Daily prayer in the Kingdom Season: 29, Saturday 29 November 2025

‘The cross is the only path to resurrection. There is no other path’ (Nikos Kazantzakis) … the grave of Kazantzakis on the Martinengo Bastion in Iraklion (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

We come to the end of this year’s Kingdom Season in the Church Calendar today, and Advent begins tomorrow is the First Sunday of Advent (Sunday 30 November 2025). In the Church of England, today is set aside as a ‘Day of Intercession and Thanksgiving for the Missionary Work of the Church’.

Today promises to be a funday in Stony Stratford, with street music, dancing, craft sales and the Lantern Parade, all leading up to switching on the Christmas lights in the town at a traditional gathering at the Christmas Tree in the Market Square.

Before the day begins, before breakfast, I am taking some quiet time early this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

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

‘Praying that you may have the strength … to stand before the Son of Man’ (Luke 21: 34) … a damaged Byzantine fresco in the Museum of Christian Art in Iraklion, Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Luke 21: 34-36 (NRSVA):

34 [Jesus said:] ‘Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day does not catch you unexpectedly, 35 like a trap. For it will come upon all who live on the face of the whole earth. 36 Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.’

‘Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness’ … flowers in a window at Peskesi restaurant in Iraklion (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

The scene for the Gospel reading at the Eucharist today (Luke 21: 34-36) has been set in the verses that immediately precede this reading. Christ is sitting in the Temple precincts, where he speaks about the Temple, the Nation, and the looming future.

Today’s Gospel reading continues in this apocalyptic theme, urging us to be ‘alert at all times’, praying that we may have the strength to ‘to stand before the Son of Man’ – an appropriate admonition as we enter the season of Advent.

This morning, I find myself asking both ‘what is the divine mission of Christ?’ and, in our response, what does it mean to ‘stand before the Son of Man’?

In The Last Temptation of Christ (1955), the Greek writer Nikos Kazantzakis (1883-1957) presents a tragic Christ wrestling all his life with the conflicting claims of his divine mission and duty and his human desire to live a normal life, to love and be loved, and to have a family. In this book, Christ summarises his purpose and mission: ‘I said only one word, brought only one message: “Love. Love – nothing else”.’

Writing about this book, Kazantzakis said: ‘I am certain that every free man who reads this book, so filled as it is with love, will more than ever before, love Christ.’

When the Church of Greece condemned Kazantzakis in 1955 and anathematised him, his response was prompt and clear: ‘You gave me a curse, Holy fathers, I give you a blessing: may your conscience be as clear as mine and may you be as moral and religious as I.’ («Μου δώσατε μια κατάρα, Άγιοι πατέρες, σας δίνω κι εγώ μια ευχή: Σας εύχομαι να ‘ναι η συνείδηση σας τόσο καθαρή, όσο είναι η δική μου και να ‘στε τόσο ηθικοί και θρήσκοι όσο είμαι εγώ.»).

I have had lunch in the past with friends in Peskesi, a restored historical mansion in Iraklion. It was once the home of Captain Polyxigkis, a Cretan freedom fighter from the 1860s who features in Freedom and Death (Ο Καπετάν Μιχάλης, Captain Michalis), the 1953 semi-historical novel by Kazantzakis.

The name of Peskesi (Πεσκέσι, ‘Gift’) is inspired by his semi-autobiographical Report to Greco (Αναφορά στον Γκρέκο), where Kazantzakis addresses his Cretan ‘grandfather,’ Domenikos Theotokopoulos, El Greco:

«Μὰ εἶχες γίνει φλόγα. Ποῦ νὰ σὲ βρῶ, πῶς νὰ σὲ δῶ, τί πεσκέσι νὰ σοῦ φέρω νὰ θυμηθεῖς τὴν Κρήτη καὶ ν’ ἀνέβεις ἀπὸ τὰ μνήματα; Μονάχα ἡ φλόγα μπορεῖ νὰ βρεῖ μπροστά σου ἔλεος· ἄχ, νὰ μποροῦσα νὰ γίνω φλόγα νὰ σμίξω μαζί σου». ‘But you had turned into a flame. Where shall I find you, how shall I see you, what gift shall I bring you to make you remember Crete, to make you raise from the dead? Only the flame can be at your mercy; oh, if only I could become a flame to meet you.’

In his introduction to Report to Greco, Kazantzakis says ‘My entire soul is a cry, and all my work the commentary on that cry.’

He goes on to say: ‘Every man worthy of being called a son of man bears his cross and mounts his Golgotha. Many, indeed most, reach the first or second step, collapse pantingly in the middle of the journey, and do not attain the summit of Golgotha, in other words the summit of their duty: to be crucified, resurrected, and to save their souls. Afraid of crucifixion, they grow fainthearted; they do not know that the cross is the only path to resurrection. There is no other path.’

Later in that book, he writes: ‘Whoever climbed the Lord’s mountain had to possess clean hands and an innocent heart; otherwise the Summit would kill him. Today the doorway is deserted. Soiled hands and sinful hearts are able to pass by without fear, for the Summit kills no longer.’

And he paraphrases the Prophet Elijah: ‘Tomorrow, go forth and stand before the Lord. A great and strong wind will blow over you and rend the mountains and break in pieces the rocks, but the Lord will not be in the wind. And after the wind and earthquake, but the Lord will not be in the earthquake. And after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord will not be in the fire. And after the fire a gentle, cooling breeze. That is where the Lord will be. This is how the spirit comes. After the gale, the earthquake, and fire: a gentle, cooling breeze. This is how it will come in our own day as well. We are passing through the period of earthquake, the fire is approaching, and eventually (when? after how many generations?) the gentle, cool breeze will blow.’ (see I Kings 19: 11-13).

Doménikos Theotokópoulos or ‘El Greco’ … a marble bust by Nikos Sofialakis in the centre of Iraklion (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Today’s Prayers (Saturday 29 November 2025):

Saint Andrew is celebrated in the Church Calendar on 30 November. However, because tomorrow is the First Sunday in Advent, Saint Andrew’s Day has been transferred to Monday in the Church of England.

The Thronal Feast of the Apostle Andrew is being celebrated in the Ecumenical Patriarchate this weekend, and in my prayers this morning I am keeping in mind Pope Leo XIV’s visit to the Phanar this weekend. Patriarch Bartholomew will welcome the Pope this afternoon, and Patriarch Theodoros II of Alexandria will also be present. These celebrations and this visit are part of the continuing events marking the 1700th anniversary of the Nicene Creed and the Council of Nicaea in the year 325.

The theme this week (23 to 29 November) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), has been ‘Gender Justice’ (pp 58-59). This theme was introduced last Sunday with Reflections by Rachael Anderson, former Senior Communications and Engagement Manager, USPG.

The USPG Prayer Diary today invites us to pray:

We look forward to the age of peace, when violence is banished, both women and men can love and be loved, and the work and wealth of our world is justly shared.

The Collect:

Eternal Father,
whose Son Jesus Christ ascended to the throne of heaven
that he might rule over all things as Lord and King:
keep the Church in the unity of the Spirit
and in the bond of peace,
and bring the whole created order to worship at his feet;
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Post Communion Prayer:

Stir up, O Lord,
the wills of your faithful people;
that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works,
may by you be plenteously rewarded;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

God the Father,
help us to hear the call of Christ the King
and to follow in his service,
whose kingdom has no end;
for he reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, one glory.

Collect on the Eve of Advent I:

Almighty God,
give us grace to cast away the works of darkness
and to put on the armour of light,
now in the time of this mortal life,
in which your Son Jesus Christ came to us in great humility;
that on the last day,
when he shall come again in his glorious majesty
to judge the living and the dead,
we may rise to the life immortal;
through him who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

‘Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness …’ (Luke 21: 34) … a sign behind the bar in a pub in Foynes, Co Limerick (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

Finding Irish links and links with CS Lewis in a plaque in the cloisters in Durham Cathedral

The monument to Archdeacon George Hans Hamilton in the cloisters in Durham Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

As I was walking through the cloisters in Durham Cathedral during my recent visit, I noticed a plaque commemorating George Hans Hamilton (1823-1903), who was Archdeacon of Lindisfarne (1865-1882), Archdeacon of Northumberland (1882-1905), and a Canon of Durham Cathedral.

The plaque caught my attention because his name indicated and the fading coat-of-arms on the memorial indicated, to me at least, not only that Archdeacon Hamilton was Irish but that he was part of the Hamilton family who are closely identified with both Balbriggan and Skerries in north Co Dublin.

I have been familiar with both towns since my schooldays, until recently I regularly went for walks on the beach in Skerries, and I often did Sunday duty in Holmpatrick Church, Skerries, and Saint George’s Church, Balbriggan.

There is a large monument to one branch of the Hamilton family in the centre of Skerries, and some memorial tablets from an older church that have survived in the new church when it was being built in the 1860s.

One curious monument to the memory of James Hamilton of Sheepshill and Holmpatrick reads in part: ‘A gentleman who during a long and most active life displayed that zealous energy and ingenious integrity that forms a useful and virtuous man … He died the 20th of October 1800, in the 73rd year of his age … Of the uncommonly numerous offspring of thirty six children he was survived by eight sons and eight daughters.’

James Hamilton’s descendants include Richard Branson. However, with 36 children born over 200 years ago, Hamilton must be the ancestor of thousands upon thousands of people today. But … 36 children? A most active life that displayed zealous energy indeed! Useful and virtuous? What about his poor wife or wives?

Archdeacon Hamilton, on the other hand, is directly related to the Balrothery and Balbriggan branch of the Hamilton family, and my search for his family background led to the discovery that he was also related to interesting Irish literary figures too.

The future archdeacon was born on 21 January 1823, the third son of Henry Hamilton (1780-1854) of Tullylish, Co Down, and a grandson of Hugh Hamilton (1729-1805), Bishop of Clonfert and Kilmacduagh (1795-1799) and then Bishop of Ossory (1799-1805).

Bishop Hugh Hamilton was born in Balrothery, near Balbriggan, Co Dublin, in 1725. He was an older brother of Judge George Hamilton (1732-1793) of Hampton, Balrothery, who was MP for Belfast and a Baron of the Exchequer. Judge Hamilton is remembered mainly for developing the town of Balbriggan. As part of the development of Balbriggan, he sold the Lower Mill to the business of Comerford and O’Brien in Balbriggan in the early 1780s. His son, the Revd George Hamilton built Saint George’s Church, Balbriggan, in 1813.

The most elaborate memorial in Saint George’s Church recalls George Alexander Hamilton, who died on 17 September 1871. His wife Amelia Fancourt Hamilton is remembered on a similar memorial that says: ‘Her clothing and coal clubs were for many years a great benefit to the poor of this neighbourhood.’ It also mentions that she set up an infant school in 1836 at Hampton Gates.

The elaborate memorial to George Alexander Hamilton, who died in 1871 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Hamiltons were a clerical family with seemingly innumerable priests in the Church of Ireland. Bishop Hamilton was a Professor of Philosophy in Trinity College Dublin, Vicar of Saint Ann’s, Dublin, and Dean of Armagh before he became a bishop. Three of his sons were priests: Hans Hamilton of Knocktopher, Co Kilkenny, who fled Co Kilkenny during the ‘Tithe War’ in the 1830s; George Hamilton (1783-1830), of Killemogh, Co Laois, a Biblical scholar; and the Revd Hugh Hamilton (1790-1865) of Innishmacsaint, Co Fermanagh.

Another son of Bishop Hamilton, Henry Hamilton (1780-1854), grew up in Dublin, but lived much of his life in Tullylish, Co Down. As well as the archdeacon who is commemorated in Durham Cathedral, Henry Hamilton was the father of two other priests: the Revd Hugh Hamilton (1811-1884) of Dublin, and Canon William Alfred Hamilton (1824-1897), Rector of Taney, Dundrum, Co Dublin. His daughter Sarah was a doctor’s wife who lived in the family home, Hampton Hall, Balbriggan; her son, the Revd Rowland Scriven (1859-1944), was a curate in Balbriggan from 1898 until 1920, when he moved to England.

The Hamilton family was intermarried with many of the great literary figures in Ireland, and both John Millington Synge and CS Lewis are direct descendants of Bishop Hamilton.

Archdeacon George Hans Hamilton was a first cousin of the Revd Thomas Robert Hamilton, the first Rector of Saint Mark’s, Dundela, in Belfast, and the grandfather of CS Lewis.

In the cloisters in Durham Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The future archdeacon, George Hans Hamilton, was born on 21 January 1823, He was educated at Shrewsbury School and Trinity College, Dublin and was ordained in 1847.

After a time as a curate in Sunderland he became chaplain of Durham Prison and then Vicar of Berwick. He was chaplain to the High Sheriff of Durham in 1884.

Hamilton first married Arabella Sarah (Bella) Best on 9 May 1848. Her father John Best (1791-1825) was an accountant with the East India Company in Bombay; her mother Arabella née Robinson (1795-1855) was from Sunderland. Best seems to have spent much of his time travelling between Bombay and Sunderland. When he died in Bombay at the age of 33, he left a pregnant widow in India with four other children under the age of 10.

Bella Hamilton died in January 1868. She was the mother of two sons and a daughter: Hans Alfred Hamilton (born 1849), who seems to have been the ‘black sheep’ of the family; and Henry (Harry) Best Hans Hamilton (1850-1935); and Eliza Arabella Sarah (1858-1919), known as Ella.

Soon after Bella’s death, Hamilton married his second wife Lady Louisa Frances Clements (1843-1939) in 1869. She was a sister of Robert Bermingham Clements (1847-1892), 4th Earl of Leitrim. The couple were the parents of another daughter and three more sons: George Francis Clements Hamilton (1870-1900); Robert Charles Clements Hamilton (1871-1901), a refrigeration engineer, who was killed in an explosion on the first refrigerated ship bringing bananas to Britain from the West Indies; Sir Collingwood George Clements Hamilton (1877-1947), an electrical engineer and Conservative politician; and Louisa Lindisfarne Clements (Hamilton) Maitland (1878-1952).

Hamilton was a great advocate of prison reform. His character was drawn upon by Charles Reade in It Is Never Too Late to Mend (1856). He was Archdeacon of Lindisfarne (1865-1882), Archdeacon of Northumberland (1882-1905), and a canon of Durham Cathedral. He died on 23 September 1905 – he was 80 and still in office; his widow, Lady Louisa Hamilton, died on 31 August 1939.

As for Archdeacon Hamilton’s first cousin, the Revd Thomas Hamilton, he baptised his grandson, Clive Staples Lewis, in Saint Mark’s Church, Dundela, on 29 January 1899.

A portrait in Saint Mark’s Church, Dundela, of the Revd Thomas Hamilton, grandfather of CS Lewis (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

A walk though Soho to ask why there is no Greek restaurant or church on Greek Street

The Pillars of Hercules on Greek Street, Soho, celebrates the feats of Hercules in Greek mythology (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

One of the silly conundrums I pose when I find myself in Soho is: why is there no Greek restaurant on Greek Street?

Greek Street, which runs from Soho Square to Shaftesbury Avenue, takes its name from the small Greek church that stood on Hog Lane, now buried under Charing Cross Road, roughly where the Montague Pyke pub now stands.

An early map by Fairthorn and Newcourt in 1658 shows the location as a rectangular field that may have been owned by the Crown. A parcel of land known as Soho Fields was steadily sold off to developers.

Henry Jermyn, 1st Earl of St Albans, acquired the ownership of the area in the 1660s, and then leased out the land to Joseph Girle. He received permission to develop the area and then, in turn, passed on the lease for development to a builder, Richard Frith, who gives his name to Frith Street, where Mozart stayed at No 20 in 1764-1765.

Work on developing Greek Street began in 1680. William Morgan’s map in 1682 shows Greek Street with 17 plots on its east side and 12 on the west side, and the street was bisected by Queen’s Street, now Bateman Street.

The Pillars of Hercules, a half-timber pub dating from the early 18th century, on Greek Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The origins of the first Greek Orthodox Church in London dates back to the late 17th century. The first church was founded to meet the needs of a growing Greek community in London.

The main driving force behind the new church was Metropolitan Joseph Georgerinis of Samos. A Greek priest, Father Daniel Voulgaris, and number of Greeks living in London signed a petition in 1674 seeking permission ‘to build a church in any part of the city of London, where they may freely exercise their religion according to the Greek Church’.

Permission was granted in 1675 and work began in 1677 on building a small church. The church was completed in 1681, and was dedicated to the Dormition of the Virgin Mary.

The church stood at what was then the edge of the city in Soho in Hog Lane, off Charing Cross Road, and Hog Lane eventually became known as Greek Street. Most Greeks in London at the time were refugees from the oppression of the Ottoman Turks, but lived and worked in the City and around the ports of London. The church was too far from those Greek residents and they found they were unable to attend the Divine Liturgy regularly or support its function.

The church ended up being sold in 1682 and the building was taken over by another group of refugees, French Protestant Huguenots who had fled to England. There were more than 30 Huguenot churches and chapels in London by the early 18th century.

Although the church changed hands, the name Greek Street stuck with the street, which was laid out in the 1670s and 1680s, with taverns, coffee houses and tradesmen’s workshops.

William Hogarth’s painting and print, ‘Noon’ (1736-1738) shows a scene outside the former Greek church on Greek Street

William Hogarth produced a set of four paintings and prints in 1736-1738, including one called ‘Noon’ that shows a scene outside the Greek church, which by then had become the French Church. The spire in the background is either Saint Anne’s Church, Soho, or Saint Giles-in-the-Fields.

The early residents of Greek Street included Arthur Annesley (1678-1737), 5th Earl of Anglesey and 6th Viscount Valentia, who was MP for Cambridge and for New Ross, Co Wexford, in the English and Irish Houses of Commons at the same time. He owned large estates near Camolin, Wexford, and his offices in Ireland included Vice-Treasurer and Paymaster General and Governor of Co Wexford.

Casanova stayed on Greek Street when he was visiting London in 1764. No 1 was once the home of Sir William Beckford (1709-1770), twice Lord Mayor of London (1762, 1769). Other residents included Josiah Wedgwood in 1774-1797.

The writer Thomas de Quincey (1785-1859), author of Confessions of an Opium-Eater (1821), also stayed on Greek Street for a time. Sir Joseph Bazalgette (1819-1891) began designing London’s sewer system in the offices of the Westminster Commissioners Sewers at No 1 Greek Street. No 1 later became the House of Saint Barnabas.

The passageway through the arch seen from Manette Street, with the name of the Pillars of Hercules seen above (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

With no Greek restaurants, and the long disappearance of the Greek church, the only hint of a Greek presence, past or present, on Greek Street is through the name Greek mythology has given to the Pillars of Hercules, a half-timbered pub at No 7, at the north end of Greek Street.

The name celebrates the feats of Hercules, who was renowned for his strength and courage, and two landmarks, the Rock of Gibraltar on the north side and Mount Hacho on the south side that mark the entrance to the Mediterranean. Greek mythology says Hercules set up the pillars after cleaving a path through the land to create the Straits of Gibraltar during his tenth laboir. The northern pillar is the Rock of Gibraltar, while the southern pillar is either Jebel Musa in Morocco or Monte Hacho in Ceuta.

Most of what exists of the Pillars of Hercules today was built around 1910. But a pub has been on the site since before 1700, and it was first recorded in 1709.

The passageway through the arch at the side of the pub through leads into Manette Street, named after Dr Manette, one of the characters in A Tale of Two Cities, who is described by Charles Dickens as living near Soho Square.

Greek mythology says Hercules created the Straits of Gibraltar when he pushed two pillars apart, separating Europe from Africa (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

A sign at the pub says the Pillars of Hercules was also frequented in the 19th century by the poet, cricket lover and Catholic mystic Francis Thompson (1859-1906), author of the poem The Hound of Heaven.

Those literary associations were revived in the 1970s when the Pillars of Hercules was known as a literary pub and the meeting place of writers such as Martin Amis, Julian Barnes, Ian McEwan, Clive James and Ian Hamilton. Clive James named his second book of literary criticism At the Pillars of Hercules, apparently because most of the pieces were commissioned, delivered or written there.

The pub closed on 24 February 2018, but reopened later that year as Bar Hercules under new owners Be At One. In 2022, the cocktail bar chain Simmons took over the pub, and the pub continues to serve under the name of the Pillars of Hercules above the arch and the sign of Hercules above the Greek Street façade.

Other premises on Greek Street today include the Coach and Horses (No 29), the Gay Hussar restaurant (No 2) and Maison Bertaux (No 28), the oldest French pâtisserie in London. Three of the mirrors in the shop contain the inscriptions Liberté, égalité, fraternité, and each year, the shop creates a tableau vivant on 14 July to celebrate Bastille Day – so, even if you can’t get a good Greek meal on Greek Street, there is always a good French patisserie.

As for the former Greek church on Greek Street, it was demolished in 1934. However, the inscription commemorating the foundation of the first Greek Orthodox Church in London has survived and can still be seen in the left part of the narthex of the Greek Orthodox Cathedral of Saint Sophia in Bayswater.

Sunlight on the waters of the Straits of Gibraltar between the Pillars of Hercules and the coasts of Spain and Morocco (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Lamb and Flag, once a temporary home in Oxford of the Inklings, got a new lease of life since Covid

The Lamb and Flag, beside Saint John’s College, Oxford, has been recued by a community interest group calling themselves the Inklings (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

I have been discussing a number of well-known pubs in Oxford in recent weeks, including the King’s Arms facing the Bodleian’s Weston Library, and the Port Mahon and the Oranges and Lemons, both in St Clement’s. Sadly, the Eagle and Child on Saint Giles’, the pub where the Inklings once met, has been closed for many years, and is still suffering a lengthy refurbishment.

But before I caught bus back from Oxford to Milton Keynes earlier this week, I stopped once again in the Lamb and Flag, across the street from the Eagle and Child and a place that was saved from a threatened closure in recent years.

The Lamb and Flag, beside Saint John’s College on Saint Giles’, closed briefly after takings fell during the Covid-19 pandemic. But it was speedily saved by a community interest group calling themselves – appropriately – the Inklings, and was soon reopened.

The Lamb and Flag dates from 1566, and moved to its present location in 1613 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The Lamb and Flag is owned by Saint John’s College, and is just north of the main college entrance. Lamb and Flag Passage runs through the south side of the pub, linking St Giles’ with Museum Road, and there is an entrance to Keble College behind the pub.

The name of the Lamb and Flag derives from the symbol of Christ as the Lamb of God (Agnus Dei) in Saint John’s Gospel and the Book of Revelation, carrying a banner with a red cross. This is also a symbol of Saint John the Baptist and the rebus of Saint John’s College, and so the emblem signified how the college has owned the pub.

The Lamb and Flag dates back to at least 1566, when the first pub stood just south of Saint John’s College. An earlier Tudor building on the site of 12 St Giles’ belonged to Godstow Abbey, but Saint John’s College owned the site by 1573. The college moved the pub to that site on 1613, and the old site of the pub is now the Dolphin Quadrangle.

Henry Harbert or Harbard, who had run the earlier hostelry on the south side of Saint John’s as the Lamb, opened the inn at the site of 12 St Giles’ in 1613, and he took the name with him. The new site was further away from the main buildings of the college, but many years later, when the Sir Thomas White and Kendrew quadrangles were built in the 20th and 21st centuries, the pub found it was close to Saint John’s once again.

The Lamb and Flag, the rebus of Saint John’s College, seen on the altar front in the college chapel (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The pub is Listed Grade II and is in three parts: the oldest at the rear is mediaeval; the middle section is around 400 years old; and the front part is Georgian.

Originally the Lamb and Flag Inn only occupied No 12, the large building on the right. But in 1960 it expanded into the ground floor and basement of No 13, the taller narrow building to the left. Since then it has occupied both properties.

Hall’s Brewery took a lease on the pub from Saint John’s in 1829. By 1861, it was described as an hotel.

The Lamb and Flag is Listed Grade II: the oldest part at the rear is mediaeval; the middle section is around 400 years old; and the front part is Georgian (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

No 13, the tall narrow house next door to the pub, had a very narrow frontage of 3 yards 2 feet 2 inches in 1772, but was described as ‘a newly-built dwelling house with a commanding shop front’ in 1870, and was held on a lease from the Master and Scholars of Balliol College, Oxford.

Father John O’Fallon Pope, who was the master of the predecessor to Campion Hall at 11 St Giles’, bought No 13 Saint Giles’ in 1903. Father Joseph Rickaby, the chaplain of Campion Hall, was living there in 1921 with three boarders – a Belgian missionary and two students – and a butler and a footman.

No 13 was bought by Saint John’s College when Campion Hall moved to Brewer Street in 1936, and from 1937 to 1955 No 13 was the office of the Registrar of Births and Deaths for Oxford.

Lamb and Flag Passage runs through the south side of the pub, linking St Giles’ with Museum Road and Keble College (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The Lamb and Flag at No 12 expanded in 1960 to include the ground floor and basement of No 13, and has occupied both Nos 12 and 13 since then, some times with student accommodation upstairs.

The pub may have inspired Thomas Hardy when he was writing Jude the Obscure, although others say the Lamb and Flag in Jude the Obscure was actually the Turf Tavern. Graham Greene drank in the pub while he was a student at Balliol College. The Lamb and Flag is also mentioned by PD James in The Children of Men and it features frequently in episodes of the ITV detective drama Inspector Morse.

Meanwhile, the Inklings had been meeting at the Eagle and Child across the street on the other side of St Giles in the 1930s and 1940s. They included CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien, but also met in other places in Oxford, including Magdalen College. When the Eagle and Child was ‘modernised’ in 1962, the Inklings started meeting at the Lamb and Flag. However, these meetings came to an end after CS Lewis died in 1963.

Lamb and Flag Passage offers a glimpse of the Eagle and Child across the street on the other side of St Giles’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Saint John’s College took back the licence of the pub in 1997, and, after initially threatening to close it, ran it as a free house. The upstairs rooms were converted into student accommodation, and DPhil students were offered financial support from the pub’s profits through Lamb and Flag studentships worth up to £12,000 a year.

But the Lamb and Flag suffered a loss of revenues during the Covid-19 pandemic and the Lamb & Flag (Oxford) Ltd, a company owned by Saint John’s College, announced on 31 January 2021 that it would close.

Although the pub closed temporarily, it remained in college ownership, and the lease was bought in September 2021 by a Community Interest Company called the Inklings, and the Lamb and Flag reopened in October 2022.

The character of the Lamb and Flag has been preserved in the latest refurbishment (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The Inklings Group – named after the original literary circle that included JRR Tolkien, CS Lewis and others – is a diverse and eclectic mix of Oxford people, past and present, scientists and entrepreneurs, writers and artists, town and gown, as well as local businesses and suppliers.

They brought together several hundred people to save the Lamb and Flag. Saint John’s College shared their vision and supported the relaunch of the pub, aimed at local philanthropy and positive impact rather than profit.

The character of the Lamb and Flag has been preserved, with only light redecoration and refurbishment. Lamb and Flag ‘merch’ is on sale, at the bar including pins, mugs, patches, tote bags and T-shirts.

An invitation over the door in Lamb and Flag Passage is said inscribed in ‘Elvish’, the dwarf runes adopted by Tolkien from Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian scripts, and says: ‘Speak, Friend, and Enter’.

The Lamb and Flag reopened on St Giles’ in October 2022 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

‘The One and The Many’: a sculptor’s exploration of creation and imagination in the heart of Fitzrovia

‘The One and The Many’ is a large sculpture by Peter Randall-Page beside the recently-restored Fitzrovia Chapel in London (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

I was recalling earlier this week my visit to the recently-restored Fitzrovia Chapel in Pearson Square, off Mortimer Street in London. In a sunny corner, beside the chapel and beneath the tall blocks of a new development, ‘The One and The Many’ is a large sculpture by Peter Randall-Page reminding us of humanity’s shared search for the meaning of creation and our origins.

Peter Randall-Page sculpted ‘The One and The Many’ ten years ago (2015) from a naturally eroded Bavarian granite boulder, weighing 25 tonnes and measuring 3519 x 2240 x 2065 mm and inscribed over its entire surface with marks carved in low relief.

‘The One and The Many’ is primarily a celebration of human ingenuity and imagination. ‘Our ability to convey meaning to one another, through time and space, by making marks has revolutionised human culture and society,’ Peter Randall-Page has said. ‘The human desire to make the world meaningful seems to be ubiquitous and intrinsic to our very nature.’

Embracing many cultures, his sculpture is in the heart of Fitzrovia, an area with a rich and vibrant cultural history and thriving creative community.

It is inscribed with many of the world’s scripts and symbols, from the writings of ancient Babylonia to Mongolian ‘ornamental’ seal script. They recount stories of the creation in poetic musings, sacred scriptures and epic tales of our origins.

Almost all cultures and languages across time have creation myths and narratives that seek to explain how our world came into being, and this leap of imagination illustrates the essence of creativity across many cultures and languages. One of the earliest uses of written language was almost certainly to set down these stories by making marks on clay, papyrus and vellum.

Based on scholarly advice and artistic preferences, Peter Randall-Page chose over 30 variations on the creation myth from around the world. He included writing systems from the earliest cuneiform script in ancient Mesopotamia 5,000 years ago to modern languages. The selected texts from ancient and modern writings were then arranged and inscribed onto the vast boulder, in effect the earth itself.

The texts themselves are creation stories from various cultures, each conveyed in their own writing systems, and the chosen lines speak of cosmology and the material and poetical formation of the universe in a variety of cultures.

There are quotations and texts in Minoan Linear A from Crete, Sanskrit, Japanese, Cyrillic, Ogham Irish Script, Korean, Mongolian, Ancient Greek, Hebrew, Latin, Lycian and Arabic, to name but a few.

He tried to avoid pictograms and hieroglyphics, preferring to concentrate on writing as abstract mark making. He has included Braille and Morse Code, but not musical notation or mathematical symbols. A quotation from Samuel Beckett’s play Endgame is represented in Morse Code, and a quotation from Jorge Luis Borges’s short story ‘God’s Script’ is written in Braille.

In this way, ‘The One and The Many’ is an exploration of the ways we have contemplated, through a wealth of poetic musings and epic narratives, the theme of ‘In the beginning’, and it is also a celebration of human ingenuity and imagination.

Our human ability to convey meaning to one another through time and space, by making marks has revolutionised human culture. In Peter Randall-Page’s own words, ‘These myths and legends have been distilled by a kind of “cultural natural selection” over countless generations and as such they often tell us more about the human condition; our hopes and fears, than about literal cosmology.’

The naturally eroded boulder chosen for the sculpture is a fragment of solidified magma, the material the planet is made of. Its overall form is the result of innumerable chance events over a geological timescale stretching back to the creation of the Earth itself.

Peter Randall-Page has and international reputation for his large-scale sculptures, drawings and prints inspired by geometric forms and patterns from nature. He has undertaken numerous large-scale commissions and exhibited widely. He was elected a Royal Academician in 2015. His work is held in public collections world-wide, including the Tate Gallery, the British Museum and the Eden Project.

His sculpture ‘After the Winter’ was bought in 1981 by the Milton Keynes NHS Trust in anticipation of the opening of the new hospital. To this day, it is situated in a small courtyard space near the Eaglestone Restaurant, one of many that offer a quiet oasis at the hospital.

‘The One and The Many’ is permanently located at Fitzroy Place, Pearson Square, off Mortimer Street, London, and was commissioned by Exemplar and Aviva, developers of Fitzroy Place and project managed by Patrick Morey-Burrows of ArtSource.

• A dedicated website theoneandthemany.co.uk gives more background on the project as well as translations of the inscribed texts.

‘The One and The Many’ is a celebration of human ingenuity and imagination (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

It is such a good place, spell it out in big block letters on the walls and in the parks of LICHFIELD

The sign in Beacon Park was made by Staffordshire Signs for Lichfield District Council and has the spires of Lichfield Cathedral as a backdrop (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

Two new works of public art in Lichfield are spelling out the name of the cathedral city in capital letters in their own way: one is a work of street art in a hidden alleyway off a car park, the other is in Beacon Park, with the three spires of the cathedral as a backdrop; both are becoming popular as locations for ‘selfies’ among visitors and local people alike.

The name of Lichfield appears in block capital letters in the new colourful mural on the side of the Iceland supermarket that stretches for 30 metres along the first stage of the alleyway running from the Bird Street car park to Market Street.

The artist Nacho Welles seeks to capture Lichfield’s heritage and history in a work that features many local buildings and people, including Lichfield Cathedral, Samuel Johnson, Anna Seward, the Sandfields Pumping station, and the Lichfield-born Olympic cycling champion Sophie Capewell, who was one of the patrons of the Sheriff’s Ride in Lichfield this year (2025). There too are the terrapin that sunbathes at Minster Pool, a playful rabbit and a fox, the Roman ruins at Wall and, at the suggestion of local historian and tour guide Jonathan Oates of Jono’s Tourism, the Minster Pool heron.

This colourful piece of street art by Nacho Welles was commissioned by Lichfield District Council and was completed in recent weeks. At an early stage, the council invited residents, communities and businesses to take part in shaping the new mural, which has been funded through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund.

Nacho Welles is a Spanish urban artist based in London who also goes by the name Core246. He has painted in street and graffiti art festivals across Europe, has painted murals all over the world, is the author of a sold-out series of books on graffiti, Not4 Profit, and paints with the graffiti crews Ghost Writers (GW) and Smile More Often (Smo).

His paintings on canvas reflect a mix of classic street art aesthetics, pop art and realistic portraiture, using vibrant colours and referencing popular movies, comics and videogames. He has taken part in street art festivals in Antwerp, Athens, Kosovo, Leicester, London, Madrid, Nara, Wiesbaden and Zagreb.

He began painting in oils at the age of 8, and soon moved on to spray painting in abandoned factories and tunnels, creating murals with friends for fun. After studying fine art at the University of Cuenca in Spain, he moved to London in 2011, and he continues creating freehand aerosol graffiti in situ, in addition to his studio practice.

Nacho Welles created the colourful mural that stretches for 30 metres along the alleyway running from the Bird Street car park to Market Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

When the mural was being planned earlier this year, Councillor Richard Holland, Cabinet Member for High Street and Economic Development on Lichfield District Council, said the alleyway would be ‘transformed into a vibrant area that our residents can be proud of’ and that the mural would contribute ‘to our work to improve our high streets and will be an important contribution to our vibrant economy.’

Councillor Janice Silvester-Hall, Cabinet Member for Visitor Economy, Ecology and Climate Change, said: ‘This mural should represent everything that makes Lichfield the place it is; the people that live here, landmarks that shape our streets and famous figures that represent our heritage.’

Residents, communities and businesses were asked for their views on themes, colour schemes and key elements to bring the mural together. Alongside this, Nacho held workshops with students from Lichfield College in street art and involving them to create the final artwork.

L: Samuel Johnson in the new mural by Nacho Welles (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), often called Dr Johnson, was born in Lichfield. He was a poet, playwright, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor, and compiler of one of the most important lexicographer. The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography says he is ‘arguably the most distinguished man of letters in English history’.

I: the Sandfields Pumping Station and life on Stowe Pool or Minster Pool in the new mural by Nacho Welles (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Sandfields Pumping Station, a disused pumping station in Lichfield, was built in 1873 to supply clean water from Minster Pool and Stowe Pool to towns in the Black Country, and is a Grade II* listed building. The historian, photographer and filmmaker David Moore, former chair of Lichfield Waterworks Trust, worked for several years to save this site, which he describes as a ‘magnificent cathedral to the industrial revolution’. He made four short video interviews with me in Saint John’s Hospital 10 years ago (2015), talking with me about my links with Lichfield.

C: a fox and the Lichfield-born Olympic cycling champion Sophie Capewell in the new mural by Nacho Welles (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Sophie Ellen Capewell was born in Lichfield and is a British professional racing cyclist. She won a gold medal at the 2024 Summer Olympics in the team sprint, and has won numerous national, Commonwealth, European and world medals. She was one of the patrons of the Sheriff’s Ride in Lichfield this year.

H: Anna Seward, the ‘Swan of Lichfield’ and Lichfield Cathedral in the new mural by Nacho Welles (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Anna Seward (1742-1809), a Romantic poet known as the ‘Swan of Lichfield’, was the daughter of Thomas Seward, a prebendary of Lichfield Cathedral. She lived in the Bishop’s Palace in the Cathedral Close and was part of the literary circle that included Erasmus Darwin, Samuel Johnson and James Boswell. She is buried under the choir stalls in Lichfield Cathedral.

F: the poems of Priscilla Pointon and Mrs Pickering and the Five Gables of Bore Street in the new mural by Nacho Welles (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Priscilla Pointon (1740-1801) was born in Lichfield and lost her eyesight at the age of 13. She published Poems on Several Occasions’ in 1770. She married James Pickering in 1780, and after his death she published a second volume, Poems by Mrs Pickering (1794). Her name may have been suggested for inclusion in the mural by the local historian Katie Cardigan of Lichfield Discovered.

I: Erasmus Darwin and the Guildhall in the new mural by Nacho Welles (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802), a doctor, natural historian, inventor and poet, and a founding member of the Lunar Society, lived in Lichfield for much of his life. He was one of the key thinkers of the Midlands Enlightenment and the grandfather of Charles Darwin.

E: Francis Barber between the Guildhall and the Friary Clocktower in the mural by Nacho Welles (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Francis Barber (1742-1801) was the Jamaican-born manservant and assistant of Samuel Johnson from 1752 until Johnson died 1784. Johnson left him a generous income, his books and papers, and a gold watch on the condition that Barber move to Lichfield. Barber, who had married a local woman, moved to Lichfield, opened a draper’s shop, and was an important source for James Boswell when he was writing about Johnson. Some of Barber’s descendants still live near Lichfield.

L: David Garrick in the mural by Nacho Welles (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

David Garrick (1716-1779) was an actor, playwright, theatre manager and producer, and was a pupil and friend of Samuel Johnson. He built his career on his appearance in the title role of Shakespeare’s Richard III. He gives his name to the Garrick theatre in Lichfield.

D: between David Garrick and the Minster Pool heron and the Roman site at Wall in the mural by Nacho Welles (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Meanwhile, a new city sign spelling out the name of Lichfield in giant white block letters is becoming a popular photo opportunity and a location for ‘selfies’ for visitors and residents alike, and is often used as a backdrop for local presentations.

The sign in Beacon Park was unveiled in April and sits against the backdrop of Lichfield Cathedral. It was crafted by Staffordshire Signs, a Burntwood-based company, for Lichfield District Council and it too was funded through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund as part of a broader High Street Vibrancy initiative.

It is interesting to notice how 3D city signs have become popular features around the world – in recent months, I have noticed them in places as far apart and as diverse as Kuching in Sarawak, Rethymnon in Crete, and Watford in Hertfordshire – and in the age of social media they offer branding opportunities for small cities.

Lichfield District Council has invested almost £100,000 in enhancing public spaces in Lichfield and Burntwood. Additional improvements under the scheme include colourful new planters, festive bunting, decorative bollard covers and enhanced street cleaning.

In Anglo-Saxon times, I suppose we could say Lichfield was a capital of sorts, with Tamworth the political capital of Mercia and Lichfield the ecclesiastical capital. But the capital letters in Nacho Welles’s street art in the centre of the city and the large block letters in Beacon Park are making Lichfield a ‘capital’ city this summer.

The mural by Nacho Welles … spelling out pride in the cultural and literary history of Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Climbing the walls of Iraklion at Easter to visit the simple grave of Nikos Kazantzakis

The grave of Nikos Kazantzakis on the Martinengo Bastion of the Venetian walls surrounding Iraklion (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

While I was in Iraklion last weekend, I climbed the old Venetian walls to see the panoramic view across the city and out to the Mediterranean and to visit the grave of the Greek writer and philosopher Nikos Kazantzakis (1883-1957).

It was a warm sunny day in Iraklion and I had spent part of my time visiting Saint Minas Cathedral and some of the older churches in the city. It was that quiet day between Good Friday and the celebrations on Easter night when little happens anywhere in Greece, when most of the cafés and restaurants are closed, and when tourists are at a loss about what to do.

When a friend I had arranged to meet for lunch found unexpectedly that she had to delay our arrangements for an hour or two, I decided to walk on through the colourful narrow streets of the older parts of Iraklion, and to visit the grave, which is found on the southernmost bastion, built by the Venetians in the 16th century.

I had last visited this grave almost 12 years ago (5 September 2013). It stands alone on top of the great walls and bastions that were part of the Venetian defences of the city they called Candia.

Two of the great city gates have survived to this day: the Pantocrator or Panigra Gate, also known now as the Chania Gate (1570), at the west edge; and the Jesus Gate or Kainouryia Gate (ca 1587), at the south edge. Between them, at the south-west corner of these great walls, is the grave of Nikos Kazantzakis on the Martinengo Bastion.

The roof tops of Iraklion and the dome and towers of Aghios Minas seen from the grave of Nikos Kazantzakis (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The grave, with its plain cross of two unadorned wooden beams and a simple, carved epitaph, is a tranquil oasis looking north across the roof tops of the city, pierced by the dome and the baroque towers of Aghios Minas. Beyond, the blue of the Mediterranean stretches out to meet the blue of the sky on the horizon.

To the south is Mount Iouktas: it looks like the head of a man in profile and so is said to have given rise to the Cretan legend that this was the head of the dead and buried god Zeus, a prequel to many thoughts in Crete on the death and resurrection of Christ at Easter.

This simple grave is so beloved of Greeks that it is a work of art in itself, visited by countless people who may never have read any books by Kazantzakis, or perhaps only know of him through films such as Zorba the Greek or The Last Temptation of Christ.

The grave is marked by a simple cross and a pithy epitaph carved in his own handwriting, with his own words:

Δεν ελπίζω τίποτα.
Δε φοβάμαι τίποτα.
Είμαι λέφτερος

(Den elpizo tipota. Den fovamai tipota. Eimai leftheros, ‘I hope for nothing, I fear nothing, I am free’).

The epitaph carved in the handwriting of Nikos Kazantzakis, with his own words (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Nikos Kazantzakis is a giant of modern Greek literature, and he was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature on nine separate occasions. He is best known, probably, for Zorba the Greek (1946, Βίος και Πολιτεία του Αλέξη Ζορμπά). But his other works include Christ Recrucified (1948, Ο Χριστός Ξανασταυρώνεται); Kapetan Michalis (1950, Καπετάν Μιχάλης), also published in English as Freedom or Death; The Last Temptation of Christ (1951, Ο Τελευταίος Πειρασμός); and Saint Francis or God’s Pauper: St Francis of Assisi (1956, Ο Φτωχούλης του Θεού). Report to Greco (1961, Αναφορά στον Γκρέκο), is both autobiographical and fictional.

Kazantzakis also published plays, travel books, poetry, memoirs, encyclopaedia entries and philosophical essays such as The Saviours of God: Spiritual Exercises, and translated Dante. His children’s books include Alexander the Great and At the Palaces of Knossos. His epic version of the Odyssey occupied Kazantzakis for his last 10 years.

After spending six months in a monastery, Kazantzakis published his Spiritual Exercises (Ασκητική) in 1927, which was translated into English and published posthumously in 1960 as The Saviours of God.

When The Last Temptation of Christ was published 1951, the Roman Catholic Church placed it on the Index of Prohibited Books. Kazantzakis’ reaction was to send a telegram to the Vatican quoting Tertullian: ‘Ad tuum, Domine, tribunal appello’ (I lodge my appeal at your tribunal, Lord, Στο δικαστήριό σου ασκώ έφεση, ω Kύριε).

When the Church of Greece condemned Kazantzakis in 1955 and anathematised him, his response was prompt and clear: ‘You gave me a curse, Holy fathers, I give you a blessing: may your conscience be as clear as mine and may you be as moral and religious as I.’ (‘Μου δώσατε μια κατάρα, Άγιοι πατέρες, σας δίνω κι εγώ μια ευχή: Σας εύχομαι να ‘ναι η συνείδηση σας τόσο καθαρή, όσο είναι η δική μου και να ‘στε τόσο ηθικοί και θρήσκοι όσο είμαι εγώ.’).

In his later years, Kazantzakis was banned from entering Greece for long periods. By one vote, he lost the Nobel Prize for Literature to Albert Camus a few days before he died in exile in Germany on 26 October 1957. When his body was brought back from Freiburg, the Greek Orthodox Church refused to allow any priests to provide rites or ceremonies in Athens.

The Martinengo Bastion on the Venetian walls surrounding Iraklion (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Western writers often claim Kazantzakis was denied an Orthodox burial because of his unorthodox views, or because of The Last Temptation. But Aristotle Onassis provided a plane to take his coffin to Iraklion, where Kazantzakis lay in state in the Cathedral of Aghios Minas.

Those who came to pay tribute included the Archbishop of Crete and the resistance leader and future prime minister, George Papandreou. A priest officiated at the burial, giving lie to the popular claim that Kazantzakis had died an excommunicate.

His widow Eleni later lived in Geneva, and from 1967 until 1974 she was unable to travel to Greece until the fall of the colonels’ junta. She died on 18 February 2004 in the Henry Dunant Hospital in Athens, holding the hand of her adopted son, Patroclos Stavrou. I was visiting Athens at the time, and had arranged to meet her, only to find she died on the night I arrived and the day before we were due to meet. She was buried with her husband on the walls looking across Aghios Minas and the city.

The funeral of Nikos Kazantzakis in Iraklion in 1957

My friend Manolis Chrysakis, the proprietor of Mika Villas in Piskopiano, and his family in Iraklion and Piskopiano are proud of their kinship with Nikos Kazantzakis: they are descended from the sister-in-law of ‘Kapetan Mihailis’, the eponymous hero of the Kazantzakis novel based on his father’s adventures published in English as Freedom and Death.

One balmy summer’s evening with the Chrysakis family in Piskopiano almost 30 years ago, Manolis’ uncle, the late Kostas Chrysakis, pored over old family photographs, postcards and letters, sharing childhood memories of his famous ‘Uncle Nikos.’

Kostas Chrysakis shared his family’s treasured photographs of his uncle’s funeral. They show men in traditional island costumes, like Dirk Bogarde in Ill Met by Moonlight, in a procession led by robed Orthodox priests through the narrow thronged streets up to the city walls.

Kostas claimed that when the Vatican and the Archbishop of Athens demanded the excommunication of Kazantzakis following the publication of The Last Temptation of Christ, the Patriarch of Constantinople insisted that the Church of Crete was independent from the Church of Greece and under his direct oversight. A year later, a priest led the traditional family prayers at the graveside.

Visiting Manolis Chrysakis of Iraklion in Mika Villas in Piskopiano (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

To mark the 60th anniversary of his death, the Greek Ministry of Culture declared 2017 as the ‘Year of Nikos Kazantzakis,’ with cultural events in Crete, throughout Greece and across the world.

In Ireland, the events included a public lecture by his adopted granddaughter, Dr Niki Stavrou, in University College Dublin. Niki Stavrou is the publisher of Kazantzakis’s works and the Director of Kazantzakis Publications since May 2014. Her godmother, Eleni Kazantzakis, gave her the name Niki to honour and commemorate her late husband, Nikos Kazantzakis.

In her research on the life of Nikos Kazantzakis and the real people behind the characters of Report to Greco, Niki Stavrou identified the first love of Nikos Kazantzakis as Kathleen Forde from Ireland.

Peter Bien of Dartmouth, who translated many of his novels, once wondered whether Kazantzakis would be read 50 years after his death. But after his death, his fame spread in the English-speaking world because of the film adaptations of Zorba the Greek (1964) and The Last Temptation of Christ (1988).

For many people in Crete, his outstanding works remain his semi-autobiographical but posthumous Report to Greco (1960) and his Freedom and Death (1946), set in Iraklion during the struggle against Ottoman oppression.

Freedom and Death first appeared in Greek as Kapetan Michailis, and the eponymous hero is the author’s own father. The characters are the people of 19th century Iraklion, the settings are its streets, churches, harbour, fountains, mosques, and houses, which I had strolled through in the sunshine last weekend.

His home town of Iraklion provides the setting for much of the work of Nikos Kazantzakis (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The simplicity of the cross on his grave reminds me of the simplicity of the Cross of Nails in Coventry Cathedral. The simplicity and the quiet spirituality expressed in the setting and the epitaph on the grave reflect his personality and style and his life and work.

Throughout his writings, he wrestles with his ideas about God and Humanity, and at different times he spent months in monasteries on Mount Athos and on Mount Sinai in prayer and contemplation.

At his grave, I recalled how he prefaced Report to Greco with a prayer:

Three kinds of souls, three kinds of prayers: 1, I am a bow in your hands, Lord, draw me lest I rot. 2, Do not overdraw me, Lord, I shall break. 3, Overdraw me, Lord, and who cares if I break!’

The figure of Christ is ever-present in his thoughts, from his youth to his final days. In his introduction to Report to Greco, Kazantzakis says ‘My entire soul is a cry, and all my work the commentary on that cry.’ In The Fratricides (1964), I came across this beautiful line: ‘I said to the almond tree: ‘Speak to me of God.’ and the almond tree blossomed.’

In The Last Temptation of Christ, he presents a tragic Christ wrestling all his life with the conflicting claims of his divine mission and duty and his human desire to live a normal life, to love and be loved, and to have a family. In this book, Christ summarises his purpose and mission: ‘I said only one word, brought only one message: ‘Love. Love – nothing else’.’

Writing about this book, Kazantzakis said: ‘I am certain that every free man who reads this book, so filled as it is with love, will more than ever before, love Christ.’

Some years ago, I wrote about Kazantzakis and his brief love affair with Kathleen Ford, the daughter of an Irish rector, which he recalls in his semi-autobiographical Report to Greco. He prefaces that book with a prayer: ‘Three kinds of souls, three kinds of prayers: 1, I am a bow in your hands, Lord, draw me lest I rot. 2, Do not overdraw me, Lord, I shall break. 3, Overdraw me, Lord, and who cares if I break!’

During my climb to his grave last weekend, in the space between Good Friday and Easter on my climb up the walls of Iraklion, I was reminded that Kazantzakis says in Report to Greco: ‘Every man worthy of being called a son of man bears his cross and mounts his Golgotha. Many, indeed most, reach the first or second step, collapse pantingly in the middle of the journey, and do not attain the summit of Golgotha, in other words the summit of their duty: to be crucified, resurrected, and to save their souls. Afraid of crucifixion, they grow fainthearted; they do not know that the cross is the only path to resurrection. There is no other path.’

Later in the book, he writes: ‘Whoever climbed the Lord’s mountain had to possess clean hands and an innocent heart; otherwise the Summit would kill him. Today the doorway is deserted. Soiled hands and sinful hearts are able to pass by without fear, for the Summit kills no longer.’

And he advises: ‘Tomorrow, go forth and stand before the Lord. A great and strong wind will blow over you and rend the mountains and break in pieces the rocks, but the Lord will not be in the wind. And after the wind and earthquake, but the Lord will not be in the earthquake. And after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord will not be in the fire. And after the fire a gentle, cooling breeze. That is where the Lord will be. This is how the spirit comes. After the gale, the earthquake, and fire: a gentle, cooling breeze. This is how it will come in our own day as well. We are passing through the period of earthquake, the fire is approaching, and eventually (when? after how many generations?) the gentle, cool breeze will blow.’

I said only one word, brought only one message: ‘Love. Love – nothing else’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)