A glimpse of Paradise on the most isolated and remote island in Greece

Kastellórizo lies only a few minutes south of the Turkish coast (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

Patrick Comerford

In Paradise I have marked out an island
akin to you and a house by the sea.

– Odysseus Elytis, The Monogram

Is everything in Greece up for sale? At the height of the tourist season this summer, the Greek Culture and Tourism Minister, Pavlos Garoulas, insisted in Istanbul: “No Greek islands are for sale, unless they are already private property.”

There are over 6,000 Greek islands, but only 227 are inhabited, and only 78 of those have more than 100 residents year-round. The largest and one of the most-visited is Crete, while one of the smallest and one of the most remote is Kastellórizo. This year, I visited Kastellórizo for the first time, but only after two or three failed efforts to travel from Turkey to the Dodecanese islands.

The Dodecanese literally means “twelve islands.” But this is a group of 12 larger Aegean islands, including Rhodes, and another 150 islands, of which only 26 are inhabited. Kastellórizo is known officially in Greece as Megísti and in neighbouring Turkey as Meis. It is the smallest inhabited Dodecanese island and the most remote Greek island.

Unlike the other Dodecanese islands, however, Kastellórizo is not in the Aegean – it is not even close to the rest of Greece. It is the most easterly and the most isolated part of Greece, a rocky outpost in the south-east Mediterranean, 570 km south-east of Athens, but only a mile or two off the south coast of Turkey. The nearest Turkish town, Kaş, is a mere 20 or 30 minutes away in a small caique, while the nearest Greek island, Rhodes, is 130 km to the west and three or four hours away by ferry.

A plucky piece of bravado

The former castle of the Knights of Rhodes dominates the approach to the harbour of Kastellórizo (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

The official name Megísti means “biggest” or “greatest.” But this name is more a plucky piece of bravado than a statement of fact, for this tiny island is only 6 km long and 3 km wide. The population is now 430, and most people live in the town of Megísti, with handfuls on two tiny offshore islets, Rho (15) and Strongilí (9). Many islanders have emigrated to Australia, especially Perth and Sydney, where they are known as “Kazzies.”

The name Kastellórizo or Kastellórizon, dates only from Byzantine times, and has never been properly explained. Kastello is derived from the Latin castello (castle). But does the second part of the name refer to the reddish colour of the rocks, the colour of the castle at sunset, or the red on the coat-of-arms of the Knights of Rhodes? Does it refer to the neighbouring islet of Rho, or the tree roots on the foothill below the castle? Who knows?

The island is mountainous, with a high, steep coastline and many sea caves, including the Blue Grotto, which is larger than its namesake in Capri. The limestone soil yields only small crops of olives, grapes and beans, and there are no natural sources of drinking water.

Knights, Dorians and Lycians

The Faros Bar, once the Italian governor’s office, and the former mosque, now a museum, are the first buildings on the harbour front to greet new arrivals (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

Arriving from Kaş, the first sight is the ruined 14th century Castle of the Knights of Rhodes. Under the Byzantine Empire, Kastellórizo was part of the “Eparchy of the Islands,” with its capital in Rhodes. The Knights of Rhodes and their Grand Master, Foulques de Villaret, captured the island in 1309, and established a safe harbour for pilgrims and crusaders on the route from Rhodes to Cyprus and the Holy Land. The castle was built almost three generations later by Grand Master Juan Fernandez de Heredia in 1379-1383.

All that remains of the castle is the curtain wall, part of a square tower and the remains of two cylindrical towers. A Doric inscription from the 4th century BC is evidence of an earlier fortress in antiquity and refers to Megiste, the ancient name of Kastellórizo, and its dependence on Rhodes. During the Hellenistic period, the island was ruled from Rhodes.

In 1440, the island was captured by an Egyptian fleet and the castle was wrecked and the islanders were sold into slavery. Then, in quick succession, the island passed to Aragon, Catalans, Naples, Spain and Venice. The castle was rebuilt, but fear of the Turks saw the islanders abandon their homes in successive waves. Finally, Kastellórizo fell in 1635 to the Ottoman Turks, who held it for almost 300 years apart from a brief period in 1659, when it was recaptured by Venice.

Bright Mediterranean colours on doors lining the harbour (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

As the boat comes closer to the harbour, the view is dominated by the knights’ castle and the dome of the island’s former mosque, a poignant reminder of the Ottoman occupation of the island that lasted until 1913.

The mosque, built in 1753 by Osman Agha, has been restored and is now a museum. Nearby, on the harbour front, the Faros Bar is the surviving single storey of the former office of the island’s Italian governors, built in 1926 by Florestano Di Fausto, the Italian architect who also designed some of the most important buildings of the Italian period in Rhodes.

Ottoman balconies

The harbour water is clear with plenty of marine life, including turtles (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

After docking at the horseshoe-shaped harbour, it is a short walk past Italian colonial market, the Néa Agorá, along the quay to the central square at the heart of the waterfront. The water is crystal clear, rich with fish and turtles. The houses here and in the side streets and alleyways are tall and slender, with Ottoman wooden balconies and Anatolian-style windows.

Along the east side of the harbour are the Megisti Hotel, built in 1970 to attract tourists, and the Blue House made popular by the movie Mediterraneo (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

The best-know of the harbour-front houses is the so-called “blue house” or Mediterraneo House, famous for its role in the 1991 Academy Award winning Italian movie, Mediterraneo. The movie, directed by Gabriele Salvatores, tells the story of Italian soldiers hiding from World War II on a remote Greek island, and over the past 20 years it has boosted the island’s popularity with tourists looking for an isolated place in the Dodecanese. But in the back streets and alleys, many of the houses are abandoned and in ruins.

The Church of Saint George of the Well, with its high Byzantine-style dome, stands on Australia Square (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

The most visible church in the town, the Church of Saint George of the Well (1906), with its high Byzantine-style dome, stands on Australia Square, a small square recalling the island’s emigrants. Hidden in a side street is Saint Merkourios, an example of late 18th century architecture restored to its former glory three years ago.

The Cathedral of Saint Constantine and Saint Helena dominates the skyline above the town (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

The Cathedral of Saint Constantine and Saint Helena (1835) has three naves divided by 12 giant granite columns taken from the Temple of Apollo Lykios in the classical city of Patara on mainland Anatolia. Tradition says that the Emperor Constantine and his mother, Saint Helena, on their way to find the True Cross, were delayed here by bad weather and laid the foundations of this church. Most of the island’s baptisms, weddings and funerals take place here.

The island is dotted with dozens of churches (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

Above the harbour and the town, two monasteries look down benignly on Kastellórizo, the Prophet Elías and the Holy Trinity, the former now an army base. Smaller churches dot and decorate the hillside, including the twin churches of Saint Nicholas and Saint Dimirtios, Panaghía, Saint Spyridon, the imposing Saint George of the Fields, half a dozen other churches named after Saint George, and Saint Paraskeví and Saint Savvas at the small bay of Mandráki, the island’s second harbour. They are testimony to the piety and generosity of exiles and their descendants.

Ottoman balconies and Anatolian windows ... a reminder of centuries of Turkish rule (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

The Ottoman occupation was interrupted briefly in 1659, during the war for Crete, when the island was captured by Venice. In the 18th century, Kastellórizo was a stopping point between Constantinople or Rhodes and Beirut for those on the Grand Tour. Richard Pococke (1705-1765) reported in 1739 that the island was a lair of Maltese pirates, drawn by the good waters. He described the castle and said the island was rich in vines. Richard Pockocke was then Vicar-General of Lismore, and he went on to become Precentor of Waterford (1745), Archdeacon of Dublin (1746), Bishop of Ossory (1756) and Bishop of Meath (1765).

Struggles in war and peace

Bright and inviting ... but does anyone live inside? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

Although many islanders joined the Greek War of Independence (1821-1830), the island’s only Turkish inhabitants were the aga or governor, the tax collector and the policeman. The population and the economy reached a height at the end of the 19th century when 10,000-14,000 people lived here. Kastellórizo was the only safe harbour between Makri (Fethiye) and Beirut, and its 165 sailing ships and schooners plied between Anatolia and Alexandria, Rhodes and Cyprus, making fortunes through trading in timber, sponges and charcoal.

In 1912, during the Libyan war between Italy and the Ottoman Empire, the islanders asked General Ameglio, head of the Italian forces in Rhodes, to annex Kastellórizo. The request was refused, and in 1913 the islanders proclaimed a provisional government and imprisoned the Turkish governor and his Ottoman garrison, but their request to be incorporated in the modern Greek state was short-lived.

In 1915, a French naval force occupied the island and Kastellórizo became the only Dodecanese island to come under French rule as the French blocked another attempted landing by Greek soldiers. France went on to use Kastellórizo as a staging post for its Middle East colonies in Syria and Lebanon.

Many of the older houses are abandoned and exposed to the weather (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

Six years of French rule ended in 1921 when the island was assigned to Italy under the Treaty of Sevres, and Kastellórizo – under the Italian name Castelrosso – was integrated into the Italian province of the Aegean Islands. But the decline in the island’s economy and population was hastened by the sale of much of the fleet to the British for the Dardanelles campaign, the decline of the Ottoman Empire and the forced deportation of Greeks from Anatolia in 1923. Thousands of islanders moved to Rhodes and Athens or emigrated to Australia, Egypt and the US. By the late 1920s, the population had fallen to 3,000, leaving many of the houses empty or in ruins.

In 1932, a convention between Italy and Turkey delineating the sea border gave all the islets of the small archipelago around Kastellórizo – except Rho and Strongili – to Turkey.

The Néa Agorá or New Market was designed in Italian colonial style (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

During World War II, British and Greek commandoes landed briefly. When Italy started to fall in 1943, the island was taken by an allied fleet, including a Greek destroyer. Disaster struck in 1944, when the island’s fuel dump caught fire. The fire spread to a nearby ammunition dump, half the island’s 2,000 houses were destroyed, and the islanders continue blame the disaster on British incompetence. Kastellórizo was still under British rule in May 1945, but it effectively passed to Greece in 1947 under the post-war treaties, and, along with the other Dodecanese islands, the island was formally incorporated into the modern Greek State in 1948.

During my visit, Kastellórizo seemed a world away from modern Greece, with its daily protests and its economic woes, and this was a taste of Paradise not for sale before summer came to an end.

A quiet square offers shade from the summer sun and the heat of economic woes (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

Canon Patrick Comerford is Lecturer in Anglicanism and Liturgy, the Church of Ireland Theological Institute. This essay was first published in November 2011 in the Church Review (Dublin and Glendalough) and the Diocesan Magazine (Cashel and Ossory).

The lost stories of a classical city in the Mediterranean

The squares in Kaş are shaded by pine trees and plane trees and filled with cafés and boutiques (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

Patrick Comerford

Andifli is one of the prettiest Greek towns on the shores of the Mediterranean. The town curves in a horseshoe shape around a harbour that faces south, so that for most of the day it is bathed in warm, bright sunshine.

The town’s squares, shaded by pine trees and plane trees and filled with cafés and boutiques, lead invitingly into cobbled, gently-sloping, side-streets and alleyways lined by white-washed houses, with doors painted in bright primary colours, overhanging wooden balconies, and gardens rich with bougainvillea, hibiscus, vines and lemon trees.

The cobbled, sloping, side-streets are lined by white-washed houses with overhanging wooden balconies (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

The streets rise up to a scattering of archaeological remains: ancient sarcophagi from the oft-forgotten Lycian civilisation; majestic, carved tombs; a cistern used for centuries to store wine and olive oil; a Hellenistic temple whose dedication has been forgotten in the mists of myth and time; an amphitheatre that once held 4,000 spectators; and the Church of the Annunciation, with a Greek inscription recalling its dedication and a courtyard decorated in the hoklakia mosaic patterns in black and white pebbles unique to the Dodecanese islands.

The blue door at No 11 has an intriguing suggestion for the postman (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

From every point above the town there are views across to Kastellórizo, one of the smallest and most remote Greek islands in the Dodecanese, and its offshore islets, Ro and Strongýli. In the harbour, small fishing boats vie for mooring with yachts, small ferries and tour boats.

Hidden sorrows

Charm and location aside, there is one major difference between Andifli and any other similar Greek resort of its size – no Greeks have lived here for almost a century. In 1923, the people of Andifli were forced to leave, and the town that was known in antiquity as Antíphellos is now known to its residents as Kaş (pronounced “cash”).

Although Kaş is well-developed, many of its original features remain. There are no large hotel chains, no tacky shopping areas, and no pushy waiters enticing custom with feigned humour. Instead, Kaş has a discreet Mediterranean elegance, smart boutiques, craft shops, laid-back cafés, and fine restaurants.

The story of the town dates back to the civilisation of the Lycians, who named this place Habesos or Habesa. Habesos was an important port town and a junction on the roads to Xanthos and Kanous. It was one of the earliest Lycian cities and a voting member of the Lycian League, and there is evidence of its importance in a necropolis that may have been one of the richest in Lycia.

One tomb in the necropolis, the “Doric Tomb” (Kesme Mezar), is almost intact. This house-style tomb from the 4th century BC, carved from the natural rock on which it stands, is 3.5 metres high. The 2 metre high entrance once had a sliding door, and inside there are benches on three inner sides. At the back, the bench where the body rested is decorated with a small frieze showing 25 small female dancing figures holding hands. Another nearby tomb has two inscriptions, one in Lycian, the other in Latin, indicating it was reused for a woman named Claudia Recepta.

The ‘King’s Tomb’ has become a symbol of the town (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

The side-streets are rich with Lycian sarcophagi. One of the most important, known as the King’s Tomb (Kral Mezar), is an inscribed tomb mounted on a high base and dating from the 4th century BC. This towering, elegant structure at the top of the street named Uzun Çarşi Caddesi has become the symbol of the town.

The lower chamber is 1.5 meters high, with a sunken floor and a door that has long been broken open. Above is a plain base 80 cm high. The two parts are cut from solid rock. On top is the second burial chamber, cut from a separate piece of stone, with a Gothic-style lid and roof. Two lions’ heads project from each side of the lid, with each head resting on a pair of paws. The short ends of the lid are divided into four panels, with standing figures in relief in the upper two.

A long Lycian inscription on the lower chamber is in a poetic form of the language otherwise found only on the obelisk at Xanthos. But the inscription has never been deciphered, and nobody knows to whom the tomb belonged.

A damaged sarcophagus, relocated and abandoned incongruously on a wall by the harbour, without any sign or marking (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

In 1842, Admiral Thomas Spratt counted over 100 other sarcophagi here. Most have since been destroyed by local people who used the flat sides as building-stones, abandoning the curved lids they considered useless. Throughout the streets, there are damaged sarcophagi, abandoned or relocated in incongruous places, often without signs or markings.

Myriad Lycian rock tombs in the hills above were carved out of the cliff-faces in the 4th century BC (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

In the hills above, myriad Lycian rock tombs were carved out of the cliff-faces in the 4th century BC. Some are almost inaccessible or invisible beneath dense growth, but they are similar to the temple-style Lycian tombs throughout this part of Anatolia.

Greek conquests and civilisation

Alexander the Great annexed the area during his campaigns, and after his death the area changed hands between the Seleucids and the Ptolemies. The Greeks named the town Antíphellos (Ἀντίφελλος), as it was the harbour for the city of Phéllos (Φέλλος, “cork oak”). As seagoing commerce increased, Antíphellos prospered while Phéllos withered. The classical Greek sites include an amphitheatre, a temple and a cistern.

The Hellenistic amphitheatre dates from the 1st century BC and seats 4,000 people (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

The Hellenistic amphitheatre, dating from the 1st century BC, is a mere 500 metres west of the main square, on a hill overlooking the sea. Unlike many similar theatres, it was not cut into the hillside. The only theatre in Anatolia overlooking the sea, it is still an ideal place to watch the setting sun. There are 26 rows, with seating for up to 4,000 people. It never had a stage; the open sanded space facing the seats, with a modern curved wall as a backdrop, is now used for concerts.

The classical temple dates from the Hellenistic and Roman eras (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

Between the theatre and the town centre, the classical temple dates from the Hellenistic and Roman eras. Nearby, a 5th century BC cistern is carved into the rock with a ceiling of stone blocks. For centuries, it was used to store wine, water, olive oil and vegetables.

Small fishing boats vie for mooring in the harbour with yachts, small ferries and tour boats (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

Strabo mentions both Phéllos and Antíphellos, and Pliny refers to Antíphellos and its soft sponges. Throughout Roman times, Antíphellos exported sponges and timber. Under the Byzantine Empire, it was a suffragan see of Myra, the diocese of Saint Nicholas of Myra – later transformed into Santa Claus. In time, Antíphellos fell to Arabs, Seljuks and Ottoman Turks, but it continued to be known to its Greek-speaking population as Andifli.

In the 19th century, Andifli and the neighbouring Lycian territory were explored by the Irish-born Sir Charles Beaufort (1774-1857), who gave his name to the Beaufort Scale. Beaufort’s father was Rector of Navan, Co Meath, and Collon, Co Louth, and the explorer was a brother-in-law of the writer Maria Edgeworth. He identified the ancient site of Antíphellos, and in his Karamania recorded the name Vathy for the bay at the head of which Antíphellos stands.

Beaufort was followed by Sir Charles Fellows (1799-1860), who published drawings of sarcophagi, pediments, and doors of tombs in Andifli in his Discoveries in Lycia, and pillaged many of the Lycian remains in Xanthos, now in the British Museum.

Lost stories

A restaurant for sale in the side streets (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

From 1850 to 1923, Greek-speaking Andifli prospered as a timber-exporting port. However, at the founding of the modern Republic of Turkey, the population of Andifli was forcibly expelled. It is a story repeated with equal tragedy throughout Turkey and Greece in the 1920s. That story is told in places such as Smyrna which became Izmir, Telmessos (Makri) which became Fethiye, and Karmylassos (Levessi) which became Kaya Köyü, the village in Birds Without Wings, the novel by Louis de Bernières.

The houses in the side streets could be in any Greek village or town (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

But no-one tells the stories of the lost Greeks of Andifli. Many eventually migrated to Australia and the town was repopulated by Turkish-speaking Muslims expelled from Macedonia. The new settlers knew nothing of the history of the town they came to know as Kaş, meaning “eyebrow” in Turkish, a reference to the curved shape of the harbour. The once-prosperous port became a sleepy fishing village; nearby Vathy, perhaps the original Phéllos, was renamed Bucak Limani.

The Church of the Annunciation lay desolate for 40 years when it was converted into the Yeni Cami or New Mosque in 1963 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

The town had churches but no mosque, and a mosque was built by the harbour in 1932. In 1963, 40 years after the Greek-speaking people of Andifli were expelled, their principal church, the Church of the Annunciation, was requisitioned as a mosque, and – despite its age – was renamed Yeni Cami (New Mosque). A minaret was added, along with a fountain with a quotation in Turkish, rather than Arabic, from the Quran: “We made from water every living thing.” (Surat al-Anbiyya, the Prophets, 21: 30).

The church was realigned inside with the addition of a minbar and a mihrab facing Mecca (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

Inside, as the church was aligned facing east, a new mihrab or prayer niche facing Mecca and a minbar (pulpit) were inserted on the south wall. The frescoes were stripped away and the icon screen removed. By then, all obvious Christian symbolism had been picked out of the hoklakia pebble mosaic in the courtyard. But no-one noticed the significance of the fish, symbolising the Greek word Ichthus (ΙΧΘΥΣ), an acrostic for Ἰησοῦς Χριστός, Θεοῦ Υἱός, Σωτήρ, “Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour.” And so, dozens of fish remain scattered though the pebble mosaic.

The Ichthus symbol remains discreetly unnoticed in the pebble mosaic of the church courtyard (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

Tourism, excursions and friendship

The much-photographed beach at Kaputaş between Kalkan and Kaş has been used for many movie locations (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

A tourism boom in Kaş in the early 1990s brought British and German visitors and a growth in the number of apartments and luxury hotels. Many were built without license, threatening the landscape and environment of the Çukurbağ Peninsula to the west.

In 2006, Kaş was added to the protected Kekova marine area to preserve its rich biodiversity. It remains a quiet and pleasant town. The mountains offer trekking, climbing and river-rafting; this is a centre for diving; nearby beaches include the much-photographed beach and gorge at Kaputaş.

A popular excursion is to nearby Kekova Island, where the bays have sunken shipwrecks and underwater cities. The sea is so clear the city buildings, with their churches, columns and staircases, can be seen from boats.

Every point above the town offers views across to Kastellórizo, one of the smallest and most remote Greek islands (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

But the best-selling day tour from Kaş is across the narrow strait to Kastellórizo, the most remote and isolated Greek island and known to the people of Kaş as Meis. The warm friendships between the people of both places predate the recent thaw in relationships between Greece and Turkey.

In the offices of Meis Express and Latebreaks, I found myself in a three-way conversation in English, Greek and Turkish between local travel agents and Greek captains, arranging a crossing to the island. It was a trilingual conversation so natural that I may have been the only one there aware of the changes in language.

Past offences and injustices are truly forgotten, and the Greeks of Kastellórizo bring their music and dance to Kaş every June for the Kaş Lykian Festival. But then, there has never been much difference between the music, dance and food of these two countries.

Canon Patrick Comerford is Lecturer in Anglicanism and Liturgy, the Church of Ireland Theological Institute. This essay was first published in September 2011 in the Church Review (Dublin and Glendalough) and the Diocesan Magazine (Cashel and Ossory)

Making sense of an old plaque on the church tower

The railway viaduct at Balbriggan, close to Saint George’s Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Sunday 17 July 2011: The Fourth Sunday after Trinity.

12 noon: The Eucharist (Holy Communion), Saint George’s Church, Balbriggan, Co Dublin.

Genesis 28: 10-19a; Psalm 139: 1-11, 23-24; Romans 8: 12-25; Matthew 13: 24-30, 36-43.

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

Psalm 132, quoted on a plaque above the door at Saint George’s Church, Balbriggan (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

Have you ever noticed how often we walk around with our heads down – as if we are more afraid of what we are walking on instead of anticipating joyfully what is ahead of us?

Have you ever looked up on your way into this church? There is biblical text on a plaque above the main door on the south side of tower, and it reads:

I will not suffer mine eyes
to sleep nor mine eye-lids
to slumber • neither the
temples of my head to
take any rest;
Until I find out a place
for the temple of the Lord:, an habitation
for the mighty God of
Jacob.
– Psalm 132: 4-5.

The plaque probably dates from 1833. But the quotation from Psalm 132 is a text that relates to us today, that relates very much to our Bible readings, our lectionary readings, this morning.

Jacob has a very difficult night’s sleep – well who would not have a difficult night’s sleep after choosing a rock as a pillow?

In his dreams, he sees angels going up and down the ladder, the stairway, between heaven and earth. And then in the midst of all this rising and falling, looking up and looking down, he has a vision of the Lord God – not a vision to satisfy his own personal piety or one that gives him a sense of spiritual satisfaction, but one that is disturbing in a way.

For the God that Jacob has a vision of, an encounter with, is not just his personal God, a God to be locked away in the crevices of his heart and in the recesses of his soul.

This is the God who promises not just personal future security for Jacob and his family. This is the God who promises that through the descendants of Jacob the whole earth shall be blessed, that “all the families of the earth shall be blessed in you and in your offspring.”

Even though Jacob, when he wakes up, realises that God is in the very place where he has been, God’s promise extends to every corner of the earth ... “to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south.”

We are very happy to claim that God is in our own little corner – and rightly so.

But are we as quick to realise that God is present in so many other little corners too?

The quotation on the tower was chosen to give thanks for rebuilding this church after a fire in 1833. But it is a text that relates very much to our Bible readings, our lectionary readings this morning.

Like Jacob before them, the builders of the church wanted to acknowledge the presence of God in a holy place, and to mark that presence in stone.

That is valid. And it brings about a work of great beauty, a legacy that we should cherish and rejoice in.

But there are other holy places too.

I was saddened last month to read the story of an ultra-orthodox Hasidic Jew in Brooklyn who attacked his newly-married neighbour, pouring beer over her, punching her and verbally abusing her as an “Arab terrorist.”

The woman is a Muslim, but not an Arab – she is Turkish.

When her husband, who is also Turkish, came to her rescue, he too was punched in the face and verbally abused in similar terms.

When the police arrived, the man sought refuge in a local synagogue. When he was arrested, his wife and 20 neighbours signed a petition calling for the victim couple to be evicted.

Of course, Turks are not Arabs, not all Arabs are Muslims, and had the attacker been a Christian or any other religion, his behaviour would have been outrageous too.

Of course, Turks are not Arabs, not all Arabs are Muslims, and had the attacker been a Christian or any other religion, his behaviour would have been outrageous too. And, although the two have no connections, the incident pales in comparison with the murder of a small Jewish boy from a Hasidic neighbourhood of Brooklyn this week.

But so often, we invest so much of ethnic and national identity in our sacred places and our religious identity that we are in danger of squeezing God out of our sacred buildings and squeezing God out of our belief systems, so that they only serve me and my prejudices.

The former Osman Agha Mosque on the harbour-front on the remote Greek island of Kastellórizo, now used as a museum (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

Last week, I visited a number of mosques and churches in both Turkey and Greece. In both countries so much national identity has been confused with religious identity, that for many decades it was difficult to be either a Christian and a Turk or a Muslim and a Greek.

The narthex of the Church of Panayia Pyrgiotissa in Levessi (Kayaköy), above Fethiye in south-west Turkey ... the Christian villages were forced to leave in 1923, and the church was used as a mosque until the 1960s (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

Churches became a challenge to the integrity of Turkish identity; mosques became a challenge to the integrity of Greek identity. Both ceased in the eyes of others to be places of worship, places where those who worship in them – but no-one else – could say: “Surely the Lord is in this place … This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.”

How do we tell the weeds from the flowers? … the wild garden in the former churchyard of Saint Mary-at-Lambeth (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

So often, it is easy for me to confuse my prejudices with my religion, my presumptions with faith, the barriers that have been built by my communities over generations with the legacy of God’s promise.

So often, it is easy to look at the harvest God has for us in mission, and to see not wheat but what I regard as the weeds.

Who am I to say that what God has sown is merely a weed to be uprooted?

Every farmer knows that a field of wheat, a field of potatoes, a field of grass at this time of the year is also full with red poppies.

Driving through the countryside in Kildare and Carlow two weeks ago, the fields of green and gold were speckled with glorious red too.

Who am I to say that the weeds I despise are not precious flowers in the eyes of God?

And the more I want to weed out those I do not want within the Church, the more I am creating a sect that is in danger of dwindling in numbers until I am left as the only member.

So often, so many think the promises of Christ, the revelation of God in Christ, are just for one, small group, and want to do the weeding themselves rather than leaving both growth and weeding in the hands of God, to God’s discretion.

The true test of true religion is found not in the barriers we erect to the outside world, but in the fruit our faith bears (see Matthew 7: 16). And, as the Apostle Paul tells us in our New Testament reading this morning, “all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.”

The promises to Jacob during that restless, dream-filled night, were fulfilled in his descendants, but in so many exciting ways and people, that they are to be found in all nations.

As Simeon realised in the Temple when he saw the Christ Child, his eyes had seen God’s salvation which he had prepared “in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to to the nations” (see Luke 2: 31-32).

Of course, this church here is truly the house of God and the gate of heaven, and habitations for the mighty God of Jacob.

But I must never confuse our churches and their structures – either the buildings or the denominations – with the Kingdom of God.

God’s hopes, God’s plans are for the whole of creation, so that “the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.”

And God’s plans for the Church, for the world and for his kingdom know no ethnic boundaries, and they do not allow us to decide who are weeds and who are harvest.

Our churches are truly the dwelling place of God when their doors are open to all, regardless of their background, their ethnicity or the ways we decide they are different. For each and every one of us, so many that we are as impossible to count as the dust of the earth. It is a promise repeated to Jacob later in another way: ‘I will … make your offspring as the sand of the sea, which cannot be counted because of their number’ (Genesis 32: 12; cf Genesis 28: 14). Each and every one of us is counted among those grains of sand. Yet each and every one of is unique and created truly in the image and likeness of God.

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

Canon Patrick Comerford is Director of Spiritual Formation, the Church of Ireland Theological Institute, and a canon of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin. This sermon was preached at the Eucharist in Saint George’s Church, Balbriggan, Co Dublin, on Sunday 17 July 2011.

Collect:

O God, the protector of all who trust in you,
without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy:
Increase and multiply upon us your mercy;
that with you as our ruler and guide,
we may so pass through things temporal
that we finally lose not the things eternal:
Grant this, heavenly Father,
for Jesus Christ’s sake, our Lord. Amen.

Post Communion Prayer:

Eternal God,
comfort of the afflicted and healer of the broken,
you have fed us at the table of life and hope.
Teach us the ways of gentleness and peace,
that all the world may acknowledge
the kingdom of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Is this place the house of God and the gate of heaven?

‘I will … make your offspring as the sand of the sea, which cannot be counted because of their number’ (Genesis 32: 12; cf Genesis 28: 14) … sand on the South Beach at Skerries (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Sunday 17 July 2011: The Fourth Sunday after Trinity

10.30: Morning Prayer, Holmpatrick Parish Church, Skerries, Co Dublin.

Genesis 28: 10-19a; Psalm 139: 1-11, 23-24; Romans 8: 12-25; Matthew 13: 24-30, 36-43.

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

Psalm 132, quoted on a plaque above the door at Saint George’s Church, Balbriggan (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

Have you ever noticed how often we walk around with our heads down – as if we are more afraid of what we are walking on instead of anticipating joyfully what is ahead of us?

Have you ever looked up on your way into Saint George’s Church in Balbriggan?

There is biblical text on a plaque above the main door on the south side of tower, and it reads:

I will not suffer mine eyes
to sleep nor mine eye-lids
to slumber • neither the
temples of my head to
take any rest;
Until I find out a place
for the temple of the Lord:, an habitation
for the mighty God of
Jacob.
– Psalm 132: 4-5.

The plaque probably dates from 1833. But the quotation from Psalm 132 is a text that relates to us today, that relates very much to our Bible readings, our lectionary readings, this morning.

Jacob has a very difficult night’s sleep – well who would not have a difficult night’s sleep after choosing a rock as a pillow?

In his dreams, he sees angels going up and down the ladder, the stairway, between heaven and earth. And then in the midst of all this rising and falling, looking up and looking down, he has a vision of the Lord God – not a vision to satisfy his own personal piety or one that gives him a sense of spiritual satisfaction, but one that is disturbing in a way.

For the God that Jacob has a vision of, an encounter with, is not just his personal God, a God to be locked away in the crevices of his heart and in the recesses of his soul.

This is the God who promises not just personal future security for Jacob and his family. This is the God who promises that through the descendants of Jacob the whole earth shall be blessed, that “all the families of the earth shall be blessed in you and in your offspring.”

Even though Jacob, when he wakes up, realises that God is in the very place where he has been, God’s promise extends to every corner of the earth ... “to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south.”

We are very happy to claim that God is in our own little corner – and rightly so.

But are we as quick to realise that God is present in so many other little corners too?

The quotation on Saint George’s tower was chosen to give thanks for rebuilding the church after a fire in 1833. But it is a text that relates very much to our Bible readings, our lectionary readings this morning.

Like Jacob before them, the builders of the church wanted to acknowledge the presence of God in a holy place, and to mark that presence in stone.

That is valid. And it brings about a work of great beauty, a legacy that we should cherish and rejoice in.

But there are other holy places too.

I was saddened last month to read the story of an ultra-orthodox Hasidic Jew in Brooklyn who attacked his newly-married neighbour, pouring beer over her, punching her and verbally abusing her as an “Arab terrorist.”

The woman is a Muslim, but not an Arab – she is Turkish.

When her husband, who is also Turkish, came to her rescue, he too was punched in the face and verbally abused in similar terms.

When the police arrived, the man sought refuge in a local synagogue. When he was arrested, his wife and 20 neighbours signed a petition calling for the victim couple to be evicted.

Of course, Turks are not Arabs, not all Arabs are Muslims, and had the attacker been a Christian or any other religion, his behaviour would have been outrageous too. And, although the two have no connections, the incident pales in comparison with the murder of a small Jewish boy from a Hasidic neighbourhood of Brooklyn this week.

But so often, we invest so much of ethnic and national identity in our sacred places and our religious identity that we are in danger of squeezing God out of our sacred buildings and squeezing God out of our belief systems, so that they only serve me and my prejudices.

The former Osman Agha Mosque on the harbour-front on the remote Greek island of Kastellórizo, now used as a museum (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

Last week, I visited a number of mosques and churches in both Turkey and Greece. In both countries so much national identity has been confused with religious identity, that for many decades it was difficult to be either a Christian and a Turk or a Muslim and a Greek.

The narthex of the Church of Panayia Pyrgiotissa in Levessi (Kayaköy), above Fethiye in south-west Turkey ... the Christian villages were forced to leave in 1923, and the church was used as a mosque until the 1960s (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

Churches became a challenge to the integrity of Turkish identity; mosques became a challenge to the integrity of Greek identity. Both ceased in the eyes of others to be places of worship, places where those who worship in them – but no-one else – could say: “Surely the Lord is in this place … This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.”

How do we tell the weeds from the flowers? … the wild garden in the former churchyard of Saint Mary-at-Lambeth (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

So often, it is easy for me to confuse my prejudices with my religion, my presumptions with faith, the barriers that have been built by my communities over generations with the legacy of God’s promise.

So often, it is easy to look at the harvest God has for us in mission, and to see not wheat but what I regard as the weeds.

Who am I to say that what God has sown is merely a weed to be uprooted?

Every farmer knows that a field of wheat, a field of potatoes, a field of grass at this time of the year is also full with red poppies.

Driving through the countryside in Kildare and Carlow two weeks ago, the fields of green and gold were speckled with glorious red too.

Who am I to say that the weeds I despise are not precious flowers in the eyes of God?

And the more I want to weed out those I do not want within the Church, the more I am creating a sect that is in danger of dwindling in numbers until I am left as the only member.

So often, so many think the promises of Christ, the revelation of God in Christ, are just for one, small group, and want to do the weeding themselves rather than leaving both growth and weeding in the hands of God, to God’s discretion.

The true test of true religion is found not in the barriers we erect to the outside world, but in the fruit our faith bears (see Matthew 7: 16). And, as the Apostle Paul tells us in our New Testament reading this morning, “all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.”

The promises to Jacob during that restless, dream-filled night, were fulfilled in his descendants, but in so many exciting ways and people, that they are to be found in all nations.

As Simeon realised in the Temple when he saw the Christ Child, his eyes had seen God’s salvation which he had prepared “in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to to the nations” (see Luke 2: 31-32).

Our Church here is truly the house of God and the gate of heaven, and a habitation for the mighty God of Jacob.

But I must never confuse our churches and their structures – either the buildings or the denominations – with the Kingdom of God.

God’s hopes, God’s plans are for the whole of creation, so that “the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.”

And God’s plans for the Church, for the world and for his kingdom know no ethnic boundaries, and they do not allow us to decide who are weeds and who are harvest.

Our churches are truly the dwelling place of God when their doors are open to all, regardless of their background, their ethnicity or the ways we decide they are different. For each and every one of us, so many that we are as impossible to count as the dust of the earth. It is a promise repeated to Jacob later in another way: ‘I will … make your offspring as the sand of the sea, which cannot be counted because of their number’ (Genesis 32: 12; cf Genesis 28: 14). Each and every one of us is counted among those grains of sand. Yet each and every one of is unique and created truly in the image and likeness of God.

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

Canon Patrick Comerford is Director of Spiritual Formation, the Church of Ireland Theological Institute, and a canon of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin. This sermon was preached at Morning Prayer in Holmpatrick Parish Church, Skerries, Co Dublin, on Sunday 17 July 2011.

Walking around with our heads in the air ... or in the sand?

‘I will … make your offspring as the sand of the sea, which cannot be counted because of their number’ (Genesis 31: 12; cf Genesis 28: 14) … the cliffs and the sandy bay beneath Drumanagh, beyond the North Strand in Rush (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Sunday 17 July 2011: The Fourth Sunday after Trinity

9.30: The Eucharist (Holy Communion), Kenure Church, Rush, Co Dublin.

Genesis 28: 10-19a; Psalm 139: 1-11, 23-24; Romans 8: 12-25; Matthew 13: 24-30, 36-43.

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

Psalm 132, quoted on a plaque above the door at Saint George’s Church, Balbriggan (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

Have you ever noticed how often we walk around with our heads down – as if we are more afraid of what we are walking on instead of anticipating joyfully what is ahead of us?

Have you ever looked up on your way into Saint George’s Church in Balbriggan?

There is biblical text on a plaque above the main door on the south side of tower, and it reads:

I will not suffer mine eyes
to sleep nor mine eye-lids
to slumber • neither the
temples of my head to
take any rest;
Until I find out a place
for the temple of the Lord:, an habitation
for the mighty God of
Jacob.
– Psalm 132: 4-5.

The plaque probably dates from 1833. But the quotation from Psalm 132 is a text that relates to us today, that relates very much to our Bible readings, our lectionary readings, this morning.

Jacob has a very difficult night’s sleep – well who would not have a difficult night’s sleep after choosing a rock as a pillow?

In his dreams, he sees angels going up and down the ladder, the stairway, between heaven and earth. And then in the midst of all this rising and falling, looking up and looking down, he has a vision of the Lord God – not a vision to satisfy his own personal piety or one that gives him a sense of spiritual satisfaction, but one that is disturbing in a way.

For the God that Jacob has a vision of, an encounter with, is not just his personal God, a God to be locked away in the crevices of his heart and in the recesses of his soul.

This is the God who promises not just personal future security for Jacob and his family. This is the God who promises that through the descendants of Jacob the whole earth shall be blessed, that “all the families of the earth shall be blessed in you and in your offspring.”

Even though Jacob, when he wakes up, realises that God is in the very place where he has been, God’s promise extends to every corner of the earth … “to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south.”

We are very happy to claim that God is in our own little corner – and rightly so.

But are we as quick to realise that God is present in so many other little corners too?

The quotation on Saint George’s tower was chosen to give thanks for rebuilding the church after a fire in 1833. But it is a text that relates very much to our Bible readings, our lectionary readings this morning.

Like Jacob before them, the builders of the church wanted to acknowledge the presence of God in a holy place, and to mark that presence in stone.

That is valid. And it brings about a work of great beauty, a legacy that we should cherish and rejoice in.

But there are other holy places too.

I was saddened last month to read the story of an ultra-orthodox Hasidic Jew in Brooklyn who attacked his newly-married neighbour, pouring beer over her, punching her and verbally abusing her as an “Arab terrorist.”

The woman is a Muslim, but not an Arab – she is Turkish.

When her husband, who is also Turkish, came to her rescue, he too was punched in the face and verbally abused in similar terms.

When the police arrived, the man sought refuge in a local synagogue. When he was arrested, his wife and 20 neighbours signed a petition calling for the victim couple to be evicted.

Of course, Turks are not Arabs, not all Arabs are Muslims, and had the attacker been a Christian or any other religion, his behaviour would have been outrageous too.

Of course, Turks are not Arabs, not all Arabs are Muslims, and had the attacker been a Christian or any other religion, his behaviour would have been outrageous too. And, although the two have no connections, the incident pales in comparison with the murder of a small Jewish boy from a Hasidic neighbourhood of Brooklyn this week.

But so often, we invest so much of ethnic and national identity in our sacred places and our religious identity that we are in danger of squeezing God out of our sacred buildings and squeezing God out of our belief systems, so that they only serve me and my prejudices.

The former Osman Agha Mosque on the harbour-front on the remote Greek island of Kastellórizo, now used as a museum (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

Last week, I visited a number of mosques and churches in both Turkey and Greece. In both countries, so much national identity has been confused with religious identity that for many decades it was difficult to be either a Christian and a Turk or a Muslim and a Greek.

The narthex of the Church of Panayia Pyrgiotissa in Levessi (Kayaköy), above Fethiye in south-west Turkey ... the Christian villages were forced to leave in 1923, and the church was used as a mosque until the 1960s (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

Churches became a challenge to the integrity of Turkish identity; mosques became a challenge to the integrity of Greek identity. Both ceased in the eyes of others to be places of worship, places where those who worship in them – but no-one else – could say: “Surely the Lord is in this place … This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.”

How do we tell the weeds from the flowers? … the wild garden in the former churchyard of Saint Mary-at-Lambeth (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

So often, it is easy for me to confuse my prejudices with my religion, my presumptions with faith, the barriers that have been built by my communities over generations with the legacy of God’s promise.

So often, it is easy to look at the harvest God has for us in mission, and to see not wheat but what I regard as the weeds.

Who am I to say that what God has sown is merely a weed to be uprooted?

Every farmer knows that a field of wheat, a field of potatoes, a field of grass at this time of the year is also full with red poppies.

Driving through the countryside in Kildare and Carlow two weeks ago, the fields of green and gold were speckled with glorious red too.

Who am I to say that the weeds I despise are not precious flowers in the eyes of God?

And the more I want to weed out those I do not want within the Church, the more I am creating a sect that is in danger of dwindling in numbers until I am left as the only member.

So often, so many think the promises of Christ, the revelation of God in Christ, are just for one, small group, and want to do the weeding themselves rather than leaving both growth and weeding in the hands of God, to God’s discretion.

The true test of true religion is found not in the barriers we erect to the outside world, but in the fruit our faith bears (see Matthew 7: 16). And, as the Apostle Paul tells us in our New Testament reading this morning, “all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.”

The promises to Jacob during that restless, dream-filled night, were fulfilled in his descendants, but in so many exciting ways and people, that they are to be found in all nations.

As Simeon realised in the Temple when he saw the Christ Child, his eyes had seen God’s salvation which he had prepared “in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to to the nations” (see Luke 2: 31-32).

Our Church here is truly the house of God and the gate of heaven, and a habitation for the mighty God of Jacob.

But I must never confuse our churches and their structures – either the buildings or the denominations – with the Kingdom of God.

God’s hopes, God’s plans are for the whole of creation, so that “the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.”

And God’s plans for the Church, for the world and for his kingdom know no ethnic boundaries, and they do not allow us to decide who are weeds and who are harvest.

Our churches are truly the dwelling place of God when their doors are open to all, regardless of their background, their ethnicity or the ways we decide they are different. For each and every one of us, so many that we are as impossible to count as the dust of the earth. It is a promise repeated to Jacob later in another way: ‘I will … make your offspring as the sand of the sea, which cannot be counted because of their number’ (Genesis 32: 12; cf Genesis 28: 14). Each and every one of us is counted among those grains of sand. Yet each and every one of is unique and created truly in the image and likeness of God.

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

Canon Patrick Comerford is Director of Spiritual Formation, the Church of Ireland Theological Institute, and a canon of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin. This sermon was preached at the Eucharist in Kenure Church, Rush, Co Dublin, on Sunday 17 July 2011.

Collect:

O God, the protector of all who trust in you,
without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy:
Increase and multiply upon us your mercy;
that with you as our ruler and guide,
we may so pass through things temporal
that we finally lose not the things eternal:
Grant this, heavenly Father,
for Jesus Christ’s sake, our Lord. Amen.

Post Communion Prayer:

Eternal God,
comfort of the afflicted and healer of the broken,
you have fed us at the table of life and hope.
Teach us the ways of gentleness and peace,
that all the world may acknowledge
the kingdom of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Visiting Lycian rock tombs and searching the streets for sarcophagi

The Tomb of Amyntas, in the rock face above Fethiye (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

Patrick Comerford

The resorts of Hisaronou and Ovacik, halfway between Fethiye and Oludeniz, are packed with tourists in search of sun-and-sand holiday. With the temperatures in the high 30s, and hitting 40 at times, they have probably been getting more sun they expected.

A local restaurateur was dismissive of Hisaronou, referring to it in conversation as “Blackpool-in-Turkey.” Ovacik is a little more restrained, and in the Grand Ucel Hotel where I am staying in Ovacik, most of the guests and holiday-makers are Turkish families.

But Ovacik is also an important cultural centre as the starting point for the Lycian Way, a long-distance trail from Ovacik through Kas to Antalya, and running parallel to the Turquoise Coast in this part of south-west Turkey.

It is too hot at the height of summer to walk the Lycian Way, but this area abounds with reminders that this was once the centre of the great Lycian civilisation, which had its own language and customs and which has left a distinctive legacy in this part of Anatolia.

The Lycians were first mentioned in the Iliad, when Homer says they fought on the side of Troy in the Trojan Wars. They fiercely rejected Persian and Greek conquerors, but after Alexander the Great they were ruled by Ptolemies they gradually lost their Lycian language and customs, replacing them with Greek ways.

Under the Romans, they enjoyed a degree of autonomy, and so the Lycian civilisation continued to be an important impressive part of the classical world.

The great Lycian centres included Tlos and Xanthos, east of Fethiye, but Fethiye itself has a collection of some of the finest and most accessible Lycian tombs.

And so over the past week I have used the opportunity of being based near Fethiye to climb the cliffs to the rock tombs, and to wander the streets in search of sarcophagi.

Lycian rock tombs, clinging to the rock face of the cliffs above the harbour in Fethiye (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

High above the harbour, a collection of rock tombs clings to the cliff-face, some of them as if they are defying gravity, looking as if they were about tip down on the city below.

In a collection of three temple-like Lycian tombs carved out of the rock, the most note-worthy tomb is the Tomb of Amyntas. The tomb looks like an Ionic temple and was built in 350 BC. It is named after the inscription carved in Greek letters on the side: “Amyntou tou Ermagioiu” (Αμυντου του Ερμαγηοηυ), “Armyntas son of Hermagios.”

What makes the tomb unique from the other tombs is its size – most of the mountain-side tombs are the size of a small room, but the height of this tomb is equivalent to that of a full-sized temple.

The porch of the tomb displays two Ionic columns surmounted by a triangular pediment, carved like the façade of a temple. The details of this imitation of a temple are so perfect that they include imitation bronze nails as if they studded into the doorframes.

The tomb would have been entered through the bottom-right panel of the doorway, but this was broken through by robbers in the past.

A Lycian sarcophagus ... treated as a traffic island in the back streets of Fethiye (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

Below, the streets are littered with a number of Lycian-type sarcophagi, many with epitaphs in Lycian script. One large tomb stands in the middle of a side-street, marked with graffiti and with bollards and a red light to protect it from motorists who drive by on either side. More lie beside one another behind iron railings, as if they were graves in an abandoned churchyard.

A vault-shaped Lycian sarcophagus carved with intricate images of warriors in battle and feasting friends, hidden beside the government offices near the harbour at Fethiye (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

But perhaps the most interesting is missed by tourists and visitors, tucked in beside the government house, a few metres back from the seafront. Yet this vault-shaped tomb dating from the 4th century BC is one of the best surviving examples of a Lycian sarcophagus. Its carved stonework imitates the construction of wooden buildings, with coffered decorations on the narrow facades and imitation wooden beams along the longer edges. The relief depicting warriors in battle and feasting friends, reflecting the high social status of the Lycian ruler buried here.

The ruins of the Hellenistic theatre of Telmessos in Fethiye (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

At the other end of the seafront stands the remains of the Hellenistic theatre, which waits to be excavated thoroughly and waits for archaeologists with vision for its restoration. Appropriately it stands opposite the boarding point for the ferry to Rhodes – it is impossible to separate the classical cultures that once thrived in this corner of Europe and that fed into each other. Sadly, much of the masonry was carted away after the earthquake in 1957 and used as building material.

On the acropolis above the harbour stands the mediaeval ruin known as the Knights’ Castle. Although the fortress is said to have been built by the Knights of Saint John, there is a variety of architectural styles in the ruins, showing that the Lycians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines and Ottomans valued and continued to use this site over the centuries.