“Scattered across the surrounding hills and throughout the entire rural amphitheater are an astonishing number of churches.
The immeasurable depth of Orthodoxy, with the houses of God that you encounter everywhere in Greece, whether you make your way through the ravines and mountains or along the sea-washed shores of this maritime land, three-quarters of which is surrounded by the sea, where the people have always found the foundation of their spiritual truth: 'that you may know how one ought to conduct oneself in the house of God, which is the Church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth.'
Faith and language, peasant and fisherman or sailor—the two primordial, indestructible cells, bound together in the form of a cross, like the lion, the angel, the ox, and the eagle upon the Tetramorph, or again like the four primordial elements, those four so celebrated, inexhaustible sources, flowing abundantly through life and death, ever-flowing springs that sustain a people who are the guardians of one of the most wondrous religions and languages in the world. […]
Looking upon our whitewashed chapels, and knowing that whether you enter Hagia Sophia or Saint George at Antikeri, spiritually you enter the same place. I now find myself thinking from here of another Orthodox country—not a small and poor one, but a great and wealthy one.”
The immeasurable depth of Orthodoxy, with the houses of God that you encounter everywhere in Greece, whether you make your way through the ravines and mountains or along the sea-washed shores of this maritime land, three-quarters of which is surrounded by the sea, where the people have always found the foundation of their spiritual truth: 'that you may know how one ought to conduct oneself in the house of God, which is the Church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth.'
Faith and language, peasant and fisherman or sailor—the two primordial, indestructible cells, bound together in the form of a cross, like the lion, the angel, the ox, and the eagle upon the Tetramorph, or again like the four primordial elements, those four so celebrated, inexhaustible sources, flowing abundantly through life and death, ever-flowing springs that sustain a people who are the guardians of one of the most wondrous religions and languages in the world. […]
Looking upon our whitewashed chapels, and knowing that whether you enter Hagia Sophia or Saint George at Antikeri, spiritually you enter the same place. I now find myself thinking from here of another Orthodox country—not a small and poor one, but a great and wealthy one.”
- From Zissimos Lorenzatos, In the Furrow of the Helm (Στου τιμονιού το αυλάκι, 1983).
This passage comes from In the Furrow of the Helm by the Greek writer and essayist Zissimos Lorenzatos (1915–2004), first published in Athens in 1983. The work is a collection of reflections arising from Lorenzatos’s journeys by boat through the Greek islands and coastal regions. More than a travel account, it uses the Greek landscape, its people, history, language, and religious traditions as occasions for deeper reflections on Greek identity and the spiritual character of the country.
Here, Lorenzatos reflects on the countless churches and chapels scattered throughout Greece and sees them as evidence of the enduring depth of Orthodoxy in Greek life. He places faith and language at the heart of this inheritance and emphasizes that a humble rural chapel possesses the same spiritual reality as Hagia Sophia in Constantinople. His closing reference to an “Orthodox country—not a small and poor one, but a great and wealthy one” can be understood not necessarily as a reference to another geographical country, but as a poetic vision of Greece itself: materially small and poor, yet spiritually great and rich.
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos. Photos have their source here, and show the lonely Chapel of Saint George on the private uninhabited island of Kato Antikeri.
Here, Lorenzatos reflects on the countless churches and chapels scattered throughout Greece and sees them as evidence of the enduring depth of Orthodoxy in Greek life. He places faith and language at the heart of this inheritance and emphasizes that a humble rural chapel possesses the same spiritual reality as Hagia Sophia in Constantinople. His closing reference to an “Orthodox country—not a small and poor one, but a great and wealthy one” can be understood not necessarily as a reference to another geographical country, but as a poetic vision of Greece itself: materially small and poor, yet spiritually great and rich.
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos. Photos have their source here, and show the lonely Chapel of Saint George on the private uninhabited island of Kato Antikeri.
