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Madeira - another island with roads even more exciting than Crete Photo Album | Roger's home page | |
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Back in Minoan times if you had an affliction you would get a small image of the affected part in wood or pottery, take it to a sacred cavern and throw it in accompanied by prayers to the local deity. Four thousand years later if you have an affliction you get a small image of the affected part stamped into a brass plate, take it to the shrine of a local saint and hang it beside the saint's ikon accompanied by prayers. |
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| Because of a miracle she performed, as described in this life story, Paraskevi has become an eye specialist: those are two eyeballs on the plate she is holding. | |
Εικονοστασιο |
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In the UK we have got used to seeing flowers tied to street
posts, etc. near the point where someone has died in an accident. In
Crete they do something more permanent: they erect an eikonostasis beside
the road.
Usually these are very plain affairs, just a metal box
like this about a foot square
which tends to rust fairly soon. Each one contains an ikon, a candle
or oil lamp and bottle of olive oil. In some particularly dangerous places there are two or even three of them side-by-side. This one near Aghia Triada is a superior affair - but only about 40 cm high - in the shape of a church dedicated to the prophet Zacharius. (A whole gallery of iconostases.) |
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Αγιος Γεωριος Σεληναρι |
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| The monastery of St. George Selinari near Agios Nikolaos | |
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Detail of St George in the above picture.
In the Orthodox Church, George is known as a megalomartyros - "great martyr". |
Villages
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Madeira - another island with roads even more exciting than Crete Photo Album | Roger's home page | |
