How prayer, salt, and icons shaped everyday life on Crete from the Venetian era to the present.
From the field
Blog
Field notes and essays on the churches of Crete: their frescoes, painters, inscriptions and the people around them.
Why Crete survived.
Eastern Orthodoxy, though shaped in the Greek world, thinks about God far more like Israel than like late Latin Europe.
If there is anywhere a nameless yet still pulsating core of Judaism preserved within Eastern Christianity, it is in the liturgy.
The prohibition against depicting God is one of those moments when we see how deeply the Christian East grows out of Judaism – and how sharply it diverges from the West.
There is something in the Eastern tradition that immediately evokes the prayer and spiritual experience of the Old Testament: a way of relating to God not poured into personal emotion, but immersed in rhythm, repetition, community, and mystery.
How I read Crete through limewash, frescos, and churches.
The Prophet Elijah and an Unforgettable Panigiri
What shook me – and why it wasn’t the earthquake.
Dekapentavgoustos, or the Dormition of the Mother of God
A great feast and a great story told in icons and frescoes.
What annoys me, irritates me, and makes me laugh. Zero pomp, lots of side-eye.
Crete keeps shaking — and not just recently.
The birth of a new island on an old map.
What Gerola Saw — and What We Will Never See Again
The story of one church from Giuseppe Gerola’s monumental catalog.