Canon Malcolm Bradshaw speaks out on the twin crises in Greece

Canon Malcolm Bradshaw of Athens with Canon Patrick Comerford of Christ Church Cathedral at the USPG conference in Swanwick

Patrick Comerford

Canon Malcolm Bradshaw of Saint Paul’s Anglican Church in Athens portrayed a very bleak picture of the two humanitarian crises facing Greece when I met him this summer.

Canon Bradshaw, who had met the Friends of Christ Church Cathedral a few days earlier, was the principal speaker at the annual conference of the Anglican mission agency USPG in the Hayes Conference Centre in Swanwick, Derbyshire.

He spoke of two crises in Greece: one facing the indigenous population of Greece, and the other facing the refugees who have arrived in Greece. He explained how the crisis facing people in Greece is as severe as the refugee crisis, and he spoke of the surprising difficulties facing the Anglican chaplaincy at Saint Paul’s.

He described how the Greek Orthodox Church is providing 10,000 meals each day in Athens. A group called the Church on the Street provides 800 meals to refugees and to Greeks in the heart of Athens. Throughout Greece, the Greek Orthodox Church is providing another 250,000 meals a day, and others are doing similar work.

It was heart-breaking to listen as he described the plight and needs of schoolchildren, and he spoke of the need to provide meals for children who arrive at school starving.

Many people have run out of money and have no resources, he explained. The figures show 27% of people over 25s in Greece are out of work and in long-term unemployment. The figures are worse for those who are younger: 57% of under-25s are out of work.

Pensions have been cut in half, and many people do not know where their income is coming from, from one month to the next. Taxes have been raised right across the board, and VAT at 27% is perhaps the highest in the EU. People are not making ends meet, and debt is high, he said.

“We don’t see any light at the end of the tunnel until a government is willing to tackle structural reforms,” he said. And he asked: “Where does the future lie?”

He also described how the refugee crisis began to unfold in November 2014. The Syrians who first arrived then were well-educated and did not want to stay in Greece, but hoped to move on to Germany.

By September, 5,000 to 7,000 people were arriving on the Greek islands every day, and there were no structures to cope with the influx. When winter came, people were dying in the camps of cold. Describing the camps graphically, he said: “This is the closest thing to a concentration camp in Europe … It almost has the feel of Nazi Germany emerging on the ground in Europe again.”

The chaplaincy in Athens started providing clothes and 400-500 hot meals one day a week, with help of USPG. It was a drop in the ocean, but it was some relief. But finance became a problem with capital controls and fears that the Greek banks would collapse or that the Government would take a haircut from all account.

The Anglican Diocese in Europe stepped in and turned to USPG for help. Donations need to be monitored, and since November there has been a partnership with USPG, which also provides two facilitators to work alongside chaplaincy. This, he said, is “truly a God-send.”

The money raised through the diocese and USPG has helped a number of programmes include the Lighthouse on Lesbos, where people are going out to meet people on dinghies in the Aegean, and Medical Intervention on Samos, which is providing medical and psycho-social support.

The chaplaincy also works closely with Apostoli, the humanitarian wing of the Greek Orthodox Church, providing non-food relief items and a hostel for non-accompanied minors, with the Salvation Army, which is working on the streets with refugees from Afghanistan, Iran and Syria, and the Ecumenical Refugee Programme, which is dealing with family reunification in the face of complex international law that works against suffering people who are heavily traumatised.

The crisis has its roots in the Iraq war declared by the US and Britain. And he asked: “Where is the United States in responding to this crisis? Where is Britain in responding to this crisis?”

Earlier this year, Father Malcolm, as he is known throughout Greece, was made an MBE in the British New Year’s Honours List. Bishop David Hamid of the Diocese in Europe says this “is a most fitting award recognising Father Malcolm’s outstanding achievements and extraordinary service, particularly during this time of financial hardship facing the Greek people and the huge numbers of refugees arriving in Greece and transiting through the country.”

Canon Malcolm Bradshaw from Athens speaking at the USPG conference in Swanwick this summer (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

This full-page report is published in the current edition of the ‘Friends’ News,’ Christ Church Cathedral Dublin, Autumn 2016 (Vol 34, No 2), p 14.

Orthodox Spirituality as experienced by an Anglican visitor to Greece

At the Divine Liturgy in the village church in Tsesmes, near Rethymnon, Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Patrick Comerford

There is a story in the Orthodox Church that when Vladimir, Prince of Kiev, was still a pagan at the end of the tenth century, he sent out envoys to discover the true religion and to advise him on what should become the state religion.

The envoys first visited the Muslim Bulgars of the Volga, and found no joy among them ‘but mournfulness and a great smell.’ In Germany and Rome, they found the worship and liturgy was without beauty. But when the envoys reached Byzantium, they were so dazzled by the splendour of the liturgy in the great church of Aghia Sophia they instantly decided that Orthodoxy should be the faith of the Slav people. ‘We knew not whether we were on heaven or on earth, for surely there is no such splendour or beauty anywhere upon earth. We cannot describe it to you: only this we know, that God dwells there among humans, and that their service surpasses the worship of all other places. For we cannot forget that beauty.’

The riches of Orthodox spirituality need to be understood in Ireland today, not merely because of the beauty of the liturgy but for practical and ecumenical reasons too:

● Who are the Christians caught in conflicts in the Middle East, in Syria, Iraq, Egypt and Lebanon, or between the extremes of militant Zionism and militant Islam?

● Four EU member states have an Orthodox majority – Greece, Cyprus, Romania and Bulgaria.

● How did Orthodox spirituality sustain people in Soviet Russia or in Ceausescu’s Romania?

● What was the role of faith in the horrors of ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia?

● What expressions of spirituality are sustaining the people of Greece in the current economic and political crisis?

● How should I behave when I visit a church while on holiday in Greece, Cyprus or Russia?

Orthodoxy is the fastest growing Christian tradition in Ireland today. There are Greek, Russian, Romanian, Antiochene and Georgian churches, many of them using former Church of Ireland parish churches. In addition, there is a variety of what are known as Oriental Orthodox parishes, including Indian Orthodox, Syrian Orthodox and Coptic Orthodox communities, as well as the Mar Thoma Church, which has its roots in Syrian and Indian Orthodoxy but is in full communion with the Anglican Communion.

Understanding Orthodox spirituality is a key to understanding modern literature – from Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov to the novels of Nikos Kazantzakis, the poems of Yiannis Ritsos or JD Salinger’s Franny and Zooey – or the music of composers like Rachmaninov, Stravinsky and John Taverner. Orthodox spirituality also explains the themes in some modern movies – from Zorba the Greek to My Big Fat Greek Wedding and Captain Corelli’s Mandolin.

Worship in church

I have spent time in many Orthodox countries, experiencing the life of churches and monasteries in Greece, Romania, Cyprus, Albania and Egypt, especially on Mount Athos, Mount Sinai, and Patmos, and in Crete, Thessaloniki, Athens and the Greek islands. This year, I visited a number of monasteries and churches in Crete, where I also spent time in the studio of a leading icon writer. I also spent a short retreat in an Orthodox monastery in Essex, and for the past ten years I have been a regular student on courses in Cambridge organised by the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies.

Although the majority of Greeks see Orthodoxy as an essential ingredient in their national and cultural identity, Church attendance figures on Sunday mornings are surprisingly low, with high numbers among those who are middle-aged or older. Many Greeks only come to church for baptisms, weddings and funerals, for the major church holidays and local festivals, especially Easter, and to mark their name day. Often people in resorts try to forestall questions by explaining their need to open shops, restaurants or hotel reception desks early on Sunday mornings. When young parents come with their recently baptised children so that they can receive the Eucharist, they often arrive late, just in time for the child to receive Communion, and the parents rarely take Communion themselves.

Even regular churchgoers are casual about attendance and participation. They greet one another with hugs and kisses, constantly chatter, and leave it to the cantors to chant the responses and those parts that Anglicans would always expect to join, such as the Gloria, Creed, Trisagion (Sanctus and Benedictus) and the Lord’s Prayer. Few people ever receive Communion on a Sunday morning – apart from the children brought by their parents, there may only be four or five communicants in any church.

Yet everyone understands and follows the Liturgy in their own reverential ways. There is silence and reverence at the most appropriate times, including the Gospel procession and reading, the invocation of the Holy Spirit (epiclesis) and words of institution, the Creed and the Lord’s Prayer, and when others come forward to receive the Sacrament. No-one ever comes into a church without lighting candles and kissing the main icons. During the Liturgy, people come forward intermittently to the side doors of the icon screen with the names of people they want prayers for. The sermon at the end seldom lasts for more than three to five minutes – and there is much incense … and much ringing of bells.

The prósphoron is the loaf of bread used in the Divine Liturgy. Holy Communion is received as bread and wine mixed together in one large chalice and is administered with a long, ladle-like spoon. The antídoron is ordinary bread that that comes from the remains of the prósphoron and is blessed but not consecrated. This bread is distributed to all at the end of the Liturgy, and many people take home small portions to family members who have not been to church.

In the midst of this relaxed formality, priests never abandon the liturgical tradition or vary it to suit their own personal preferences, prejudices or impulses. The variety or chaos throughout Anglicanism on a Sunday morning is not possible in the Orthodox Church, and would never be contemplated.

The life of an Orthodox Christian is one of prayer. In the Orthodox tradition, it is the person who truly prays who is a theologian and a God-seer. The purpose of all life is to be filled with the Holy Spirit and to become one with Christ, so that we may ‘become participants in the Divine Nature’ (II Peter 1: 4), or θέωσις (theosis) as it is called in the Orthodox tradition. A life of prayer is a life of active love for all people and is filled with mercy, forgiveness and love. For the Orthodox, all hours are appropriate for prayer and all places good. It is sufficient that we want to pray; learning comes after that. However, five specific aspects are keys to understanding Orthodox spirituality: the Liturgy; Daily and Personal Prayer; Icons and Prayer; the Jesus Prayer; and the monastic life.

The Liturgy

The word Orthodoxy means, primarily, not right doctrine but right worship or praise, and doctrine is understood first and foremost within the context and setting of the worship of the Church. As the Russian theologian Father Georges Florovsky (1893-1979) writes: ‘Christianity is a liturgical religion. The Church is first of all a worshipping community. Worship comes first, doctrine and discipline second.’ Or, as Metropolitan Kallistos Ware says: ‘Orthodoxy sees human beings as liturgical creatures who are most truly themselves when they glorify God, and who find their perfection and self-fulfilment in worship.’

This word liturgy is well-understood by everyone in Greece. The term is not technical or purely theological. Signs in shops regularly announce ‘Opening Hours’ as ώρες λειτουργίας (ores leitourgías) – the hours of service or the hours for serving the public.

The first experience many people have of Orthodoxy is visiting an Orthodox church. This can be so overpowering that many people agree with the envoys from Kiev who said: ‘This we know, that God dwells there among humans.’ But Orthodox liturgy has had an immense influence on the western liturgical movement, including our understandings of separate Services of the Word and of the Sacrament, a full set of Biblical readings, the Gospel procession and the Offertory procession, the ἐπίκλησις (epiklesis) in the Eucharist, and even the fact that we stand far more often during the liturgy.

Although the Divine Liturgy or the Eucharist is celebrated on most days in monasteries, there is no Orthodox tradition of a daily celebration in parish churches, and the Liturgy is seldom celebrated on weekdays during Lent.

The sense of worshipping the Lord in the beauty of holiness is experienced in the singing and in the decoration of churches, with their frescoes and icons. Singing is often a capella, and generally there are few seats or pews in a church (Canon 20 of the first Ecumenical Council of Nicaea in the year 325 forbids all kneeling on Sundays). There is a mixture of formality and familiarity in Orthodox participation in worship, for the worshipper knows he or she is in the house of their true Father. The church and the liturgy are truly meeting points between heaven and earth.

Traditionally, the daily services in an Orthodox Church can begin with Vespers at sundown, and then include Compline, after the evening meal, the Midnight Office in monasteries, Matins in the morning, usually starting before sunrise, and ‘The Hours.’ These services sanctify the times of the day and include readings from the Psalms and prayers.

Orthodox Christians are taught that their daily prayer should include Morning, Midday and Evening prayers. Personal prayer in homes is often before the family icons. Even when they pray on their own, the Orthodox are still praying with the Church. As Georges Florovsky writes, ‘Personal prayer is only possible in the context of the community. Even in solitude … a Christian prays as a member of the redeemed community, of the Church.’

Icons and prayer

The word icon (εἰκών) simply means a depiction, image or representation. The New Testament describes Christ as the eikon or the image and exact representation of God (Hebrews 1: 3). The Ecumenical Councils declared the incarnation made it permissible to represent God in visual form. But the Orthodox say an icon is written rather than painted, and speak of icon writers rather than icon painters. They pray through but not to an icon, and an icon is given reverence but never worshipped.

Orthodox prayer is also marked by the use of icons. Through the traditional use of icons, the Orthodox Church has had a remarkable influence, not just on aesthetic considerations, but on theology too. The understanding of the Trinity in western theology, for example, has been transformed by the way in which theologians have come to a fresh way of talking about the Trinity because of insights developed through Andrei Rublev’s icon of the Visitation of Abraham.

Alongside copies of Rublev’s icon, the icons on the wall in my study include one of Christ from a monastery in Corfu, an icon of Christ as the Great High Priest from Mount Athos, the Four Martyrs of Rethymnon, a town I have stayed in since the 1980s, and an icon of Saint Catherine of Sinai, patron of the institute where I have studied in Cambridge.

For the Orthodox, the church building, the whole edifice, is one great icon of the Kingdom of God. The frescoes, the icons and the icon screen separating the congregation from the sacred mysteries are not to make a church look pretty or beautiful, but are central to understanding Orthodox worship and life, liturgy and prayers. The icons and frescoes on the walls of a church begin with more worldly scenes at ground level, and work their way up through the Gospel stories and the stories of salvation. In this way, when we are distracted by worldly thoughts during the Liturgy, we are called back to the purpose of worship, until our eyes are drawn ever upwards. In the height of the dome we see the evangelists and angels surrounding the highest and holiest of all, Christ the Pantocrator, the one who rules all and through whom all things are made.

Orthodox homes also have icons on the wall, usually on an east-facing wall in a place where the family can pray together, illuminated by a candle or oil lamp. Besides the practical purpose of making icons visible in otherwise dark corners and dark churches, candles and oil lamps symbolise that Christ is the Light of the World.

The Jesus Prayer

The Jesus Prayer, also called the ‘Prayer of the Heart’ by some Church Fathers, is one of the best known spiritual traditions within Orthodoxy. It is simple: Κύριε Ἰησοῦ Χριστέ, Υἱὲ Θεοῦ, ἐλέησόν με τὸν ἁμαρτωλό (Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me the sinner).

The practice of the Jesus Prayer dates from at least the fifth century. It is recommended by Saint John Klimakos of Mount Sinai (523-603) in The Ladder of Divine Ascent. The theology of the Jesus Prayer was most clearly set out by Saint Gregory Palamas (1296-1359), and later in the Philokalia. Today, Mount Athos is a centre of the practice of the Jesus Prayer. The use of the Jesus Prayer is the subject of the Russian classic, The Way of a Pilgrim, which became familiar to many western readers in JD Salinger’s Franney and Zooey (1961).

For the Orthodox, this is a profound and mystical prayer, and it is often repeated continually as a part of personal spiritual practice. The Jesus Prayer is a way of taking one of the most important first steps on the spiritual journey: recognising my own sinfulness, my estrangement from both God and the people around me.

The author of The Way of the Pilgrim says the Jesus Prayer transfigures his relationship with other human beings, giving them form within their proper context: the forgiveness and compassion of the crucified and risen Lord. When it is practised on a continuing basis, the Jesus Prayer becomes automatic. It is prayed repeatedly, often with the aid of a prayer rope, sometimes accompanied by the sign of the cross and even prostrations.

The monastic tradition

Monks often pray the Jesus Prayer many hundreds of times each night in private in their cells. Under the guidance of an Elder, the monk aims to internalise the prayer, so that he is praying unceasingly.

Mount Athos is the most important centre of monastic life in the Orthodox world today. There has been a recent revival in the fortunes of many of the monasteries on the Holy Mountain, with new monks arriving from Cyprus, Romania, Russia and Australia
.
Mount Athos is loved among the Orthodox for nurturing great writers in spirituality and on the life of prayer. Three of the best known of these writers in the 20th century were Saint Silouan (1866-1938), his disciple Archimandrite Sophrony Sakharov (1896-1993), founder of Saint John’s Monastery, which I visit each year, and Elder Joseph (died 1959). Although some of these great writers also lived as hermits, they gathered many followers, and were particularly known for their practice of the Jesus Prayer.

Conclusions

The doors of local churches throughout Greece are open throughout the day; people constantly drop in without any self-consciousness to pray, to light candles, to stand in the presence of God. The domes above are constant reminders that the world below is under Christ’s constant care and compassionate love.

It is a Church that is incarnational and rooted in the everyday lives of the people. On Sundays, even for the visitor who cannot understand Greek, it is obvious that the Gospel is being proclaimed, that people are being invited into communion with God and with one another, and that God is being praised. Orthodoxy in the first instance means not holding a particular set of dogmas or doctrines – certainly not holding to a rigid set of prejudices in current debates – but in giving God the right praise.

Introductory Readings

(Bishop) Hilarion Alfeyev, The Mystery of Faith (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 2002).

(Archbishop) Anthony Bloom and Georges LeFebvre, Courage to Pray (London: Darton Longman & Todd Libra, various editions 1973-1974).

(Metropolitan) Anthony (Bloom), The Living Body of Christ (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 2008).

E Kadloubovsky and GEH Palmer, Writings from the Philokalia on Prayer of the Heart (London: Faber and Faber, 1992).

John Anthony McGuckin, Standing in God’s Holy Fire: the Byzantine Tradition (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 2001).

Frederica Mathews-Green, Facing East: a pilgrim’s journey into the mysteries of Orthodoxy (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2006).

Solrunn Nes, The Mystical Language of Icons (Norwich: Canterbury Press, 2004).

Deborah Sheldon, Gospel Icons (Cambridge: Grove Books, 1999).

Graham Speake, Mount Athos: Renewal in Paradise (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2002).

(Metropolitan) Kallistos Ware (Timothy Ware), The Orthodox Church (London: Penguin, 1997).

(Metropolitan) Kallistos Ware, The Orthodox Way (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2002).

Note on contributor:

Patrick Comerford is Lecturer in Anglicanism, Liturgy and Church History, the Church of Ireland Theological Institute, Adjunct Assistant Professor, Trinity College Dublin, and a canon of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin.

This paper was first published in ‘Search’ Vol 39.3 (Autumn 2016), pp 210-217.

The image of Christ Pantokrator in the dome of Saint George’s Church in Panormos, near Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

With Aristotle and the philosophers in Ireland’s Pantheon in the Long Room

Aristotle … one of the original 14 busts by Peter Scheemakers in the Long Room in the Old Library in Trinity College Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Patrick Comerford

The Long Room in the Old Library in Trinity College Dublin is lined with a collection of busts of thinkers. Sometimes, I imagine, visitors must wonder whether this is Ireland’s Pantheon.

At first sight, the heads lining the Long Room seem to be predominantly from the Classical past, including Homer, author of the Iliad and Odyssey., the philosophers of Athens, including Plato, Aristotle and Socrates, and great orators such as Cicero.

The Flemish-born sculptor Peter Scheemakers (1691-1781) was commissioned in 1743 to carve the first 14 figures for the library in 1743. He had already carved the bust of William Shakespeare for the Poets’ Corner of Westminster Abbey, and was commissioned when Claudius Gilbert left money in his will for busts of ‘men eminent for learning’ to adorn the Library in Trinity College Dublin.

The busts of ‘men eminent for learning’ adorning the Long Room in the Old Library in Trinity College Dublin look like Ireland’s Pantheon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

The 14 works by Scheemakers are: Aristotle, Francis Bacon, Robert Boyle, Cicero, Demosthenes, Thomas Herbert, 8th Earl of Pembroke, Homer, John Locke, John Milton, Isaac Newton, Plato, William Shakespeare, Socrates and James Ussher, .

Robert Boyle (1627-1691), who was born in Lismore Castle, was the father of modern chemistry, and was also a devout and pious Anglican noted for his writings in theology; he financed the printing of the Bible, both the Old and New Testaments, in Irish. James Ussher (1581-1651), Archbishop of Dublin, is famous and now ridiculed for calculating the time and date of the creation as around 6 p.m. on this day, 22 October 4004. Alone among the original 14 these two are Irish.

But since Scheemakers carved the first 14 busts, the collection has been added to, and the Irish faces now looking down on tourists and visitors alike and lining the long corridor of the Long Room include Robert Clayton (1695–1758), Bishop of Killala and Achonry, then Bishop of Cork and Ross, and finally Bishop of Clogher; at the time of his death, he was facing charges of heresy.

Also here are Jonathan Swift, Dean of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, the orator Edmund Burke, the dramatist Oliver Goldsmith, the patriots Theobald Wolfe Tone and Robert Emmet, the Duke of Wellington, the mathematician William Rowan Hamilton, who laid the foundations for quantum physics, three more archbishops, William Magee (1766-1831), Archbishop of Dublin, Bishop of Raphoe and Archbishop of Dublin, his grandson William Connor Magee (1821-1891), Bishop of Peterborough and Archbishop of York, William Conyngham Plunket (1828-1897), Archbishop of Dublin, and President Douglas Hyde (1860-1949), who was a son of the rectory.

Socrates … one of the original 14 busts by Peter Scheemakers in the Long Room in the Old Library in Trinity College Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

When I visited the Long Room earlier this month, I was challenged by the image of Aristotle. He looks more like a determined modern politician than a classical philosopher, and very unlike the statue of a more dignified, stately and philosophical Aristotle in the heart of Thessaloniki.

In Thessaloniki, Aristotelous is the central and most famous square, linked to the seafront through Nikis Avenue. The square was designed by the French architect Ernest Hébrard in 1918, and the 12 buildings that encircle Aristotelous Square have been listed buildings since 1950.

I have stayed here in the Electra Palace Hotel, and the square is also home to the Olympion Theatre cinema, the venue for the Thessaloniki Film Festival takes place, and many modern restaurants, cafés and bars, as well as street vendors and buskers. The square continues north as Aristotelous Street, a popular, pedestrianised, tree-lined street.

The poster for last night’s seminar marking the 2,400th anniversary of the birth of Aristotle (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

But if Aristotle looks nothing like his statue in Thessaloniki, neither does he look like his presentation in Raphael’s ‘The School of Athens,’ which was referred to a few times in TCD last night (21 October 2016); nor does he look like the image of the Aristotle on the programme last night to mark the 2,400th anniversary of the birth of Aristotle.

The Irish Hellenic Society was marking this unique anniversary at the inaugural meeting of its 2016 programme. The meeting focussed on Aristotle’s life and works and on the celebration of his 2,400th birthday. The evening programme, with four short, witty, entertaining and informative presentations, was organised by the Irish Hellenic Society and the Department of Classics in Trinity College Dublin.

Four speakers gave short presentations on various aspects of Aristotle’s immense contribution to humanity: Paul Gregg, ‘Aristotle’s Walk’; Thomaë Kakouli-Duarte, ‘Aristotle, Father of Biology’; Eoghan Mac Aogáin, ‘Aristotle’s Psychology’; and Fran O’Rourke, ‘An Aristotelian Approach to the World’.

The American artist Paul Gregg’s exhibition ‘Inductive Probability’ is on view until tomorrow [23 October 2016] at the Royal Hibernian Academy in Ely Place, Dublin. He received a Fulbright Scholarship to Ireland, where he has lived since 1995, and is a lecturer at the Dún Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design, and Technology. His Aristotle’s Walk (2012) is a columnar structure, the focal point of a memorial garden in the central courtyard of Saint Mary’s CBS, Portlaoise.

Dr Thomaé Kakouli-Duarte is, like Aristotle, from Macedonia in northern Greece. Following in Aristotle’s researches into parasitic nematodes, she is an international expert in the field of environmental nematology and one of the founding members and the current Director of enviroCORE, in the Institute of Technology, Carlow. There she researches innovative bio-environmental technologies with a view towards enhancing economic and social development in an environmentally friendly manner.

Dr Eoghan Mac Aogáin studied philosophy at University College Dublin and psychology at the University of Alberta in Canada. He was a Research Fellow at the Educational Research Centre and later Director of the Linguistics Institute of Ireland before his retirement. He has spoken to the Irish Hellenic Society on the Irish philosopher Iohannes Scottus Eriugena (ca 800-870) and, with his colleague Máire Nic Mhaoláin, recently edited a new Irish-English dictionary.

Dr Fran O’Rourke, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, University College Dublin, has recently published a volume of essays Aristotelian Interpretations. He will describe early personal experiences that inspired a distinctively Aristotelian approach to the world. He drew on a wide variety of literature and writers, including Charles Darwin and Cardinal John Henry Newman, as he explained why James Joyce believed Aristotle is ‘the greatest philosopher of all time.’

He quoted Darwin, who wrote: ‘Linnaeus and Cuvier have been my two gods, but in very different ways, but they were mere schoolboys to old Aristotle.’ Newman once said: ‘Aristotle is the Oracle of Nature and of Truth … to think correctly is to think like Aristotle.’

His new book, Aristotelian Interpretations, was published earlier this year, and he presented me with a copy inscribed: ‘For Patrick, kindred spirit on the journey, fellow seeker of wisdom, warmest wishes.’

UNESCO has proclaimed 2016 as the Aristotle Anniversary Year. Aristotle can be seen as the founder of the concept of the democratic republic as the free, open political society of equal partners joined in friendship for achieving a just and qualitatively flourishing society. In his philosophy, he sought to bring into a unity all knowledge and all the arts for the practical possibility of human flourishing in democratic forms of government.

Last night’s reception in the Department of Classics was attended by many academics and scholars, working in the fields of chalssics, theology, philosophy and Greek studies, members of the Hellenic community in Ireland, Irish friends of Greece, and the new Greek Ambassador to Ireland, Mrs Aikaterini-Katia Georgiou.

The statue of the Greek philosopher Aristotle in Aristotelous Square in Thessaloniki (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Finding the Venetian legacy of Crete in a mountain village

Maroulas is perched on a hilltop in the mountains above Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Patrick Comerford

Crete is the largest and busiest of all the islands in Greece, and has been part of the modern Greek state for over a century. But Crete has inherited a mixed cultural legacy and in the town of Rethymnon, where I was staying again this summer, it is possible within a few narrow streets to come across, side-by-side, architectural and archaeological legacies from the Ottoman, Venetian, Byzantine, Roman and classical Greek periods.

The Venetians had a firm footing in Crete from the mid-12th century, and took a firm hold on the island during the Fourth Crusade and the fall of Constantinople in 1204.

They ruled Crete for more than 4½ centuries (1205-1669), when they built a string of defensive fortezzas along the northern coast, from the island of Gramvousa at the western end, through Chania, Soudha, Rethymnon, and Iraklion to Spinalonga at the eastern end of the island.

The Venetians knew Crete as Candia, and the island’s Venetian legacy also includes imposing and impressive churches, fountains, public squares and buildings and harbours – and even many family names. But the Venetian legacy can also be enjoyed in smaller villages in the mountains, above the busy towns and resorts.

Sleepy time capsules

Strolling through the narrow streets and Venetian arches of Maroulas (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

One morning this summer, on the way to Elafonísi in south-west Crete, I stopped briefly in the small village of Élos, and was surprised to find the Byzantine Church of Saint John the Theologian, decorated with important early 14th century frescoes attributed to Ioannis Pagomenos, a well-known icon writer and painter from western Crete working in the Venetian period.

On another early morning, two of us took a short taxi up to the sleepy hilltop village of Maroulas in the mountains above Platanes, where I was staying on the edges of Rethymnon. Although Maroulas is just five minutes away, the twisting, corkscrew road winds its way up by mountain valleys and gorges and through some of the oldest olive groves in Greece.

The once-fortified hilltop town of Maroulas is at a height of 240 metres, perched on a lofty hilltop overlooking olive groves and valleys and looking out to the sea.

Unlike many villages in Crete, Maroulas has no one single main square. Instead, the village is a maze of narrow streets and alleys, with Byzantine churches and chapels, with ancient tombstones dating back to antiquity, old Venetian towers and mansions with decorated doors and stone mosaics, renaissance ruins, Ottoman fountains, and over a dozen old oil presses – and a hidden church with a double nave that is partly built into a cave.

Maroulas is like a time capsule, but still there are typical Greek village tavernas and cafés to help while away the time on a lazy summer day.

Although most of the buildings that attract visitors to Maroulas date back to the Venetian period, the discovery of arched burial chambers has led archaeologists to suggest that the area may have been inhabited since the Minoan period. Two cemeteries of the palatial period of the Minoan civilisation have been found in the area and are now on display in the Archaeological Museum of Rethymnon.

Lost in legends

Maroulas takes its name from the well discovered by a shepherdess called Maroula (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

It is said that the village was originally named Amygdalea, but it was completely destroyed by a flood or earthquake. The first person to move back to the village was a shepherdess called Maroula, a form of Maria. According to tradition, while she was grazing her sheep in the area, she found a spring of cool drinking water. She moved into the village, and so it was named after her.

This natural spring water fountain at Vryssi was the main water source of the village, supplemented by rainwater collected in tanks. Although the water at the fountain is no longer drinkable, this is a quiet, shaded place to rest under a spreading plane tree.

Some archaeological finds show the village was inhabited in Roman, early Christian and Byzantine times, but the main buildings in the village date from the late Venetian period in the 16th and early 17th century, and the Ottoman period, from the 17th to the 19th century.

The Venetians built several tower houses throughout Maroulas (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

The place probably became a fortified town during the second Byzantine period, and continued to prosper after the Venetian invasions. After the Venetians took control of Crete, Maroulas became part of the castellated territories of the fortezza in Rethymnon in the 14th century. The Venetians built towers with battlements, tower houses and several mansions that display Venetian coats of arms on the arches and doors.

Many of the old Venetian mansions have battlements and typical Venetian doors and arches, some of them decorated with coats of arms or with humorous figures such as two welcoming hands.

During the first Venetian period, the houses of Maroulas became second homes in the cool mountains for the nobility of Rethymnon or were used as agricultural warehouses. The olive groves in the surrounding countryside were important for the local economy and the village had a large number of olive presses.

At one time, there were three towers in Maroulas. The first was probably built in the Byzantine period but has since collapsed. The second tower dates from the Venetian period, and stands by the cobbled street leading down to the fountain at Vryssi.

The largest Venetian tower house was restored in recent years and has become a symbol of Maroulas (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

The third tower is seen as the emblem of the village. This imposing tower was recently renovated. It is 14 metres high and has three floors. It was built sometime in the 15th and 16th centuries and served as an observation point and as well as the home of a Venetian noble. Using fire and smoke, the watchmen on the tower could communicate with the fortress at the fortezza in Rethymnon. The tower had holes from which the guards could spill burning oil or tar on their enemies below.

The main tower provides views across the countryside from Rethymnon to Iraklion (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

There are other, smaller tower houses scattered through the village, many awaiting restoration. Later Venetian buildings were inspired by the works of the Venetian engineer Francesco Barozzi. They date from ca 1577, and have become known for their aesthetic and artistic features.

Churches in caves

Seven or eight churches are scattered through Maroulas (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Seven or eight churches are scattered through the village and in the immediate surrounding hillsides. The main parish church was being repainted inside during an earlier visit last year. The smaller church next door has Byzantine fragments. The tiny chapel in the centre of the village has been locked and closed each time I have visited Maroulas.

The double Church of Aghios Nikolaos and Aghios Antonios has two naves (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

One of the naves of the double church is built into the rock of a cave (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

The Church of Aghios Nikolaos (Saint Nicholas) and Aghios Antonios (Saint Anthony), the oldest church in the village, was built in the 14th century into a rocky hillside that almost forms a cave. It is a twin church, or two inter-connecting churches, with two separate naves, and the north side of the church is built into the cave that forms part of its north and east walls. A low arch links the two naves, forming one church with two separate icon screens and sanctuaries.

The Venetian sarcophagus in the churchyard of the interconnecting twin churches (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Outside, in the church yard, a mediaeval sculpted sarcophagus with early Venetian decorations may be the tomb of an early benefactor of the church.

Inside Aghia Anna … a Venetian church behind the main tower (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Behind the main tower, the early Venetian Church of Aghia Anna (Saint Anne) has a plain interior, but when I visited it a few weeks ago swallows had nested in one of the roofbeams.

Beside it, the balcony of Taverna Katrina overlooks the plane below with breath-taking views to the fortezza of Rethymnon and the blue sea of the Mediterranean.

Ottoman innovations

The Metochi is a complex of surviving Ottoman Turkish buildings (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Before the last parts of Venetian Crete fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1669, Turks had already started moving into Maroulas in 1630, and Maroulas became the country seat of Turkish officials who valued its strategic position and wealthy soil.

Crete was declared an Ottoman province in 1646, after the Ottomans conquered the western part of the island. But the Venetians held onto their capital Candia (present-day Iraklion) until Francesco Morisini surrendered the city in 1669. The offshore island fortresses of Soudha, Gramvousa and Spinalonga remained under Venetian rule until in 1715, when they too were captured by the Ottomans.

The Turks brought with them architectural elements from Anatolia, including fireplaces and chimneys, wells, hamams, fountains and cisterns and they used the main tower as an army base.

The Despotiko was the summer residence of the Archbishop of Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Crete became autonomous in 1896, and the last Turks left Crete in 1923. For a short time in the 1920s, the main tower and many buildings Maroulas housed Greek refugees who had been expelled from Anatolia in western Turkey after the disastrous war between Greece and Turkey.

In the 1920s and 1930s, Archbishop Timotheos Veneris of Rethymnon used the 17th century Venetian house known as the Despotiko as his summer residence. It has a cobbled courtyard and a Venetian doorframe that is similar to the entrance to the fortezza in Rethymnon.

The Metochi, a massive complex west of the settlement has traces of Renaissance and Islamic architecture, including a Turkish hamam or bath. But the Metochi was partly destroyed during a Nazi bombardment in May 1941 and the main tower in Maroulas was abandoned around the same time.

A journey in time

Taverna Katrina offers a balcony view across the plains of Rethymnon and out to the sea (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

The population of the village began to fall after World War II and the Greek Civil War. In the 1960s and 1970s, young people left for the cities, leaving only the elderly behind. Many of the houses are still neglected or abandoned, and one taverna has been locked up for years, with all its furnishings and decorations decaying inside.

New hope came in 1985 when Maroulas was declared an “historic monument” for its historical monuments and houses.

The main tower was renovated and restored by the Municipality of Rethymnon in the mid-1990s, and in 1997 it was bought for the local community. Further restoration work was carried out in 2007-2013 under an EU-funded scheme to restore specific buildings of historical interest in both Greece and Cyprus.

Maroulas is coming back to life again today (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Today, Maroulas is coming back to life. It has over 200 residents, there are children playing in the streets once again, and many of the old buildings have been restored by Greeks and by foreigners who have moved to live permanently in the village.

The village attracts many painters and photographers who find many themes here with the narrow alleys, old doors, door knobs and stone mosaics.

We lingered a little longer and sheltered in the shade in Milópetra, a café overlooking the village, sipping a frappe and a double espresso. As the early afternoon temperature soared to 42, there was no sea breeze to cool the summer air. We called a taxi, and on the way back down the winding twisting road to the coastline we were pointed to an olive tree that is said to be over 200 years old.

Our visit to Maroulas had truly been a journey in time, and we were soon back at Platanes and the coast.

An olive tree said to be over 200 years old in the olive groves below Maroulas (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Canon Patrick Comerford lectures in the Church of Ireland Theological Institute. This featurews first published in September 2016 in the ‘Church Review’ (Dublin and Glendalough) and the ‘Diocesan Magazine’ (Cashel, Ferns and Ossory).

Watching an icon of the Dormition taking shape in Rethymnon

The Dormition of the Theotokos … a new icon by Alexandra Kaouki, completed for a church in the old town of Rethymnon

Patrick Comerford

The Orthodox Church celebrates the Dormition of the Theotokos today [15 August], the same day as the Roman Catholic Feast of the Assumption, and in recent weeks it has been a privilege to watch a new icon on this important theme in Orthodoxy being shaped and created by Alexandra Kaouki (Αλεξανδρα Καουκι), perhaps the most talented and innovative iconographers in Crete today, as she worked in her studio below the Venetian fortezza in the in the old town of Rethymnon.

The Dormition and the Assumption are different names for the same event, the Virgin Mary’s death departure from the earth, although the two feasts do not necessarily have an identical understanding of the event or sequence of events.

In the Orthodox Church, the Dormition of the Mother of God (Η Κοίμησις τησ Θεοτόκου, Koímēsos tis Theotokou) is a Great Feast and recalls the “falling asleep” or death of the Virgin Mary, the Theotokos, and her body being taken into heaven. In the Greek of Scripture and Orthodoxy, death is often called a ‘sleeping’ or ‘falling asleep’. The Greek word κοίμησις gives us the word κοιμητήριον and the Latin coemetērium for a cemetery, meaning ‘a place of sleeping.’

The tradition of the Dormition is associated with a number of places, including Jerusalem, Ephesus and Constantinople. In his guidebook, The Holy Land, the late Jerome Murphy-O’Connor points out that two places in Jerusalem are traditionally associated with the end of the Virgin Mary’s earthly life: a monastery on Mount Zion is the traditional site of her death or falling asleep; and the basilica in the Garden of Gethsemane is said to be the site of her tomb. Since the end of the 19th century, Mereyama, 8 km east of Selçuk and Ephesus, has been venerated by many Roman Catholics as the site of Virgin Mary’s last earthly home, and it is a popular destination for tourists on day-trips from Kusadasi. It is also claimed that the Girdle of the Theotokos was enshrined in Constantinople for centuries. Since the 14th century, it has been kept in Vatopedi, the monastery where I have stayed on Mount Athos.

However, the first four Christian centuries are silent about the death of the Virgin Mary. Even as late as the fourth century, some Christian writers believed that she was martyred. For this reason, Saint Ambrose, for example, wrote: “Neither the letter of Scripture nor Tradition does not teach us that Mary had left this life as a consequence of suffering from bodily ulcers.”

Epiphanius of Salamis, who was born a Jew in Phoenicia and converted to Christianity when he was an adult, lived as a monk for over 20 years in Palestine in the late fourth century and died ca 403. He writes that nothing certain was known of the death of Virgin Mary: “If any think I am mistaken, moreover, let them search through the scriptures any neither find Mary’s death, nor whether or not she died, nor whether or not she was buried.”

There is no documentary evidence to support the claim sometimes made that the feast of the Dormition was observed in Jerusalem around the time of the Council of Ephesus in 431. Until the fifth century, the Church Fathers do not mention the Dormition of the Virgin. The earliest traditions about the Dormition are found in manuscripts in the late fifth century, when three distinct narrative traditions emerge describing the end of the Virgin Mary’s life.

Even in the early sixth century, the Dormition was not celebrated as a holy day. According to Nikephoros Kallistos Xanthopoulos in his History of the Church, the Emperor Maurice (582-602) issued an edict that set 15 August as the date for the marking the Dormition. In a sermon on this feast day a generation later, Patriarch Modestus of Jerusalem (630-632), regretted the lack of specific information about the death of the Virgin Mary. The Byzantine tradition was adapted in Rome when Pope Sergius I (687-701) declared the feast called Dormitio Beatae Virginis.

A 16th century icon of the Dormition from Crete

An early version of the story of the Dormition is found in ‘The Account of Saint John the Theologian of the Dormition of the Mother of God,’ a Greek text usually dated to the sixth century, although some would date it earlier.

After Pentecost, according to later traditions, the Virgin Mary spent her later life supporting the early Apostolic Church, and lived in the house of Saint John the Divine in Jerusalem. There the Archangel Gabriel told her she was going to die three days later. The apostles, scattered throughout the world, are said to have been miraculously transported to be at her side when she died.

Earlier traditions also say that the Virgin Mary was buried in Gethsemane, according to her request. However, Saint Thomas is said to have arrived from India three days after her death. When he saw her body in a cloud above her tomb and rising to heaven, he asked her: ‘Where are you going, O Holy One’ She took off her girdle and gave it to him, saying ‘Receive this my friend,’ and then disappeared.

When the Apostles arrived with Saint Thomas at her grave, her body was gone, and an apparition is said to have confirmed that Christ had taken her body to heaven three days after her death to be reunited with her soul.

Traditional icons of the Dormition depicting the death of the Virgin Mary incorporate many apocryphal elements or details from writings known as pseudepigrapha.

In the earliest of these icons in the Byzantine tradition, Christ is coming to receive the soul of his dying mother, surrounded by an aureola or cloud of blinding light and accompanied by the angels and prophets. Christ is shown in a similar cloud of light in icons of the Transfiguration, the Resurrection and the Last Judgment.

In the centre, Mary is lying on a bier. In the sky above, the Apostles are arriving on clouds, and they are see too after their arrival, standing around her bier, so that they are represented twice in the icon to show two stages of time.

The stories say Saint Peter arrived for her death from Rome, Saint Paul from Tiberia, Saint James from Jerusalem, and Saint Mark from Alexandria. Saint Andrew, Saint Philip, Saint Luke, Saint Simon the Cananaean, and Saint Thaddaeus who had died were raised from their tombs to be present. Only Saint Thomas was late in arriving from India.

Christ holding his mother’s soul wrapped like a new-born baby … a detail from Alexandra Kaouki’s icon of the Dormition as it neared completion

Christ stands directly above the Virgin Mary, holding his mother’s soul on his left arm. But her soul is shown wrapped in swaddling clothes as an infant because she is just born into Heaven. Above Christ is a red-winged angel of the rank of the cherubim.

In traditional icons, Dionysius the Areopagite is in the lower right in the stole of a bishop. Many icons also show the Apostle Paul’s companion, Saint Timothy, and Saint Hierotheus, the first Bishop of Athens. Other icons include saints of later periods.

In the clouds at the top, two angels wait on the other side of the opened doors of Heaven, their hands covered with cloths as a sign of veneration for a sacred object or person.

The Dormition … a traditional icon in the Benaki Museum in Athens

In many icons of the Dormition, there is a strange scene just below the bier where a man has his hands reaching upward. According to tradition, he is Athonios or Jephonias, a Jew who was jealous of the honour being shown to Mary. He tries to push over the bier but is blocked by an angel – some say the Archangel Michael – severed his hands with a sword. In some icons his hands have not yet been cut off, in others his hands are severed from his arms.

Tradition says Jephonias repented and with faith, was healed, joined the funeral procession, and became a Christian.

The legend of Jephonias first appears in apocryphal texts in the fifth and sixth centuries. But is this an early example of anti-Semitism? Professor Elisheva Revel-Neher of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, points out in her study of ‘The Image of the Jew in Byzantine Art,’ that the earliest known depictions of this scene are found in Cappadocia in the ninth and tenth centuries.

In Orthodox theology, the conception of Christ by the Theotokos is sometimes said to be foreshadowed in the Old Testament by the Ark of the Covenant, and the procession of the body of the Theotokos by the Apostles is then seen as being foreshadowed by the Ark of the Covenant being captured by the Philistines and eventually brought to Jerusalem.

The story of Jephonias has been compared with the story of how the Philistines captured the ark of God, took it to Ashdod, and placed it in Dagon’s temple, setting it beside Dagon. The next day, the people of Ashdod found Dagon had fallen on his face before the ark of the Lord. They put Dagon back in place. But the next day they found Dagon had fallen on his face on before the ark of the Lord, with his head and hands broken off and lying on the threshold (see I Samuel 5: 1-5).

The Dormition by El Greco (Doménikos Theotokópoulos, Δομήνικος Θεοτοκόπουλος) was probably painted while he was still working in Crete

The best-known version is by El Greco, or Doménikos Theotokópoulos (Δομήνικος Θεοτοκόπουλος, 1541-1614), from Crete. He painted his Dormition of the Virgin near the end of his Cretan period, probably before 1567. His signature on the base of the central candelabrum was found in 1983.

El Greco’s interpretation combines post-Byzantine and Italian mannerist stylistic and iconographic elements. El Greco’s icon, which is now venerated in the Church of the Dormition in Syros, was probably brought to the island during the Greek War of Independence.

His icon conforms closely to the established Orthodox pattern for this subject, although it has lost some elements of traditional Byzantine austerity.

The Church of Our Lady of the Angels in the old town of Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Last month when I visited her studio in Rethymnon, Alexandra Kaouki, who is one of the foremost iconographers in Crete, was completing her new icon of the Dormition of the Theotokos (Κοιμησεωσ τησ Θεοτοκου). This new icon, measuring 45 cm X 33 cm, has been created for the Church of Our Lady of the Angels (Κυρίας των Αγγέλων, Kyrias ton Angelon), or the Little Church of Our Lady (Μικρή Παναγία, Mikrí Panaghía) in the old town of Rethymnon.

The Church of Our Lady of the Angels faces a small square on the corner of two of the main streets of the old town of Rethymnon, Nikifórou Foká Street and Arampatzoglou (Thessaloníkis) Street.

In the closing days of Venetian rule, the Dominican friars built a three-aisled church on this corner and dedicated it to Saint Mary Magdalene. After the Turkish conquest of Crete, Huseyin Pasha ordered that the church should be converted into a mosque. The new mosque was named after Huseyin Pasha’s successor, Angebut Ahmed Pasha, and was built with the support of a special edict from the Sultan. A minaret was built beside the former north aisle, but the top soon fell to the ground and the minaret was known to later generations as Koutsotroúlis, “the Old Stump.”

On the night of 3 and 4 April 1917, local people claimed the miraculous discovery of an icon of the Virgin Mary on the steps of the minaret. The mosque was turned back into a church, and was dedicated to Our Lady of the Angels – to distinguish it from the Venetian cathedral, “Great Saint Mary’s.” A shrine of the icon was set up in the restored church and a new belfry was added in 1920.

Alexandra Kaouki’s icon of the Dormition as it neared completion

It was a privilege to watch this icon taking shape. It has been a careful, slow step-by-step work in progress, based on the celebrated icon by El Greco. But as the work progressed, Alexandra made what she describes as ‘necessary corrections’ to allow her to ‘entirely follow the Byzantine rules.’

In her studio below the Venetian Fortezza in the old town of Rethymnon, we discussed why El Greco places three candelabra in front of the bier. Perhaps he is using then as a Trinitarian symbol. However, Alexandra has returned to the traditional depiction of only one to remain true to Byzantine traditions.

How many of the Twelve should be depicted?

Should Saint Thomas be shown as being present?

She also decided to omit the story of Jephonias, not because it is gruesome but because it is a later development in the tradition. On the other hand, she has included some of the woman we might imagine were present at the Dormition.

Alexandra has posted photographs of this work on her Facebook page as her work has progressed, and it was completed at the end of last week in time for today’s Feast of the Dormition.

Alexandra Kaouki at work on her icon of the Dormition of the Theotokos in her studio in Rethymnon

● Since 2011, the Abbot of the Benedictine Abbey of the Dormition in Jerusalem has been Abbot Gregory Collins. He was born in Belfast in 1960 and was a monk Glenstal Abbey before going to Jerusalem. His books include The Glenstal Book of Icons (2002).

Finding a Greek connection in an old churchyard in Duleek

The Law family grave in the old churchyard beside the Spire Restaurant in Duleek, Co Meath (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Patrick Comerford

The Spire Restaurant in Duleek, Co Meath, is located in the refurbished former Church of Ireland parish church, Saint Cianan’s Church. Four of us returned there for dinner last night, and it is fast becoming one of our favourites.

Aogán and Karen Dunne re-opened the restaurant three years ago on 14 August 2013 after it had been left in a sad state of neglect for many years.

The Spire is in the grounds of Saint Mary’s Abbey, one of the great Irish monastic foundations, with a story going back to Saint Patrick, and important high crosses and mediaeval monuments.

The ruins of Saint Mary’s Abbey beside the Spire Restaurant in Duleek (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

The old graveyard that surrounds the former church is still in use. As I strolled through the former churchyard in the evening lights, I noticed a plot with three graves belonging to members of the Law family: Michael Augustine Fitzgerald Law (1861-1917) and his wife Mary (died 1937), Olive Law and Major Francis Cecil Law (died 1958).

The graves are beside one of the ‘short’ high cross, dating from the ninth century and one of the great high crosses of Duleek. The graves are also a reminder of the story of an Irish banker and army officer who saved the finances of Greece over a century ago and who is buried in Athens.

The Law family was of Scottish descent, and an ancestor, Michael Law, fought with King William at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690. One branch of the Law family was a long-established clerical family in the Church of Ireland. Michael Law’s son, the Revd William Samuel Law, who died in 1760, was Rector of Omagh and the first of five or six generations of distinguished clergy: the Revd Robert law (1730-1789), the Revd Francis Law (1768-1807), who married Bellinda Isabella Comerford from Cork; the Revd Patrick Comerford Law (1797-1869); the Revd Francis Law (1800-1877); and the Revd Robert Arbuthnot Law (1842-1889).

Another branch of the family included successful bankers. Robert William Law, a first cousin of the Revd Patrick Comerford Law, was the father of Michael Law (1795-1858), of Castle Fish, Co Kildare. He founded the Law & Finlay Bank, and was also a Director of the Bank of Ireland. He married Sarah-Ann, daughter of Crofton Vandeleur Fitzgerald of Carrigoran, Co Clare, and they had four sons who were successful in their chosen careers.

However, poor health forced Michael Law to close his bank and on doctor’s orders he left Ireland to live on the continent, where he died while his sons were still children or in their teens: Robert Law (1836-1884) later lived in Newpark, Co Kildare; Michael Law (1840-1905) became a judge in British administered Egypt; Sir Edward Fitzgerald Law (1847-1908) became a colourful adventurer who later became effectively the Finance Minister of Greece; and Sir Archibald Fitzgerald Law (1853-1921) was a colonial judge in Malaya.

Sir Edward Fitzgerald Law … received a state funeral in Athens in 1908)

His third son, Edward Fitzgerald Law, was born in 1847 in Rostrevor House, Co Down, and was only a child of 10 when when his father died in 1858. He went on to play a key role in reshaping Greece’s finances over a century ago.

His widowed mother sent Edward to school in Brighton and St Andrew’s. He entered Sandhurst in 1865, and was commissioned in the Royal Artillery in Woolwich in 1868. He spent the next three years in India, but was invalided home in 1872. He then resigned from the army, joined the Wire Transport Co, and went to Russia, where he spent the next 10 years in Moscow. There he became an agent for agricultural machinery, and also contributed to the Daily Telegraph.

In Russia, Edward Law joined Hubbards, an English firm of Russian agents, and he travelled widely. From 1880 to 1881, he was the British Consul in St Petersburg.

Back in England, Law wrote about Russian politics and news in the Fortnightly Review. He had remained a reserve army officer, and he joined officers of the reserve, and he joined Sir Gerald Graham’s Sudan expedition in 1885. He took part in the Battle of Suakin in 1885, and was promoted to the rank of major.

After this brief return to military life, Law went to Manchuria on behalf of the Amur River Navigation Co, and travelled on to San Francisco, Japan and Vladivostok.

Back in London, he became manager of the United Telephone Co. He strongly opposed Gladstone’s Home Rule Bill in 1886. He was back in St Petersburg in 1888 as again as Commercial and Financial Attaché to Russia, also worked in Persia and Turkey.

Law first went to Greece in 1892, and at a party in the German Embassy in Athens he met Catherine Hatsopoulos, the only daughter of Nicholas Hatsopoulos of Athens and the descendant of an old Byzantine family. They were married on 18 October 1893, and settled in Athens.

Law became involved in Greek banking and finances, and as a British resident in Athens he seemed an obvious choice for nomination as the British commissioner on the International Financial Committee in Athens in 1897, and he became the British minister resident in Athens (1898-1900).

Law devised an ingenious system of consolidating revenues, which rendered the international commission acceptable and useful to Greece. He effectively abolished Greece’s public debt, turned around its public finances and saved its economy. Effectively he was the Greek finance minister and he became a popular figure throughout Greece.

While he was in this role, Law was knighted in May 1898 (KCMG), but he declined the Grand Cross of the Greek Order of the Saviour and other decorations. At the close of 1898, he also went to Constantinople to represent British, Belgian, and Dutch bondholders on the council of the Ottoman debt.

After Law left Greece, he became the Financial Member of the Council of the Governor-General of India, in effect India’s Finance Minister (1900-1904). He received an additional knighthood in 1906 (KCSI). He is also said to have invented a flying machine.

He retired in 1905, but remained a Director of the Ionian Bank in Greece. He died of a heart attack at the Hotel Bellevue, in Avenue l’Opera in Paris on 2 November 1908, his 61st birthday. At his own request, he was brought back to be buried in Athens. He was given a Greek state funeral on 21 November 1908 with full military and state honours.

A street in Athens is named in his honour: Edward Law Street is off Stadiou Street (Οδός Σταδíου), the major street linking the Omonoia Square and Syntagma Square. There are tablets to his memory in Saint Paul’s Anglican Church, Athens, and in Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin.

The ‘short’ High Cross in the grounds Saint Mary’s Abbey beside the Law family graves in Duleek (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Edward Law’s eldest brothers, Robert and Michael had already died. Robert Law (1836-1884) of Newpark, Co Kildare, was the father of Michael Augustine Fitzgerald Law (1861-1917), of Bearmond, Drogheda, who is buried in the old churchyard in Duleek with other members of the family, including his wife Mary and their son, Major Francis Cecil Law, who died in 1958.

In researching the stories of the Irish Philhellenes who contributed to the liberation of Greece in the 19th century, I might have passed by Edward Law’s contribution to making Greece an independent, modern state, except I came across his name by accident on two, successive occasions: researching the biographical details of his father’s cousin, the Revd Patrick Comerford Law (1797-1869), and reading a description of a visit to Athens by his cousin, Archbishop John Fitzgerald Gregg.

When Archbishop Gregg visited Athens in 1951, the Mayor of Athens was told of the archbishop’s kinship with Law. He invited Gregg to return to Athens as the guest of the municipality and to see the street named after him. But Gregg noted regretfully that this was “an offer which I fear I cannot hope to take advantage of.”

The Spire Restaurant in Duleek, Co Meath (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

A new icon from Rethymnon is a reminder of the faith of martyrs

The icon of the Four Martyrs of Rethymnon by Alexandra Kaouki is now on the bookshelves by the desk in my study (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Patrick Comerford

I have added a new icon to the bookshelves in my study at the Church of Ireland Theological Institute. The icon of the Four Martyrs of Rethymnon comes from the workshop of Alexandra Kaouki (Αλεξανδρα Καουκι) on Melissinou Street, beneath the slopes of the Venetian Fortezza in Rethymnon, which I visited two weeks ago [13 July 2016].

Having spent so much time in Rethymnon over the past 30 years, I thought it very appropriate to have an icon that represents the story, traditions and religious faith of the people of this town in Crete. The original of this icon is above the desk of the Bishop of Rethymnon in his office.

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 old Venetian Harbour at Rethymnon … the Four Martyrs were held prisoners here for four months in 1824 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016; click on image for full-screen reolution)

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 Rtehymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

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).”

Inside the Church of the Four Martyrs in Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

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 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 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 where 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.

The Church of the Four Martyrs stands on the site of their execution outside the walls of the old town of Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)