11/04/2024
Athens is a city of bells.
From my perch on the roof of our Airbnb, this Greek Independence Day seems full of bells. Athens has a cathedral and many large churches one of which I’m looking at right now, but there are countless smaller churches in the orthodox style, which are smaller than say a typical Catholic or Protestant church. Kenny and I wondered around yesterday morning, kind of getting our bearings in our neighborhood and beyond, and we stumbled upon a Sunday service in the Plaka neighborhood.
As it was Sunday when we walked through the various neighborhoods, bells went off every few minutes announcing the imminent service in the many nearby churches.
While marveling at Roman ruins adjacent to the Greek Agora, we could hear a chanting from down the street, so we walked in that direction and found a church where services were going on. The priest circled the altar chanting all the while, and the two dozen or so parishioners watched him through several doors in the sanctuary. The orthodox service is quite different and very beautiful and two canters sat on the opposite sides of the sanctuary in big wooden seats and added to the chanting The churchgoers we’re mostly elderly, and as we stayed in the antechamber just outside the sanctuary a older woman came in from outside crossing herself many times and proceeded to go up to various icons of saints and archangels in the antechamber and kiss them all before she proceeded into the sanctuary. As it was Sunday when we walked through the various neighborhoods, bells went off every few minutes announcing the imminent service in the neighborhood church.
It’s Independence Day today for Greece, a national holiday and the bells on a Monday morning seem especially exuberant. In a city that seems very hodgepodge in planning and construction, these churches, some of which are 1000 years old seem to bind the urban sprawl together into smaller more manageable neighborhoods. But despite the sprawl, you can’t dismiss the islands of history in every direction. From my vantage point, I can see a Roman gate built by Emperor Hadrian and an 8-sided Roman tower just beyond. A few degrees to the right is the hill where St. Paul tried to convert the Athenians, now occupied by a few couples, unwilling for the night to end, sitting and watching the sunrise together. Of course, towering above it all is the Acropolis. This rooftop gives a perfect, classical view of the Parthenon and the Carotids, and even the dainty Temple of Nike on the very corner.
The evening we arrived, the floodlit 7 acres was inspiring- But we hadn’t visited yet, and I knew not what I was looking at other than the Parthenon. But having climbed up there yesterday, everything now makes perfect sense as I gaze towards the cradle of western civilization.
Another church is joining the cacophony with exuberant playing of the bells: I’d say at least five bells if not more. This, my first trip to Athens, has shown Greece to be many things but I think what I enjoy the most is the vibe walking down the street. Greeks walk and talk with the knowledge that their ancestors threw off many oppressors over the centuries, gained their independence, and that those people they descended from shaped the western world. It doesn’t hurt that the souvlaki and kebabs are so freaking delicious as well…
