Friday, September 08, 2006

Religion in Crete

Well, you can't get a graduate degree in religious studies and not look at religion on vacation, right?! One of the days while we were at the conference in Kolymbari, I went up the road to
Gonia, the local Greek Orthodox Monastery. (scroll down when you check out this link, Gonia is described about halfway down the page) Most of the people in Crete are Greek Orthodox, and from the conference center, you could hear the monks chanting and smell incense, on occasion. Gonia fought off the Turk invaders and has a fascinating collection of icons, handmade vestments and Byzantine artifacts. These include legal documents written in Turkish (when Turkish used Arabic script) and even Greek documents in which the calligraphic handwriting looked remarkably Arabic in influence. The mosque built by the Turks still dots the horizon in Chania; many religions meet in Crete.

History books often pretend that long ago, the Greek and Roman, Arab and Western worlds were separate places with a lot of isolation; this is just not right or subtle enough, in some ways, we've had a global religious society forever. I wish I could show you photos of the things I saw at Greek Orthodox places, but photographs aren't allowed in these holy places and of course, I respected that.

The last day of the conference arrived and we went back to Chania for our last night in Crete. We took advantage of the extra time to eat gelato, wander the streets near the harbour, and eat a meal in a restaurant called "Steki" (The Haunt) which is housed in a ruin.

We also visited the synagogue. Crete had a very old Jewish community, thousands of years old, but when the Nazis occupied Crete, they rounded up the 300 Jews on the island and put them aboard a ship to Auschwitz Concentration Camp, along with hundreds of Cretan members of the resistance. The ship was torpedoed by the English and everyone perished. (at least they were saved the inhumane death by deprivation at the camps. Baruch Dayan Ha-Emet)

The synagogue was immediately looted and taken over by squatters. Over the years, there were stray animals, a chicken coop and dumps on the site of this congregation. In the mid to late '90's, an international and local inter-faith effort was made to restore the synagogue, because without this restoration, the Nazis would have succeeded--erasing thousands of years of Jewish ritual and culture.

I don't have great photos of this
extraordinary place. However, Etz Hayyim (this means "Tree of Life" in English) is a remarkable place, complete with a website that's worth exploring. There are now daily prayers again with mixed seating, and it's a peaceful sanctuary, sheltered in a verdant courtyard. There's an old alcove in the wall for ritual handwashing. There is a library filled with books on religion, in many languages, in an area that used to be one of the women's sections. There is a restored mikveh, a ritual bath, that was so inviting that I wanted to use it....Apparently it is still used by brides and there is room there for a traditional Middle Eastern Henna party for the bride, which used to be usual in Crete.

Generally, Jews bury their dead in cemeteries away from places of worship, but during a time of political unrest, several very esteemed rabbis were buried in one of the courtyards within the walls of the congregation. The date of the earliest seems to be 1710, and we were able to visit this grave, too.

There are very few Jews in Crete now. The area around the synagogue was, at times, a ghetto where Jews were forced to live, but while the old buildings still remain, there are no traces of that civilization left.

Our last Chania encounter was equally meaningful. I met a German woman, Anja, who married into an old Greek weaving family. The family has a shop called Roka Carpets, which has been housed for generations in an old Venetian town house. This family is one of the last in Crete to maintain Cretan weaving traditions. Their wool comes from the extended family's sheep, handspun on drop spindles, hand-dyed by the family. There were 3 or 4 looms in the shop, and many kilims and carpets. They are now struggling to make ends meet in an age of mass-produced textiles. They make weavings to order, and I have their contact information for anyone who'd like to know more.

In the front of the shop, a large embroidered art curtain, a parochet, hung. Anja embroidered this curtain for Etz Hayyim for use on the high holidays and it took her 7 months. It's a fabulous job, filled with19th century traditional Jewish ornaments like peacocks, lions, a menorah, and a biblical quote. This was all done in Hebrew that Anja had checked by a rabbi in Tel Aviv for accuracy. This fabulous piece of handiwork also shows the rich interdependence of a small, ancient diverse community. While tourism keeps Crete alive, the old traditions are struggling, and both the Jewish community of Crete and Roka Carpets are struggling to stay afloat in the current global economy.

I was really touched, enriched, and affected by this trip. In many ways, it helped reinforce much of the history I studied in college and in graduate school. I saw interfaith and intercultural dialogue in a tangible way that is hard to gather from graduate seminars and old microfilm. Yes, I'd studied much of these historical occupations and cultural exchanges, but in Crete, you can see it in the people, in the landscape and buildings, and in the daily custom. This is a Greek Orthodox environment where one can eat a meal in an old Turkish Hamam, look at Christian art influenced by Islam, and see Jewish traditions, distinct and yet influenced by the Muslim and Christian environment around them.

I was sad to leave Crete and come home, but the long airplane journey (over 20 hours) reminded me how far away Kentucky is from Crete. The security wasn't onerous at all, and oddly, the most comforting thing I packed for the journey was the Boucle Wrap that I just posted a free pattern for on my website. It was the perfect lightweight, warm throw for an 11 hour flight across the ocean. You can never tell when something warm and knitted will come in handy.


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