Mentone, Cairo, and Corfu

by Constance Fenimore Woolson

The town of Corfu has 26,000 inhabitants. Among the population are Dalmatians, Maltese, Levantines, and others; but the Greeks are the dominant race. There is a Jews' quarter, and Jews abound, or did abound at the time of my visit. Since then fanaticism has raised its head again, and there have been wild scenes at Corfu. Face to face with the revival of persecution for religious opinions which is now visible in Russia, and not in Russia alone, are we forced to acknowledge that our century is not so enlightened as we have hoped that it was. I remember when I believed that in no civilized country to-day could there be found, among the educated, a single person who would wish to persecute or coerce his fellow-beings solely on account of their religious opinions; but I am obliged to confess that, without going to Russia or Corfu, I have encountered within the last dozen years individuals not a few whose flashing eyes and crimson cheeks, when they spoke of a mental attitude in such matters which differed from their own, made me realize with a thrill that if it were still the day of the stake and the torch they would come bringing fagots to the pile with their own hands.

In spite of these survivals, ceremonial martyrdom for so-called religion's sake is, we may hope, at an end among the civilized nations; we have only its relics left. Corfu has one of these relics, a martyr who is sincerely honored—St. Spiridion, or, as he is called in loving diminutive, Spiro. Spiro, who died fifteen hundred years ago, was bishop of a see in Cyprus, I believe. He was tortured during the persecution of the Christians under Diocletian. His embalmed body was taken to Constantinople, and afterwards, in 1489, it was brought to Corfu by a man named George Colochieretry. Some authorities say that Colochieretry was a monk; in any case, what is certain is that the heirs of this man still own the saint—surely a strange piece of property—and derive large revenues from him. St. Spiro reposes in a small dim chapel of the church which is called by his name; his superb silver coffin is lighted by the rays from a hanging lamp which is suspended above it. When we paid our visit, people in an unbroken stream were pressing into this chapel, and kissing the sarcophagus repeatedly with passionate fervor. The nave, too, was thronged; families were seated on the pavement in groups, with an air of having been there all day: probably Christmas is one of the seasons set apart for an especial pilgrimage to the martyr. Three times a year the body is taken from its coffin and borne round the esplanade, followed by a long train of Greek clergy, and by the public officers of the town; upon these occasions the sick are brought forth and laid where the shadow of the saint can pass over them. "Yes, he's out to-day, I believe," said a resident, to whom we had mentioned this procession. He spoke in a matter-of-fact tone. After seeing it three times a year for twenty years, the issuing forth of the old bishop into the brilliant sunshine to make a solemn circuit round the esplanade did not, I suppose, seem so remarkable to him as it seemed to us. There is another saint, a woman (her name I have forgotten), who also reposes in a silver coffin in one of the Corfu churches. At first we supposed that this was Spiro. But the absence of worshippers showed us our mistake. This lonely witness to the faith was also a martyr; she suffered decapitation. "They don't think much of her," said the same resident. Then, explanatorily, "You see—she has no head." This practically minded critic, however, was not a native of Corfu. The true Corfiotes are very reverent, and no doubt they honor their second martyr upon her appointed day. But Spiro is the one they love. The country people believe that he visits their fields once a year to bless their olives and grain, and the Corfu sailors are sure that he comes to them, walking on the water in the darkness, when a storm is approaching. Mr. Tuckerman, in his delightful volume, The Greeks of To-Day, says, in connection with this last legend, that it is believed by the devout that seaweed is often found about the legs of the good bishop in his silver coffin, after his return from these marine promenades. There is something charming in this story, and I shall have to hold back my hand to keep myself from alluding (and yet I do allude) to a shrine I know at Venice; it is far out on the lagoon, and its name is Our Lady of the Seaweed. The last time my gondola passed it I saw that by a happy chance the high tide had left seaweed twined about it in long, floating wreaths, like an offering.

The name of the national religion of Greece is the Orthodox Church of the East, or, more briefly, the Orthodox Church. Western nations call it the Greek Church, but they have invented that name themselves. The Orthodox Church has rites and ceremonies which are striking and sometimes magnificent. I have many memories of the churches of Corfu. The temples are so numerous that they seem innumerable; one was always coming upon a fresh one; sometimes there is only a façade visible, and occasionally nothing but a door, the church being behind, masked by other buildings. My impressions are of a series of magnified jewel-boxes. There was not much daylight; no matter how radiant the sunshine outside, within all was richly dim, owing to the dark tints of the stained glass. The ornamentation was never paltry or tawdry. The soft light from the wax candles drew dull gleams from the singular metal-incrusted pictures. These pictures, or icons, are placed in large numbers along the walls and upon the screen which divides the nave from the apse. They are generally representations of the Madonna and Child in repoussé-work of silver, silvered copper, or gilt. Often the face and hands of the Madonna are painted on panel; in that case the portrait rises from metal shoulders, and the head is surrounded by metal hair. The painting is always of the stiff Byzantine school, following an ancient model, for any other style would be considered irreverent, and nothing can exceed the strange effect produced by these long-eyed, small-mouthed, rigid, sourly sweet virgin faces coming out from their silver-gilt necks, while below, painted taper fingers of unearthly length encircle a silver Child, who in His turn has a countenance of panel, often all out of drawing, but hauntingly sweet. These curious pictures have great dignity. The churches have no seats. I generally took my stand in one of the pew-like stalls which project from the wall, and here, unobserved, I could watch the people coming in and kissing the icons. This adoration, commemoration, reverence, or whatever the proper word for it may be, is much more conspicuous in the Greek places of worship than it is in Roman Catholic churches. Those who come in make the round of the walls, kissing every picture, and they do it fervently, not formally. The service is chanted by the priests very rapidly in a peculiar kind of intoning. The Corfu priests did not look as if they were learned men, but their faces have a natural and humane expression which is agreeable. In the street, with their flowing robes, long hair and beards, and high black caps, they are striking figures. The parish priest must be a married man, and he does not live apart from his people, but closely mingles with them upon all occasions. He is the papas, or pope, as it is translated, and a lover of Tourguenieff who meets a pope for the first time at Corfu is haunted anew by those masterpieces of the great Russian—the village tales across whose pages the pope and the popess come and go, and seem, to American readers, such strange figures.

In the suburb of Castrades is the oldest church of the island. It is dedicated to St. Jason, the kinsman of St. Paul. St. Jason's appeared to be deserted. Here, as elsewhere, it is not the church most interesting from the historical point of view which is the favorite of the people, or which they find, apparently, the most friendly. But when I paid my visit, there were so many vines and flowers outside, and such a blue sky above, that the little Byzantine temple had a cheerful, irresponsible air, as if it were saying: "It's not my fault that people won't come here. But if they won't, I'm not unhappy about it; the sunshine, the vines, and I—we do very well together." The interior was bare, flooded also with white daylight—so white that one blinked. And in this whiteness my mind suddenly returned to Hellas. For Hellas had been forgotten for the moment, owing to the haunting icons in the dark churches of the town. Those silver-incrusted images had brought up a vision of the uncounted millions to-day in Turkey, Greece, and Russia who bow before them, the Christians of whom we know and think comparatively so little. But now all these Eastern people vanished as silently as they had come, and the past returned—the past, whose spell summons us to Greece. For conspicuous in the white daylight of St. Jason's were three antique columns, which, with other sculptured fragments set in the walls, had been taken from an earlier pagan temple to build this later church. And the spell does not break again in this part of the island. Not far from St. Jason's is the tomb of Menekrates. This monument was discovered in 1843, when one of the Venetian forts was demolished. Beneath the foundations the workmen came upon funeral vases, and upon digging deeper an ancient Greek cemetery was uncovered, with many graves, various relics, and this tomb. It is circular, formed of large blocks of stone closely joined without cement, and at present one stands and looks down upon it, as though it were in a roofless cellar. It bears round its low dome a metrical inscription in Greek, to the effect that Menekrates, who was the representative at Corcyra (the old name for Corfu) of his native town Eanthus, lost his life accidentally by drowning; that this was a great sorrow to the community, for he was a friend of the people; that his brother came from Eanthus, and, with the aid of the Corcyreans, erected the monument. There is something impressive to us in this simple memorial of grief set up before the days of Æschylus, before the battle of Marathon—the commemoration of a family sorrow in Corfu two thousand five hundred years ago. The following is a Latin translation of the inscription:

"Tlasiadis memor ecce Menecrates hoc monumentum,

Ortum Œantheus, populus statuebat at illi,

Quippe benignus erat populo patronus, in alto

Sed periit ponto, totam et dolor obruit urbem.

Praximenes autem patriis huc venit ab oris

Cum populo et fratris monumentum hoc struxit adempti."