I had a dream (Ονειρεύτηκα)

I don't normally remember my dreams. They are forgotten almost as quickly as I wake up and open my eyes. This one contained elements of both my past and present life, and it married them so beautifully, which is perhaps why I can still remember quite a few details of that dream. I just related it to a colleague, and she thought it was quite symbolic of the times we live in, so I decided to write it down, just for the record.

I'm in the Greek Orthodox Church of Wellington. What am I doing here, I ask myself. I try not to make myself look too conspicuous. It's the moment when the δίσκο (THIS-ko - collection tray) is being passed around. 'I don't want to hear any clink-clink', the (now-deceased) Archbishop says (as I recall him saying once when I was still living in Wellington - he preferred to hear a gentle rustle, like leaves falling from the trees to the ground). 

The collection tray passes by me, but I don't add any money to it. I remember thinking that the church doesn't pay property taxes. But the old man passing it round stays rooted to the ground in front of me. So much for not wanting to make myself look conspicuous; I just shrug back at him. He points to the tray with his finger and nods towards me, making it obvious that he won't leave if I don't contribute. 

I take out my purse and open it. Then I turn it upside down over the collection tray. The clink-clink sound can be heard as a few coppers fall onto it. Nothing silver comes out with it. The old man is now both annoyed and embarrassed. "I've just come from Greece," I say, "and we're still under capital controls!"

A lady turns and looks at me very sympathetically. She disappears for a moment behind the μπαγκάρι (ba-GA-ri - candle counter). When she returns, she is holding an EFT-POS machine. 

I don't know what happened next, because at this point I woke up. According to a Kiwi friend, there is indeed an EFT-POS machine now in Wellington's Greek Orthodox church.

Καλή Χρονιά!

Happy New Year!

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Theocracy (Θεοκρατία)

I was brought up by a zealously religious Greek mother in New Zealand. We went to church every week, fasted before every Christmas and Easter, and performed all manner of religious rituals, together with the paraphernalia that they are often accompanied by, eg the use of incense, censer, icons, and so on. On Saturday night and Sunday afternoons, if we weren't going out, I would incense (pun not intended) my mother by doing embroidery, crochet or knitting; this was considered 'work' in her time, unlike in my youth when it was considered a hobby. In fact, it was the only time I actually had time to take up my needlework hobby, since I was going to school, working in the family shop and doing my homework all the other times. So I considered it a breach of my rights when she reprimanded me for taking part in this activity on the aforementioned times. She was living in a different time and place from the one stated on the calendar or on the street signs. Her life was all mapped out for her by her past and her religion, regardless of location and year.

When I came to Greece, I noticed how little religion seemed to affect people. Churches and souvlaki shops lived harmoniously together; the former did not shut the latter down during fasting periods. I was reminded clearly of this when I met my Greek husband, who had lived virtually all his life in Hania. Before we got married, my family from Athens had come to Crete for the Easter period, on the pretext of meeting him. After the Good Friday service where the epitafio is solemnly paraded round the village, followed by grave marching bands and chanting dark-clad women, my fiance suggested that we go out for dinner. My family was used to going home after the Good Friday church service - in other words, continuing the solemnity of the occasion. We all thought his request was rather strange: going out and having fun on Good Friday evening, just as we had witnessed the reenactment of Christ being crucified, did not seem to collocate well. On the other hand, he couldn't understand what the fuss was all about: "Your guests came from very far away to see us - shouldn't we provide the appropriate hospitality?" he replied on his part. We were all of the same religion, but some of us let it rule us more than necessary.

I had another religiously surreal moment in my life just after we got married, when we were spending our first Christmas together. Being a taxi owner-operator, my husband had little idea of what Christmas holidays meant, as he worked on most holidays (back in the good old days, when holidays brought in the most money for cabbies). I told him that I'd be having two weeks off work, starting two days before Christmas Day and ending on St John's Saint's Day in the New Year. "Christmas Day always falls on Sunday, doesn't it?" he asked me, as he tried to work out which days I wouldn't be working. I reminded him that this rule applied only to Easter, not Christmas. But when you're working every day, Sunday and holidays become blurred. Every day becomes a weekday, and a weekday could even be a Sunday. Our religion may call Sunday a day of rest, but only you know when you can afford to take that rest, and it won't necessarily be a Sunday.

Since then, I haven't bothered with religion much. It's there, all over the place in Greece, but it doesn't have to rule our life. If it did, we'd still have our religion stated on our identity cards (this became obsolete over a decade ago), and we'd still feel guilty if we drank milk or ate meat during the 50-day Easter fast.

I have to admit that I was a little shocked to hear Tayip Erdogan recently proclaiming that he will bring in new laws to stop people buying alcohol after a certain hour in the evening. He's clearly encroaching on the human rights that politicians before him took great care to ensure for Turkish citizens. What's even more worrying is that this alcohol ban is a sign of the Islamification of a country whose modern origins separated religion from the state. At a time when the world is moving towards more transparency and the freedom to choose how we want to live, deposing despots and bringing in a more egalitarian order, Erdogan is behaving like a tyrant, telling his subjects how they should conduct themselves in life. It would be akin to the state introducing a law banning the operation of souvlatzidika during fasting periods according to the Greek Orthodox church: In a similar manner to Erdogan, who believes people should buy their alcohol before 10pm and drink it at home, the Greek state would tell people who don't want to follow the fasting rules of Lent to buy their meat and cook it in their own home.

Is that the face of the modern world we live in? Only a theocracy would find this acceptable. So whose god is right?

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Catholic (Καθολικός)

When I said yesterday that I hadn't been to the Venetian port lately, I was telling a little white lie. Just three days before that refreshing coffee and ice cream, I was there on my own, representing my household at the Roman Catholic funeral of my next-door neighbour. Michael Angelo, a Sicilian college professor who lived for many years in Rome, came with his wife fifteen years ago to live in Hania, where his daughter lived with her Greek husband. In your old age, as a Southern Mediterranean, you generally don't want to have to rely on unreliable third parties or the equally unreliable state to look after you at a time when you can't look after yourself. You turn to your family, and you go where they go; as the Greeks say: όπου γης και πατρίς (home is wherever you find yourself). Michael Angelo died in his mid-80s, the same age as my late uncle whose funeral I helped to prepare; both Greeks and Italians score highly in longevity rates. 

 The Catholic church of Hania is located behind the town's Archaeological Museum, where the Folklore Museum is also housed. A Capuchin monastery is affiliated to the church, and monks are seen going about their business in their gowns. You rarely see them on the tourist road, only if you peek down the alleyway. You would only know they're there if you wander into this private courtyard. It feels a bit like Diagon Alley - quite a different world there compared to the main road.

Michael Angelo's funeral was held at the Roman Catholic church of Hania, located close to the Venetian port behind the town's archaeological museum. The Roman Catholic church has always held some form of presence in Hania since Venetian times, but once the Venetians were ousted by the invading Ottomans, the church stopped operating in Crete, and only began functioning again in relatively recent times: the Catholic Diocese of Crete was once again established in 1874 and the church in Hania was constructed in 1879. The service was held in Greek, and the whole neighbourhood attended. In fact, of the 60 or so people who filled up the small church, more than 50 were Greek Orthodox. Michael Angelo didn't have any relatives in Hania apart form his immediate family through his daughter and her children, but he and his wife (Susanna, a beautiful slim energetic woman) had plenty of friends in our picturesque rural Cretan village.

 

 Graves and tombstones at the Fragkiko cemetery of Hania: Gerald (below) obviously wanted to be buried in Crete.

Although Greece is predominantly Christian Orthodox in faith, the many immigrants of Greece are not, and there has always been a need for funeral rites and burial places of other denominations*. Catholics in Hania are buried in a small inner-city cemetery known locally as the Frangiko cemetery (from the Franks, the French). The cemetery has only a few graves, which are opened in turn for the burial of the most recent death. The graves seem to date back to the mid-1860s; not all describe the oldest occupant, as the tombstone has been partly destroyed over time (or by vandals).

A 22-year-old sailor's memorial: 1844-1866 - this is possibly the first burial of a Catholic in the Fragkiko cemetery, since the chapel (below) in the cemetery was established in 1866. The plaque lies right in front of the white door, to the left.

 

 

Family graves are very common in rural Greece; in towns, this is difficult to achieve due to lack of space. The main Greek cemetery in Hania (Agios Loukas) has an ossuary to keep the bones of the dead in so that the graves (which are in fact too few for the population of the town) can be re-used. I came across one such grave in the Fragkiko cemetery, which seemed to belong to a family of Cretan Catholics. It was one of the most well tended graves there; according to the dates of birth and death, the occupants seemed to have died quite young. Another very impressive and well-tended grave was that of what seemed like a German couple who died in the 20th century before WW2.  

Michael Angelo's wife does not intend to return to Italy. She was relieved to have found a place in Hania for her husband's final resting place. That way, she can visit the grave and tend it in a similar way to what the Greeks do. The cemetery is used by all Catholics of any nationality; I noticed a number of Polish names with recent burials on some of the tombstones, evidence of our well-established minority communities.

*To date, only Christian Orthodox and Catholic cemeteries exist in Hania, although there is a significant Moslem population here too, who have to travel to Northern Greece (Komotini) if they want to be buried according to Islamic traditions, but a Moslem cemetery is currently being built in Iraklio. For a town that was conquered and ruled by Moslems for four centuries, it seems strange that a cemetery did not remain for them too, as it did for the Catholics. If I'm correct, Ottoman Moslems used to be buried in the area of Nea Hora, which was outside the town limits at the time.  

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Then and now (Πριν και τώρα)

Although I didn't study history formally at school, I enjoyed learning about the past history of the city where I was born and raised, Wellington, mainly through old photos of the first colonisers of New Zealand: the women in their frilly white dresses and long hair tied up in a bun, the men in their stiff formal suits, sporting old-fashioned hats and thick bushy moustaches.

Quite a different picture of the history of the town where I now live is gained from old photographs of the same period. The workers' association of INKA supermarket, a local supermarket chain in Hania, puts out a calendar every year to raise funds. This year's calendar contained an interesting collection of archive photographs showing how Hania was a century ago. I've copied a few of these photos and compared them with what the area looks like now (these photos are also available over the internet, along with many others).

The present law courts of Hania were once a Turkish hospital. The hills above are now part of the suburbs Lentariana and Agios Ioannis.

Koum Kapi, a phrase taken from the Arabic language, as seen from a distance; the area hasn't really changed much.

The Agora, the main market of Hania, was originally built as an open market with covered stalls.

Some things are gone forever; the Turkish kiosk at Splantzia is no longer with uss. Instead, there is a large open square in front of the Greek-Orthodox church of St Nikolas (which also has a minaret attached to its right-hand side, attesting its multicultural history), shaded by a plane tree.

A century (or so) ago, Hania was dominated by Greeks, who were mainly Christians, with a significant Greek-speaking Moslem population (whose origins were Turkish), and a Jewish minority. The different religions were all practiced openly by each group. The Moslems and the Jews lived mainly within their own enclaves in the city; some of their monuments have stood the test of time. A number of minority nationalities were also present in the town, notably the Halikoutides (presumably Egyptians). 

The town that my parents knew at about the time they emigrated was mainly a monocultural one. The Moslems were forced out during the population exchange with Turkey in 1922, while the Jews were forced to leave (and few survived) during WW2.

You can get a glimpse of monocultural Hania in this 1961 video.

The town I am now living in is still Greek-Christian dominated, but there are many other nationalities living among the Greek population. Albanians probably form the largest and most well established minority group in Hania (they are not leaving the town, as is the case of other Albanian immigrants in other parts of Greece), and there is also a large group of Greek-speaking Russian-Greeks whose origins are from the Black Sea. Bulgarians are also present in strong numbers, as are a number of North African nationalities. Although the town could be said to be multi-cultural in this sense, the rise in fascism has created problems for certain groups at certain times of the day (ie at night) in certain areas. This is especially a problem in the case of non-registered (illegal) immigrants.

These two photos have not been taken from the same position, but the same general view can be seen in the background, while some of the same buildings are also visible. The older picture has been taken at the site of the former Honolulu reception centre.  

The photo below shows the Honolulu reception centre, built on the beach.

This is actually nothing new in places like Crete - a century ago, different nationalities (at the time, represented by different religions) fought in similar ways: Christian Greeks and Moslem Turks lived together, but not always harmoniously. Both multi-culturalism and mono-culturalism have their problems. In the case of the former, the problems are often surface ones, but in the latter, the dangers are less noticeable. Mono-cultural thinking cuts a country off from the rest of the world; it's one of the factors to blame for the economic crisis, as it generally leads to a less open mind, which has an effect on the way the monoculture operates in business and trade. Greece is now paying the price, not just for bad spending habits, but for doing things her own way for so long and ignoring the way the rest of the world - the one that she belongs to - was going, which was pretty much in a Western rather than an Eastern direction. Her true Europeanisation didn't really happen at the point where she entered the EU or the euro - it's taking place now, with changes made to the laws to prevent her from slipping back into the easy comfort of pretending that there is no one else around except herself.  

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Cheap 'n' Greek 'n' frugal: Good Friday (Μεγάλη Παρασκευή)

On Good Friday (Μεγάλη Παρασκευή)), my mother never cooked anything. We would eat soaked broad beans, olives, slices of tomato and pickled peppers, with some bread. Good Friday is one of only two days in the religious calendar of the Greek Orthodox church when a strict fast is observed - no meat, fish, eggs, milk or dairy products, as well as no olive oil and wine.



These kinds of meals are interspersed among the months and seasons of the Christian Orthodox calendar. Although they have a religious base, they serve a dual purpose. The pure lenten meal, according to the strict fast, is a form of detox, not just for the body which is being cleansed by the acidic brines of the preserved foods and the grinding power of the beans.



While the body is being purified, the mind in the now lighter, more relaxed and freer body is also being challenged by the thoughts of the day, which are concerned with death, but also of new life, as the build-up to Easter continues, leading to its climax.

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Lazarakia (Λαζαράκια)

It's Lazarus Saturday (Σάββατο του Λαζάρου) today. The Holy Week, the last seven days of Great Lent, begins tomorrow on Palm Sunday. According to the story, Lazarus was resurrected by Jesus and bought back to life after four days of being dead.



It's difficult to discuss death with children because it feels awkward. My children have reached the age where they know that death is inevitable, but they have not come close to death themselves. Two of their grandparents had died well before their parents married, another died when they were too young to have any recollections of their grandfather in living form, while the remaining grandparent is very old but seems to carry on as if she were half her age. Every now and then, we hear of an old or sick neighbour who died, but this kind of death does not carry the same weight, nor does it have the same significance as a death in one's own family. When death comes, we find that we are all quite unprepared for it, no matter how much we accept its inevitability.

There is a time for everything. Although I've never made lazarakia before, I now feel the need to. The making of lazarakia, a Greek food custom associated with Lazarus Saturday, is a somewhat appropriate way to introduce the topic of death to children. These spice breads are made to remember Lazarus who was raised from the dead. The dough is made without any animal products - as we are still in the fasting period of Great Lent - and then made into shapes of legless men, whose arms are tied around him, as was the custom in older times, when the dead were wrapped up, so to speak, in a sheet before they were buried.

 

"Aν Λάζαρο δεν πλάσεις, ψωμί δεν θα χορτάσεις" (Greek saying)

If you never shape dough into Lazarus, you will never have your fill of bread

Lazarus' experiences gave rise to the customs collectively known in Greece as Lazarika. The history of the Lazarika and lazarakia, while all-encompassingly Greek in nature, is not as common in some parts of Greece as it is in other parts, which explains why I'm not familiar with it myself. Most web-based recipes seem to come from the island of Kalimnos, where they are a steadfast tradition. At the children's primary school, they only make koulourakia in the run-up to Easter, never lazarakia, so I believe it isn't a Cretan tradition in the same way that it is in other parts of Greece. But Lazarus' story is an important one as Easter approaches. Lazarus died, and when he came back to life, he told people of what he saw there. Lazarus' death and resurrection forebodes Christ's; it is also the last miracle that Christ performed before his own death and resurrection. Hence the story of Lazarus teaches us that death is a form of new life.

Λάζαρος απενεκρώθη, Lazarus became undead,

Ανεστήθη και σηκώθη. Was resurrected and arose.

Λάζαρος σαβανωμένος Lazarus was shrouded

Και με το κηρί ζωσμένος And all tied up.

-Λάζαρε πες μας τι είδες "Tell us Lazarus, what did you see?

εις τον Άδη που επήγες; When you went to Hades?"

-Είδα φόβους, είδα τρόμους "I saw fears, I saw terrors

είδα βάσανα και πόνους. I saw troubles and pains.

Δώστε μου λίγο νεράκι Give me a little water

Να ξεπλύνω το φαρμάκι So that I may wash off the poison

Της καρδίας, των χειλέων From my heart, my lips

Και μη με ρωτάτε πλέον. And don't ask me anything else.
(From Magdalini's blog)

You can use your own favorite sweet bread dough to make lazarakia, as long as it's lenten (ie there are no eggs, butter or milk in the recipe). The original recipe that I used is in Greek. I've adapted it for my kitchen.

You need:
500g strong flour (or all-purpose flour)
1 sachet of dry yeast (in Greece, this come in 7g packets)
about 3/4 cup warm water
3/4 cup sugar (I used pure maple sugar, a present from a Canadian reader)
3/4 cup raisins (I didn't have any in the house, so I used bitter orange spoon sweet, chopped small)
1/3 cup olive oil
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
some whole cloves (these are traditionally used for the eyes)



In a small bowl, place the yeast in the water, add 2 tablespoons of the sugar and 4 tablespoons of the flour, and mix till the yeast dissolves. Allow the yeast to show signs of rising (about 20 minutes).
In a large bowl, place the flour and sugar, spices and raisins, mix them together, make a well in the middle of the bowl and pour in the yeast mixture. Knead well, adding flour/water appropriately to get a dough that is not sticky. Place the dough in an oiled bowl in a warm place, covered with a tea towel, and allow to rise for two hours in a warm oven. (I left the dough in a cold oven and allowed it to rise overnight.)

Shaping the dough is an important task. Divide the dough into ten balls the size of a mandarin (they would each weigh about 100g). From each ball, remove a small piece which will be rolled out like string. Divide this in two (for the arms). The remaining dough ball is shaped into a long oval loaf. (You can make an incision on one edge with kitchen scissors to form legs if desired.) Place the dough string crossed over the body, sticking it down on the underside of the bun. Place the cloves on the other edge, making them look like eyes.

Place the lazarakia on a lightly oiled baking tray and allow to rise for 30 minutes, covered with a tea towel. Brush them very lightly with orange juice or water. Cook them in a moderate pre-heated oven for 30 minutes.


Shaping the lazarakia is a fun way for children to pass their time. People who like to shape cookie, bread and pastry dough will enjoy this exercise. The lazarakia have a special shape, which, thanks to the internet, is not difficult to copy. Even if you can't make your lazarakia today, don't despair. It's not too late to make them tomorrow, because they can be eaten throughout the whole of next week (if indeed they last that long), as they do on the island of Kalymnos.

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Greeks eat what Greeks are (Τρωμε αυτό που είμαστε)

One way to discover the importance of food to people's identity is through festivals. Even when they are not specifically food-focussed, festivals are nearly always associated with specific food items. Food is always an important part of any festival, which may be associated with religious rites, national holidays or simple celebrations. The idea of a festival can be extended to include commemorations, not just necessarily joyous occassions. In Greek culture, all festivals are associated with specific recipes. Just as a Cretan wedding is not complete without xerotigana, a Greek Orthodox memorial service cannot be held without koliva. Globalised food items like popcorn and hotdogs are often associated with an outdoor partying atmosphere, like a mardi gras or a field day. You don't go to a street fair for the popcorn, but that's the stuff your festival memories are made of.

Festivals are a way of showing the world our precious possessions, and since food features prominently in festivals, this shows how precious and symbolic food is to us during such moments. Many regions of the world also celebrate specific food-related festivals. Without even leaving my hometown, I can think of at least half a dozen that take place in Hania with an almost religious fervour, although none are associated in any close way with religion: the wine festival, the tsikoudia festival, the kalitsouni festival, the cherry festival, the sardine festival, the chestnut festival. These displays of pleasure for a local product are not to be confused with special days in the year when certain foods are eaten: eg vasilopita on New Years, bakaliaro on March 25. If you came to my NZ home at Easter time, the kalitsounia, koulourakia, kreatourta and gardoumakia were never missing. Even though my mother was a very busy and tired woman, she placed importance on serving the appropriate food on the appropriate day of the year. I still make all these myself, not because everyone else does too, but because I associate them with that time of year. It's not just a Greek 'thing', it's ingrained in the Greek identity to place a certain importance on food. 

Although it's easy to think of certain recipes and food customs as old-fashioned, the internet seems to be playing a large role in preserving them. This is when food blogs take on a new importance. Just before a major religious festival in the Greek Orthodox calendar, Greeks living in and outside Greece start searching for the food that is related to their customs. It's a strange and humbling feeling to think that as I cook and write about my food, I am communicating to Greek people all over the world, especially Cretans, who are searching for their home or their roots; they are doing this through their food. Bear in mind that most people reading my blog are not living in Greece. This is not surprising, since I mainly write in English by choice. I know that the people interested in what I write are not going to be your average Greek in Greece; they will be your average Greek abroad.

I always know when it is Greeks that are searching for their food memories during a particular festive period in the Greek food calendars; there is a discernible spike in the statistics, and it always happens close to a fast or feast associated with the Greek Orthodox church. I get approximately the same number of regular readers per day, without much reposting of links, but there is a considerable number of daily hits before the start of Great Lent, and about a week or so before Easter. Why the sudden influx? Greeks all over the world, no matter what kind of a Greek identity they hold, are searching for their culinary customs, their root cuisine. Certain search strings hint at people with inside knowledge, ie they are most likely Greeks searching for their food, not non-Greeks who want to learn about Greek food. The search strings often used are in the following form:

• Greek names are transliterated into Latin spelling (eg cretan kreatourta)
• a non-standard English collocation is used in translation (eg continuous spiral spanakopita)
• an English question is asked about Greek food/customs, hinting 'insider' knowledge (eg what food to eat on clean monday)
• the words are written in Greek from a computer outside Greece (eg βλητα στα αγγλικα)

It's that last group that has lately made an impression on me. They're most likely new emigres.

There must be something that links Greeks with their food in a greater way than just nostalgic recollections for it. Greek food is an integral part of the Greek identity. Greeks may have left Greece, they may not speak the language, they may not attend church often, they may be only partly Greek, but what they grew on with, they don't forget easily. They look out for their food. This is a trait shared by a number of ancient civilisations that exhibit group behaviour no matter which country they live in. Greeks are what they eat, and they eat what they are.

But it isn't just the Greeks who like their own food. One of the best food marketing trends these days is to call a food product Greek. Despite the reputation that the crisis has brought on the country, this has not affected Greek food sales abroad. The Greek food sector is the only one in the whole economy of Greece at present that has remained relatively unaffected by her economic problems.

Greek food: it's undeniably a way out of the crisis.

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More Greek than the Greek (Πιο Έλληνες απ' τους Έλληνες)

Religion: such a touchy subject, even in our transparent world.

We recently got into an embarrassing spot of bother one Sunday morning before going to church. I should clarify: we weren't really going to church - we were going to attend a memorial service of a close relative; ie, we were going to a church. Memorial services are one of the main reasons why Greeks my age go to a Sunday church service these days. We put on our Sunday best (which for us means 'clean clothes that have been ironed') and set off for the village church where the memorial service was being held. Coming onto the main road, we decided to buy a local newspaper for yiayia. As my husband was driving, I checked the 'memorials' section of the classified ads (births, deaths and marriages are hardly ever announced in local Greek papers, as in the Western world - only memorials).

"Her name's not here," I informed him. The village church we were heading to was mentioned, but in connection with a memorial of a person we were not connected to. My husband pulled over and checked the newspaper himself. There was no mention of the person who we were supposed to be remembering, something almost impossible if one considers that memorial services have a set way of being organised. Sunday memorial services for loved ones instantly make them a public gathering, so there will be a large amount of koliva ordered from a koliva maker, who also handles the 'advertising' of the memorial in the local newspaper.

My husband then phoned the deceased's next-of-kin for more information. It took a while for his cousin to answer the phone; he was harvesting olives, so there was clearly no memorial service. We'd got the dates mixed up (it was scheduled for the following weekend - how embarrassing).

"OK, let's go home then," my husband said after he had hung up with his cousin.

Koliva - wheat berries served at church

"Aren't we going to eat koliva?" my children asked. They have already associated a Sunday church liturgy with the koliva sweet. We go to church as a family when there is a scheduled memorial service of a close friend or relative, and on major religious feast days, eg Easter. In essence, we aren't regular church-goers and neither do we belong to a church group. I felt that it was morally wrong to simply go back home, so I suggested that since we were already dollied up, so to speak, we should go to a church - any church - to attend the Sunday service and hear the sermon of the day. In other words, we should go to church for religious reasons, not out of a family duty. That wasn't as easy a task as it sounds.

*** *** ***

When I initially left NZ 20 odd years ago at the outset of my European travels, I tried to attend a Sunday service at a Greek Orthodox (GO) church wherever I was. From the middle of June, I visited a GO church on Sunday, somewhere in Europe, before arriving in Greece in mid-September. Despite not having internet in those days, I was incredibly well-informed of where there was a GO church in the many different European cities I visited. (I can't quite remember how I managed to do this in the non-internet world, but I must have been keeping careful notes.) I even had a black skirt in my backpack just for that purpose (as opposed to my travel shorts and T-shirts) - diaspora Greeks of the 1970s-80s never wore trousers to church. Sunday did not feel like Sunday if I did not go to church. During my travels, wherever I went, I looked like a tourist. Except when I went to church. There, I looked like a Greek.

Tolleshunt Knights, Essex, UK

As a traveller, I didn't feel any real sense of culture shock. As a tourist, I expected everything to be different to what I was used to. It was indeed different, if you just stuck to the surface layer, which is all that most tourists see: the buildings, the people's dress sense, the languages, the food, the shops, the landscape - they were all quite different from one place to another. Only the GO churches that I visited did not seem different to me. This is because I entered them with the same expectations that I had of any other GO church. Despite their differences - mainly in the kind of building they were housed, which depended on the building style of the town or city they were located in - they were, generally speaking, the same. The service was mainly in ecclesiastical Greek, with some local language interspersed at the high points of the service, eg the Nicene Creed, Our Father, the call for Holy Communion.

Unbeknownst to me at the time, those church services were all similar to each other because they were all taking place in Greek disapora churches. I was mistaken in my belief that my attendance at a GO church service was due to a religious tenet. Subconsciously, I was attending the GO service because I wanted to express my Greek identity. If religion was my main aim, then I could have made do with a Russian Orthodox church (more commonly found in Western Europe), but I did not do that. Going to a GO church was one of the few times - both in New Zealand and in my travels - that I would be around other Greek people. Whether I knew or liked these people or not made little difference to my desire to be around them. They were like family. The mere fact that they were Greek was enough for me. I would only realise this when I arrived in Greece three months later. That signalled the beginning of the end of my diaspora Greekness. Almost overnight, I stopped needing to overtly express who I really was because I suddenly found myself at the source. You don't need to go to church on Sunday to express your Greekness in Greece - that part of your identity is taken for granted. What else are you doing there if you aren't Greek?

My first Sunday service in Greece confused me considerably. Even my grandmother thought it was odd that I would want to go to church, just because it was a Sunday morning. After entering and going through the motions (drop coins onto tray, take candle, light candle by main icon, kiss main icon, make sign of cross, take seat in women's quarters on left hand side), even I realised that I looked odd. To begin with, the village girls were wearing jeans (Greek-Kiwi women and girls NEVER wore jeans to church in the 70s and 80s). They were clustered around a disabled girl in a wheelchair. Standing in an almost symmetrical position opposite to the girl was a mentally retarded man staring vacantly in front of him at the altar. There was a more dominant presence of women than men in the church, and they were all somewhat old. Nearly all of them were wearing black.

Whatever it was that those people were in church for, it wasn't the same reason I was there. It was quite apparent to me at that moment that my church experiences from now on would take on a different meaning. It was even more obvious that if I continued to go to church in the way that I used to in the past, I would be seen as a θεούσα (the-OU-sa, commonly used to describe an 'overly-religious woman'). It was about this time that I also first heard the idea that "Οι Έλληνες στο εξωτερικό είναι πιο Έλληνες από τους Έλληνες στην Ελλάδα," a belief often expressed by the diaspora communities, clearly lamenting the state of the Greek identity (bear in mind that this was way before the crisis), misguided by the thought that the Greek-something's expression of the Greek identity is somehow more intact, more genuine than the Greek Greek's. This is still often heard in connection with the (now global, not just Greek) crisis: Greeks need to start behaving like Greeks...

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Unlike in the Greek diaspora, where there is usually one GO church that most Greeks living in a city attend, Greece is full of churches - every suburb of every town has a church, every village has one or two churches, there are even churches in fields and hilltops. We had to choose a church quickly, because it was past 9am and the service would be over by 10.30am at the latest (in NZ, the GO service would start and finish at more 'logical' hours for a restful Sunday morning). The village church was out - the locals would cotton on to the fact that we had mixed up the date for the memorial service. The local church was also out - we only went there for Easter. We finally decided on the main cathedral in the town centre, close to the picturesque touristy Venetian harbour of Hania, because an urban church would not make us feel out of place. The town attracts both locals and strangers - visitors are always welcome, and they never look conspicuous.

Hania Cathedral - on the day we visited, there was a bit of fanfare, because a special doxology was being held for the armed forces.

We were not attending a memorial service - we were simply there for the religious experience. I can tell you that it wasn't much different from my first one in Greece. A few disabled people, lots of old women, most of them wearing dark (not necessarily black) clothes. There were also a couple of tourists 'taking part' in the experience. (There was a sign in English at the candle stand, reminding people to 'insert coins in the slot'; most tourists still think of Greek churches as free museums.) The sermon was just like any other sermon I'd heard in my previous church-going experiences: be good Christians, the material world doesn't count, there's a better world waiting for you somewhere else, live your life with the aim of going there. That's exactly the kind of sermon I used to hear when I used to be a regular follower of the GO church in NZ. I wasn't disappointed. I got what I expected. I needn't fear that my kids will have any huge gaps in their religious upbringing despite not being raised as regular church-goers.

However, my children's relationship with the GO church is already quite different from my own. They have associated it with family duties - and koliva, which they were pleased to see being dished out at the end of the liturgy because there was in fact a memorial service being held there too (Greeks remember their dead through memorial services for at least a year after the death of a loved one). What would they say, as Greek-born Greeks, to the idea that the Greeks abroad are more Greek than the Greeks in Greece? This notion is bound to be perpetuated by my fellow compatriots, especially the nouveau-emigres. I haven't talked to them about this issue, but I expect that they will hear someone say this to them at some point in their lives. They will probably think the speaker is nuts.

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