Last summer after attending a conference at Rethymno, I was urged to go and visit the Orthodox Academy of Crete, a centre for oecumenical studies. It is based in western Crete just beyond the Mone tes Gonias, which derives its name from the ‘elbow’, a right angle turn in the north coast, where a thin peninsula juts out into the Mediterranean.
Dr Alexandros Papaderos who founded and directs the OAC conceived the idea of the Academy as a centre of reconciliation, to bring together Greeks (and more specifically Cretans) and Germans, who had fought over this area of western Crete with such ferociousness in the last years of WW2. As a young boy he had witnessed this conflict and worked with the resistance. After the war he had volunteered to go and build houses in what became eastern Germany. When asked why a Cretan should do such a thing, he replied: I know what it is to be homeless because you destroyed my home, so now I’ve come to help you rebuild yours.
This spirit of overcoming the legacy of battles and hatred is built into the aims of the Academy, which is run, most appropriately, by young people of German and Greek parentage. It is also devoted to oecumenical discussion between Christians of all creeds and members of other religions. With the support of Bishop Irinaios of Kissamos and Selinon, in western Crete, it has raised sufficient funds to build a large modern conference centre, fully air-conditioned, with a lecture hall seating 600 and automatum translation in six languages. It rents this space to organisations that wish to hold conferences in one of the most spectacular settings on Crete.
The new building, like the original smaller one, faces the sea, which is a mere 150 meters away, down a steep incline to a rocky cove. While fisherman are out early and late and goats occasionally wander across the rocks, the cove is often quite empty and swimmers have the impression of being alone on the ocean. Apart from the Academy, the only building in sight is the Mone tes Gonias, a working monastery with fine sixteenth century fortifications, marked by bullets from more than one siege. It has a fine collection of late and post-Byzantine icons.
Dr Papaderos sponsors meetings designed to foster closer relations among Christians and also welcomes quite different groups: an international gathering of high-powered biologists was beginning as we left in July. Quite a place to organise a Byzantine conference!
Judith Herrin
King's College London