free download here - Michael Llewellyn-Smith

The Great Island
Nor is the doctrine of her Assumption, though all Orthodox accept
this; after her death her body was taken up to heaven and the tomb
left empty – and this Assumption is celebrated on 15 August as the
Feast of the Dormition. (The Greek word, Koimesis, means ‘falling
asleep’.)
There is art interesting passage on the veneration of the Virgin in
Crete in Prevelakis’s book, The Chronicle of a City:
Most of the churches and chapels around Rethymnon were dedicated to the
Virgin. . . . You see, a country which has gone downhill, which cannot live off
its own resources, needs someone to intercede for her. . . . It was to the Virgin
that her faithful people had entrusted this mission with the Lord, and she never
disappointed them. And the people in recognition of this filled the place with
churches and chapels for her. . . . They painted numerous icons in her honour
and gave to each icon a different name to distinguish them. . . . Each name was a
song in itself. She was called the Immaculate; the Sweet-Caresser; Higher than
the Heavens; Lady of the Angels; Child-carrying; the Nurse; the Joy of all;
the Source of Life. . . . Also the Rose that withers not; the Hope of the Angels;
the Queen of all; the Mistress of the Waves; the All-Glorified; the Protectress of
God; the Gracious; the Exalted; the Warrior Lady; the Golden Lioness. . .
She was invoked as the Swift to Hear; the Saver of Souls; the Comforter; the
Consoler; the Deliverer; the Healer . . . She was also given the more humble
names of Lady Nightingale etc. . . . Each of these names was a hymn of praise, a
salutation. . . .
A church, then, is a microcosm of the whole universe both create and
uncreate. And thus the worship of the whole church can be realized in
the Eucharist as it is celebrated in one small Cretan chapel. For those
saints who stare at you from the walls, dressed in rich bejewelled robes,
sometimes stern, sometimes remote and untroubled, are themselves
present. There is in the Orthodox church no separation among the
communion of saints. In St Symeon the New Theologian’s words, ‘The
saints in each generation, joined to those who have gone before, and
filled like them with light, become a golden chain, in which each saint
is a separate link, united to the next by faith, works and love. So in the
One God they form a single chain which cannot quickly be broken.’ 2
The church is one and indivisible and is present in its entirety whenever
the Eucharist is celebrated. In this mysterious sacrament Christ, and
the saints departed, and those on earth, meet together. Thus in the
church of the Virgin at Kritsa, the saints around the walls are more
than mere pictures. The seven martyred children of Ephesus, the ten
martyr saints of Gortyn, John the Eremite, Alexius the Man of God,
the Abbot Zosimas, Simeon Stylites, Constantine, founder of New
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