Last tolls, last feasts and a synaxis.

The population of Skopelos is apparently about 6000 people. There are over 300 churches. I’m not sure what other place in the world can boast one church for every 20 people. I have attached some photos of several of the churches near our current home.

On Sunday the bells started tolling at 6am just after a pink, pink dawn to announce another blue, blue day. At about 8am deep, deep resonant male voices started chanting a Greek orthodox liturgy. It was quite mournful but mesmerising and lasted for 2 hours or so.

Sunday was the 6th Sunday of Matthew, and the feast of Andrew of Crete, author of the Great Canon; St. Martha, mother of St. Symeon; Stylites the Younger; Asclepias the Wonderworker; and, the Holy Royal Martyrs of Russia to name a selection.

During the week there was much tolling on the 29th of June, the feast of Saints Peter and Paul and on the 30th of June for the synaxis of the 12 apostles. (Peter, Andrew, James, John, Phillip, Bartholomew, Thomas, Matthew, James, Jude, Simon and Mathias.) I can still recite this list learnt a long time ago at school.

So what is a synaxis? I must admit I did not know until I checked out some facts around this week’s bells but in Eastern Christianity (the Orthodox Church and those Eastern Catholic Churches which follow the Byzantine Rite), a synaxis is an assembly for liturgical purposes. It can occur on a day following a major feast day. So I have deduced that this week had the major feast day on the 29th and the associated synaxis on the 30th of June!

We are at that point in the trip where are doing lots of lasts. One is looking across and way up the hill to the Monastery of Evangelismos (the annunciation). The story goes that about 250 years ago two anonymous monks appeared on Skopelos at the home of a nobleman, Stephen Dapontes, and presented him with a very beautiful icon of the Virgin Mary from 14th century Constantinople. They asked him to keep it safe for them until they came back. He agreed to do so but they never came back and indeed his enquiries indicated that nobody else on the island had seen the monks coming or going. Then the Virgin Mary appeared before Dapontes and suggested that he build an appropriate home for the icon. He started building the monastery at the base of the mountain but every night of its own volition it moved higher up the hill until it stopped at where it is today (see monastery on hill in a rather hazy photo). The icon can still be seen in the monastery these days which is home to a contemplative order of nuns.

Speaking of saintly things, we headed over to the other side of the island for probably our ‘last other side of the island lunch’ and some saintly food to celebrate all these feast days. We were joined by some locals so it was a longish tavern-on-the-sea-Greek- style-lunch which included swimming and which lasted from about 1pm-6pm. Some photos are attached.

We ate at Agnontas, and checked out Panormos and Cape Andrina. Now Andrina’s tale is a little different to the Virgin Mary’s. The story has it that a pirate ship dropped anchor near Panormos and the pirates trekked off overland to plunder Skopelos town, leaving behind Andrina, wife of the pirate captain, to look after the ship. The pirates’ plan did not go so well, as the Skopelots, assisted by the patronage of Virgin Mary from up on the hill, killed off all the pirates. Word of the massacre got back to Andrina, who quickly grabbed all the bounty on the pirate ship and hid it in the rock crevices in the cliffs. Her way of looking after the ship was to sink it, before diving into the sea from one of the rocks. There is still a strong belief that somewhere in the rocks, there is treasure to be discovered. Andrina had a cape named in her honour.

This too will probably also be the last 2010 Skopelos meditation as we begin to turn our minds towards that slightly bigger island of Australia.