Turning to a war-time poem by George Seferis that recalls ‘calm’, ‘beautiful’, ‘bleeding’ Crete, but a ‘strong, innocent island’

The old harbour of Chania … George Seferis fled Athens to Chania in 1941 and wrote ‘Days of June ’41’ as he fled from Crete into exile (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

In recent weeks, I have been a series of occasional blog postings and photographs of a dozen modern sculptures in the streets and parks of Thessaloniki, the second city of Greece. In a posting on Thursday ( October 06), I looked at a marble monument that honours Sokratis Karantinos (1906-1979), a prominent theatre director and critic who was the first artistic director of the National Theatre of Northern Greece (NTNG) in the 1960s.

The inscriptions on the sculpture include a dedication to Sokratis Karantinos and a poignant verse by the Nobel Prize winning poet George Seferis:

Θυμότανε κανείς γέροντες δασκάλους που μας άφησαν ορφανούς
One remembered old teachers who left us orphaned

This haunting quotation is from the closing stanza of ‘The Last Day’, a powerful poem written by Seferis in Athens in February 1939. The line expresses a profound sense of spiritual and cultural abandonment. For Seferis, the ‘old teachers’ (or elders/spiritual leaders) represent the guiding authority of tradition, wisdom, and moral stability. By leaving the younger generation ‘orphaned’ they left them without direction in a broken world.

The poem was written on the brink of World War II and during the oppressive Metaxas dictatorship and captures a pervasive sense of powerlessness, impending doom, and total annihilation. The line quoted on the sculpture highlights a deep disappointment with the previous generation, whose cowardice, political missteps, or silence left ordinary people completely vulnerable to the oncoming historical catastrophe.

George Seferis (1900-1971) was a poet, Nobel laureate and diplomat, and many of his poems became popular throughout the 1960s and 1970s when they were set to music by the composer Mikis Theodorakis and sung by artists like Maria Farantouri, turning his poems into songs of protest and resistance.

In recent days, I have also turned to his poem ‘Days of June ’41’, written by Seferis 85 years ago as he fled first to Crete in 1941 during World War II, and then went into exile in Alexandria and South Africa. This poem, later included in his collection Logbook II (Ημερολόγιο καταστρώματος Β), is datelined ‘Crete – Alexandria – South Africa, May-September ’41’.

The poem is set primarily in Alexandria but in it Seferis expresses his pain for Crete and the longing of an exile:

After the Germans had taken Crete

The new moon came out over Alexandria
with the old moon in her arms
while we were walking towards the Gate of the Sun
in the heart’s darkness – three friends.

However, unlike many other well-known poems by Seferis, ‘Days of June ’41’ was never set to music by Theodorakis and so never recorded by Maria Farantouri. But it is on the curriculum in second level schools and is well-known among many people in Crete because of its references to the island.

Giorgos Seferis is a major figure in Greek literature and in 1963 became the first Greek Nobel laureate for literature

George Seferis (Γιώργος Σεφέρης) was born Giorgos Seferiadis (Γεώργιος Σεφεριάδης) in Smyrna (now Izmir) in Asia Minor in 1900. He went to school in Smyrna and then to the Gymnasium in Athens. When his family moved to Paris in 1918, he studied law at the University of Paris and became interested in literature.

He returned to Athens in 1925 and joined the Foreign Ministry the following year. He had a long and successful diplomatic career, that began with postings in London (1931-1934), where he was introduced to Eliot and Pound, and Albania (1936-1938), where he first met his future wife Marika Zannou.

Seferis moved to Crete with the Free Greek Government during World War II, and then into exile in Egypt, South Africa and Italy. Meanwhile, in 1941 he married Maria (‘Maro’) Zannou, the mother of two young daughters from her previous marriage to Andreas Londos.

He returned to liberated Athens in 1944, and continued to work in the Foreign Ministry, with diplomatic postings in Ankara (1948-1950), London (1951-1953) and Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Iraq (1953-1956). He was back in London again as the Greek Ambassador from 1957 to 1961, his last post before he retired to Athens.

In 1963, Seferis became the first Greek writer to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature. He is one of the two Greek poets to have been honoured with the Nobel Prize for Literature – the other poet is Odysseas Elytis (1911-1996), who was born in Iraklion in Crete, and together Seferis and Elytis can be credited with the modernisation of Greek literature.He received several honorary doctorates from Cambridge (1960), Oxford (1964), the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (1964), and Princeton (1965).

After the colonels’ coup in 1967, Seferis went into voluntary seclusion and many of his poems were banned by the regime, including the musical versions written and arranged by Mikis Theodorakis.

His poem ‘Denial’ (Άρνηση), first published in 1931 in his collection Turning Point (Στροφή, Strophe), became an anthem of resistance to the colonels. He died on 20 September 1971, and was buried in the First Cemetery in Athens. ‘Denial’ (Άρνηση) was sung by the crowds lining the streets of Athens at his funeral. He had become a popular hero for his resistance to the regime. His widow Maria cut off her hair and flung it into his grave.

He has commemorative blue plaques on two of his homes in London – the Greek Ambassador’s residence at 51 Upper Brook Street, off Grosvenor Square, and 7 Sloane Avenue.

Seferis’s exclusive use of demotic, or common, Greek as his language of choice earned him a privileged place among his generation of Greek poets, while his wide travels provide the backdrop and colour for much of his writing.

As well as Strophe (1931), his early poems include E Sterna (The Cistern, 1932), and Mythistorema (1935). Later collections include Tetradio Gymnasmaton (Book of Exercises, 1940), Emerologio Katastromatos (Logbook I, 1940), Emerologio Katastromatos B (Logbook II, 1944), Kihle (Thrush, 1947), Emerologio Katastromatos Γ (Logbook III, 1955) and Tria Krypha Poiemata (Three Secret Poems, 1966).

Seferis first became acquainted with TS Eliot in London in Christmas 1931, when he found a copy of the poem ‘Marina’ in a bookshop on Oxford Street and was struck by its Mediterranean feeling. He published his translation of Eliot’s poetry in 1936 in The Waste Land and Other Poems, prefaced by his first essay in print, ‘Introduction to TS Eliot’, itself a major moment in modern Greek literature. Seferis also translated WB Yeats, DH Lawrence, Ezra Pound and WH Auden.

The name of Tsouderon Street in Rethymnon honours a former Greek prime minister who was born in the town (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Seferis arrived in Chania from Athens in April 1941 as German Nazi forces were sweeping through the Greek mainland. As the Nazi army advanced towards Athens in 1941, the Greek Prime Minister of the day, Alexandros Koryzis, died by suicide on 18 April. He was succeeded as Prime Minister on 21 April by Emmanuel Tsouderos (Εμμανουήλ Τσουδερός) (1882-1956), who was born in Rethymnon in Crete.

A day later, a newly-married Seferis arrived in Crete on 22 April 1941 as part of the team preparing the way for a Free Greek government that would go into exile. As the army command prepared to capitulate, a defiant and heroic Tsouderos fled from Athens to Crete with King George II on 29 April 1941. Back in his native Crete, Tsouderos reorganised the Greek forces to resist the Germans.

In Chania, Seferis stayed at the Hôtel Ellas (Hotel Hellas). He was the secretary to Tsouderos’s Minister of Press, Emmanouil Nikolaoudis, and supervised the publication of the very first edition of the Government Gazette printed outside mainland Greece.

Just days before arriving in Crete, Seferis married Maria ‘Maro’ Zannou in Athens on 10 April 1941. Their time at the Hotel Hellas in Chania was brief, but Sfereis documented their presence there in a brief, pencil-written note to his close friend, the author Lawrence Durrell, written on the back of a page torn out of the hotel’s guest book.

But Seferis spent only three weeks in Chania. Tsouderos fled again during the Battle of Crete and headed the Greek government in exile until 13 April 1944. Seferis and his wife Maria Zannou escaped Crete by ship to Alexandria on 16 May 1941, four days before the German airborne invasion of Crete and the beginning of the Battle of Crete.

Over 25 years later, Seferis returned to Crete again briefly in April 1967 to read his poems and to give a talk to the Lyceum of Greek Women, founded in in 1911 by Kalliroi Siganou Parren, who was born in Rethymnon. It was one of his last prominent public appearances in Greece before the colonels seized power on 21 April 1967 and forced him into an outspoken, self-imposed public silence and resistance.

Unlike other well-loved and well-known poems by Seferis, such as ‘Arnisi / Sto Perigiali’ or ‘Epiphany’, which were set to music by composers like Mikis Theodorakis, ‘Days of June ’41’ has no popular musical setting.

Seferis wrote ‘Days of June ’41’ while he was fleeing the Nazi invasion of Greece, moving first to Crete, then to Alexandria and moving on to South Africa with the Greek government-in-exile.

Despite spending less than a month on Crete, for Seferis it had become ‘the beautiful island’, ‘the calm island’, ‘the strong, innocent island’, and you can hear his pain as he thinks out loud of how Crete is bleeding, how the people are being killed, their ‘bodies like broken branches, / like roots uprooted’:

… the beautiful island is bleeding,
wounded; the calm island – the strong, innocent island.
And the bodies like broken branches,
like roots uprooted.

The poem reflects displacement, exile, the loss of youth and physical vitality (‘we believed in the omnipotence of the body’), the trauma of war in Crete (‘the beautiful island is bleeding, wounded’), and wandering through blacked-out war-time Alexandria with his close friends.

In the narrow streets of old Chania … ‘the beautiful island is bleeding, / wounded; the calm island – the strong, innocent island’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Μέρες του Ιουνίου ’41, Γιώργος Σεφέρης

Βγήκε το νέο φεγγάρι στην Αλεξάνδρεια
κρατώντας το παλιό στην αγκαλιά του
κι εμείς πηγαίνοντας κατά την Πόρτα του Ήλιου
μες στο σκοτάδι της καρδιάς — τρεις φίλοι.

Ποιός θέλει τώρα να λουστεί στα νερά του Πρωτέα;
Τη μεταμόρφωση τη γυρέψαμε στα νιάτα μας
με πόθους που έπαιζαν σαν τα μεγάλα ψάρια
σε πέλαγα που φύραναν ξαφνικά·
πιστεύαμε στην παντοδυναμία του κορμιού.
Και τώρα βγήκε το νέο φεγγάρι αγκαλιασμένο
με το παλιό· με τ’ όμορφο νησί ματώνοντας
λαβωμένο· το ήρεμο νησί, το δυνατό νησί, το αθώο.
Και τα κορμιά σαν τσακισμένα κλαδιά
και σαν ξεριζωμένες ρίζες.

Η δίψα μας
ένιππος φύλακας μαρμαρωμένος
στη σκοτεινή πόρτα του Ήλιου
δεν ξέρει να ζητήσει τίποτε: φυλάγεται
ξενιτεμένη εδώ τριγύρω
κοντά στον τάφο του Μεγάλου Αλεξάντρου.

Κρήτη – Αλεξάνδρεια – Νότιος Αφρική, Μάης ‒ Σεπτέμβρης 1941

Days of ’41’, George Seferis

After the Germans had taken Crete

The new moon came out over Alexandria
with the old moon in her arms
while we were walking towards the Gate of the Sun
in the heart’s darkness – three friends.

Who wants to bathe in the waters of Proteus now?
We looked for metamorphosis in our youth
with desires that played like big fish
in seas suddenly shrinking;
we believed in the body’s omnipotence.
And now the new moon has come out embracing
the old; and the beautiful island is bleeding,
wounded; the calm island – the strong, innocent island.
And the bodies like broken branches,
like roots uprooted.

Our thirst
a guard on horseback turned to marble
at the dark Gate of the Sun –
he doesn’t know how to ask or anything: he stands guard
exiled somewhere around here
near the tomb of Alexander the Great.

(Translation © Björn Thegeby, 2020)

George Seferis was in exile in Chania in 1941 and returned to visit Crete in 1967 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The sculptures of Thessaloniki: 11, ‘Monument of Sokratis Karantinos’ at the Royal Theatre of Thessaloniki

The marble monument at the Royal Theatre of Thessaloniki honours Sokratis Karantinos (1906-1979), the first artistic director of the State Theatre of Northern Greece (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

I have been recalling in recent weeks how I have come across a collection of photographs of a dozen modern sculptures in the streets and parks of Thessaloniki and how I realised I had written little about these sculptures over the years.

Rather than leave these 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 these few weeks, I am inviting you to join me in a minor odyssey of recovery and discovery as my mind wanders through the streets of Thessaloniki, looking at these sculptures again.

The sculptures I have looked at in recent weeks include the monumental statues of Aristotle, Alexander the Great and Eleftherios Venizelos, the Jewish Memorial by Konstantinos Lentaris at the Aristotele University of Thessaloniki, the bust of Admiral Nikolaos Votsis in front of the White Tower, the Monument for the Jewish Holocaust on the edge of Eleftherias Square, ‘The Woman of Pindos’ by Kostas Domboulas in Fanarioton Square, ‘The Stumbling Stones’ or ‘Stolpersteine’ by Gunter Demnig, and the ‘Marathon Runner of Peace’ or ‘Monument of Peace’ commemorating the peace activist Grigoris Lambrakis (1912-1963), at the junction of Ermou street, Eleftherios Venizelou street and Spandoni street.

A marble monument by an unknown sculptor at the Royal Theatre of Thessaloniki honours Sokratis Karantinos (1906-1979), the first artistic director of the State Theatre of Northern Greece and a prominent theatre director and critic. He was involved with the foundation and the early years of the National Theatre of Northern Greece (NTNG), and was its first artistic director (1961-1967).

The inscriptions on the sculpture include a dedication to Sokratis Karantinos and a verse from the poet George Seferis (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The monument was erected on 30 October Avenue by the Municipality of Thessaloniki in 1989. The pedimented upper part of the monument is in the style of a relief marble funerary stele, with a relief carving of a theatre stage in the middle.

The inscriptions on the sculpture include a dedication to Sokratis Karantinos and a poignant verse by the Nobel Prize winning poet George Seferis:

Θυμότανε κανείς γέροντες δασκάλους που μας άφησαν ορφανούς
One remembered old teachers who left us orphaned

This haunting quotation is from the closing stanza of ‘The Last Day’, a powerful poem written by Seferis in Athens in February 1939. The line expresses a profound sense of spiritual and cultural abandonment. For Seferis, the ‘old teachers’ (or elders/spiritual leaders) represent the guiding authority of tradition, wisdom, and moral stability. By leaving the younger generation ‘orphaned’ they left them without direction in a broken world.

The poem was written on the brink of World War II and during the oppressive Metaxas dictatorship and captures a pervasive sense of powerlessness, impending doom, and total annihilation. The line highlights a deep disappointment with the previous generation, whose cowardice, political missteps, or silence left ordinary people completely vulnerable to the oncoming historical catastrophe.

In the context of Greek theatre history, Karantinos was universally revered by generations of actors and colleagues as a δάσκαλος (dáskalos), a master or teacher. The choice of this specific line highlights the profound sense of loss felt in the theatrical community in Greece when Karantinos died in 1979.

Sokratis Karantinos (Σωκράτης Καραντινός) was a theatre director, theatre critic, drama teacher and actor. He was born in Athens, the son of the owner of the Olympia Theatre and theatrical entrepreneur Nikolaos Karantinos, and a brother of the architect Patroklos Karantinos (1903-1976). He was raised in Athens and spent part of his childhood in Constantinople (Istanbul). After studying in Germany, France and Austria, he returned to Greece in 1933 and became the director the New Drama School. At the time, he also worked as a journalist and theatre critic.

During and after World War II, Karantinos worked with the Athens Theatre, the National Theatre, the Attica Stage and the Greek National Opera. He then became director of the Theatre School of the Athenaion educational association, professor at the University of Athens, first artistic director of the National Theatre of Northern Greece in Thessaloniki (1961) and director of the Drama School of the National Theatre.

As a theatre director of the NTNG, he staged more than 15 theatrical productions. He became artistic advisor and director at the Cyprus Theatre Organisation (THOC) in 1972 and remained there until 1974.

He died in Athens on 2 June 1979.

The name of 30 October Avenue (Λεωφόρος 30ης Οκτωβρίου, Leoforos 30is Oktovriou) recalls 30 October 1944, when the city was liberated from occupying German forces. The Royal Theatre of Thessaloniki (Βασιλικό Θέατρο Θεσσαλονίκης) on 30 October Avenue is the main winter stage for the National Theatre of Northern Greece. It is located at 2, 30 October Avenue in White Tower Square in Thessaloniki and has seating for 721.

The Royal Theatre continues to be the main stage of the Theatre and remains one of the main pillars of Thessaloniki’s cultural life. As well as theatrical performances, the theatre also hosts concerts, festivals and other cultural events, keeping the cultural tradition of the city alive.

In the side streets of Thessaloniki after night falls (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

In this series:

1, Introduction (21 September 2026)

2, Aristotle by Giorgos Georgiadis, Aristotelous Square (22 September 2026)

3, Alexander the Great by Evangelos Moustakas, Alexander’s Garden (23 September 2026)

4, Eleftherios Venizelos by Giannis Pappas, Plateia Dikastirion (24 September 2026)

5, The Jewish Monument by Konstantinos Lentaris, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (25 September 2026)

6, Admiral Nikolaos Votsis by Georgios Dimitriadis, in front of the White Tower (1 October 2026)

7, The Monument of the Jewish Holocaust by Nandor Glid, Eleftherias Square (2 October 2026)

8, ‘The Woman of Pindos’ by Kostas Domboulas, Fanarioton Square (8 October 2026)

9, ‘The Stumbling Stones’ (‘Stolpersteine’) by Gunter Demnig (9 October 2026)

10, ‘Marathon Runner of Peace’, the monument to Grigoris Lambrakis by Vasilis Doropoulos, Ermou Street (14 October 2026)

11, The Monument of Sokratis Karantinos, 30 October Avenue (22 October 2026)

Next: Citizens’ by Manolis Tzompanakis, Aghias Sophias Square

The sculptures of Thessaloniki: 10, ‘Marathon Runner of Peace’ by Vassilis Doropoulos, Ermou street

‘Marathon Runner of Peace’, the monument to Grigoris Lambrakis by Vassilis Doropoulos in Thessaloniki (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

I have been recalling in recent weeks how I have come across a collection of photographs of modern sculptures in the streets and parks of Thessaloniki and how I realised I had written little about these sculptures over the years.

Rather than leave these 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 these 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 have looked at in recent weeks include the monumental statues of Aristotle, Alexander the Great and Eleftherios Venizelos, the Jewish Memorial by Konstantinos Lentaris in the campus of the Aristotele University of Thessaloniki, the bust of Admiral Nikolaos Votsis in front of the White Tower, the Monument for the Jewish Holocaust on the edge of Eleftherias Square, ‘The Woman of Pindos’ by Kostas Domboulas in Fanarioton Square, and ‘The Stumbling Stones’ or ‘Stolpersteine’ by Gunter Demnig.

The bronze sculpture of the ‘Marathon Runner of Peace’ or ‘Monument of Peace’ by the painter and sculptor Vassilis Doropoulos (1942-2025) commemorates the murdered peace activist Grigoris Lambrakis (1912-1963). The work stands at the junction of Ermou street, Eleftherios Venizelou street and Spandoni street.

Dr Grigoris Lambrakis (Γρηγόρης Λαμπράκης) was a pacifist, politician, physician, academic, Olympic athlete and marathon runner. At the Berlin Olympics in 1936, he sought out and posed for a photograph with Jesse Owens, the Black athlete whose victories infuriated Hitler and defied Nazi ideology.

Lambrakis took part in peace demonstrations in Greece and across Europe in the 1960s, including the Aldermaston marches organised by CND and the Committee of 100 in 1963. His murder in 1963 is one of the most infamous political assassinations in Greece.

The murder of Grigoris Lambrakis in 1963 is one of the most infamous political assassinations in Greece (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The sculpture honouring Lambrakis in the heart of Thessaloniki is a symbol of the strife in Greece after the Civil War and in the run-up to the colonels’ coup in 1967. It shows a pleading and frightening figure reaching for a dove of peace. The sculpture incorporates elements of socialist realism, making a powerful visual statement about the importance of peace.

Grigoris Lambrakis had been at a demonstration in Thessaloniki calling for nuclear disarmament and was returning to the Aigli Hotel when he was attacked by Spyros Gotzamanis and Manolis Emmanouilidis on the evening of 22 May 1963. They were driving a three-wheeled vehicle, struck him fatally on the head with a club, while 180 police officers and the local police leaders were blocking off the area.

Reports later showed, the attackers and the key figures in plotting the murder were linked with the state and. But, despite the fact that the murder caused a political earthquake in Greece with reverberations across Europe, only nine out of the 31 original defendants were sentenced.

As Lambrakis lay dying in hospital in Thessaloniki, hundreds of students gathered in streets along with the poet Yiannis Ritsos and the composer Mikis Theodorakis, singing the poem Epitaphios, written by Ritsos following a political murder in Thessaloniki in 1936 and set to music by Theodorakis.

Lambrakis died on 27 May 1963. His funeral in Athens on 29 May 1963 from the Metropolitan Cathedral to the First Cemetery became a massive demonstration, as more than 500,000 people protested against the right-wing government and the royal court, which was seen to support the right-wing extremists, and the Epitaphios by Theodorakis and Ritsos was sung again throughout the streets.

The murder caused a political earthquake, the Prime minister Constantinos Karamanlis, resigned in 1963 and went into exile in Paris, and there were reverberations across Europe. But only nine of the 31 defendants were sentenced.

The events inspired Vassilis Vassilikos to write his political novel Z: Fictional Documentary of a Crime. The title stands for the first letter of the slogan «Ζει» (‘He Lives!’) became a popular graffito in cities and towns throughout Greece in the 1960s.

The Greek-French film director Costa-Gavras (Κώστας Γαβράς) made the film Z in 1969, starring Yves Montand as Lambrakis, Jean-Louis Trintignant as the investigator Christos Sartzetakis, was also jailed by the colonels, and Irene Papas as the widow of Lambrakis. It was nominated for five Oscars and won two.

The score included a piece first written by Mikis Theodorakis in 1962 for Ένας όμηρος (A Hostage), a Greek performance of The Hostage by Brendan Behan. The piece Το γελαστό παιδί (The Smiling Kid), with Greek lyrics by Vasilis Rotas, was transformed into a tribute to Lambrakis in the film Z.

Some years ago, my friends Paddy Sammon, a former Irish diplomat once based in Athens, and Damian Mac Con Uladh, an Irish journalist from Ballinasloe now based in Corinth, researched the Irish background to what has become a Greek classic of resistance to oppression. As Damian Mac Con Uladh has written, every Greek knows can sing some of the song, which they learned at school commemorations.

Maria Farantouri, who went into exile after the colonels seized power in 1967, sang the song at solidarity concerts across Europe. ‘It became a hymn not only for the Irish liberation movement, but also for every liberation movement in the world, and Greek democracy,’ she told an RTÉ documentary.

When the junta sent in tanks against protesting students at the Athens Polytechnic on 17 November 1973, killing at least 24 people over a number of days, Maria Farantouri added a couple of stanzas to the song, and changed the date from August to November, deliberately linking the song to that event.

After the fall of the military dictatorship in 1974, numerous places, including a football stadium in Kallithea and streets and squares in villages, towns and cities across Greece have been named in honour of Grigoris Lambrakis. The Athens Classic Marathon is run in his memory every November.

A street named in honour of Grigoris Lambrakis in Koutouloufari in the hills above Hersonissos, east of Iraklion in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Greek sculptor Vassilis Doropoulos (Βασίλης Δωρόπουλος), who created the ‘Marathon Runner of Peace’, the monument to Grigoris Lambrakis in Thessaloniki, was born in Mesopotamia in Kastoria on 13 August 1942.

He moved to Paris with his mother in 1965, and there he studied painting and sculpture at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux Arts. He took part in many solo and group exhibitions, received many awards, and produced medals and sculptures for the Paris Mint.

His best-known works include his ‘Monument to National Resistance’ in Korydallos (1986) and his ‘Memorial of National Reconciliation’ (1989), symbolising reconciliation after the Greek Civil War in 1946-1949, at Klafthmonos Square in Athens, which has since become known as National Reconciliation Square or Ethinikis Simfiliosis.

Vassilis Doropoulos died in Athens last year (21 September 2025), having lived for much of his professional life in France.

The Lambrakis sculpture was donated by Apostolos Fokas, proprietor of the Fokas department store on Ermou street. An additional board explains that Lambrakis was assassinated by para-state thugs and the sculpture is not only a tribute to Grigoris Lambrakis but a reminder of the necessity for peace and social justice.

Z is a 1969 political thriller film directed by Costa-Gavras, from a screenplay he co-wrote with Jorge Semprún, adapted from the 1967 novel by Vassilis Vassilikos. Audio in French with English and French subtitles (Click on CC for subtitles)

In this series:

1, Introduction (21 September 2026)

2, Aristotle by Giorgos Georgiadis, Aristotelous Square (22 September 2026)

3, Alexander the Great by Evangelos Moustakas, Alexander’s Garden (23 September 2026)

4, Eleftherios Venizelos by Giannis Pappas, Plateia Dikastirion (24 September 2026)

5, The Jewish Monument by Konstantinos Lentaris, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (25 September 2026)

6, Admiral Nikolaos Votsis by Georgios Dimitriadis, in front of the White Tower (1 October 2026)

7, The Monument of the Jewish Holocaust by Nandor Glid, Eleftherias Square (2 October 2026)

8, ‘The Woman of Pindos’ by Kostas Domboulas, Fanarioton Square (8 October 2026)

9, ‘The Stumbling Stones’ (‘Stolpersteine’) by Gunter Demnig (9 October 2026)

10, ‘Marathon Runner of Peace’, the monument to Grigoris Lambrakis by Vasilis Doropoulos, Ermou Street (14 October 2026)

Next: Monument of Sokratis Karantinos, 30 October Avenue (22 October 2026)

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2026: 155, Saturday 10 October 2026

‘Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts that nursed you!’ (Luke 11: 27) … an icon of the Nativity by Hanna-Leena Ward in her exhibition in Lichfield Cathedral earlier this year (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar, and tomorrow is the Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XIX, 11 October 2026). The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today remembers Saint Paulinus, Bishop of York, Missionary, 644; and Thomas Traherne, Poet, Spiritual Writer, 1674.

Later this afternoon, I hope to sing with the choir of Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church in the Autum Concert that includes the choir (directed by Jacob Collins), the church band (conducted by Fiona Collins), church handbells (directed by Kath Hindley), and children from Saint Mary and Saint Giles School (2:30 pm to 3:30 pm). Before today begins, however, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, and 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.

‘Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts that nursed you!’ (Luke 11: 27) … an icon of the Virgin Mary and the Christ Child by Hanna-Leena Ward in her exhibition in Lichfield Cathedral earlier this year (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Luke 11: 27-28 (NRSVA):

27 While he was saying this, a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to him, ‘Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts that nursed you!’ 28 But he said, ‘Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it!’

Icons of the Virgin Mary as a mother and as an olderly woman (Γερόντισσα, Gerontissa) in Kalabaka, near the monasteries of Meteora (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s reflections:

The Gospels – and in particular Saint Luke’s Gospel – are scattered throughout with short pithy sayings from Jesus that I am reminded of when I read the Sayings of the Desert Fathers, the Pirkei Avot (פִּרְקֵי אָבוֹת) or Ethics of the Fathers in the Mishnah and Jewish tradition, or even the sayings of Zen masters.

This morning’s short Gospel reading at the Eucharist (Luke 11: 27-28) quotes one of those short and pithy sayings or aphorisms from Jesus as it tells of his response to a woman who praises his mother’s womb and breast by reorienting blessedness away from biological kinship to those who hear and obey God’s word. Jesus does not reject the woman’s praise but redirects it to show that true blessedness comes from inner obedience rather than external relationship or family descent.

Jesus does not diminish Mary. Rather, he reveals that her greatness lies not in bearing his body, but in keeping his Word with a whole obedient heart.

The scene unfolds mid-discourse: Jesus has just cast out a demon, defended himself against accusations of Beelzebul, and spoken of the sign of Jonah and the lamp of the body (Luke 11: 14-26). ‘It came to pass, as he said these things’ ties the acclamation directly to the impact of his teaching and miraculous power – the crowd is astonished, and one woman’s astonishment breaks into voice.

The phrase ‘lifted up her voice’ (ἐπάρασά τις φωνὴν eparasa tis phōnēn) is not merely colourful narration. Luke uses it elsewhere (Acts 2: 14; 14: 11) for moments of public, emphatic proclamation. This anonymous woman is not whispering a private thought; she is making a declaration before the crowd. Her words – ‘Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts which nursed you’ – are a Semitic macarism, a beatitude expressed in the idiom of Jewish wisdom literature, closely paralleling forms found in Proverbs and the Psalms.

To honour a great man by honouring his mother was a recognised cultural form of praise in the ancient Near East (see Judges 5:2 8). The woman’s instinct is not wrong; it is incomplete. Her praise reaches towards Mary but stops at the biological.

The Greek word for ‘blessed’ here is μακάριοι makarioi, the same root as the Beatitudes in Luke 6: 20-22 and the angel’s to greeting of Mary in Luke 1: 28, 42, 48. This echo is theologically loaded: the woman has unknowingly invoked the very category that the Gospel has already applied to Mary in the Magnificat – Mary’s prophecy that ‘all generations will call me blessed’ (μακαριοῦσίν, makariousin, Luke 1: 48).

The opening Greek word in Jesus’ response, μενοῦνγε (menounge) – translated variously as ‘on the contrary’, ‘yea rather’, or ‘indeed’ – is one of the most debated particles in Lukan Greek. It does not function as a simple negation (οὐ, ou, ‘no’) but as a strong, even emphatic, redirection and deepening.

Jesus is not dismissing the woman’s praise; he is relativising it upward. The logic is: ‘What you say is good – but hear something even greater.’ This corrective-affirmation is a characteristic Lukan rhetorical move. In Luke 10: 20, for example, Jesus tells the disciples not to rejoice in their power over spirits but in their names written in heaven – not a negation, but a re-ordering of joy.

‘Blessed are those who hear the Word of God and keep it’ (φυλάσσοντες phulassontes) – the participle phulassontes means not merely passive reception but active guarding, cherishing, obeying. It is the language of a watchman, a keeper of a sacred deposit. This phrasing echoes Luke 8: 21: ‘My mother and my brothers are those who hear the Word of God and do it.’ Together, these two passages form a deliberate Lukan bracket around Jesus’ public ministry, each time defining the true family of God in terms of obedient hearing.

The anonymous woman represents Israel’s instinct – long trained by Torah and prophecy – to seek blessedness in bloodline, covenant descent, and physical proximity to the holy. Jesus does not abolish this instinct but transfigures it: blessedness now flows from a new and universal covenant of the Word. In the spiritual sense, each of us is implicitly asked: where do you locate blessedness? In externals – national identity, family connection, religious ritual. Or in the interior act of hearing and guarding the Word?

Crucially, this passage implicitly glorifies Mary most of all by its logic: she is the one human being who most perfectly heard and kept the Word of God. The woman’s praise is not undone – it is shown to have a far deeper foundation than she imagined.

Excessive sentimentalism reduces Mary to a warm maternal figure disconnected from discipleship. Defensive minimalism downplays her entirely to avoid seeming unbiblical. Today’s Gospel reading (Luke 11: 27-28) corrects both. Mary is not blessed simply because she is tender and maternal; she is blessed because she heard the Word of God at the Annunciation (‘Let it be with me according to your word’, Luke 1: 38) and kept it through the the Passion, Crucifixion, and beyond. That makes her the first and model disciple, not merely an object of devotion.

The practical challenge in this reading is the same word Jesus uses: φυλάσσοντες phulassontes, to guard, to keep, to protect. Hearing the Word is often easy; but keeping it, letting it shape decisions about money, relationships, ethical behaviour, public, political and social action, interior life, my responses to racism, violence, poverty, injustice and oppression in society today, is the narrow gate.

Icons of the Virgin Mary at Ouranoupoli, the port town beside Mount Athos (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Saturday 10 October 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, 4-10 October 2026 (pp 44-45), has been ‘The Gun, The Sword, and The Bible’. This theme was introduced last Sunday with a reflection by the Revd Les Isaac OBE, founder and President of Ascension Trust and co-founder of Street Pastors.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Saturday 10 October 2026) invites us to pray:

Lord, we pray for your Kingdom to be made real in clarity, unity and hope across the world. May all people come together to reflect your love and glory.

The Collect of the Day:

God our Saviour,
who sent Paulinus to preach and to baptize,
and so to build up your Church in this land:
grant that, inspired by his example,
we may tell all the world of your truth,
that with him we may receive the reward
you prepare for all your faithful servants;
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:

Holy Father,
who gathered us here around the table of your Son
to share this meal with the whole household of God:
in that new world where you reveal
the fullness of your peace,
gather people of every race and language
to share with Paulinus and all your saints
in the eternal banquet of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Collect on the Eve of Trinity XIX:

O God, forasmuch as without you
we are not able to please you;
mercifully grant that your Holy Spirit
may in all things direct and rule our hearts;
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.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

The Virgin Mary as Panagia Platytera Παναγία Πλατυτέρα depicts her at the Annunciation at the moment she says, ‘Let it be with me according to your word’ (Luke 1: 38) … the apse in the church in Piskopianó in Crete (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

The sculptures of Thessaloniki: 9, ‘Stolpersteine’ or ‘Stumbling Stones’ by Gunter Demnig, Vassilisis Olgas Avenue

‘Stolpersteine’ or ‘Stumbling Stones’ on the pavement on Vassilisis Olgas Avenue commemorate Greek Jews deported to Auschwitz (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

I have been recalling in recent weeks how I have come across a collection of photographs of modern sculptures in the streets and parks of Thessaloniki and how I realised I had written little about these sculptures over the years.

Rather than leave these 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 these 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 have looked at in recent weeks include the monumental statues of Aristotle, Alexander the Great and Eleftherios Venizelos, the Jewish Memorial by Konstantinos Lentaris in the campus of the Aristotele University of Thessaloniki, the bust of Admiral Nikolaos Votsis in front of the White Tower, the Monument for the Jewish Holocaust on the edge of Eleftherias Square, and ‘The Woman of Pindos’ by Kostas Domboulas in Fanarioton Square.

Before World War II, Thessaloniki was home to a vibrant, centuries-old Sephardi, Romaniote and Ashkenazi Jewish community with over 50,000 to 60,000 people. Following the Nazi occupation in 1941, forced labour, ghettoisation, and systematic mass deportations to Auschwitz-Birkenau destroyed the vast majority of the community.

Throughout Europe, I regularly come across the Stolpersteine or ‘Stumbling Stones’ by the German artist Gunter Demnig. His project places engraved brass stones or cobblestones in front of the former homes, schools or work places of Holocaust victims who were deported and murdered by Nazi Germany. His Stolpersteine are small, cobblestone-sized brass memorials set into the pavement or footpath. His project began in Germany and has spread across Europe. So far, over 100,000 hand-engraved Stolpersteine have been laid in at least two dozen countries across Europe, making this dispersed project the world’s largest memorial. I have seen them in Berlin, Bratislava, Dublin, Prague, Venice, Vienna and in Thessaloniki.

The memorials in Thessaloniki are on the footpath in front of the 1st High School of Thessaloniki (1ο Γενικό Λύκειο Θεσσαλονίκης). They commemorate 149 Jewish children who were expelled from the school and deported to concentration camps on 8 May 1943 – of the 149 schoolchildren, only six survived. Five other Stolpersteine were placed at the harbour in Thessaloniki on 21 October 2016 to honour five Jewish workers in the port who were arrested, deported, and exterminated at Auschwitz in 1943.

The initiative has been driven by local groups, including a former school pupil, Apostolos Dereklis, and the Citizens’ Initiative for the Stolpersteine in Thessaloniki, with the support of the Heinrich Böll Foundation Thessaloniki Office.

‘Stumbling Stones for Thessaloniki’ began as initiative by two Humanity in Action senior fellows, Regina Frentzou and Evanthia Panagiotou, with a social art project to recover collective memory and individual commemoration of the victims of the Nazis in Thessaloniki. They were inspired during their experiences in Berlin in 2014, and felt there was a lack of commemoration for the victims of the Holocaust in Greek cities, particularly in Thessaloniki.

The Villa Modiano, built for Joseph Modiano and his family, is now part of the High School on Vassilisis Olgas Avenue (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Thessaloniki was once known as the ‘Jerusalem of the Balkans’. Demnig’s Stolpersteine on Vassilisis Olgas are critical visual anchors on the footpath that force people to ‘stumble with their heads and hearts’ over the fate of the city’s Jewish population, which was wiped out almost entirely in 1943.

Leoforos Vasilissis Olgas or Queen Olga Avenue is lined with once elegant fin de siècle villas, some now decaying and crumbling. It was once the most elegant and one of the richest areas of the city, and the home of many ruling families at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, and each villa tells its own unique story. Some are galleries, others house cultural and historical institutions. Many retain their detailed colourful decorations, some even their impressive furniture, all influenced by the eclecticism of the 18th and 19th century.

Several villas have been preserved after painful restoration efforts, including the Villa Mordoch, the Villa Ahmet Kapanci (1890), the Villa Mehmet Kapanci (1893) and the Villa Bianca. Others are still sadly awaiting restoration after many decades, including the Villa Hirsch and the Salem Mansion at No 20. The Salem Mansion was designed in 1878 by Xenophon Paionides (1863-1933) for the wealthy Jeborga (Τζεμπόργκα) Jewish merchant family in 1878. It was bought in 1894 by Emmanuel Salem, the most important Jewish lawyer in the city and his family gave it its name to the Salem Mansion (Η Επαυλη Σαλέμ).

The first High School of Thessaloniki is housed in two of these elegant villas on Vassilisis Olgas Avenue, the Villa Hadjimishev, probably designed by Frederic Charnot and built in 1890 for the Bulgarian Theodore Hadjimishev, who was forced to abandon the villa and the city during the Balkan Wars, and the Villa Modiano, built in 1899 and now the main school building.

The Villa Modiano was built for Joseph Modiano and his family. The family was originally from Italy and settled in Thessaloniki in the early 18th century. The Modiano and Allatini families created a trading empire in the Balkans, mainly in the fields of grain, silk and leather. The house later passed to Molho family and from 1918 on the Villa Modiano was part of the Boys’ High School. After World War II, it accommodated 15 to 22 refugee families in 1946-1958.

Demnig’s project has created the world’s largest decentralised memorial, and it has expanded to over hand-engraved stones spread across dozens of countries. These cobblestone-sized brass memorials are critical touchpoints for public history, local memory, and reflection, and the project fulfils the Talmudic teaching that ‘a person is only forgotten when his or her name is forgotten.’

I have stumbled upon these brass plaques in many cities, including such as Berlin, Bratislava, Dublin, Prague, Venice and Vienna, as well as Thessaloniki.

Dublin’s first Stolpersteine or stumbling stones were installed on 1 June 2022 outside Saint Catherine’s National School on Donore Avenue – close to Dublin’s ‘Little Jerusalem’. The six stones commemorate Irish Holocaust victims who grew up or had deep roots in Dublin: Ettie Steinberg Gluck, her husband Wojteck Gluck, and their baby son Leon, who were arrested in France and murdered in Auschwitz; Isaac Shishi, born in Dublin and murdered by the Nazis in Lithuania; and Ephraim Saks and his sister Jeanne (Lena) Saks, both from Dublin, who were murdered in Auschwitz.

El Malei Rachamim (‘God full of compassion’) is a prayer for the departed that asks for comfort and everlasting care of the deceased. It is said at Jewish funeral services, but different versions exist for different moments.

This version for the Shoah (Holocaust) is found in the Reform prayer book, Mishkan T’filah:

Fully compassionate God on high:
To our six million brothers and sisters
murdered because they were Jews,
grant clear and certain rest with You
in the lofty heights of the sacred and pure
whose brightness shines like the very glow of heaven.

Source of mercy:
Forever enfold them in the embrace of Your wings;
secure their souls in eternity.
Adonai: they are Yours.
They will rest in peace. Amen.

May their memories be a blessing, זצ״ל

Shabbat Shalom, שבת שלום‎

In this series:

1, Introduction (21 September 2026)

2, Aristotle by Giorgos Georgiadis, Aristotelous Square (22 September 2026)

3, Alexander the Great by Evangelos Moustakas, Alexander’s Garden (23 September 2026)

4, Eleftherios Venizelos by Giannis Pappas, Plateia Dikastirion (24 September 2026)

5, The Jewish Monument by Konstantinos Lentaris, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (25 September 2026)

6, Admiral Nikolaos Votsis by Georgios Dimitriadis, in front of the White Tower (1 October 2026)

7, The Monument of the Jewish Holocaust by Nandor Glid, Eleftherias Square (2 October 2026)

8, ‘The Woman of Pindos’ by Kostas Domboulas, Fanarioton Square (8 October 2026)

9, ‘The Stumbling Stones’ (‘Stolpersteine’) by Gunter Demnig (9 October 2026)

Next: ‘Marathon Runner of Peace’, the monument to Grigoris Lambrakis by Vasilis Doropoulos, Ermou Street (14 October 2026)

The Villa Hadjimishev, built in 1890, is now part of the High School on Vassilisis Olgas Avenue (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The sculptures of Thessaloniki: 8, ‘The Woman of Pindos’ by Kostas Domboulas in Fanarioton Square

‘The Woman of Pindos’ by Kostas Domboulas in Fanarioton Square (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

I have been recalling in recent week how I have come across a collection of photographs of modern sculptures in the streets and parks of Thessaloniki and how I realised I had written little about these sculptures over the years.

Rather than leave these 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 these 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 have looked at in recent weeks include the monumental statues of Aristotle, Alexander the Great and Eleftherios Venizelos, the Jewish Memorial by Konstantinos Lentaris in the campus of the Aristotele University of Thessaloniki, the bust of Admiral Nikolaos Votsis in front of the White Tower, and the Monument for the Jewish Holocaust on the edge of Eleftherias Square.

The sculpture of ‘The Woman of Pindos (I Γυναίκα της Πίνδου) stands at Fanarioton Square, at the junction of Pavlou Mela, Mitropoleos and Stratigou Kallari streets, and just a few minutes’ walk from the White Tower and the waterfront in Thessaloniki.

The sculpture by Kostas Domboulas is dedicated to the women of Epirus in north-west Greece and recalls their bravery in the resistance during World War II. In the harsh autumn of 1940, when Italy invaded Greece through the Pindos mountains, the women of Zagori – many of them elderly or mothers – carried ammunition, food, and supplies up the frozen slopes to support the Greek soldiers.

The bronze sculpture on a marble base depicts a woman from Epirus in heavy military attire, carrying bullets and food on her back as he brings supplies to soldiers on the front. Her right foot is placed on a rock that symbolises a forceful movement that adds dynamism yet poignancy to the sculpture.

When Mussolini’s fascist army invaded Greece through the rugged Pindus mountain range, they expected a quick and easy victory. Instead, they faced fierce resistance not just from soldiers, but from the local village women who carried heavy supplies and hauled massive loads of ammunition, food, and weapons on their backs up steep, snow-covered mountain trails where even mules could not go.

These women of Pindos knitted warm clothing for soldiers facing freezing conditions and even laid down in freezing rivers to form human bridges for army engineers. On many occasions, women actively chased down and fought off invading Italian troops using makeshift weapons such as axes and large pieces of wood.

The inscription in capital letters reads:

Γυναίκες Ηπειρώτισσες,
ξαφνιάσματα της φύσης,
εχθρέ γιατί δε ρώτησες
ποιον πας να κατακτήσεις

Women of Epirus,
surprise of nature,
enemy, why didn’t you ask
who you were trying to conquer?’

This quotation is the chorus of the legendary 1973 song Γυναίκες Ηπειρώτισσες (Gynaikes Ipeirotisses, ‘Women of Epirus’), sung by the Greek singer Marinella (Μαρινέλλα) from Thessaloniki, who died earlier this year (28 March 2026) at the age of 87.

Marinella was born Kyriaki Papadopoulou in Thessaloniki on 19 May 1938, and began her journey first appearing on the radio show ‘Pediki Ora’ before going on stage in her teens. By 1957, she and Stelios Kazantzidis had become a celebrated duo, singing the songs of Mikis Theodorakis, Manos Hadjidakis, Vassilis Tsitsanis, Giorgos Mitsakis, Giorgos Zambetas, Apostolos Kaldaras, Theodoros Derveniotis, Stavros Xarchakos and Christos Leontis.

She became the first singer to represent Greece in the Eurovision contest in 1974, when she sang Κρασί, θάλασσα και τ’ αγόρι μου (‘A little wine, a little sea, and my boyfriend’). She went on to give her voice to generations through decades of music.

She sang at the 2004 Summer Olympic Games in Athens, representing the music and culture Greece. She remained devoted to her singing to her final years.

The sculpture of the Woman of Pindos was installed in 1990 when Konstantinos ‘Ntinos’ Kosmopoulos (1928-2011) was the Mayor of Thessaloniki. The project was sponsored financially by the Epirus Cultural Association.

This monument was created by sculptor Kostas Domboulas (born 1942). As an academic, he was a faculty member at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, where he taught in the architecture department for almost four decades, from 1972 to 2009.

His other works his ‘Monument to Fallen Resistance Students’ in the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, installed at the Faculty of Law in 1999. It is a modern, abstract metallic sculpture that rises directly from a bed of pebbles on the ground. It features marble plaques inscribed with the names of students executed during the National Liberation Struggle (1941-1944).

In this series:

1, Introduction (21 September 2026)

2, Aristotle by Giorgos Georgiadis, Aristotelous Square (22 September 2026)

3, Alexander the Great by Evangelos Moustakas, Alexander’s Garden (23 September 2026)

4, Eleftherios Venizelos by Giannis Pappas, Plateia Dikastirion (24 September 2026)

5, The Jewish Monument by Konstantinos Lentaris, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (25 September 2026)

6, Admiral Nikolaos Votsis by Georgios Dimitriadis, in front of the White Tower (1 October 2026)

7, The Monument of the Jewish Holocaust by Nandor Glid, Eleftherias Square (2 October 2026)

8, ‘The Woman of Pindos’ by Kostas Domboulas, Fanarioton Square (8 October 2026)

Next: The Stumbling Stones (‘Stolpersteine’) by Gunter Demnig


Γυναίκες Ηπειρώτισσες, Μαρινέλλα

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2026: 149, Sunday 4 October 2026, Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XVIII)

‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone’ (Matthew 21: 42) … a cross cut into a cornerstone in the main church in the Monastery of Vlatádon in Thessaloniki (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar, and this is the Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XVIII). Later this morning, I hope to sing with the choir at the Parish Eucharist in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church in Stony Stratford, and we are planning a small family celebration later in the day.

In the Jewish calendar, the holiday of Simchat Torah (שִׂמְחַת תּוֹרָה) began at sunset last night (3 October) and ends at nightfall this evening (4 October). Simchat Torah involves joyous Torah-dancing of Simchat Torah and celebrates the completion of the annual public Torah-reading cycle and the immediate start of a new one.

Simchat Torah means ‘Rejoicing of the Law’ and the holiday follows immediately after Sukkot. The celebrations include hakafot or Torah dancing, with the Torah scrolls carried in seven celebratory circuits and dancing around the synagogue’s bimah or reading platform. The final verses of Deuteronomy are read, followed immediately by the opening verses of Genesis to show that the Torah is a continuous, never-ending cycle. Everyone in the community participates equally, holding the closed scrolls to emphasise unity, regardless of level of learning. Children often wave flags, receive sweet treats, and join the procession to associate learning with joy.

But, 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.

‘Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do …’ (Matthew 21: 40) … vineyards, vines, groves and terraces in Tuscany (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Matthew 21: 33-46 (NRSVA):

[Jesus said:] 33 ‘Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a watch-tower. Then he leased it to tenants and went to another country. 34 When the harvest time had come, he sent his slaves to the tenants to collect his produce. 35 But the tenants seized his slaves and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. 36 Again he sent other slaves, more than the first; and they treated them in the same way. 37 Finally he sent his son to them, saying, “They will respect my son.” 38 But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, “This is the heir; come, let us kill him and get his inheritance.” 39 So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. 40 Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?’ 41 They said to him, ‘He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time.’

42 Jesus said to them, ‘Have you never read in the scriptures:
“The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone;
this was the Lord’s doing,
and it is amazing in our eyes”?

43 ‘Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom. 44 The one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and it will crush anyone on whom it falls.’

45 When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they realized that he was speaking about them. 46 They wanted to arrest him, but they feared the crowds, because they regarded him as a prophet.

Today’s Reflections:

A Mediterranean village vineyard … grapes ripening in Tsesmes, near Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

We have had a lot of visits to the vineyard in the Gospel readings for the past few weeks.

Two weeks ago (20 September 2026), we had the landowner who hired labourers at different times of the day to work in his vineyard (Matthew 20: 1-16). And we saw how those who worked from early in the day were upset that those who were hired later in the day were still paid a full day’s pay.

Last week (27 September 2026), we had the father who asked his two sons to go to work in the vineyard (Matthew 21: 23-32). And we saw there how one son said no, but still went to work there, while another son said yes, and went off and did his own thing.

This morning (4 October 2026), we have another story set in the vineyard (Matthew 21: 33-46).

I imagine we have very few vineyards in England or Ireland. Yet, most of us can identify with the time and season in this morning’s Gospel reading.

It is harvest time, and it is time to collect the harvest. It should be a time for celebration, and for counting our blessings, as we celebrated the harvest on Friday evening.

But this morning’s Gospel reading challenges us to ask what if we think more about the field than the harvest, more about our personal gain and profit than the overall plans that God may have for us, more about short-term gains than about the long-term impact of our decisions, what if I think more about my individual needs than the good of wider society and community.

The setting of the parable is the estate of a wealthy landowner. This landowner does not live on the land, and does not work at planting or harvesting. The hard work is carried out by the hired labourers, who must turn over most of what they grow to the landowner. The landowner in the parallel parable in Luke 19 is a harsh, demanding man, reaping what he does not sow (see Luke 19: 20).

This absentee landlord does not send messengers out of any great love for the people or the land, but to collect the profits from their labour that sustain his life of ease in the cosmopolitan city where he lives.

In Saint Matthew’s version of parable, the farmers have had enough. The next time the landowner sends one of his servants to collect the rent, the farmers send him packing. Forget how you have consistently read this parable for years. Those who listened to Christ telling this parable for the first time probably smiled at the demanding landlord getting a revolutionary response from the exploited tenants living on the edge and on the margins.

After all, Saint Paul tells us in the Pastoral Epistles: ‘for the scripture says, “You shall not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain,” and, “The labourer deserves to be paid”.’ (I Timothy 5: 18)

Then the landowner sends another agent to collect the rent. Again, the farmers get together to send him away empty-handed. More cause for rejoicing among the first listeners.

Then the son of the landowner arrives. He has a different standing than the messengers. He is the son, perhaps the ‘beloved son,’ probably the only son. If he is the heir and the landowner had died, then he has inherited the estate himself. If the son dies and he does not have an heir, the land goes to those who live on it, and the farmers will be free. The farmers have been resisting years of what they feel has been exploitation, and now they rise up and kill the son.

But the twist in the story is that the landowner is not dead. He does exactly what we expect him to do in the circumstances. He wreaks revenge, slaughters the farmers and replaces them with others. He does this so he can return to his life of ease in the city, living on the income provided by the labour of others.

But no-one among those who hear this ending to the story for the first time would hardly regard it as comforting or good news.

The chief priests and the scribes who are listening the audience, and who come from the same social class as the rich landowner and his hirelings, must realise that they have just heard a scathing condemnation from Christ of how they exploit their fellow Jews.

The peasants or tenant farmers who hear the story are reminded that escalating the spiral of violence only results in more violence being visited upon them and their children.

Everyone who listens is challenged to rethink their prejudices and their judgmental values.

In this, the parable is a challenge to us today.

In what ways are we like the absentee landlord, dependent on others’ exploitation to support our lives of relative ease?

How much do we consume without knowing or caring about where our clothes, our coffee, our computers, our gadgets and toys come from, or about the cost to poor people and the environments in which they live?

In what ways are we like the agents, willing to do wrong to achieve what we think is right, to escalate interpersonal and international conflict in ways that will be visited upon generations to come?

And in what ways are we responding to Christ’s challenge to care for those the world disregards and to disregard the world’s standards of strength and honour?

As the American theologian and writer Sarah Dylan Breuer once wrote, Christ challenges us to do the unthinkable, to turn the other cheek and let others think us weak, to care as much for God’s children who make our clothes and shoes, who mine the ore for our electronics and dispose of the toxic computer monitors we discard when want newer and better ones, as we do for our own children.

Christ challenges us to bless and honour the peacemakers rather than the mighty, to strive for justice and peace and the dignity of every human being above our own comfort.

‘There was a landlord who planted a vineyard’ … grapes ripening on the vine in the Hedgehog in Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Sunday 4 October 2026, Trinity XVIII):

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 4 to 10 October 2026 (pp 44-45), is ‘The Gun, The Sword, and The Bible’. This theme is introduced today with a reflection by the Revd Les Isaac OBE, founder and President of Ascension Trust and co-founder of Street Pastors:

I distinctly remember sitting in my local church in London and asking myself: “How come the Jesus that I’m seeing up there looks like the people who hate me?” I couldn’t ask my mother that as it was seen as rude in my culture. But it did get me thinking.

I’ve not spent the last 40 years defending the negative side of the Church’s history, but rather trying to help people to understand the complexity of the transatlantic slave trade and its entanglement with the Church. In spite of the gun, the sword, and the Bible travelling together in the same chest on the same ship, there were people who have done a great work. There are men and women who made great sacrifices, as did Jesus. I can’t figure out why he allowed the Bible to be in that chest, but I’m consoled by Scripture that says everything works together for good.

That’s why I think the Church must rediscover its unique role in shaping history and humanity. The Church has to recognise that we are agents of the gospel. And I say this to those who are Black, white, or of any other colour. I say, listen, God hasn’t called one culture to deal with His Kingdom. He’s called all people. We ought to come together because we value the fact that we are sisters and brothers in the Kingdom of God.

I see this potential in the resilience of young African and Caribbean people: their gifts, abilities, and zeal excites me. Partnering with them, we can bring the gospel to life in unity and hope across communities, nations, and the world.

Watch the full recording at: www.youtube.com/@uspg6204

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Sunday 4 October 2026, Trinity XVIII) invites us to pray as we read and meditate on Matthew 21: 33-46.

The Collect of the Day:

Almighty and everlasting God,
increase in us your gift of faith
that, forsaking what lies behind
and reaching out to that which is before,
we may run the way of your commandments
and win the crown of everlasting joy;
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:

We praise and thank you, O Christ, for this sacred feast:
for here we receive you,
here the memory of your passion is renewed,
here our minds are filled with grace,
and here a pledge of future glory is given,
when we shall feast at that table where you reign
with all your saints for ever.

Additional Collect:

God, our judge and saviour,
teach us to be open to your truth
and to trust in your love,
that we may live each day
with confidence in the salvation which is given
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

A vineyard on the slopes at Fattoria il Poggia outside Montecarlo, near Lucca in Tuscany (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

The sculptures of Thessaloniki: 7, the Monument of the Jewish Holocaust by Nandor Glid, Eleftherias Square

The Jewish Holocaust Memorial in Eleftherias Square (Liberty Square), Thessaloniki … a bronze sculpture by Nandor Glid of a menorah whose flames are wrapped around human bodies (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, the Jewish Memorial by Konstantinos Lentaris in the campus of the Aristotele University of Thessaloniki, and the bust of Admiral Nikolaos Votsis in front of the White Tower.

The Monument for the Jewish Holocaust on the edge of Eleftherias Square is a sculpture in bronze with faltering human figures in the shape of a seven-light lamp or menorah, a flame that symbolises destruction, a cloud representing the angels who witnessed the slaughter, and a tree symbolising rebirth and hope. All these figures are represented by intertwined human forms and shapes.

By 1940, Thessaloniki had a Jewish population of about 56,000 in a city that had grown to about 250,000 residents. The community had survived fires, political upheaval, and demographic transformation, they kept open their synagogues, schools and cultural institutions, and they remained a vital part of the city’s fabric. But nothing prepared them for what came next.

On 9 April 1941, German forces occupied Thessaloniki. Within a week, Nazi authorities arrested Jewish community leaders, confiscated Jewish homes and hospitals, and began the systematic looting of Jewish cultural property. Tens of thousands of books, religious artifacts, and artworks were shipped to Germany.

On 11 July 1942 – a date remembered to this day as ‘Black Saturday’ or as the ‘Black Shabbat’ – the Nazis forcibly rounded up 9,000 Jewish men aged between 18 and 45 in Plateia Eleftherias (Πλατεία Ελευθερίας, Liberty Square). For hours in the blazing summer heat, German soldiers beat and humiliated them before the crowds. About 2,000 were sent to forced labour. The rest were eventually ransomed by the community, which sold its ancient cemetery to raise the demanded sum.

The Jewish cemetery, with 20 generations and over 500 years of burials, was destroyed. The tombstones were purloined as building materials for footpaths, university stairs, and barrack latrines. Aristotle University now stands where the Jewish dead had been buried rested.

In February 1943, Adolf Eichmann sent Dieter Wisliceny and Alois Brunner to Thessaloniki. They were specialists in Jewish deportation and they implemented the Nuremberg Laws immediately, imposing yellow stars, movement restrictions, property confiscation. Within days, Jews were forced into three ghettos. The largest, the Baron Hirsch transit camp, was beside the railway station.

The tracks to Auschwitz … old railway tracks at the port where the convoys left for the death camps (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The first train left Thessaloniki on 15 March 1943. Between March and August 1943, 19 trains took as many as 46,000 Jews from Thessaloniki to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Each train held 1,000 to 4,000 people crammed into cattle cars. The seven-day journey across Macedonia, Serbia, Hungary, Austria, and Czechoslovakia was torture itself, with no food, no water and no sanitation, bodies crushed together in suffocating heat or freezing cold.

When the trains arrived at Auschwitz, SS doctors carried out ‘selections’ on the platform. Most were sent directly to gas chambers. Of the 46,000 deported, about 1,950 or 4 per cent survived. The Jewish population that had comprised 68 per cent of Thessaloniki in 1613; 96 per cent of the city’s Jewish population was exterminated in 1943. In five months, the Nazis accomplished what four centuries of disasters – plagues, fires, wars, and economic transformations – had failed to do: they destroyed the Jerusalem of the Balkans.

The survivors who returned found a ghost community. Fewer than 2,000 Jews remained in Thessaloniki. Their synagogues were destroyed or vandalised, their homes had become the homes of others, their cemetery was razed, their archives were burned, their commercial networks were shattered. Many survivors could not bear to stay and emigrated to Palestine, the USA or other diaspora communities. Others rebuilt what they could, establishing small institutions to preserve memory.

About 1,000 Jews live in Thessaloniki today – less than 0.2 per cent of the city’s population of over 800,000. Three synagogues remain of the original 42. The Monastir Synagogue survived only because Nazis used it as a Red Cross warehouse. The Jewish Museum of Thessaloniki, which attracts about 30,000 visitors a year 2023, documents the community’s history.

The Jewish Museum in Thessaloniki … the city was known to Jews as ‘la Madre de Israel’ or ‘the Mother of Israel,’ and to non-Jews as ‘the Jerusalem of the Balkans’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Holocaust memorial by Nandor Glid was erected in 2008 at Eleftherias Square (Liberty Square), where Jewish men were beaten on Black Saturday. Nandor Glid was a Serbian Jewish sculptor whose father and family members were murdered in Auschwitz. However, Glid did not manage to finish the work, and it was completed by his son. There is a similar sculpture by the artist in Dachau concentration camp.

There are two inscriptions at the base of the monument, one with the dedication and the date of the unveiling, and the second commemorating the visit of President Katsav Israeli.

The monument has been vandalised several times by antisemites, but it has always been restored. It is the starting point of the annual memorial procession, which ends at the old train station from which thousands of Jews were forced to leave the city for the death camps.

One of Thessaloniki’s last Holocaust survivors, Heinz Kounio, died earlier this year (April 2026) at the age of 98. The Holocaust Museum of Greece (Μουσείο Ολοκαυτώματος Ελλάδος) in Thessaloniki is due to soon. It will be the first museum dedicated specifically to telling the story of Sephardic Jews in the Holocaust.

May their memories be a blessing, זצ״ל

Shabbat Shalom, שבת שלום‎

In this series:

1, Introduction (21 September 2026)

2, Aristotle by Giorgos Georgiadis, Aristotelous Square (22 September 2026)

3, Alexander the Great by Evangelos Moustakas, Alexander’s Garden (23 September 2026)

4, Eleftherios Venizelos by Giannis Pappas, Plateia Dikastirion (24 September 2026)

5, The Jewish Monument by Konstantinos Lentaris, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (25 September 2026)

6, Admiral Nikolaos Votsis by Georgios Dimitriadis, in front of the White Tower (1 October 2026)

7, The Monument of the Jewish Holocaust by Nandor Glid, Eleftherias Square (2 October 2026)

Next: ‘The Woman of Pindos’ by Kostas Domboulas, Fanarioton Square (8 October 2026)

The old railway station in Thessaloniki … more than 46,000 Jews were sent by rail to Auschwitz and Belsen in 19 convoys in 1943 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)