Sunday Pastimes, Liverpool, Aftermath

Since the weather was so nice today, I thought I’d go out in the afternoon to sit in the sun and do a bit of reading. First I found my way to a sun-kissed bench in a little square near here. After staying there a while I went through the old city wall and admired the view of the bay – with mountains jutting from the southern horizon and sunlight reflecting from the sea where vast ships sat motionless. In the distance could be heard the sounds of a typical afternoon in Thessaloniki. From the direction of the stadium to the south echoed the amplified voice of some sort of event leader/presenter and a mass chorus of spectators, and from the centre came the chanting of anarchists, the explosion of tear gas canisters and the wailing of police sirens.

Perhaps there was also some bin burning going on – the photos show the results of this new form of recreation.

In the gym the other evening, I was privy to a conversation in English between a self-confessedly puppy-fatted Serb and a muscular Greek. They were talking about football - firstly about which Belgrade team the Serb supported – was it Partisan or something else? They eventually got onto Liverpool and how everybody loves them, and how the Serb knew a fanatic supporter of the club who knew everyone who’s played for the side in the past ten years. It emerged that there are Liverpool fan clubs in both Athens and Thessaloniki.

STOP PRESS

On the way here I walked along Ayiou Dhimitriou Street and saw the results of the rioting. One ATE bank was completely gutted - the street front windows had been torn out and the place was totally wrecked. Various shop windows were smashed. And the mobile phone shop where I was discussing wireless internet yesterday had been broken into and boards now stand where the glass shop front was. Photos tomorrow.

Ayios Pandeleimonas

This morning my first port of call was Ayios Pandeleimonas. This a relatively small, truly old building, not far from the Rotunda and the Arch of Galerius. Here one can get some idea of what it must have been like to worship in villages, smaller towns and chapels down the ages, there being one priest, one assistant and a one-man choir present. If you look at the walls you see the style typical of these early Byzantine buildings – various sizes of stone slabs mortared together. They look just the same inside – so not here the smooth plastered surfaces covered in iconic decoration, but rather solid light grey ramparts exuding the strength of a medieval keep. There are four high stone columns framing the central part of the interior where the small congregation of about forty was seated.

The grey bearded, bushy eye-browed priest was dressed in a cream coloured cope with red and gold decoration. He worked his way steadily through the liturgy with the competent help of his gently plump big haired assistant and the fine voice of the elegantly suited chorister with thick black hair, who had a four-sided spinning rest for his books, enabling him to move quickly between the different scores he had to read. The priest priest walked around the church on several occasions – with the censer, with the gospel, with the Eucharistic vessels. I waited in vain for some sort of address as there had been at other churches, but this either happened very early on before I arrived (which would mean a different order of things than in the other places) or was not part of the service. As the consecratory part of the Eucharistic liturgy approached, the gates of the iconostasis were closed and the curtain drawn to completely hide the priests actions from the congregation and we were left with the melodious voice of the chorister. The next interaction with the congregation was for the priest to serve the wine from the chalice with a long handled, small headed spoon, and this only to a small portion of the congregation, starting with a very young child in its grandmother’s arms.

Overall I found my protestant patience somewhat tried as the service went on. There was still the timelessness, incense shrouded mystery, and steady stateliness of the liturgy, but the absence of any homiletic content, of the hum and anonymity of a place in a large congregation, and of the more complex displays of ritual and music found in the larger churches, left me craving something more.

I made my way up the hill to Ayios Dhimitrios, remembering the liturgy there seemed to work to a later timetable than other churches. Today things finished earlier than last week, but I arrived in time to see the bishop(?) presiding over the final proceedings, wearing the black caped cap one associates with the orthodox cleric in full dress and singing splendidly. The bustle of hundreds of people moving around the brightly lit nave to in end-of-service leisure was in welcome contrast to the somewhat reserved atmosphere of Pandeleimonas where all is under the beady-eyed surveillance of the church keeper lady who hovers around in the entrance area (and makes sure folk like me don’t take photos).