Temenos: Get in the Habit

Proud Evzones

Procession of icon through the village

On Saturday the village was awash with visitors, mostly Greeks but also many foreigners, who descended to watch the procession of the church’s famous icon through the narrow village streets for its feast day. The assemblage included: dozens of priests, monks, bishops (including the archbishop to the prefecture), the army special forces (toting M-16s), the navy, local police, the Pylos marching band, girl and boy scouts, and the Finikounda dance troupe, festooned in traditional clothing. And everyone in the village following behind. Most listened to the services from the megaphones that are attached to the belltower—while the pious and the clergy sweated it out inside the church itself.

The procession circled the village, led by the marching band, the archbishop, and the navy guard which carried the icon. Many homes and merchants had lit candles on their doorstops, or smoking incense trays. The gypsies were encamped in the school playground, selling a wide variety of bric-a-brac; several whole roast pigs appeared on wooden slabs, chopped into meal portions and wrapped into heavy waxed paper. The wine flowed (starting at 10 a.m.) and the atmosphere was friendly and boisterous.

The Dance Festival

An ability to perform the traditional dances of the Peloponnese is a point of pride in the village. Real men (and boys, girls, women) dance, while the others sit on the sidelines wondering where they went wrong in school.

At 9 p.m., in the village amphitheater that overlooks the fishing harbor, the dances begin. Overly amplified music provides the rhythmic foundation, while different troupes demonstrate the dances from the various regions of Greece, not just the Peloponnese: Crete, Epirus, Thrace, the Dodecanese and Cycladic Islands. The costumes, mostly made of heavy wool and flowing cotton, are colorful works of textile art.

Koroni

Two of the most famous Venetian (Crusader) castles, both in excellent shape after one thousand years of multiple sieges, lie astride Finikounda: the castles of Methoni (ancient Medon) and Koroni, which were on the Crusader trail of the Middle Ages, jealously are variously guarded and defended by the Venetians, Genoese, Turks, Greeks, and Nazis—from the 12^th century until the 20^th century.

Food, wonderful food--for strength before the nunnery

Methoni castle, with its height of population of over 20,000 inhabitants, fell to the Ottoman Turks after a lengthy siege. All of the men and boys were promptly decapitated and the women and girls were sold into (mostly sexual) slavery.

Koroni castle had a similar history. The city, owing to its founding by one of Christ’s apostles, was worthy of a bishop (like Rome, Antioch, Jerusalem, among others). When the Ottoman Turks siezed the castle, after a lengthy siege in the 1600s, the Orthodox bishop was ordered to convert to Islam—along with this Christian minions. He refused and was summarily thrown several hundred feet from the ramparts onto the rocks, martyred by the oppressors from the East

A small cel for a big girl? She will have nun of it

Both castles and its inhabitants succumbed to a particular religion that many liberal pundits and feel-good politicians say professes “peace and love.”

But the Orthodox Christians of the Peloponnese, held in abject slavery for 300 years, had their revenge in the 1820s—and thus the modern Greek state was founded.

Holy Monastery of St. John, Koroni

Modestly sanctified minus the piety

Today a new Ottoman sultan has arisen, championed as a “strong man” and a “defender of liberty” by a certain malcontent U.S. president who associates himself with other likeminded anti-democratic leaders—the autocratic Russian demagogue, the neo-fascists of Hungary, the right-wing nationalists of Poland, the extrajudicial-killing president of the Philippines. All of them good friends and allies—while democratic Europe is treated as a pariah to American “values.” If our parents were the “greatest generation,” the Orange Crush is among the most dangerous ones.

Is orange is the new Goebbels? Will the US military be patroling our city streets anytime soon? Wake up and smell the napalm.

As they say, you are the company you keep. Despicable, obscene, small-minded, fear-filled men stick together--they have no other choice. And what is the common thread among these "men"? They are privileged cowards, who have spent lifetimes preying on the most vulnerable in society.

All of which brings to mind the classic rallying cry of Greek Independence, on the lips of every child and adult in this proud country: Ελευθερία η Θάνατος—Freedom or Death!

Lest we learn the hard way.