COMERFORD WAY: Patrick Comerford’s online journal on Anglicanism, theology, spirituality, history, architecture, travel, poetry, beach walks ... and more
The bust of Admiral Nikolaos Votsis by Georgios Dimitriadis in front of the White Tower in Thessaloniki (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Patrick Comerford
I was recalling last week how I came across a collection of photographs of modern sculptures in the streets and parks of Thessaloniki and how I realised that I had written little about these sculptures over the years.
Rather than leave the photographs and memories in forgotten files on my laptop or in the cloud, I started an occasional series of blog postings on some of those modern sculptures I have rediscovered in Thessaloniki. Over the next few weeks, I am inviting you to join me in a minor odyssey of recovery and discovery as my mind wanders through Thessaloniki, looking at these sculptures again.
The sculptures I looked at last week include the monumental statues of Aristotle, Alexander the Great and Eleftherios Venizelos, and the Jewish Memorial by Konstantinos Lentaris in the campus of the Aristotele University of Thessaloniki.
The bust of Admiral Nikolaos Votsis (1877-1934) in front of the White Tower on the waterfront is a fine example of monumental sculpture in the city. The sculpture by Georgios Dimitriadis (1880-1941) is one of the oldest in the city and it depicts Votsis as both strict and imposing.
Admiral Nikolaos Votsis (Νικόλαος Βότσης) was a senior naval officer from Hydra. The sinking of the Feth-i Bülend may not have had much military significance, but it was a great morale boost to the Greeks. It was the first of a series of naval successes in the war, and a week later, the city was surrendered to the Greek army. The mast of the Turkish ship was placed on the White Tower, and the Greek flag was flown from it.
The bust of Admiral Votsis became a symbol of the liberation of Thessaloniki and of resistance to the occupation during World War II (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Votsis became a national hero and has been compared with the legendary fireship captains of the Greek Revolution. While he was a student at the Naval Academy, he took part in the naval blockade of Crete in 1896-1897, in the run-up to the Greco-Turkish War in 1897.
Votsis rose to the rank of Rear Admiral, commanded two more battleships and then became Greece’s High Commissioner to the Allied mission in Constantinople (Istanbul). Later, he was captain of the battleship Limnos, which supported Greek landings in Turkey and took part in the final Greek sea-borne withdrawal in 1922. He died in exile in Paris in 1931.
The sculptor of this bust, Georgios Dimitriadis (Γεώργιος Δημητριάδης), was born in Athens. He specialised in monumental public sculpture and was one of the most productive sculptors of his time. In an eclectic way, he drew on neoclassic and academic aesthetic styles, often brightened with naturalistic and allegoric elements.
The bust of Admiral Nikolaos Votsis is on a marble pyramidal pedestal inscribed with verses in his honour written by the Greek satirical poet Giorgos Souris (1853-1919), who has been described as a ‘modern Aristophanes.’
The side of the plinth is inscribed with the names of the torpedo boat crew that Votsis commanded when he sank the Ottoman battleship Feth-i Bülend in the harbour of Thessaloniki 18 October 1912, during the First Balkan War.
The poet Giorgos Souris published celebratory and satirical verse dedicated to the liberation of Thessaloniki from Ottoman rule and the entry of the Greek army in November 1912 in his weekly verse newspaper O Romios (The Greek) on 10 November 1912. He used sharp, rhythmic, and popular rhyming verse to capture national enthusiasm, political commentary and the historic significance of the city’s liberation.
The verses in honour of Admiral Votsis written by the Greek satirical poet Giorgos Souris in 1912 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
The bust of Votsis became a symbol of the liberation of Thessaloniki. During the German occupation and World War II, the sculpture became the final point of resistance rallies, when young people laid a wreath and sang the national anthem, while the Nazis pointed guns at them.
Three ships of the Hellenic Navy have borne the name Lemnos or Limnos (Λήμνος), named after the island of Lemnos and the First Balkan War Battle of Lemnos. The first was the battleship Lemnos (1914-1932), commanded by Votsis, and the name and its traditions have been held since 1982 by the Greek frigate Limnos.
I was on board the frigate Limnos 30 years ago in 1996 as part of a flotilla that took about two dozen journalists from Kalymnos to see the islets of Imia at the height of tensions that year between Greece and Turkey, and then brought us back to Rhodes.
There was a continuity between that trip in the Aegean in 1996, and the career of Votsis that began with the naval blockade of Crete 100 years earlier in 1896-1897. The frigate Limnos continues to be present in Greek-Turkish tensions in the Aegean, which have been reignited with a retired Turkish admiral threatening the Greek presence on five Greek islands: Lesvos, Chios, Samos, Kos and Kastellorizo. Recent Turkish assertion at the highest level have extended claims to several other Greek islands, including Crete, Rhodes and Lemnos.
In the side streets of Platanias in Rethymnon … the meanings and understandings of ‘Romiosini’ are tied up with identity and soul (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Patrick Comerford
The English words ‘Greek’ and ‘Greece’ do not exist in the Greek language. Greeks call themselves Hellene (Έλληνας, Hellinas), know the country as Hellas or Helláda (Ελλάδα), and know the Greek language as Ελληνικά (Elliniká). Why, even a Greek coffee is ένας ελληνικός (enas hellenikós).
The term ‘Greek’ comes not from Greek but from the ancient Latin word Graecus, derived from a small tribe (Graikoi) that the Romans may have encountered first in Epirus. In Greek mythology, Graecus (Γραικός, Graikos) was the son of Pandora II and Zeus. His mother was the daughter of Deucalion and Pyrrha, and sister of Helen. The label stuck in Western languages, including English. But it was never adopted by Greeks or in Greece.
Instead, Greeks refer to Greek people as Έλληνας (Hellinas, masculine singular) or Ελληνίδα (Ellinida, feminine singular).
Another word, but one only used among Greeks for themselves and seldom used in conversation with people who do not speak Greek is Ρωμιός (Romios), from Rome, meaning Byzantium. It is not used that often, but it has the vibe of the core of Greek identity, and it is sometimes used to refer to traditions and the traditional understanding of what it is to be Greek, Greek-born, with in-born Greek values and understandings.
The word romiosini comes from the Byzantine idea that Greeks are descendants of the Roman empire, as in the Eastern Roman or Byzantine empire. It means more than just being Greek; it describes resilience, freedom, and survival through hard times and foreign rule. The words Ρωμιός (Romios) and Ρωμιοσύνη (Romiosini) are probably more appropriate to use when describing the emotions Greeks share and how they feel in the face of adversity or even foreign interference.
No two Greeks have the same definition of these terms. The meanings and understandings of Romiosini are tied up with identity and soul, it is both but it is neither. It is about Greek-ness, yet not about identity with the Greek State, which is less than 200 years old. It is Hellenic and it is Byzantine. If foreigners find it difficult to understand, then Greeks find it difficult to describe.
The word has its roots in being part of the Roman Empire. But not the Empire of Rome. It is eastern Rome or the Empire of Byzantium, it is the New Rome that is Constantinople, Κωνσταντινόπουλος (Konstantinopoulos), or simply ‘the City’.
The history of modern Greece, from the end of Ottoman rule to the 21st century fiscal crises, is one great unfolding drama and catastrophe, punctuated by coups, revolutions, invasions, civil wars, the tyranny of the colonels, and the tension of being both Western and Eastern, of being both Balkan and Anatolian.
Greeks of my generation learned to speak two languages, formal Καθαρεύουσας (Katharevoussa) and popular or domestic Δημοτική (Dhimotikí) – all at one and the same time … and at different times. At school and in churches, in songs and in placenames, Greeks learn how two words can mean the one thing: water is both ύδωρ (idor) and νερό (nero), bread is both άρτος (artos) and ψωμί (psomí).
Ireland is Ireland, England is England, but Greece is not defined by the cartographer’s limitations or lines drawn on the maps of Europe. Greece is Ἑλλάς (Hellas), but Romiosini is defined in hearts and in souls. Politics, parties and geographical boundaries can change, but Romiosini endures.
When Constantine founded Byzantium as the new capital of his empire, the word Hellene became associated with a pagan past, although Greek became the official language. From then on, the Roman and Greek cultures were virtually fused in the East.
After the fall of Constantinople in 1453, Greeks were defined by the Turkish terms Rumlar and Rum millet. In time, Greek identity was largely defined by Orthodoxy. A unique intertwining and blending of language and religion shaped that identity, that fused a Hellenistic identity that claimed Classical Athens and a Greek Orthodoxy focussed on Byzantium and Constantinople.
Greeks today remember that Byzantium flourished while Western Europe was living in poverty, ignorance and violence.
Byzantine and Greek flags flying at the Church of the Four Martyrs in Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
The 20th century poet Kostis Palamas defended the use of the words Roman instead of Hellene and Romanism instead of Hellenism, of the use of the terms Romios and Romiosini.
For Crete’s greatest writer, Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba exhibits all the characteristics of a character with all the marks of Romiosini.
Yiannis Ritsos (1909-1990), the poet of the Greek Left and of the resistance, saw the memory and emotion, the identity and the energy in these concepts that evade translation alive in Greek memory, and expressed it in his great long poem Romiosini.
For Ritsos, Greeks fall into one of two groups: the educated middle class, who want to forget the memory of the 400 years of Turkish oppression and identify with the ancient Greeks; and the peasant and working class, whose memory goes back through the Turkish occupation to Byzantium. Greeks in the first group think of themselves as Hellenes, those in the second group are Romoii, and Ritsos sees himself as a Romios, embracing the living language that expresses this.
Romiosini expresses and is the suffering and the experience German occupation, the Civil War, and the betrayal of the Resistance. But it goes back from the ballads the klephts sang in the War of Independence to the Byzantine poems and the Homeric songs.
In the 1960s, Mikis Theodorakis provided a choral setting that made this the classic anthem of Greek identity and of resistance to the colonels. It is one of his earliest works with nine songs drawing on the lyrics of Ritsos. In one of the earliest recordings, these songs and poems were interpreted by the legendary singer Grigoris Bithikotsis (Γρηγόρης Μπιθικώτσης).
This poem and this choral setting shatter the barriers of space and time and they recover the memories of past sufferings that shape identity from the debris of Greek history.
There are nine songs in all:
1, These trees (Αυτά τα δέντρα)
2, All are thirsty (Όλοι διψάνε)
3, When they shake the hand (Όταν σφίγγουν το χέρι)
4, So many years (Τόσα χρόνια)
5, They got enslaved (Μπήκαν στα σίδερα)
6, Tree after tree (Δέντρο το δέντρο)
7, Who would say it (Ποιος να το πει)
8, Soon the bells will ring (Θα σημάνουν οι καμπάνες)
9, They travelled to heaven (Τραβήξανε ψηλά)
When Greeks use the word Romiosini, it means more than being Greek, yet it is impossible to describe in English the emotional dimensions of this word. It conveys culture, resistance, place, tradition, dance, character, wilfulness, language, history, tradition, identity, dance and song.
It is the spirit stands up in the face of adversity, catastrophe, trauma and the tide and tempest of the world.
It is freedom and resistance, it is democracy and revolution, it is a way of being Greek but more than Greek.
And in recent days I have returned again to listening this interpretation by Mikis Theodorakis of the poem by Ritsos. The original references are to resistance to the Ottoman Turks. But this became one of the songs that symbolised the resistance to the colonels’ junta, and today it sings of resistance to everyone who would try to deny the Greekness of Greeks.
Γιάννη Ρίτσου, «Τη Ρωμιοσύνη μην την κλαις»
Τη ρωμιοσύνη μην την κλαις
εκεί που πάει να σκύψει
με το σουγιά στο κόκκαλο
με το λουρί στο σβέρκο
Νά τη πετιέται απο ξαρχής
κι αντριεύει και θεριεύει
και καμακώνει το θεριό
με το καμάκι του ήλιου
This is a poor effort to translate this deeply moving and emotional poem and song:
Don’t dare cry for Greece
There where she is forced to stoop,
Stabbed by a knife in her back
Bent by a yoke on her neck.
Yet see her rise from the blow,
Grow with strength and with fury,
And see her strike back at the beast
With the harpoon of the sun.
In the streets of Panormos near Rethymnon … the meanings and understandings of ‘Romiosini’ are tied up with identity and soul (Photograph: Patrick Comerford
‘Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming’ (Matthew 24: 42) … night-time on Bore Street in Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Patrick Comerford
We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and this week began with the Twelfth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XII). The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today remembers Saint Monica (387), the mother of Saint Augustine of Hippo.
Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:
1, today’s Gospel reading;
2, a reflection on the Gospel reading;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
‘Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming’ (Matthew 24: 42) … night-time on Souliou Street in Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Matthew 24: 42-51 (NRSVA):
[Jesus said:] 42 Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. 43 But understand this: if the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. 44 Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.
45 ‘Who then is the faithful and wise slave, whom his master has put in charge of his household, to give the other slaves their allowance of food at the proper time? 46 Blessed is that slave whom his master will find at work when he arrives. 47 Truly I tell you, he will put that one in charge of all his possessions. 48 But if that wicked slave says to himself, “My master is delayed”, 49 and he begins to beat his fellow-slaves, and eats and drinks with drunkards, 50 the master of that slave will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour that he does not know. 51 He will cut him in pieces and put him with the hypocrites, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’
‘If the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake’ (Matthew 24: 43) … an empty house at night in Agios Georgios in Corfu (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Today’s Reflections:
We are entering the final phase of weekday readings in Saint Matthew, which conclude on Saturday (29 August 2026). We are going to read selected readings from chapters 24 and 25 that form what is known as the ‘Eschatological Discourse’. This is the fifth and final discourse, each of which is a collection of the teachings of Jesus and they are a feature of Saint Matthew’s Gospel. This discourse is concerned with the end of all things, and the second and final coming of Christ to bring all things together.
The earlier part of chapter 24 includes the foretelling of the destruction of Jerusalem, an event that for the Jews of the time, including those who had converted to Christianity, must have seemed like the end of the world.
The early Christians had expected to see the Second Coming in their lifetime and the sacking of Jerusalem and the sacrilegious destruction of the Temple must have seemed the certain signs of the ἔσχατον (eschaton, ‘last thing’). But by the time Saint Matthew’s Gospel was written or in circulation, that was already at least 15 years in the past. The end, although certain to happen, did not seem any more quite so imminent.
Saint Matthew includes as part of the discourse a number of Parousia (παρουσία) or final coming parables. Following a pattern in other parts of this gospel, they are seven in number. We have two short ones in today’s reading. Both consist of an exhortation for readiness to welcome the final coming of the Lord.
In the first we should be as alert in watching for the coming of the Lord as a householder would be to prevent his house being broken into and robbed. Like a thief, Jesus will come when we least expect him.
In the second parable, Jesus compares us to a servant who has been put in charge of the house while the master is away. This may refer to the community leaders in Saint Matthew’s church and, by extension, to leaders of communities everywhere. It will be well for that servant when the master unexpectedly returns and finds his servant diligently doing his job.
Being burgled at night is a frightening and a traumatic experience for anyone who has suffered it.
It is one thing to come home from a day’s work, or from a holiday, to find your house has been broken into. It is another to wake up and realise that as you were sleeping a thief has broken into your home, and is downstairs or in the next room.
It happened to me once, in a house I was living in, in south Dublin.
It was in the days before mobile ’phones and cordless ’phones. I had been working late the night before in The Irish Times and came downstairs to answer a mid-morning ’phone call.
Unknown to me, the thieves were in the next room, having already gone through the kitchen. They were in there, having made themselves something to drink, had cut the lead to the video recorder, and were squatting on the floor, armed with the ‘kitchen devil,’ straight from the cutlery drawer, sorting through the other possessions in the front room.
They must have remained very quiet. Instead of stealing any goods, they stole out the back door before I ever put the ’phone down or realised what had happened.
It is a frightening experience, and it made me extra vigilant: extra bolts and locks, rethinking the alarm system, and so on. The police knew who the ‘likely suspects’ were, but they could offer no guarantees that I was never going to be broken into again … and again.
It is an experience that was also a reminder of my own vulnerability, and a reminder that what I own and possess is not really mine, and not mine for very long. Finding the ‘kitchen devil’ on the floor was also a sharp reminder that even my life is not mine for very long.
And so, the image of Christ in this Gospel reading, of a thief coming unexpectedly to break into my house, may not be a very comforting one for those of us brought up with the image of ‘Gentle Jesus, Meek and Mild.’
And yet it is an image that has echoes in the poetry of some of the great mystical writers in Anglican history. It reminds me, for example, of the words of John Donne (Holy Sonnets XIV):
Batter my heart, three-person’d God; for you
As yet but knock; breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise, and stand, o’erthrow me, and bend
Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurp’d town, to another due,
Labour to admit you, but O, to no end.
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,
But am betroth’d unto your enemy;
Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.
It is the passionate language of love, of passionate love. But then, of course, Christ demands our passion, our commitment, our love.
Christ has left the Temple and is on the Mount of Olives, teaching them about the kingdom (Matthew 24: 3). But in some of the other Gospel accounts, as he speaks to them, someone in the crowd – like a heckler – interrupts and asks a question (see Luke 12: 13).
The inner circle of the Disciples must have felt at times they were being broken into by those on the rims, those in the crowd of outsiders, the crowd or multitude following Christ but who were not among the Disciples. So Christ’s demands are made not just of some inner circle, for some elite group within the Church, for those who are seen as pious and holy.
This is a demand he makes also to those on the margins, for the sake of those on the margins, that he makes on the whole Church for the sake of those on the margins.
We are to be ever vigilant that we do not keep those on the margins on the outside for too long. They may appear like thieves trying to break in. But when we welcome in those on the outside who we see as thieves, we may find we are welcoming Christ himself.
And in welcoming Christ himself, into our inner sanctum, we are making it a sign of the Kingdom. The Church needs to be a place not where we feel secure, but where the outsider feels welcome, where they can feast and taste what the Kingdom of God is like.
What is this Kingdom like?
Where is it?
When shall we find it?
Earlier in this chapter, Christ tells them that ‘the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the world, as a testimony to all the nations’ before the end will come (verse 14).
The word for master Christ uses throughout thus reading (verses 45, 46, 48, 50) is κύριος (kyrios), Lord, the word used in the Septuagint or Greek version of the Old Testament for the Lord God by Jews who found the use of the name of God offensive and blasphemous. But using the word master for κύριος hides away God’s work, confusing the Lord, the ‘Son of Man’ (ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου, ho yios tou anthropou), with the ‘master of the house,’ the householder (οἰκοδεσπότης, oikodespótēs).
The Lord who arrives at an unexpected hour, day or night in this reading is the same Christ who says: ‘Behold, I am standing at the door knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come into you and eat with you, and you with me’ (Revelation 3: 20).
He comes in ways we do not expect, and at ‘the unexpected hour,’ the time we ‘think nothing of’ (ᾗ οὐ δοκεῖτε ὥρᾳ he ou dokeite ora, verse 44) – ‘an hour that seems like nothing.’ He does not bother trying to tear down our puny defences. He sneaks around them instead.
Expect the unexpected.
Prepare to welcome the stranger who knocks at the door at the unexpected hour.
Allow the stranger among you, and the stranger within you, to open that door and discover that Christ is not a thief trying to steal what you have, but is the Lord who is trying to batter our hearts and tear down our old barriers so that we can all feast together at the new banquet:
Batter my heart, three-person’d God; for you
As yet but knock; breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise, and stand, o’erthrow me, and bend
Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
…
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.
‘For you as yet but knock; breathe, shine, and seek to mend’ … a bust of John Donne at Saint Paul’s Cathedral, London (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Today’s Prayers (Thursday 27 August 2026):
In Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), the theme this week, from 23 to 29 August 2026 (pp 32-33), is ‘Legacies of History’. This theme was introduced on Sunday with a reflection by the Revd Dr Rachele Evie Vernon O’Brien, a Jamaican-born theologian and advocate.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (Thursday 27 August 2026) invites us to pray:
God of wisdom, open our hearts and minds as we learn more about the history of the Church. Help us listen carefully, understand deeply, and remember that you promise to restore all that is broken.
The Collect of the Day:
Faithful God,
who strengthened Monica, the mother of Augustine, with wisdom,
and through her patient endurance encouraged him
to seek after you:
give us the will to persist in prayer
that those who stray from you may be brought to faith
in your Son Jesus Christ our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Post-Communion Prayer:
Father,
from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name,
your servant Monica revealed your goodness
in a life of tranquillity and service:
grant that we who have gathered in faith around this table
may like her know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge
and be filled with all your fullness;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
‘Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming’ (Matthew 24: 42) … night-time at the Tree Top restaurant in Kuching (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
The ‘Lily Prince’ in the Minoan Palace in Knossos … Odysseus repeatedly claims he is a Cretan prince from Knossos to hide his true identity on his return to Ithaka (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Nevertheless I long – I pine, all my days –
to travel home and see the dawn of my return.
And if a god will wreck me yet again on the wine-dark sea,
I can bear that too, with a spirit tempered to endure. The Odyssey (Book 5, lines 219-222)
Two of the deepest currents of thought running through The Odyssey are ξενία (xenia), the sacred code of hospitality and reciprocal courtesy shown to travellers, strangers and outsiders and the mutual duties of hosts and guests; and νόστος (nostos), homecoming and the longing for home.
In English, the word ‘xenophobia’ is a concept that runs contrary to all the core values found in ξενία (xenia) and in φιλοξενία (philoxenia), a concept that extends far beyond mere hospitality and that remains a shared value among Greeks today.
The word nostalgia is a 17th century compound derived from Greek. It consists of νόστος (nostos), a Homeric word meaning ‘homecoming’, and ἄλγος (álgos), ‘pain’. The word was coined by a medical student to describe the anxieties shown by Swiss mercenaries fighting away from home.
Both concepts in Greek explain how welcome I have felt in Greece for almost 40 years, year after year, and how wistful I feel, longing to return, when I am not there, as though Greece, and particularly Crete, was my second home.
I imagine a spin-off from Christopher Nolan’s box-office success, The Odyssey, is going to be a boost to tourism in Greece, as people seek out locations and settings that associated with the ten-year homeward journey of Odysseus.
Odysseus took 10 years to reach his home in Ithaka after the Trojan wars … a sailing boat in the harbour in Rethymnon after sunset
The three main islands associated with Odysseus are Ithaka, where he was king and which is the home he takes ten years to find his way back to, Kephallonia and Zakynthos.
Ithaki or Ithaca is his home in the Ionian Islands and the emotional core of the entire story. Zakynthos is one of the Ionian islands named in The Odyssey as part of the island world around Odysseus’s kingdom, and neighbouring Kefalonia is often linked with Homer’s Same.
I visited these three islands over the space of two years: Ithaka in 2003, Kephallonia (‘Captain Corelli’s island’) in 2002 and 2003, and Zakynthos in 2002. But that was almost 25 years ago, long before I had a digital camera or a phone with a camera on it, and all my photographs from those trips are inaccessible or lost.
Odysseus travels from Troy to Thrace, and then through the lands of the Lotus-Eaters, Cyclopes, Aeolus and Circe on his way home to Ithaka. Although they are named in The Odyssey, he never visits some of the Dodecanese islands I know, such as Rhodes, Symi and Kos, or Cycladic islands such as Santorini (Thera), although Syros in the Cyclades is identified with Syrie, the home of Eumaeus, Odysseus’ loyal swineherd.
The ancient theatre in Epidavros is one of the most perfect ancient Greek theatres (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
But there are other places in Greece – islands and on the mainland – that are parts of the Odyssey and that may get a boost in tourism figures because of the new film. Some places in the Odyssey are legendary, the subject of conjecture or a topic for debate.
Athena guides Odysseus on his return journey to Ithaka. She is basically the story’s behind-the-scenes operator, and Athens is where her presence is felt most today. Many places in the Peloponnese are part of the narrative, including places I have visited.
Sparti (Sparta), where I stayed in the Menaleon Hotel in 1996, when I was visiting Mystras, is where the Odyssey connects back to the Iliad and the fallout from the Trojan War through Menelaus and Helen. Telemachus visits Menelaus to hear what happened to the Greek heroes after Troy, and why the fate of Odysseus remained uncertain for so long, and he arrives in Pylos to find the local people making offerings to Poseidon by the sea.
The ancient theatre in Epidavros is one of the most perfect ancient Greek theatres in terms of its design and its acoustics. Epidaurus is described in the Iliad as ‘vine-clad Epidaurus’ and contributed along with Argos, Tiryns, Troezen and Ermioni to the Argolid fleet heading to Troy.
Looking out from Preveli Monastery in Crete towards the island of Gavdos, said to be the Ogygia of Calypso where Odysseus stayed for seven years (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Crete is connected to the Odyssey primarily as a place mentioned in the epic – specifically as a fictional origin story told by Odysseus, and in historical navigation theories that link real landmarks in Crete to the journey. In Homer’s text, Odysseus repeatedly invents elaborate backstories claiming he is a Cretan prince from Knossos to hide his true identity on his return to Ithaka.
People in Crete say the small of Gavdos is the Ogygia of Calypso, where Odysseus stayed for seven years with the nymph. I have often gazed out at Gavdos from the Monastery of Preveli above the palm forest that was severely damaged by the fires that swept across the Rethymnon region last week. Eventually, Odysseus spurned the offer of eternal life from Calypso and left Ogygia for his journey home
Paleochora, to the west of Preveli and on south-west coast of Crete, has been proposed as a landing point where winds pushed Odysseus off-course toward a small distinct coastal peninsula near Libya before heading back north.
The bay at Gramvousa … the small island off north-west Crete is identified the floating island of Aeolus (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
After his adventure with Polyphemus, Odysseus continues his journey north. The historian Tim Severin and other historians convincingly identify the small island of Gramvousa off the north-west tip of Crete with the floating island of Aeolus. There, Odysseus waits for the right moment to continue his journey home.
Gramvousa is an island encircled by striking sheer cliffs that reflect a reddish-bronze hue at sunset, creating the illusion of towering bronze walls.
The ancient name for the island was ‘Korykos’, meaning ‘leather bag’. Notably, it was on the Isle of Aeolus where Odysseus used a magical leather bag.
In the ‘Blue Caves’ on the west coast of Paxos, identified with some scholars with the island of Circe (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Paxos in the Ionian islands is identified with some scholars with the island of Circe, a nature goddess. On leaving the island of Circe, he passes the small island of Antipaxos, southeast of Paxos.
After passing Antipaxos, Odysseus arrives at a spot where he has two choices: one route would take him past the dangerous Wandering Rocks, while the other would take him down a narrow channel with dangers on both sides – on one side, there was Scylla, the serpentine monster, while on the other was Charybdis, the sea monster that swallowed things like a whirlpool.
The explorer Tim Severin suggests the Ionian island of Lefkada or Levkas is the location for the Sirens, the Wandering Rocks, Scylla and Charybdis and the island of Helios’s cattle.
The main beach at Palaiokastritsa … Odysseus is said to have made his last stop there on his way home to Ithaka (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Corfu (Kerkyra), the most northerly of the Ionian Islands, is usually identified with Scheria, the land of the Phaeacians and the last destination of Odysseus in his 10-year journey home from Troy to Ithaki.
Although Corfu is not named directly, it has the kind of coastline that makes shipwreck scenes feel believable. Odysseus is washed up exhausted on the shores of Scheria, where King Alcinous and Princess Nausicaa offer hospitality to the weary hero and the Phaeacians provide him with a safe route back home to Ithaka.
Two small islets off the coast of Corfu claim links with the stories of Odysseus and shipwreck.
The Rock of Kolovri in the bay of Palaiokastritsa is said to be the petrified ship of Odysseus (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Palaiokastritsa is on the north-west coast of Corfu, about 26 km from Corfu town and airport. The Rock of Kolovri in the bay is said to be the petrified ship of Odysseus, although similar legends are associated with Pontikonisi or ‘Mouse Island’ off Kanoni, near Corfu town.
The legend says that after the Phaeacians had safely helped Odysseus on the last leg of his journey home to Ithaka, they returned to Corfu. But the sea god Poseidon, angered that the Phaeacians had helped his rival, turned their vessel into stone, creating what is now Pontikonisi.
Although this story does not appear explicitly in Homer’s text, it is one of Corfu’s most enduring myths, and Pontikonisi or ‘Mouse Island’ is one of Corfu’s most recognisable landmarks. The tiny, cypress-covered islet sits at the entrance to the Halkiopoulos Lagoon, just south of Corfu Town and under the flight path of Corfu Airport.
Another, more practical explanation for the island’s name is that, when viewed from above, its shape resembles a small mouse – so giving us the Greek name Pontikonisi (Ποντικονήσι), meaning ‘Mouse Island.’
The islet of Pontikonisi, seen behind Vlachеrnа Covent … the Church of the Transfiguration is open to visitors only on 6 August (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Pontikonisi is one of the Corfu’s most photographed attractions, ALthough access is limited. Small boats take visitors to the islet during the tourist season, allowing them to explore the chapel and enjoy its tranquil setting among towering cypress trees.
Many visitors choose instead to admire Pontikonisi from the nearby islet of Panagia Vlacherna, home to the whitewashed 17th century convent with the elegant bell tower and waterfront setting that have made it the picture postcard emblem of Corfu.
At its centre of Pontikonisi, the Byzantine Church of Christ Pantokrator dates from the 11th or 12th century. The chapel is generally closed to the public throughout the year but it opens each year on this day, 6 August, the Feast of the Transfiguration, when many people make the short boat trip to attend the annual celebration.
How many of those pilgrims today thought they were following in the path of Odysseus on his ten-year journey home from Troy to Ithaka?
The Throne Room inside the Minoan palatial complex at Knossos … Odysseus repeatedly claims he is a Cretan prince from Knossos to hide his true identity on his return to Ithaka (Photograph: Patrick Comerford
Iokasti, a restaurant in Koutouloufari in Crete … are there comparisons between Iocasta and her daughter in ‘The Phoenician Women’ and the Greek-speaking Syro-Phoenician or Canaanite woman in the Gospels? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Patrick Comerford
We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and the week began with the Ninth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity IX, 2 August 2026). The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today recalls Saint Oswald (642), King of Northumbria and Martyr, and tomorrow is the Feast of the Transfiguration (6 August).
Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:
1, today’s Gospel reading;
2, a reflection on the Gospel reading;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
Mikis Theodorakis recorded ‘Symphony No 4, of the Choral Odes,’ in Athens in May 1987
Matthew 15: 21-28 (NRSVA):
21 Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon. 22 Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, ‘Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.’ 23 But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, ‘Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.’ 24 He answered, ‘I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.’ 25 But she came and knelt before him, saying, ‘Lord, help me.’ 26 He answered, ‘It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.’ 27 She said, ‘Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.’ 28 Then Jesus answered her, ‘Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.’ And her daughter was healed instantly.
Mikis Theodorakis, Symphony No 4, Movement 2, Euripides, ‘Phoenician Women’ (Φοίνισσαι)
Today’s Reflections
Today’s Gospel reading at the Eucharist (Matthew 15: 21-28) is set in the district of Tyre and Sidon and tells of the Canaanite or Syro-Phoenician woman and her encounter with Christ.
In Saint Matthew’s account, she is a Canaanite woman (verse 22); in Saint Mark’s account (Mark 7: 27-31), she is a Greek-speaking or Syro-Phoenician woman (verse 26).
In the classical world, Phoenician women were pushy women. About 400 years earlier, the great Greek playwright Euripides wrote his tragic play The Phoenician Women (Φοίνισσαι, Phoenissae), rewriting a similar story used by Aeschylus in his play, Seven Against Thebes, and dealing with tragic events following the fall of Oedipus.
The title of the play by Euripides, The Phoenician Women, refers to the Greek chorus, which is composed of Phoenician women on their way to Delphi and who are trapped in Thebes by the war.
The two key women in the play by Euripides are Jocasta (Ἰοκάστη) and her daughter Antigone (Ἀντιγόνη), who have survived against all odds. They challenge the accepted concepts in Classical times of fate and free-will.
In the face of death, they refuse to accept what other people regarded as their destiny, they refused to be pushed aside, marginalised and dismissed as the men around then compete for power.
So, in the time of Christ, educated, Greek-speaking people, including those around Tyre and Sidon, would expect a Greek-speaking Phoenician woman and her daughter to be pushy in the face of what appears to be a cruel fate, even if this involves confronting successful or ambitious men: they are prepared to stand up to kings and rulers, prepared to challenge them, and prepared to risk rejection and exile.
Faced with her daughter’s needs, this pushy woman ignores the disciples: she is direct and aggressive in demanding healing and justice. And in demanding justice and healing for her daughter, she is, of course, demanding these for herself too.
The dialogue between this woman and Christ must have sounded crude and aggressive to those who had gathered around to hear what was going on.
This pushy woman forces herself into the house, addresses Jesus in Messianic terms, and demands not that he should heal her daughter, but that he should show mercy. On whom? On her tormented daughter? On the distressed mother? The NRSV translation is clear, where the RSV is not: in the original Greek, she asks for mercy for herself (verse 22).
At times, when I have reading and re-reading this Gospel reading, I have found myself listening yet again to the second movement, ‘The Phoenician Woman,’ in Symphony No 4 (Of the Choral Odes), written in 1986-1987 by the great modern Greek composer Mikis Theodorakis (1925-2021) for soprano, alto, narrator, mixed choir and symphonic orchestra without strings.
Symphony No 4 by Theodorakis contains just two movements based on texts by Aeschylus (Eumenides) and Euripides (The Phoenician Women). The remastered version of this CD was recorded live at Athens at the world premiere of the composition. The booklet includes the completely translated libretto, extensive liner notes and some personal remarks of the composer himself.
In this symphony, Theodorakis provides a setting of Eumenides by Aeschylus and The Phoenician Women by Euripides, brought together in a massive work that conveys classical Greek tragedy through the form of a modern choral symphony.
In his fourth symphony, Theodorakis weaves together three traditions: the symphonic tradition and the integration of vocals into symphonic works; the tradition of great tragic women figures, which he takes up in his operas Medea, Electra and Antigone; and the particularly Greek perception of history.
In his notes written for this symphony, Theodorakis suggests that, because the word symphony is derived from Greek, it is best left to a Greek to define it. He is not concerned with the conventional western sonata form, and this long, two-part work derives its tension and power from its ancient Greek texts, following its own logic rather than abstract rules.
Theodorakis is forceful and direct in his music. There is power in its dark scoring, austere counterpoint, massed unisons, and immense orchestral sonorities.
Admirers of Theodorakis take this work seriously and appreciate his commitment to Greek national culture. But others find it difficult to listen to with its sombre subject matter. Yet this is the very drama, focussed in the desperate plight of one woman and her daughter, that is played out in today’s Gospel reading.
Each time I read today’s Gospel story of this woman and her daughter, they remind me of Jocasta and her daughter Antigone (Ἀντιγόνη). One year, while searching for illustrations and resources for this I came across photographs I had taken of Iokasti, a delightful restaurant in Koutouloufari, east of Iraklion in Crete.
During the Covid Pandemic lockdown earlier that year, in Holy Week, the week before Greek Easter, the people at Iokasti posted on their Facebook page a video clip of ‘Oh my sweet Springtime’ (Ω γλυκύ μου έαρ). This is a song of lamentation sung on Good Friday and imagines the Virgin Mary narrating the Crucifixion and pouring out her pain and grief as the Mother of Christ.
This lament is sung with reverence, emotion and devotion throughout Greece, and it has been performed and recorded by many Greece’s best-loved singers.
The version posted by Iokasti in Koutououfari that year was a recording in Athens by the late Irene Papas (1929-2022) – who played the title roles in Antigone (1961) and Electra (1962) – of the musical arrangement of this hymn by the Greek composer Vangelis:
Αι γενεαί πάσαι, ύμνον τη Ταφή Σου, προσφέρουσι Χριστέ μου.
Καθελών του ξύλου, ο Αριμαθείας, εν τάφω Σε κηδεύει.
Μυροφόροι ήλθον, μύρα σοι, Χριστέ μου, κομίζουσαι προφρόνως.
Δεύρο πάσα κτίσις, ύμνους εξοδίους, προσοίωμεν τω Κτίστη.
Ούς έθρεψε το μάννα, εκίνησαν την πτέρναν, κατά του ευεργέτου.
Ιωσήφ κηδεύει, συν τω Νικοδήμω, νεκροπρεπώς τον Κτίστην.
Υιέ Θεού παντάναξ, Θεέ μου πλαστουργέ μου, πώς πάθος κατεδέξω;
Έρραναν τον τάφον αι Μυροφόροι μύρα, λίαν πρωί ελθούσαι.
Ω Τριάς Θεέ μου, Πατήρ Υιός και Πνεύμα, ελέησον τον κόσμον.
Ιδείν την του Υιού σου, Ανάστασιν, Παρθένε, αξίωσον σους δούλους.
All generations offer a hymn at your burial my Christ.
The Arimathean took you down from the cross and buried you in a tomb.
Women came with spices to give you perfume and prepare your burial.
Hither creation was made, let us sing hymns to praise our Creator.
Nourished from above with manna, lifted heels of contempt against their benefactor.
You are being buried by Joseph and Nicodemus, in the grave of the Creator.
Oh, my sweet spring, my sweetest child, where does your beauty fade?
Son of God Almighty, my God and Creator, how can I bear your passion?
Women with spices came very early in the morning to sprinkle the grave with perfume.
O my Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Spirit, have mercy on the world.
Allow us to serve you, O Virgin, to see you son’s resurrection, to be your worthy servants.
In weeping for her daughter, the Syro-Phoenician woman share in the weeping of the Virgin Mary for her son. And in Christ, we find compassion for all our sorrows and all our weeping.
‘Oh my sweet Springtime’ (Ω γλυκύ μου έαρ), a song of lamentation sung on Good Friday, arranged by Vangelis and recorded in Athens by the Irene Papas
Today’s Prayers (Wednesday 5 August 2026):
In Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), the theme this week (2-8 August 2026, pp 24-25), is ‘Faith Under Pressure in Nicaragua’. This theme was introduced on Sunday with a Reflection by the Most Revd Juan David Alvarado, Bishop of El Salvador and Primate of the Province of the Anglican Church in Central America.
The USPG prayer diary today (Wednesday 5 August 2026) invites us to pray:
God of truth, we pray for those who cannot speak openly about injustice in Nicaragua. Give them courage in silence, and raise up voices beyond their borders to bear witness and seek justice.
The Collect of the Day:
Lord God almighty,
who so kindled the faith of King Oswald with your Spirit
that he set up the sign of the cross in his kingdom
and turned his people to the light of Christ:
grant that we, being fired by the same Spirit,
may always bear our cross before the world
and be found faithful servants of the gospel;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Post Communion Prayer:
Eternal God,
who gave us this holy meal
in which we have celebrated the glory of the cross
and the victory of your martyr Oswald:
by our communion with Christ
in his saving death and resurrection,
give us with all your saints the courage to conquer evil
and so to share the fruit of the tree of life;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Collect on the Eve of The Transfiguration:
Father in heaven,
whose Son Jesus Christ was wonderfully transfigured
before chosen witnesses upon the holy mountain,
and spoke of the exodus he would accomplish at Jerusalem:
give us strength so to hear his voice and bear our cross
that in the world to come we may see him as he is;
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
A table for one at Iokasti, a restaurant in the mountain village of Koutouloufari in Crete recalls the play by Euripides (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
How many would-be critics of ‘The Odyssey’ know the meaning of ‘Odyssey’ or the name of Odysseus? … a sailing ship at sunset in Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Patrick Comerford
Christopher Nolan’s film The Odyssey is continuing to be a box-office success, and is continuing to inspire criticism and evoke responses not only from film critics but from classicists too and also from people interested in Greek culture and language.
In my reflections in prayer diary this morning, I referred to the small island of Gavdos off the south coast of Crete which is said to be the Ogygia of Calypso where Odysseus stayed for seven years. I have often looked out across to this Ogygia or Gavdos from Preveli Monastery, and so the fires that have devastated the forests and landscape in the Preveli area in the past week are particularly poignant and heart-breaking for me.
But as I was reading some of the more absurd nit-picking about Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey, I wondered too how many of those would-be classicists, including Elon Musk, with his very weird observations, have ever read The Odyssey in its original Homeric Greek, how many understand that it is epic poetry and not historical narrative, and how many actually try to understand the meaning of the name Odyssey or the name of the hero Odysseus?
The Odyssey (η Ὀδύσσεια, Odýsseia) is one of two major epics in ancient Greek literature attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest surviving works of literature and remains popular with modern audiences.
Like the Iliad, the Odyssey is divided into 24 books. It follows Odysseus, also known in Latin as Ulysses, the heroic king of Ithaca, and his journey home after the ten-year Trojan War. His journey from Troy to Ithaca lasts an additional ten years, during which he encounters many perils and all of his crew members are killed.
During Odysseus’s long absence, he is presumed dead, leaving his wife Penelope and their son Telemachus to contend with a group of unruly suitors vying for Penelope’s hand in marriage.
The Odyssey was first composed around the eighth or seventh century BCE, and by the mid-sixth century BCE, it was part of the Greek literary canon. In antiquity, Homer’s authorship was accepted, but contemporary scholarship assumes that the Iliad and the Odyssey were composed independently, as part of long oral traditions.
In a time when illiteracy was widespread, the poem was performed for an audience by an aoidos (ἀοιδός) or skilled singer.
The key themes in the epic include those of νόστος (nostos, return or homecoming), which gives us the concept of nostalgia, wandering, ξενία (xenia, guest-friendship), testing and omens. while the Iliad centres on the exploits of soldiers and kings during the Trojan War, some groups in the Odyssey, such as women and slaves, have larger roles than in other works of ancient literature, making the poem relevant to today’s agendas.
The Odyssey is one of the most significant works of the western canon. Its first complete English translation was published in 1616 and it remains one of the most enduring narratives in literature.
Posters for ‘The Odyssey’ at Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)
Odysseus (Ὀδυσσεύς or Ὀδυσεύς, Odysseús or Odyseús) of Greek mythology was known in Roman mythology by the Latin variant Ulysses (Ulysses or Ulixes).
Odysseus was the son of Laërtes and Anticlea, the husband of Penelope, and the father of Telemachus, Acusilaus, and Telegonus. He is cunning with an edge of pride, a liar and a storyteller, too smart by far so that he can wriggle his way out of any tight corner. He has a determination to get his homecoming at almost any cost.
He is renowned for his intellectual brilliance, guile, and versatility. The term πολῠ́τροπος (polytropos) literally means ‘man of many turns’, while some translations ‘man of twists and turns’ and ‘a complicated man’. This, in turn, gives him the epithet Ὀδυσσεύς ὁ πολύμητις (Odysseus ho polymetis), Odysseus the Cunning, μῆτις (mêtis) meaning ‘cunning intelligence’.
Ὀδυσ(σ)εύς (Odys(s)eus) is used as the form of his name starting in the epic period and through the classical period. But other forms and variations are found. In vase inscriptions, the variants include Oliseus (Ὀλισεύς), Olyseus (Ὀλυσεύς), Olysseus (Ὀλυσσεύς), Olyteus (Ὀλυτεύς), Olytteus (Ὀλυττεύς) and Ōlysseus (Ὠλυσσεύς). Other forms of his name include Oulixēs (Οὐλίξης) and Oulixeus (Οὐλιξεύς).
But the etymology of his name remains unknown. Ancient authors link his name to the Greek verbs ὀδύσσομαι (odussomai) ‘to be wroth against, to hate’; ὀδύρομαι (oduromai), ‘to lament, bewail’; or even to ὄλλυμι (ollumi) ‘to perish’, ‘to be lost’.
Homer relates the name to various forms of this verb in references and puns. In Book 19 of the Odyssey, where Odysseus’s early childhood is recounted, Euryclea asks the boy’s grandfather Autolycus to name him. Euryclea seems to suggest a name like Πολυάρητος (Polyaretos), ‘for he has much been prayed for’.
But Autolycus, ‘apparently in a sardonic mood’, decided to give the child another name recalling ‘his own experience in life’: ‘Since I have been angered (ὀδυσσάμενος odyssamenos) with many, both men and women, let the name of the child be Odysseus’.
Odysseus also receives the patronymic epithet Laertiades (Λαερτιάδης), ‘son of Laërtes’.
In Latin, he was known as Ulixēs or Ulyssēs, but the origins of the Latin form have different explanations. However, I sometimes wonder whether James Joyce’s great work Ulysses would have the same impact if he had named it Odysseus or even The Odyssey.
For my reflections on Christopher Nolan’s film The Odyssey, see this posting on 21 July 2027.
For the word Ὀδύσσεια (Odyssey) alone, see an earlier posting in this series: The Greeks have a word for it: 39, Odyssey, Ὀδύσσεια (7 May 2024).
A poster at the bus station in Rethymnon reminded me I was setting out on an Odyssey (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
