St. Barbara's Day

THURSDAY 4^th DECEMBER

Rethymno celebrates St. Barbara’s Day today.  Maria had warned us that the shops would be closed and there probably wouldn’t be a market but we went anyway.  We arrived just in time to see the priests in their fine robes emerge from the Church dedicated to St. Barbara.  The narrow street was full of generations of old local people, many dressed in their dark clothes. Considering the town was closedthe younger element seemed to be absent with only one or two young women bringing their young children to the event.  People were holding large pieces of the celebration cake that had been blessed by the priests and handed out as they left the church, and some also held branches of the greenery that had been placed between the church’s railings.  One lady gave me a piece of the brown cinnamon bread which I shared with Keith.  Before the procession started we moved away into the adjoining empty street to reach the main road leading out of the old town.  So we had a lovely view of the band dressed in bright red uniforms as they lead the parade with an armed guard on both sides of the followers.  

Young men and old carried large glass pictures of St. Barbara, each picture having a border of fresh red carnations. Young priests dressed in black carried candles and one was entrusted with a very large bible that had an ornate silver cover. 

Senior members of the armed forces and presumably the Mayor and other dignatories followed and then the public bringing up the rear.

In the centre of the procession were the priests, including the high priest dressed in gold robes and wearing a large round 'crown' decorated with portraits and eleborate bead work.

There has been a lot of news on TV recently about the Greek Church selling property  and making millions so it was a bit unfortunate that one of my photos of the priests includes a shop awning with the words ‘ ………..  scandalo’ written on it! 

 

As the procession passed each Church the bells would ring out and when we were stood on another corner with no one else around the senior priest blessed Keith as he passed us by.  Must have thought he looked a lost soul!

A lovely morning but I recall that two years ago when we just happened to be visiting the travel agent on this date I was lucky to see a small group of priests going around the old town. I have a photo of them stood under an orange tree whilst they read from the bible held by a younger priest before moving on to another part of the old town.  That too was a beautiful sunny day.