A light in the dark

We had to put the heating on last night. It was about 22:00 and we were inspecting the back of our eyelids, waiting to head to the square, outside the church, for the Easter day celebrations that would  start at midnight. It had been a cloudy day, with the odd short rain shower. So maybe it was psychological, but I wanted Missy Bear to be warm and welcoming when we crawled back in later.

It was hard to believe that two weeks earlier Tony and I had been swimming off the bathing platform in an anchorage on Kythnos. Or that a week later, we were bathing in pools of hot-volcanic spring water on the beach at Loutra Edipsou. To be fair, as we laid in what seemed like an overly-hot bath (with no cold-water tap to mediate the discomfort), we could gaze over the Evia gulf and spot ice and snow cloaking the tops of the faded, blue mountains on the mainland beyond. The snow should have reminded us that it was still mid-Spring.

Plus, we had been travelling north; instead of the sea temperature increasing, it had dropped a degree centigrade or so. No-one was now considering a dip off the stern.

We had arrived in Skiathos Town to collect our next guest Charlotte (one of Alix’s ex work colleagues), and were stern-to the new town quay. Give it two more weeks, when the tourist/sailing season starts, and we would never get anywhere near the quay for charter and day-tripper boats. Another benefit of spring sailing, to offset the changeable weather!

The alarm went at 23:00, and we hopped off Missy Bear and followed the crowds down towards the Bourtzi (the site of a Venetian fort on the small, rocky headland), then turned right along the old port, past the monument to Lieutenant General Laskos, and finally up the hill towards the main church. The square and surrounding tavernas and bars were heaving. But we managed to find a seat in a bar across the small square, with a great view of the church entrance.

The hum and buzz of the crowd – all generations present – was interspersed by the crack and boom of fireworks down on the quay below. The ‘mortar’ like sound of the loudest ones, ricocheted off the buildings and certainly made me jump. This was no organised display in the UK with all the usual H&S trimmings. No, this was the local youths, taking it in turns to lob these lit grenades-of-fun onto the quay, and then run way before the explosion popped their ear drums.

Candlelight at Easter

Maybe there was no irony in the fact that these explosions were happening right next to a display of a sinister-looking German torpedo, of the type that sank the submarine of the aforementioned, martyred Laskos.

The Greeks certain do like an heroic martyr; you will often see public statues of the more modern genre. But love of martyrdom is probably down to their Orthodox Religion. It’s quite normal, when visiting monasteries or churches, to see ancient images on the walls, of the various gruesome ends of the saints. The medieval peoples certainly had few limits to their imagination for how to torture, and then finally dispatch, individuals they deemed to be a threat.

I think constant association with images of martyrdom must give the troubled and persecuted some inner strength? The people of Skiathos in the middle-ages were certainly living in challenging times. The threat to these islanders - as to all other islanders in the Mediterranean - mainly came from piracy. The sea was a lawless domain. In the fourteenth century, the people of the old Skiathos town, decided to abandon their homes and move to the north of the island and live – huddled together - on a small, rocky pinnacle, that became known as Kastro (castle). It is a precipitous location that reminded me of the pinnacles of Meteora. It was protected on three sides by cliffs above the sea, and on the fourth by a narrow drawbridge.

Kastro

Kastro

The site is now ruined, apart from the remains of the gate building, one of the four churches and maybe one of the three to four hundred tiny residences. It is now under renovation, which made my getting access to it rather a physical challenge.

The human inhabitants must have lived like puffins crammed together on top of a rock in the Farne Islands off the Northumbrian coast They survived here during the loose governance periods of the Venetians and the Ottomans. They only felt safe enough to return to their ancestral home of Skiathos town after Greek Independence in 1830.

Their martyr of choice at Kastro was St George. I think he was martyred by the Romans for failing to renounce his Christian beliefs. Perhaps the dragon was a metaphor for the non-believers – maybe the Romans (or perhaps more latterly, Islam?) I am no theologian. A notice board says that arced grooves in the paving stones on the approach to the Kastro are from the hooves of St George’s horse. Well, maybe…

One of St George's most famous alleged quotes is, “in the face of darkness, let your light shine brighter than ever.” Which brings us back to Easter Sunday at 00:01. The bells in the church clock tower started chiming frenetically, and the priest and his entourage (all male as far as I could tell) exited the church door an into the square. The priest, who is the twin brother of Uncle Albert, was carrying a candle. The hum and buzz of the crowd barely diminished, nor do the nerve-busting explosions from the quay, which seemed to be getting more frequent. The priest and his aide started chanting some liturgy, which was barely detectable above the din. By some miracle, as he started another stanza, the crowd arounds us pricked up their ears and started joining in in unison, for a minute. And then the general rabble continued.

Most people seemed to be carrying candles, unlit at present, but with little plastic cups near the top, to protect fingers from hot wax. And then we realised that the main light, held by the priest, was being used to light other neighbouring candles, which in turn lit their neighbours’, in a sparkling, flickering relay. The Greeks standing next to us, a little remote from the priest, soon realised that getting a light from that source was going to be challenging, so resorted to their cigarette lighters instead. This ritual is, of course, a reminder to all of the ultimate Chistian martyr.

Lots of cheek-kissing and felicitations were shared - perhaps, "Christ is trully risen". And then the mass - I hesitate to call it a procession - headed back down the hill to the port.

The adolescents and their ad-hoc, kamikaze mortar display had never stopped for breath throughout. Still, it was all very congenial. And nearly as congenial as the warmth of the heated saloon that we felt as we crawled back into Missy Bear at about 01:00.