free download here - Michael Llewellyn-Smith

Roman, Byzantine and Arab Crete
majestic, slave-driven way across calm waters the ship could be seen to
bob up and down as if animated by an unseen hand – or a petrol
engine. Which it was; only, unless Evan was exaggerating, the engine
was not even totally unseen. A new batch of film was again rejected;
above the sweating; labouring bodies of the oarsmen, diesel fumes were
curling into the unpolluted Cretan air. The film, when finally achieved,
was a great success.
It was not Paul but Titus who became patron saint of Crete – the
obscure bishop whom one life calls the son of noble Cretan parents of
the race of Minos, and another the nephew of the Roman proconsul
who sent him to Judaea to report on the Galilean. As patron saint of
the island Titus established himself so firmly that even the Venetians
were prepared to recognize him, rather than St Mark, as protector of
the Duke of Candia; their prayer for the Doge of Venice was ‘Sancte
Marce, tu nos adiuva’: for the Duke of Candia, ‘Sancte Tile, tu nos adiuva
But in the country districts he never supplanted the more popular
saints, such as St George, in the love of the people.
Christianity having reached Crete, not only through Paul and Titus
but also doubtless through the Cretan Jews who were in Jerusalem at
Pentecost, the Church flourished, new sees sprang up subject to the
Metropolitan see of Gortyn, and martyrs gave their lives for the faith.
The most famous of these, the Agii Deka, ten saints who were martyred
at Gortyn, are for modern Cretans the supreme patriots and heroes of
the first thousand years of the Christian era. It was in the mid-third
century, when Decius was emperor, and another Decius proconsul of
Crete. The late encomia of these martyr saints show how Cretans saw
their virtue as being not only the love of God - also patriotism. Very
early in Greek history these two virtues came to be connected, and
even by some people identified with each other. Gerasimus Palladas, a
Cretan priest, told the story thus in his sermon:
When the ten heard the news they went boldly to the place of judgement. The
tyrant [Decius] saw how they stood without fear and filled with courage, and
said to them, ‘Who are you, what sort of men are you to come before me with
such impudence?’
Theodoulos answered, being the eldest, ‘We are foreigners, sir.’
He says to them, ‘How can you be foreigners, you’re from this place! Look,
these officers here know you. Officers, don’t you know these men?’
The officers answered, ‘We know them, your Highness, they are our men all
right.’
And the ten said with one voice, ‘Sir, these bodies are from this place; of this
17