent 2019: Luke 4

‘Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit … was led by the Spirit in the wilderness’ (Luke 4: 1) … travelling through a gorge in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

During the Season of Advent this year, I am joining many people in reading a chapter from Saint Luke’s Gospel each morning. In all, there are 24 chapters in Saint Luke’s Gospel, so this means being able to read through the full Gospel, reaching the last chapter on Christmas Eve [24 December 2019].

Why not join me as I read through Saint Luke’s Gospel each morning this Advent?

Luke 4 (NRSVA):

1 Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, 2 where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing at all during those days, and when they were over, he was famished. 3 The devil said to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.’ 4 Jesus answered him, ‘It is written, “One does not live by bread alone”.’

5 Then the devil led him up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. 6 And the devil said to him, ‘To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please. 7 If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.’ 8 Jesus answered him, ‘It is written,

“Worship the Lord your God,
and serve only him”.’

9 Then the devil took him to Jerusalem, and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, 10 for it is written,

“He will command his angels concerning you,
to protect you”,
11 and
“On their hands they will bear you up,
so that you will not dash your foot against a stone”.’

12 Jesus answered him, ‘It is said, “Do not put the Lord your God to the test”.’ 13 When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time.

14 Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding country. 15 He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone.

16 When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, 17 and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:

18 ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’

20 And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. 21 Then he began to say to them, ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’ 22 All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, ‘Is not this Joseph’s son?’ 23 He said to them, ‘Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, “Doctor, cure yourself!” And you will say, “Do here also in your home town the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum”.’ 24 And he said, ‘Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s home town. 25 But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up for three years and six months, and there was a severe famine over all the land; 26 yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. 27 There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.’ 28 When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. 29 They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff. 30 But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.

31 He went down to Capernaum, a city in Galilee, and was teaching them on the sabbath. 32 They were astounded at his teaching, because he spoke with authority. 33 In the synagogue there was a man who had the spirit of an unclean demon, and he cried out with a loud voice, 34 ‘Let us alone! What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.’ 35 But Jesus rebuked him, saying, ‘Be silent, and come out of him!’ When the demon had thrown him down before them, he came out of him without having done him any harm. 36 They were all amazed and kept saying to one another, ‘What kind of utterance is this? For with authority and power he commands the unclean spirits, and out they come!’ 37 And a report about him began to reach every place in the region.

38 After leaving the synagogue he entered Simon’s house. Now Simon’s mother-in-law was suffering from a high fever, and they asked him about her. 39 Then he stood over her and rebuked the fever, and it left her. Immediately she got up and began to serve them.

40 As the sun was setting, all those who had any who were sick with various kinds of diseases brought them to him; and he laid his hands on each of them and cured them. 41 Demons also came out of many, shouting, ‘You are the Son of God!’ But he rebuked them and would not allow them to speak, because they knew that he was the Messiah.

42 At daybreak he departed and went into a deserted place. And the crowds were looking for him; and when they reached him, they wanted to prevent him from leaving them. 43 But he said to them, ‘I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to the other cities also; for I was sent for this purpose.’ 44 So he continued proclaiming the message in the synagogues of Judea.

A prayer for today:

A prayer today from the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG, United Society Partners in the Gospel:

Let us repent for all persons who experience enslavement in different forms today, that they may find liberation.

Tomorrow: Luke 5.

Yesterday: Luke 3.

Jesus answered him, ‘It is written, “One does not live by bread alone”.’(Luke 4: 4) … bread on a stall in Thessaloniki (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

An icon of the Four Martyrs of Rethymnon is honoured in a monastery in Thessaloniki

An icon of the Four Martyrs of Rethymnon by Alexandra Kaouki now in the Rectory in Askeaton (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Patrick Comerford

One of the icons I moved from the bookshelves in my study at the Church of Ireland Theological Institute to the Rectory in Askeaton is a copy of the icon of the Four Martyrs of Rethymnon from the workshop of Alexandra Kaouki (Αλεξανδρα Καουκι) on Melissinou Street, beneath the slopes of the Venetian Fortezza in Rethymnon.

I have spent much time in Rethymnon for more than 30 years, and this icon represents the story, traditions and religious faith of the people of this town in Crete. The original icon by Alexandra Kaouki hangs above the desk of the Bishop Eugenios of Rethymnon in his office.

Last Sunday [17 November 2019], another version of Alexandra Kaouki’s Icon of the Four Martyrs of Rethymnon was given a special place of honour in my favourite monastery in Thessaloniki, the Holy Patriarchal and Stavropegic Monastery of Vlatadon. This monastery, where I spent Easter Day in the Orthodox calendar last year [8 April 2018], is associated with the families of the four martyrs.

The ceremony was organised by the Rethymnon Association of Attica, To Arkadi to mark their 90th anniversary (1930-2020). The attendance included people from Crete in traditional Cretan costume when as icon was blessed by Bishop Nikiforos of Amorion, who is the Abbot of Vlatadon, and Metropolitan Eugenios, Bishop of Rethymnon and Avlopotamos.

The Divine Liturgy also commemorated the 153rd anniversary the people who were burned to death at the Arkadi Monastery.

The Monastery of Vlatadon in the hills above Thessaloniki (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

The Monastery of Vlatadon was founded between 1351 to 1371 by the Empress Anna Palaeologus and was named after two monks from Crete, Dorotheos and Markos Vlattis, two of the closest friends of Saint Gregory Palamas, Archibishop of Thessaloniki.

These two brothers travelled with Saint Gregory to Constantinople in 1341, when he was called before the synod called to deal with the hesychast controversy and Saint Gregory’s theological differences with Barlaam of Calabria.

The monk Dorotheos returned with Saint Gregory to Thessaloniki and took up permanent residence in the city. He later became Archbishop of Thessaloniki from 1371 to 1379. His brother Markos travelled to Mount Athos, where he lived as a monk at the Great Lavra, but he too returned to Thessaloniki in 1351, when the brothers founded the Monastery of the Pantocrator at Vlatadon.

The Four Martyrs of Rethymnon were members of the Vlatakis family, which claimed descent from the same family as the monks Dorotheos and Markos Vlattis from Crete who gave their name to the Monastery of Vlatadon.

The Four Martyrs of Rethymnon were originally Crypto-Christians. They were members of the Vlatakis family and came from the Melambes region. All four were executed by the Turks outside the walls of Rethymnon in 1824 for adhering to for their Christian faith.

The Four Martyrs lived in Melambes in the Agios Vassilios district of Crete at the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century. They were farmers who were virtuous, humble and with great hearts and spirits. They were all married with children and all were they were brothers or cousins of each other and members of the Vlatakis family: Emmanuel and Angelis were brothers, the sons of Giannis Vlatakis. George was the son of Constantine Vlatakis and Nikolaos was the son of another Giannis Vlatakis.

Crete had been occupied by the Turks since 1669. The area of Melambes, including Agios Vassilios, Amari and Messara, was constantly raided by Turks from the Amari area, and many people were faced with three options: to remain a Christian and face discrimination and persecution; to convert to Islam; or to become Crypto-Christians, pretending to convert to Islam but secretly remaining an Orthodox Christian.

The Four Martyrs came from a family of Crypto-Christians who converted to Islam publicly but secretly remained Christians. Crypto-Christians fulfilled their religious obligations, including confession, Communion, marriage, baptism, and so, in secret and with discretion.

With the outbreak of the Greek War of Independence in 1821, the four future martyrs joined the cause and took leading roles. They were in the frontline at the battle of Melambes at Kako Ryaki (Bad Stream) and also took part in battles at Kali Sykia, Agios Giannis Kamenos and later at Vathiako and at Monasteraki.

In mid-1822, the Turkish forces in Crete were reinforced with troops from Egypt. Although the revolution was crushed in Crete in 1824, the four future saints continued to live in Melambes and were living openly as Christians. Mehmed Pasha of Rethymnon heard of their new open practice of Christianity and took this as an affront to the Sultan and as treason.

The four went into hiding in Santali, and the pasha sent troops to Melambes, where they met the president of the village, Katergaris. Katergaris and his sister, who was the wife of Nikolaos Vlatakis, were persuaded to send Mathios Katergaris to tell the four to return to Melambes with a promise of their safety. When the martyrs came down to the village, the Turks arrested them immediately and tied them up. Despite the protests of Katergaris that the Turks were not keeping their promises, the detachment left for Rethymnon with the four martyrs.

The Venetian Harbour seen from the old Customs House in Rethymnon … the Four Martyrs were held prisoners here for four months in 1824 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

When the detachment arrived at Rethymnon, the four martyrs were jailed in the prison in the old Venetian Harbour, on the site of today’s Customs House.

At first, Mehmet Pasha tried to convince the four to convert to Islam, promising high offices, honours and gifts. But they refused to engage in any discussion, insisting: ‘Christians we were born, Christians we want to die.’

The Turkish governor was enraged and ordered their strict isolation and torture, hoping to break their determination. For four months, from July to October, they endured tortures in prison, with the Pasha ordering a new and harsher ordeal each day. But their faith in Christ proved to be unyielding.

Mehmed Pasha then called a special court martial to try them for denouncing and insulting Islam. When they were sentenced to death, they heard the verdict with Christian calm and pride.

They spent their last night peacefully, according to a tradition recorded in a poem by Giorgis Avgoustakis of Melambes:

In their sweet dreams they saw a big miracle
four bright Angels were flying above them
they were holding golden crowns in their hands
they said to them,
Christ has sent us to be with you
because for his love you are giving your lives.

The Four Martyrs were executed outside the Porta Guora, the Venetian gate that marked the entrance to the old town of Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

The day before their execution, the news was proclaimed by a herald through the streets of Rethymnon. All shops were forced to close and the Turkish and Greek residents were ordered to attend the public execution.

On the morning of 28 October 1824, a procession began at the Turkish prison and made its way through the streets of Rethymnon, finishing at the Porta Guora, the big Venetian gate that marked the entrance to the old town. The four were then taken outside the walls of the city, to an open space by the big plane trees where the Church of the Four Martyrs stands todays.

Kneeling in the open space outside the Porta Guora gate, with their hands tied, they saw their executioner holding his sword, and heard him ask: ‘Will you adopt the Turkish faith?’

The standard answer was a humble ‘Yes, my Lord.’

But instead the first man in line surprised everyone with a scornful ‘No.’

A few seconds before his head was cut off, he added: ‘I was born a Christian and a Christian I will die.’

One by one, the others did the same.

The sword of the executioner came down four times and beheaded the four men. As each was executed, his dying words were: ‘Kyrie Eleison (Lord have mercy).’

Christ the Pantocrator in the dome in the Church of the Four Martyrs in Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

For three days their bodies lay unburied outside the gate. But during those three days, it is said, a fragrant smell filled the air. On the fourth day, some brave Christians, led by Antonis Pourdounis and George Lagos, and assisted by Emmanuel Papadakis, the Pasha’s translator, collected the remains and buried them at the Church of Saint George, east of Rethymnon. The church was part of the Monastery of Arkadi.

A year later, Bishop Ioannikios of Rethymnon had the four bodies exhumed and brought the brought the bodies and the skulls to the Cathedral in Rethymnon. Some remains were also brought to the Monastery of Arkadi.

Tradition says that the homes of the Four Martyrs in Melambes were razed to the ground and later burned the village.

It is difficult to ascertain with historical certainty what happened to the families of the four martyrs. Local people believe that in the case of the families of Nikolaos, George and Angelis, some family members were killed while others were been sold into slavery either in Crete or in the East.

However, the story of the family of Manouil or Emmanuel Vlatakis were passed on by one of his descendants, George Maragakis from the village Kouses, near Iraklion, who heard them from his father, Giannis Maragakis (1889-1976), a great-grandson of Emmanuel Vlatakis.

According to this account, Emmanuel Vlatakis and his wife had four children: two sons Nikolaos and Giannis, a daughter Kroustallenia and another son whose name is not recalled. After Emmanuel’s execution, his wife and two of their sons were shelter by an Italian widower in Rethymnon. One son later moved to Chromonastiri, a village outside Rethymnon, where he had three children: Stylianos, who later became Archimandrite Sofronios, Maria and Anastasia. Another son became a shoemaker and returned to Melambes and his son, Antonios Vlatakis, later became a lawyer in Rethymnon.

An influential Turk, Mirolai Pasha from Tymbaki, offered protection to Nikolaos Vlatakis and he became a carpenter by trade.

The daughter Kroustallenia was taken by a Turk for his harem, forced to convert to Islam and given the name her Fatme. Her brother Nikolaos, with the help of Mirolai Pasha, secured her freedom and she returned to Christianity. She named her child Emmanuel after her father, but he died as a young adult.

Nikolaos later married Maria Kolatsidakis from the village Kouse, and he settled there as a carpenter. They had four children who became known as the maragakia or ‘little carpenters,’ and eventually their surname became Maragakis. One of those four children, Emmanuel, later returned to Melambes, where he resumed the name Vlatakis. But he was also known as Letzomanolis, a combination of his mother’s surname and his own first name.

Manolis Vlatakis or Letzakis died at the age of 94 in 2001. He had five sisters, Anastasia, Vasiliki, Maria, Chrysi and Sophia. All had children, and their descendants still live in Melambes.

Immediately outside the old town, beside the Porta Guora gate, the Church of the Four Martyrs is one of the largest and most-visited churches in Rethymnon, and it stands in a busy square of the same name, Tessaron Martiron.

The church is a fashionable venue for baptisms and weddings at weekends. It was here I attended the celebrations of Good Friday and Easter in the Orthodox calendar earlier this year [2019].

The church was completed on 28 December 1975, but stands on the site of two previous churches, the first from 1905 to 1947 and the second, which was demolished in 1972.

The church stands on the site of the execution of the Four Martyrs. The central aisle of the church is dedicated to these four local saints. The north aisle is also dedicated to the Forty Holy Martyrs of Sebaste – Roman soldiers martyred in Armenia during the reign of Licinius in AD 320. The south aisle is dedicated to the Ten Holy Martyrs of Crete who were beheaded by Decius in 250 AD.

Throughout Greece, 28 October is a national holiday, ‘Οχι’ Day, recalling Greece’s trenchant ‘No’ to Mussolini that brought Greece into World War II on 28 October 1940. But in Rethymnon, 28 October is also the day when the city recalls the Four Holy Martyrs.

Inside the Church of the Four Martyrs in Rethymnon on Good Friday (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

When Greece said ‘No’ to fascism and oppression

The Greek flag flies on boat off the island of Paxos in the Ionian Islands (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Patrick Comerford

Today is Ohi Day or Oxi Day (Επέτειος του «'Οχι»), celebrated throughout Greece and Cyprus and by Greek communities around the world on 28 October each year.

Ohi Day commemorates the day the Greek Prime Minister, Ioannis Metaxas, rejected the ultimatum from the Italian Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini on 28 October 1940. This day also recalls the Greek counter-attack against invading Italian forces in the mountains of Pindus during World War II, and the Greek Resistance during the war to occupying Italians and Germans.

Mussolini’s ultimatum was presented to Metaxas by the Italian ambassador to Greece, Emanuele Grazzi, around 3 a.m. on the morning of 28 October 1940.

Mussolini demanded Greece would allow Axis forces to enter Greek territory and occupy strategic locations – or face war. It is said Metaxas replied with a one-word laconic response: Όχι (No!).

Putting popular myth aside, the actual reply was in French: ‘Alors, c’est la guerre!’ (‘Then it is war!’).

The moment provides the background for a dramatic but humorous scene in the movie Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, set on the Ionian island of Kephallonia, making Ohi Day well-known around the world.

In an immediate response to Metaxas’s ‘No’, Italian troops based in Albania attacked the Greek border two hours later at 5.30 a.m. That ‘No!’ brought Greece into World War II on the side of the Allies. Indeed, for a period, Greece was Britain’s only ally against Hitler.

Without that ‘No,’ some historians argue, World War II could have lasted much longer. One theory is that had Greece surrendered without any resistance, Hitler could have invaded Russia the following spring, rather than his disastrous attempt to capture it during winter.

On this morning 79 years ago, 28 October 1940, Greek people of all political persuasions took to the streets in masses, shouting «'Οχι», ‘No!’ From 1942, this day was celebrated as Ohi Day, first within the resistance and then after the war by all Greeks.

The Battle of Crete and the extra resources required to subdue Greece drained and distracted Nazi Germany from its efforts on other war fronts.

The Greek flag flying with the Byzantine flag at a monastery in Meteora (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Today, Ohi Day is a public holiday in Greece and Cyprus. The events of 1940 are commemorated with military and student parades, public buildings are decorated with Greek flags, there folk dances, and Greek Orthodox churches hold special services. Coastal towns may have naval parades or other celebrations on the seafront. In Thessaloniki, reverence is also paid to the city’s patron, Saint Dimitrios, and the city celebrates its freedom from Turkey.

There are traffic delays, especially near parade routes, some streets are blocked off, and most archaeological sites are closed for the day, along with most businesses and services.

In Dublin, Ochi Day and the fallen were marked at 11 a.m. on Sunday morning [27 October 2019], during the Divine Liturgy in the Greek Orthodox Church in Dublin, and in the afternoon at a holiday dinner in the Mykonos Restaurant on Dame Street.

In the West, politicians are always happy to credit ancient Greece with the development of democracy. But in the present crises in Europe, when Greece is often seen as a burden rather than a partner, it may be worth remembering that Europe owes modern Greece an unacknowledged debt for helping to preserve democracy against the Nazis and Fascists during World War II.

The Greek flag with Church flags at a church in Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

The new Bishop of Knossos and his student days in in Ireland

With the new Bishop of Knossos, Father Prodromos Xenakis, when he visited the Church of Ireland Theological Institute with Dr Katerina Pekridou, now the Dialogue Secretary of the Conference of European Churches

Patrick Comerford

It is always interesting to hear news about someone I have known but have lost touch with. I got to know Father Prodromos Xenakis from Crete when he was a post-graduate student in Maynooth in 2010-2012.

He was following a programme in Biblical studies leading to the MTh degree, and was attached to the Greek Orthodox Church in Dublin.

During that time we took part in Greek community events in Dublin, a broadcast service on RTÉ, and he came to the Church of Ireland Theological Institute when I was presiding at the Community Eucharist on the day the calendar of the Church remembers Saint Polycarp, a second century martyr and Bishop of Smyrna.

It was good to hear today that Archimandrite Prodromos, who is now the Chancellor or Secretary of the Holy Synod of the Church of Crete, has been elected the next Bishop of Knossos in Crete.

As Bishop of Knossos, Archimandrite Prodromos will also serve as assistant bishop to the Archbishop of Crete, Archbishop Ireneos. Father Prodromos Xenakis has been a long-time associate of Archbishop Ireneos and has held several positions in the Archdiocese of Crete.

Knossos is a titular see in the Church of Crete. The separate diocese was abolished in 1823 and was attached to Metroplis, based in Iraklion.

The new bishop was elected late on Wednesday [16 October 2019]. His predecessor as Bishop of Knossos is the present Bishop of Rethymnon, Metropolitan Evgenios of Rethymnon and Avlopotamos.

The Bishop-elect of Knossos told the Greek media last night: ‘The election is a special honour to me. I feel joy and gratitude to everyone.’ His episcopal ordination will take place in Saint Minas Cathedral Iraklion on Saturday 26 October.

Father Prodromos Xenakis at a Greek community dinner in Dublin in 2012 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Bishop Prodromos was born Zacharias Xenakis in Stavrakia, Iraklion, in 1979. He studied at the Theological Seminary of the University of Athens, and was ordained a monk and deacon in the Monastery of Saint Irene Chrysovalantou near Athens in 2005.

The Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomeos then sent him to Saint Patrick’s College, Maynooth, where he followed a postgraduate programme in Biblical Theology in 2010-2012. On his return to Crete, he was ordained a priest in January 2013 and became an archimandrite.

He is the head of the press office and has served on a number of boards and committees in the Church of Crete, with special interests in communications, culture and church charities.

He has been a director of youth programmes and a programme producer with Light, the radio station of the Archdiocese Crete. He was a member of recent delegation of the Church of Crete to the Ecumenical Patriarchate and the Greek Government. Bishop Prodromos will remain secretary of the Council of the Church of Crete.

Archbishop Prodromos Xenakis … elected Bishop of Knossos in Crete last night

Brexit slogans and mantras become meaningless in the face of tourist crises

Thomas Cook’s collapse left 50,000 British tourists stranded in Greece this week (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

It has been said this week that it would have cost the British government the same amount of money to rescue Thomas Cook as is being spent on the operation to rescue stranded tourists in Greece, Spain and Turkey — Thomas Cook’s most popular summer destinations.

Thomas Cook’s bankruptcy could strike a devastating blow to communities that are economically reliant on package tourism. Greek commentators say the Greek economy is facing a disaster, and early estimates this week spoke of losses of at least €300 million.

Thomas Cook was the biggest UK holiday operator in Greece. It sent 3 million visitors a year to the islands, employed 1,000 people on the ground, and almost 50 Greek hotels had franchise agreements with Thomas Cook.

About 50,000 tourists were left stranded in Greece this week, with about 20,000 in Crete alone. The tourists, mainly British, were also on the islands of Corfu, Kos, Rhodes, Skiathos and Zakynthos, according to a Greek tourism ministry official quoted in the Athens daily newspaper Kathimerini.

Tourism officials likened the company’s collapse to a massive earthquake that would reverberate through the Greek economy.

‘It’s a seven-richter earthquake and we are expecting a tsunami,’ said Michalis Vlatakis, president of Crete’s travel bureaux and travel agents. ‘It’s not only the contracts of the visitors who have come and are now lost, it’s all those contracts that won’t materialise because people who were expected to come up until 10 November simply won’t travel.’

Manolis Tsakalakis, a hotelier in Rethymnon and president of a local owners’ association in Crete, told the Financial Times that hotel owners in Crete had not received any payments from Thomas Cook for the past two months.

‘Thomas Cook is one of the biggest tourism operators in Crete,’ he added. ‘He explained how most hotels in Crete have accumulated considerable debt to suppliers — ‘a million or two euros at a big resort, for example, or half a million at a smaller hotel.’

Scores of hotels and operators on Corfu, Kos, Rhodes and Zakynthos are owed money, and it is not clear whether will get it back. Two hoteliers told the Financial Times that the Atol protection scheme funded by the British travel industry would cover the bills for guests who were staying with them at the time of the liquidation announcement, but not for those who had already checked out.

Thomas Cook had 48 own-brand hotels in Greece and employed 1,000 to 1,200 people in Greece through a combination of in-destination customer support teams, quality management, contracting and hotel employees. Kos, Rhodes, Corfu and Crete were Thomas Cook’s most popular islands in Greece.

The company was regarded as one of the best employers in the tourist industry in Crete, where its hotels were part of a chain with hundreds of suppliers and small-scale tourist businesses.

Undoubtedly, bad management and failures to manage and control company indebtedness contributed to the collapse of Thomas Cook. But would it have been allowed to go so suddenly, causing a disaster for so many workers and holidaymakers by a British government that was no obsessed with ‘Brexit’ and all the shibboleths and mantras that go with that, including controlling borders, leaving Europe and the much-abused ‘Dunkirk Spirit.’

It is certainly not a government that is listening to the people rather than the privileged.

A choice of passports is becoming important for holidaymakers (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

But if a ‘no-deal Brexit’ goes through, I can imagine more nightmares unfolding, many with the most bizarre consequences.

The tourist season in southern Europe and the Mediterranean now continues into the first week or two in November. So, I imagine a scene like this after a ‘no-deal Brexit’ and after 1 November:

Now young, newly qualified policemen draw the short straw for the roster at the passport control kiosks at an airport serving many hotels and resorts. It may be on a Greek island … but equally it might be in Spain, Turkey or Italy.

They draw the short straws because it is the weekend, and find they are working the night shifts on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, while their older colleagues enjoy the weekend.

A late-night flight from Stansted is late. When it finally lands, it is obvious most of the passengers have been drinking … after all, their departure was delayed, and it is the beginning of their holiday.

Some are in their sleeveless T-shirts as they get off the plane and line up at one of the two kiosks where our lonely pair are ready to check the passports. Needless to say, there is no-one among the women wearing a spider brooch.

They are about to present themselves at the one kiosk that says ‘EU/EEA passports,’ each shifting with just a little anxiety from one foot to the other. No-one is queuing at the other kiosk, ‘Other Passports.’

The first on the queue presents his passport. A few seconds elapses. It is inspected quizzically. It is put through a small scanner that refuses to read it and pushes it back out again.

A few minutes elapse.

The two young, sorely-pressed policemen look knowingly at each other.

Was that a suppressed smile or a grimace? Two heads nod back in the shortest and almost unnoticeable of reverse gestures.

‘Sorry sir, this passport says you are an EU citizen.’

‘Yes.’

‘But you are not.’

‘But this is my passport.’

‘Other queue.’

He shifts across, but is the first at the other kiosk.

‘Sorry sir, this passport says you are an EU citizen.’

‘Yes.’

‘But you are not.’

‘I am British.’

‘Do you have a visa?’

‘No.’

More fidgeting, more murmuring.

Finally a rubber stamp is taken out: ‘ADMISSION REFUSED.’

And so the process continues, slowly, for the next hour or two.

Nine people get through: two families who are Polish – and who faced racist taunts by some of the hooligans on the flight who kept calling out the names of Farage and Johnson; and the couple who had the foresight to apply for Irish passports earlier this year.

But over 200 people are left crammed into a small corridor, without air conditioning, and without any vending machines selling water.

The humour is lost when a call goes out: ‘Far queue.’

Meanwhile, inside the airport, their bags are rolling round and round the carousel with the clothes and packed water they so desperately need and thirst for.

And, inside the airport, another 200 people whose flight was delayed know their plane has landed, but cannot understand why they are not allowed to board their flight home.

It’s 2 or 3 in the morning, and 400 people now realise a British passport has become as useful as a passport from Abkhazia, Northern Cyprus, Somaliland or South Ossetia.

The situation is tense. Temperatures are rising. The two young police recruits at the kiosk decide to call their colleagues in. There is a situation that is about to get out of control.

The older police who manipulated the weekend roster have been taught a bitter lesson.

And the ‘Leave’ voters on both sides of the airport begin to realise what it means when another country decides to take control of its borders without caring about the impact on European friends and neighbours.

Rejoice with me, for I have found what I had lost. I tell you, there is joy among the angels

‘Or what woman having ten silver coins (drachmae) …’ (Luke 15: 8) … a worn and tattered 10 drachmae note from 1940 was worthless soon after it was issued (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Patrick Comerford

Sunday, 15 September 2019,

Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XIII),

Vocations Sunday.

11.30 a.m.: the Parish Eucharist (Holy Communion 2), Saint Brendan’s Church, Kilnaughtin, Tarbert

Readings: Jeremiah 4: 11-12, 22-28; Psalm 14; I Timothy 1: 12-17; Luke 15: 1-10. There is a link to these readings HERE.

Torn and ragged drachma banknotes in a tin box outside an antiques shop in Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

May I speak to you in the name of God, + Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.

In our Gospel reading this morning, Christ speaks in three parables of things lost and found: the one lost sheep among 100; the one sinner who repents in contrast to the 99 righteous people; and the woman who has lost a small coin that others might not even bother to look for.

In the story of the shepherd who has 100 sheep and goes looking for one lost sheep, a rich man shows us how God behaves.

In the story of the woman who has ten silver coins, and who sweeps thoroughly through every dark corner of her house until she finds one lost coin, a poor woman shows us how God behaves.

The first image reminds me how in Achill I once heard about a shepherd who died on a cliff side as he went in search of a lost sheep, and slipped on the edge. A local man reacted by pointing out what a small price sheep fetched in the mart in those days.

When you do find a lost sheep, it has probably been caught in brambles, is full of dirt and matted with droppings. It is not a pleasant fluffy creature, as seen in so many stained glass windows. It may not even be worth bringing home, in the eyes of a shepherd or a sheep farmer. In its panic and distress, it will have lost weight, and may not be possible to sell.

We also have a poor woman who shows us how God behaves.

Ten drachmae might have been a nice sum of money at the time, but was one small coin worth all that time, worry and energy?

I was working in Greece some years ago at a time when the Drachma was being phased out as the national currency, and the Euro was being introduced.

As far as I remember, there were about 330 or 350 drachmae to the Euro. You could still exchange them until 2012, when you needed 587.5000 drachma to get €1.

So, a drachma in my days was worth about as much as a farthing. And when Greeks hear this morning’s Gospel reading, they hear about the woman sweeping her house, searching not for a valuable silver coin but for a tiny worthless coin, searching for a farthing.

The Greek text says not that she has ten silver coins, but that she has ten drachmae and has lost one.

When she finds it, she is rejoicing over very little. And when she throws a party to rejoice with her friends, it is going to cost her more than the rest of her savings if she only has 10 drachmae, it is going to cost abundant generosity, generosity that reflects the abundant generosity of God.

I came across a book a few years that took a light-hearted introduction to Classics, Ancient Athens on Five Drachmas a Day (2008). But you probably would not have been able to even buy a bottle of retsina or a bottle of ouzo in ancient Athens for half of what this woman had saved.

And how the tax collectors who heard this parable (verse 1) must have laughed with ridicule! Finding a drachma certainly was not going to help the party spirit, never mind being worth considering for taxes and tax collecting.

Today is Vocations Sunday in the Church of Ireland.

Our Gospel story provides us with examples of varieties of people who respond to God’s call, who are caught up in God’s call: men and women, young and old, rural and urban, rich and poor, the valued and those who are without value in the eyes of others … even the person seen by others as a sinner cannot escape God’s call when it comes.

Ministry in the Church today is a response to series of calls to young and old, man and woman, rich and poor, those who are valued in society and those who are pushed to the margins, those who are important, and those who humble.

Recently, the Diocese of Limerick and Killaloe produced a leaflet on Vocations, in which clergy in the diocese spoke in their own words about their call to ministry in their own words and tell their story of how they came to be ordained.

They ask: ‘How does God call his people to their vocations?’

Vocations are often hidden: either the person engaged in ministry is not recognised for what they are doing, or someone who has the call to ministry needs someone else to uncover, reveal that call, take a light and shine on it wherever it may be hiding.

These parishes may well survive without me. But they are not going to survive without your ministry. The ministry of welcome, hospitality, service; those of you serve on vestries, as wardens, looking after music, finances or buildings, those of you are the face of the church in local society, local life.

But the ministry of readers and priests is important for sustaining and encouraging those ministries, and for sustaining and maintaining the ministry of word and sacrament in the life of the Church.

This sort of ministry comes in many shapes and forms. It includes part-time and full-time commitments, and now in this diocese we are trying to encourage Ordained Local Ministry, where people continue to be involved in parish and local life, but help to sustain and grow the ministry of word and sacrament in one particular parish or group of parishes.

It may be for you. It may not be for you. But it is for each and every one of us to search out those we think may be called to one of these forms of ministry.

That could be your call. To seek out someone who has a call to ministry but it is unsure about, perhaps even afraid of it, afraid of the commitments or the consequences, or thinking like the lost sinner that God would never call them.

It may be your vocation to be like the shepherd who goes after than one sheep in 100, or the woman who sweeps out her house in search of that one lost coin among ten.

Think about it: it may be that your ministry is being well-exercised in this group of parishes, even though it may not be properly acknowledged or appreciated.

But it may also be your role, like that shepherd or that woman, to seek out that one precious person who is being called by God, but is afraid or embarrassed to answer the call.

An so, may all we think, say and do be to the praise, honour and glory of God, + Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.

Old drachmae coins in a tin box outside an antiques shop in Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Luke 15: 1-10:

1 Now all the tax-collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. 2 And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, ‘This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.’

3 So he told them this parable: 4 ‘Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? 5 When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. 6 And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbours, saying to them, “Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.” 7 Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who need no repentance.

8 ‘Or what woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? 9 When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbours, saying, “Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.” 10 Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.’

‘Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost’ (Luke 15: 4) … ‘Paternoster’ or ‘Shepherd and Sheep’, a bronze sculpture by Dame Elisabeth Frink in Paternoster Square, near Saint Paul’s Cathedral, London (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Liturgical Colour: Green

The Collect of the Day:

Almighty God,
who called your Church to bear witness
that you were in Christ reconciling the world to yourself:
Help us to proclaim the good news of your love,
that all who hear it may be drawn to you;
through him who was lifted up on the cross,
and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Collect for Vocations to Holy Orders:

Almighty God,
you have entrusted to your Church
a share in the ministry of your Son our great High Priest:
Inspire by your Holy Spirit the hearts of many
to offer themselves for ordination in your Church,
that strengthened by his power,
they may work for the increase of your kingdom
and set forward the eternal praise of your name;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

God our creator,
you feed your children with the true manna,
the living bread from heaven.
Let this holy food sustain us through our earthly pilgrimage
until we come to that place
where hunger and thirst are no more;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Hymns:

584, Jesus calls us! O’er the tumult (CD 33)
20, The King of love my shepherd is (CD 1)
105, O the deep, deep love of Jesus (CD 7)



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

Material from the Book of Common Prayer is copyright © 2004, Representative Body of the Church of Ireland.

A classic Cretan poem is remembered in Iraklion in sculpture and in song

Erotokritos remains alive in Cretan hearts … the statue by Giannis Parmakelis of Erotokritos and Aretoussa in Kornarou Square in Iraklion (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

I was writing last week about the Greek poet Odyssesus Elytis (1911-1996), who was born in Iraklion in Crete, and his poem, ‘The Blood of Love’ (Της αγάπης αίματα).

I discussed how his great epic poem Το Άξιον Εστί (To Axion Esti, It is Worthy), published 60 years ago in 1959, was inspired by the Greek Orthodox liturgy and the 17th century epic poetry of Crete, including the Erotokritos (Ἐρωτόκριτος) by Vikentios Kornaros.

Later, I came across some photographs I had taken in Iraklion of the life-size sculpture in Kornarou Square in Iraklion by Giannis Parmakelis, showing Erotokritos as he says farewell Aretousa.

The sculpture is probably the most modern statue in Iraklion, showing the subjects in multiple poses at one and the same time. It shows Erotokritos with two heads and his horse with three heads and six legs. The multiple forms of the hero and his horse may be confusing, but they are the sculptor’s way of expressing the movement and drama of the moment, inviting us to watch them in motion.

The poet Vikentios Kornaros (1552-1613) was born in Sitia, but grew up in Iraklion, then known as Candia and a major city in the far-flung Venetian empire. He is one of the main representatives of the Cretan Renaissance. His Erotokritos is a narrative poem or verse romance written in the 17th century in the Cretan idiom, his mother-tongue.

Erotokritos and its contemporary, Erophile by Georgios Hortatzis, constitute classic examples of Greek Renaissance literature, considered the most important works of Cretan literature.

The sculpture of Erotokritos and Aretousa by Giannis Parmakelis in Kornarou Square in Iraklion (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Erotokritos runs to 10,012 15-syllable, rhymed verses, the last 12 of which refer to the poet himself. Its central theme is the love of Erotokritos – referred to only as Rotokritos or Rokritos – and Aretousa. Around this theme revolve other themes such as honour, friendship, bravery and courage.

The poet narrates the trials and tribulations suffered by two young lovers, Erotokritos and Aretousa, daughter of Heracles, King of Athens.

The setting is ancient Athens, but the world displayed is a complex construct that does not correspond to any particular historical period. Alongside references to classical Greece there are anachronisms and many elements particular to Western Europe, such as jousting.

After several years of marriage, a daughter Aretousa is born to King Heracles of Athens and his wife. The son of the faithful adviser to the king, Erotokritos, falls in love with the princess. Because he cannot reveal his love, he sings under her window in the evenings. Gradually, she falls in love with the unknown singer. When Heracles learns about the singer, he organises an ambush to arrest him, but Erotokritos with his beloved friend kill the soldiers of the king.

Erotokritos realises his love cannot have a happy ending. He travels to Chalkida on the island of Euboea to forget. During his absence, his father falls ill and when Aretousa visits him, she finds in the room of Erotokritos a painting of hers and the lyrics he sang.

When Erotokritos returns, he realises Aretousa has found his drawing and songs. His identity has been exposed and he may be at risk. He stays at home, pretending he is ill, but Aretousa sends him a basket of apples.

Erotokritos wins a jousting competition organised by the king to entertain his daughter. The couple begin to meet secretly under her window and she pleads with Erotokritos to ask her father to allow them to marry. The king is angry with the audacity of the young man and has him exiled.

Meanwhile, a marriage proposal arrives from the king of Byzantium. Before he leaves, Arethusa is engaged secretly to Erotokritos. She refuses to consider any marriage proposals and is imprisoned. Three years pass and the Vlachs besiege Athens. Erotokritos returns in disguise, saves the king in battle and is wounded.

To thank the heroic but wounded stranger, the king offers his daughter in marriage. Aretousa declines, not knowing the stranger is Erotokritos in disguise. Erotokritos finally reveals his identity, the king accepts the marriage and is reconciled with Erotokritos and his father, and Erotokritos finally ascends the throne of Athens.

Its literary contemporary, Erofili (Ερωφίλη), is the most famous and often performed tragedy of the Cretan theatre, but is a very different love story. It was written around 1600 in Rethymnon, then a Venetian city, by Georgios Chortatzis and first published in 1637 in Venice, probably after Chortatzis had died.

Chortatzis started to write Erofili at the end of the 16th century. As was custom, Erofili was written in verse. It consists of 3,205 verses in Cretan Greek, rhymed in 15-syllables, apart from the choral parts. It is organised in five acts, with four lyrical interludes.

Filogonos, king of Memphis in Egypt, murders his brother to gain his throne and marries his widow. Filogonos has a daughter, Erofili, and raises her with Panaretos, an orphan boy of royal descent. Panaretos becomes the general of the king’s army. Erofili falls in love with Panaretos and they marry secretly.

However, Filogonos planned to wed Erofili to the heir of a rival kingdom, and he asks Panaretos to negotiate. The secret marriage becomes known and the king is enraged. Filogonos has Panaretos executed and sends his head, heart and hands as a wedding gift to his daughter. When she receives the ghoulish gift, Erofili is appalled and stabs herself to death. The chorus of maids overthrows Filogonos and kills him.

Giannis Parmakelis (Γιάννης Παρμακέλης), the creator of the sculpture of Erotokritos and Aretoussa in Kornarou Square, was born in Iraklion 87 years ago on 27 June 1932 and one of Greece’s best-known sculptors.

Parmakelis was educated in Iraklion and at the Athens School of Fine Arts, and continued his studies in Paris. He has represented Greece at many international exhibitions and Biennales. His work is anthropocentric, characterised by elliptical figures that combine solid structure and expressive mobility.

His best-known work is the Amiras Memorial in Crete, a memorial of the worst massacre in Greece during the German occupation in World War II. One critic has called this work ‘anthropocentric, abstract, and expressionistic – all at the same time.’

His memorial to ‘Ellinismos in Asia Minor’ (2014) in Iraklion is made of bronze and aluminium and commemorates the expulsion of Greeks from Anatolia in the 1920s.

Erotokritos remains a timeless masterpiece of true love, honour, friendship, courage, faith, patriotism and bravery. Its place in Greek literature is comparable to that of Romeo and Juliet in western European literature.

Several musicians in Crete have added selected parts of the poem to their music, including Christodoulos Halaris, who has composed music for the poem, and Nikos Xylouris (1936-1980). It still lives in Cretan hearts; excerpts are often recited in public, and everyone in Crete knows at least a few verses by heart.

A poster for a recent performance of Erotokritos in the Erofili Theatre in Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

A Greek poem of distant love and resistance by Odysseus Elytis for July

‘I grew and flowered among the stones’ … flowers among the stones in a side street in Iraklion (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Now that we are well into the first week of July, I have found myself listening again to a Greek poem and song associated with this month.

Τον Ιούλιο κάποτε μισανοίξανε …
In July they were once in a hurry …

‘The Blood of Love’ (Της αγάπης αίματα) is Ode 10 in Το Άξιον Εστί (To Axion Esti, It is Worthy), the epic poem that won the Nobel Prize for Literature for the Greek poet Odysseus Elytis in 1979.

By 1979, The Axion Esti had already been set to music in 1964 by the Greek composer, Mikis Theodorakis, and the poem had been taken to heart by lovers and revolutionaries alike, particularly during the resistance to the colonels’ regime.

Both Elytis and Theodorakis were born in Crete and were major figures in Greek culture throughout the second half of the 20th century. The only other Greek poet to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature was George Seferis in 1967. Nikos Kazantzakis (1883-1957), who was also born in Crete, received Nobel nominations on nine separate occasions, but never received the honour.

Elytis’ poems are written in rich language, filled with images from history and myths. His lines are long and musical, inspired by the Greek light, the sea, and the air.

Mikis Theodorakis was especially drawn to the work of Elytis, whose writings were seen as a mirror to the revolutionary music of Theodorakis. The autobiographical elements are constantly coloured by allusions to the history of Greece, and his poems express a contemporary consciousness fully resonant with those echoes of the past that have shaped the modern Greek experience.

Odysseus Elytis was born in Iraklion in 1911 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Odysseus Elytis (1911-1996) is one of the poets who revived Greek poetry in the last century, several of his poems have been set to music and his collections have been translated into dozens of languages.

Odysseus Elytis (Οδυσσέας Ελύτης) was his pen name, but he was born Odysseus Alepoudellis (Οδυσσέας Αλεπουδέλλης) in Iraklion, the capital of Crete, on 2 November 1911. The Alepoudelis family was an old industrial family from Lesbos.

When he was three, the family moved to Athens, where he went to school and later studied law at the University of Athens.

He published his first poem in 1935 in the journal New Letters (Νέα Γράμματα) at the prompting of friends such as George Seferis. His entry with a distinctively earthy and original form assisted to inaugurate a new era in Greek poetry and its subsequent reform after World War II.

He was an army lieutenant during World War II, and fought on the Albanian frontline, resisting the Italian invasion.

After World War II, he was twice Programme Director of ERT, the Greek National Radio Foundation (1945-1946 and 1953-1954). In between, he moved to Paris in 1948, where he studied philosophy at the Sorbonne. He moved in literary and artistic circles that included Matisse, Picasso, Chagall and Sartre, but was private and solitary in pursuing poetic truth. He worked for the BBC in London in 1950-1951.

His great epic poem, Το Άξιον Εστί (To Axion Esti, It is Worthy) was published 60 years ago in 1959, after a period of more than 10 years of poetic silence. It became one of the most widely read volumes of poetry published in Greece since World War II, and it remains a classic to this day.

The Axion Esti won the National Book Award for Poetry in 1960. Widely regarded as his chef d’oeuvre, it is a poetic cycle of alternating prose and verse patterned after the ancient Byzantine liturgy.

As in his other writings, Elytis depicts Greek reality through an intensely personal tone. It is a hymn to creation inspired by the Greek Orthodox liturgy and the 17th century epic poetry of Crete, including the Erotokritos (Ἐρωτόκριτος) by Vikentios Kornaros. It is a composition of song and praise that is all the more powerful for exploring the darkest of shadows at times. The speaker explores the essence of his being as well as the identity of his country and people.

At the invitation of the State Department, he travelled throughout the US in 1961, and similar invitations brought him to the Soviet Union (1963) and Bulgaria (1965). He was awarded the First State Poetry Prize in Greece in 1960, and was decorated with the Order of the Phoenix in 1965.

Meanwhile, the composer Mikis Theodorakis set his Axion Esti to music in 1964, and it became immensely popular throughout Greece. This setting by Theodorakis later contributed to Elytis receiving the Nobel Prize.

During the colonels’ regime in Greece, Elytis lived in exile from 1969 to 1972 in Paris. He returned to Greece, and in 1975 was awarded an honorary PhD by Thessaloniki University and received the honorary citizenship of Mytilene.

He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1979. He died of a heart attack in Athens on 18 March 1996, at the age of 84, and was buried at the First National Cemetery in Athens.

‘On the open sea they lay in wait for me’ … street art in Iraklion (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The setting of Το Άξιον Εστί (To Axion Esti) to music by Theodorakis as an oratorio, with its sheer beauty and musicality, provided anthems that were sung throughout Greece by in the resistance to injustice.

It is surprising, then, that it was not included by Constantine Trypanis in The Penguin Book of Greek Verse in 1971.

Edmund Keeley, who translated the epic into English, suggested the Axion Esti can ‘be taken best as a kind of spiritual autobiography that attempts to dramatise the national and philosophical extensions of the poet’s personal sensibility. Elytis’s strategy in this work … is to present an image of the contemporary Greek consciousness through the developing of a persona that is at once the poet himself and the voice of his country.’

This morning’s song, Της αγάπης αίματα canto (‘The Blood of Love’) is Canto 10 in the Axion Esti. It is part of the repertoire of one of Greece’s most loved singers, Maria Farantouri, and she included it in last year’s farewell tribute concert to Theodorakis.

This song is often interpreted as a Christian hymn, a tribute to the Virgin Mary as the Mother of Christ. But it is also sung as a love song, a song of distant or unrequited love, and it is also interpreted as the political exile’s longing to return to Greece as the mother.



Της αγάπης αίματα, Οδυσσέας Ελύτης

Της αγάπης αίματα με πορφύρωσαν
και χαρές ανείδωτες με σκιάσανε
οξειδώθηκα μες στη νοτιά των ανθρώπων
μακρινή μητέρα ρόδο μου αμάραντο.

Στ’ ανοιχτά του πελάγου με καρτέρεσαν
Με μπομπάρδες τρικάταρτες και μου ρίξανε
αμαρτία μου να ’χα κι εγώ μιαν αγάπη
μακρινή μητέρα ρόδο μου αμάραντο.

Τον Ιούλιο κάποτε μισανοίξανε
τα μεγάλα μάτια της μες στα σπλάχνα μου
την παρθένα ζωή μια στιγμή να φωτίσουν
μακρινή μητέρα ρόδο μου αμάραντο.

Theodorakis only included three stanzas of this canto in his setting, which is considered by many critics to be the most significant work of modern Greek music.

The English translation, ‘The Blood of Love,’ by Edmund Keeley and Giorgos Savidis, includes five stanzas:

The Blood of Love

The Blood of Love has robed me in purple
And joys never seen before have covered me in shade.
I’ve become corroded in the south wind of humankind
Mother far away, my Everlasting Rose.

On the open sea they lay in wait for me,
With triple-masted men-of-war they bombarded me,
My sin that I too had a love of my own
Mother far away, my Everlasting Rose.

Once in July her large eyes
Half-opened, deep down my entrails, to light up
The virgin life for a single moment
Mother far away, my Everlasting Rose.

And since that day the wrath of ages
Has turned on me, shouting out the curse:
‘He who saw you, let him live in blood and stone’
Mother far away, my Everlasting Rose.

Once again I took the shape of my native country,
I grew and flowered among the stones.
And the blood of killers I redeem with light
Mother far away, my Everlasting Rose.



An easier translation of the three stanza song that retains its popularity reads:

Bloods of love dyed in red
and joys unseen did shade me
I got oxidated in the dampness of people
Distant mother, my rose unfading.

In the open sea they awaited me
with three-sail bombard ship
and opened fire my sin to have a love
Distant mother, my rose unfading.

Somewhere in July, her big eyes half opened,
inside my bowels the pure life,
for a moment to enlighten
Distant mother, my rose unfading.

How the last Jews of Crete perished in the Holocaust 75 years ago in June 1944

Etz Hayyim Synagogue stands in a small alley off Kondhilaki Streer in Evraiki or the former Jewish quarter in the old town of Chania (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

This month marks the 75th anniversary of the virtual annihilation of the Jewish community of Crete in 1944. Early on the morning of 9 June 1944, the Greek freighter Tanais – which was carrying 265 people, the entire surviving Jewish population of Crete – was torpedoed before it reached the port of Piraeus.

Since I started visiting Crete in the mid-1980s, I have often searched for the remains of the Jewish communities that once lived in the island’s three main cities, Chania, Rethymnon and Iraklion.

The courtyard of the Etz Hayyim Synagogue in Chania … there have been Jews in Crete for over 2,300 years (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Etz Hayyim synagogue stands in a small alley off Kondhilaki Streer in Evraiki or the former Jewish quarter in the old town of Chania, where there has been a synagogue since the Middle Ages. It is in the heart of the walled maze of alleyways and narrow streets that spread out from the harbour with its mediaeval lighthouse and the port’s surviving mosque.

There had been Romaniote or Greek-speaking Jews in Crete for more than 2,300 years, and they survived wave-after-wave of invaders, including Romans, Byzantines, Saracen pirates, Venetians and Ottomans.

There are early references to the Jews in Crete in I Maccabees 15: 23. A letter from Simon Maccabee to the ruler of Crete in 142 BCE expresses support for the local Jews. Philo of Alexandria speaks of the Jews of Crete. Josephus the Jewish historian married a Jewish woman from Crete. He notes that the false Alexander, on his way to Rome in the year 4 BCE, visited the Jewish communities of Crete, who accepted him as a member of the Hasmonean dynasty and gave him money. A few decades later, the New Testament records Jews from Crete living in Jerusalem at the time of the Pentecost (Acts 2: 11).

The Emperor Theodosius II expelled the Jews from Crete in 408. But many families returned, and in the year 440 many Jews in Crete accepted the claims of Moses of Crete, a self-proclaimed Messiah.

The Jews of Rethymnon lived in a suburb outside the walls of the Byzantine city (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Surviving in mediaeval Crete

The Jewish communities of Crete may have survived the Byzantine and Saracen periods, and there probably was a Jewish presence in Crete when the island was captured by Venice in 1204.

The Jews of Rethymnon are noted in 1222, when there is a reference to them during a Greek rebellion against the Venetians, and some documents give 1228 as the date for the foundation of a synagogue in Crete. By 1320, the Jews of Rethymnon lived in the old burgus or suburb, outside the Byzantine city. Sabateus Capsali was the Jewish owner of several houses abutting the walls of the suburb in Rethymnon.

In return for reopening the synagogue in 1386, the Jews of Rethymnon were obliged to pay towards building the port (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Jewish community of Rethymnon had its own institutions well before 1362, with a synagogue cantor and a shochet or ritual animal slaughterer. In return for reopening their synagogue in 1386, the Jews of Rethymnon were obliged to pay towards building the port.

A significant number of Sephardic Jews arrived in Venetian Crete in 1391, having fled recent massacres in Spain. They were soon joined by more exiles from Venice in 1394 and then from Germany. Despite tensions between the original Romaniot Jews of Crete and the new Sephardic arrivals, the two communities soon intermarried.

Meanwhile, in 1392, the Jews of Rethymnon were required to supply 12 men to guard the ramparts near the ghetto. There is a reference to this Jewish quarter in a resolution of the Venetian Senate in 1412.

The Jewish population of Crete in the 15th century has been estimated at 1,160. The Capsali family, which had lived in Rethymnon from the 14th century or earlier, included leading rabbis such as Moses ben Elijah Capsali (1420-1495), who became Hakham Bashi or Chief Rabbi of the Ottoman Empire, and Elijah Capsali (1483-1555), who wrote histories of Crete and Venice.

When large numbers of exiles fleeing the Spanish Inquisition arrived on Crete in the early 16th century, the island’s Jewish communities sold gold ornaments in their synagogues to raise money to ransom many exiles being kept forcibly on board the ships.

In the side streets of Rethymnon on a balmy summer afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Ottoman decline

After the Turks captured Rethymnon in 1647, it is said, the Jewish population left the city for economic reasons. But the Jewish communities of Crete survived in Iraklion and Chania. On the advice of the Chief Rabbi of Crete, Moses Ashkenazi, all Jews who were Greek subjects formally adopted Ottoman nationality in 1869.

The Jews of Chania were accused of a ritual murder in 1873. But, thanks to the efforts of the French consul-general, the missing child was found and the Greek authors of the plot were jailed.

The name of Kapsali Street, leading to the Cathedral, evokes memories of one of the leading Jewish families in Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

At the beginning of the Greco-Turkish war in 1897, there were 225 Jewish families in Crete, or 1,150 people in a total population of 250,000, spread across the three cities: Chania (200 families), Iraklion (20 families), and Rethymnon (five families). But Jewish life in Crete was declining significantly, and many Jewish families left and moved to Venice and other parts of Italy and to other Jewish enclaves in the Mediterranean, including Gibraltar, Istanbul and Thessaloniki.

Recently, as I strolled through the old Venetian parts of Rethymnon, I could find no traces of the Jewish quarter or any of the former synagogues, the Jewish Quarter or a Jewish cemetery.

The minaret of the Valide Sultana Mosque behind Tombázi Street has a sculpted Star of David … was this the site of the synagogue in Rethymnon? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The minaret of the old Porta Grande or Valide Sultana Mosque, behind the shopfronts on Tombázi Street, has an inscription in Arabic and a sculpted Star of David beneath. The mosque stands near the Guora Gate, the main gate into the Venetian city, built by Jacopo Guoro, Governor of Rethymnon in 1566-1588.

The revival of the Etz Hayyim Synagogue in Chania is due to the vision and hard work of Nicholas Stavroulakis (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The mosque was built in 1670 and was named after the Valide Sultana Kösem (1589-1651), once of the most powerful women in Ottoman history as Valide Sultana or Queen Mother from 1623 to 1651. Kösem was of Greek birth, born Anastasia, the daughter of a priest on the island of Tinos. Perhaps the Star of David was carved on the minaret because the mosque stands on the site of the original synagogue.

Close to the mosque, the name of Kapsali Street, off Tombazi Street, evokes memories of the Capsali family, one of the leading Jewish families in Rethymnon.

The Etz Hayyim synagogue was desecrated and abandoned after World War II (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

German occupation

Some of the remaining Jews managed to escape Crete before the Germans occupied Crete in 1941. The Nazis ordered a census of the remaining Jews on the island and found 314 Jews in Chania and 26 in Iraklion.

In 1944, the 265 remaining Jews of Crete were rounded up by the Nazis to be sent to Athens for deportation to Auschwitz. But early on the morning of 9 June 1944, the Tanais, the container ship carrying them to Athens, was torpedoed by a British submarine, the HMS Vivid, off the coast of Santorini.

In all, about 1,000 prisoners were on board the ship, including 400 Greek hostages and 300 Italian soldiers. No one survived.

The Aron Hakodesh or Ark in the Etz Hayyim Synagogue (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

In a cruel twist of fate, the Jews of Crete were destroyed by fire in the Holocaust, but not in the way the Nazis had planned. The crew of the HMS Vivid believed they were sinking an enemy target, but never realised the horrific purpose of its voyage or who was on board.

The bimah or prayer platform in the Etz Hayyim Synagogue (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Reviving a synagogue

The Etz Hayyim synagogue in Chania stood empty after World War II. The building was desecrated and was used as a dump, a urinal and a kennel, damaged by earthquakes and filled with dead animals and broken glass, its mikvah or ritual bath oozing mud and muck.

The revival of the synagogue is due to the vision and hard work of Nicholas Stavroulakis who grew up in Britain, the son of a Turkish Jewish mother and a Greek Orthodox father from Crete. He first learned about Crete’s lost Jews when he was a young man, and his family ties inspired many visits to this island. He returned to Crete in 1995, set about restoring the synagogue, and Etz Hayyim reopened in 1999.

The synagogue’s floor plan is in the Romaniote or Greek tradition. The ark faces the eastern wall, while the bimah or platform for readings and prayers faces the western one. The rebuilt mikvah is fed by a spring. The scattered remains of the tombs of past rabbis have been recovered and have been reburied. In a hallway, a simple plaque bears the names of the Jews of Chania who were killed in 1944.

The tombs of Ottoman-era rabbis beside the Etz Hayyim Synagogue (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Etz Hayyim suffered two arson attacks in the same month in 2010. But there was international outage, and donations poured in for the restoration of Etz Hayyim. A synagogue in Athens, where most of Greece’s 5,000 Jews live, lent spiritual support by declaring itself a sister synagogue.

Today, barely more than a dozen Jews live in Crete, and Evraiki, the former Jewish quarter of Chania, is crammed with tavernas, cafés and souvenir shops. Etz Hayyim holds weekly Shabbat services in Hebrew, Greek, and English, and is home to a research library with 4,000 volumes. Rabbi Gabriel Negrin, who was once a student in Crete, regularly comes to Chania from Athens to help with the Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur services.

Chief Rabbi Gabriel Negrin places candles in the Holocaust memorial in the Etz Hayyim Synagogue (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

I was both privileged and humbled to be a guest last year at the memorial service in Etz Hayyim to mark the anniversary of the destruction of the Jewish community of Crete. The service was led by the Chief Rabbi of Athens, Rabbi Gabriel Negrin, and I was invited to join in reading the names of the 265 Jews from Crete who died on board the Tanais.

After the Haskhavah or memorial service, we lit 265 candles to remember each one of the victims. In silence the candles were placed around the synagogue, in the courtyard and in the garden, in the mikvah or ritual bath, and on the tombs of the rabbis buried there in Ottoman times. The New York-born poet Natalia Ventura, who lives in Crete, read her poem ‘Memorial Service’:

A menorah, prayer shawls and prayer books in the Etz Hayyim Synagogue (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Your absence
perfumes the air
like incense in this house of prayer.

Through the evening service,
we listen still
for the music of your presence,

half expecting a miracle:
your voices
ringing in our ears.

Your names – at least – survive.
We say them one-by-one,
speak the being behind the name.
Whole families grouped
like sheaves of wheat –
Elchais: Chaim, Elvira, Rebecca, Leon,
Osmos: Solomon, Stella, Ketti, Mois.
A shower of names, unrelenting –
Avigades, Dientes, Depa, Evlagon, Ischakis, Cohen, Kounio.
A tide, a torrent, hailstones
hitting hard: Isaak. Zapheira. Matilda. Nisim.
Zilda. Salvador. Raphael. Rosa.

We light candles
to your memory, carry them
to every corner of the courtyard:
set them on the steps,

the Hebrew-lettered stones,
the walls round the rabbis’ tombs;
among the roses, potted palms
and jasmine; under the walnut,

under the pomegranate tree
until the courtyard’s a sea
of light, shimmering with spirit –
yours and ours entwined.

Sorrow and joy,
absence and presence,
Then and Now cross borders,
join hands, are one.

The Holocaust memorial in the Etz Hayyim Synagogue (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

This feature was first published in June 2019 in the ‘Church Review’ (Dublin and Glendalough) and the ‘Diocesan Magazine’ (Cashel, Ferns and Ossory)

Patrick Comerford with Chief Rabbi Gabriel Negrin in Etz Hayyim Synagogue in Chania