I Saw Three Ships...

...come sailing in. And in case you think I've missed the boat with that one, let me tell you it's Christmas Eve today in Greece. You read that correctly. For the 250 million Christians of the Orthodox persuasion (not just in Greece but in many other nations of south-eastern Europe) their Christmas is this week-end. That's because the Orthodox Church stuck by the holy days as  originally established according to the Julian calendar when the Catholic Church and most of Europe changed to the Gregorian calendar. You're excused for being a little rusty about the switch, It did happen several hundred years ago, so let me re-cap.

The old Roman calendar used to consist of twelve months of twenty-nine or thirty-one days (making 355 in all) plus an additional Intercalaris period tacked on the end of February, making the Roman year 377 days long. This was clearly out of step with the cycle of the solar year of approximately 365.25 days, so Julius Caesar in a reform of 45 BC introduced by edict the Julian calendar, doing away with the Intercalaris and making the months the lengths we know today, of thirty or thirty-one days except for February at twenty-eight or twenty-nine each fourth (leap) year, thus making the new Roman calendar align with the solar year. 

He was a smart guy - but not totally so, for the solar year is not exactly 365.25 days long. It is fractionally shorter than that, meaning that the Julian calendar was out of step with the solar cycle to the extent of one day per century, and by the 16th century AD this over-compensation had become apparent to all, not just the astronomers of the age. Therefore in 1582, Pope Gregory XIII introduced by Papal Bull a much-needed modification. 

It did two things. Firstly it gave us the Gregorian calendar which differed from the Julian in that not every fourth February would be a leap year. It excluded years exactly divisible by 100 unless they were also divisible by 400; so 1600 and 2000 were leap years but 1700, 1800 and 1900 were not. In this way the over-estimation that existed in the Julian calendar was removed. The second thing it had to do was make an historical correction for the difference that had crept in over the centuries as the calendar year had got progressively ahead of the solar year. This was done by skipping (effectively losing) ten days at a stroke, but it was not uniformly implemented. 

Although the countries of south-eastern Europe align with the Gregorian calendar in everyday affairs, the Orthodox church chose to retain the Julian calendar for religious festivals, didn't skip the ten days and thus Orthodox Christmas is celebrated approximately ten days later in Greece (and Belarus, Bosnia, Egypt, Montenegro, Russia and Serbia). As a side-note, Ukraine used to celebrate it in January but recently adopted the Western convention of 25th December specifically to distance itself from Russia.

In case you were wondering about the three ships motif, and the beautiful photographs I've used to illustrate this  Light In Our Darkness  blog, they are all examples of Karavaki, ('small boats' in Greek) and the old Greek tradition of lighting up boats rather than trees during the festive period. I'm sure you'll agree they look stunning.

For a nation made up of hundreds of islands and with the sea and sailing featuring so prominently in people's livelihoods,  history and culture, perhaps this tradition shouldn't come as a surprise. It's also the case that many of the southern islands have always been quite barren places without access to fir trees. Add to that the fact that St. Nicholas is the patron saint of sailors and his feast day falls on December 6th and it is quite understandable why nearly every small port and coastal town in the country has decorated the boats in their harbours with strings of lights in tribute and thanksgiving during the longest nights from December into January.

I think it's a beautiful tradition and one that appears to be spreading from the tiny harbours and tavernas and is being embraced  increasingly across the country. For even nowadays when Christmas trees have become more common in public spaces in Greece, there are almost always wonderfully lit examples of karavaki - the Christmas boat - to accompany them.

Those of you who know of my abiding love for Greece and all things Greek won't be surprised to read that I'll be enjoying moussaka this evening and raising a glass of Mavrodaphni (literally 'black laurel') wine from Patras to mark the occasion. Καλά Χριστούγεννα.

And given the auspicious date, I've chosen as a poem this week a though-provoking piece by my favourite Greek poet, Konstantinos P. Kavafis, better known in English as C.P. Cavafy.

Candles

Days to come stand in front of us

like a row of burning candles -

golden, warm, and vivid candles.

Days past fall behind us,

a gloomy line of burnt-out candles;

the nearest are still smoking,

cold, melted, and bent.

I don't want to look at them: their shape saddens me,

and it saddens me to remember their original light.

I look ahead at my burning candles.

I don't want to turn, don't want to see, terrified

how quickly that dark line gets longer,

how quickly one more dead candle joins another.

                                                         C.P. Cavafy, 1899

Happy New Year. Thanks for reading, We all shine on. S ;-)