Refugees: The Growing Cloud Over Samos

by Alec Newell

 

Greek official with refugees in Pythagorio, Samos - photo by Newell



The road between Avlakia and Vathi
photo by Newell

Until this year, one of the best things about being on Samos had been a vacation from the US daily news and the angst that always seemed to accompany it.  This season we have been bombarded with news from the folks back home about how bad the economy is here.  We were seeing it all first hand and probably had a better read on how things were than the information we were getting from all the third hand Email sources.  Greece has been having money problems for decades.  No news in that.



Refugees in Pythagorio - photo by Newell

What has really gotten our attention this year hasn't been the Greek economy so much as the hundreds of refugees who have been pouring ashore at night, leaving the beaches littered with scuttled life rafts, discarded clothing, empty plastic water jugs,  inner tubes, and orange life jackets.  Yesterday, almost as comic relief to the situation, I noticed a group of Greek boys swimming behind the seawall at Agios Konstantinos, playing with inner tubes, life vests, and an inflatable raft they'd salvaged from the beach.  Greek Huck Finns on the Aegean.

Greek boys playing in Agios Konstantios - photo by Newell

 

Pythagorio - photo by Newell 

The word from the locals is that these people are fleeing from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Somalia.  Most of them are passing through Turkey to escape the slaughter of Christians and the forced conscription of military aged men into groups like ISIS and the Taliban.  We have heard that Turkish coyotes are charging $1500.00 per adult and $800.00 per child, or about $30,000.00 per trip to tow a boat load of refugees to within a short distance of Samian beaches, then dumping them.  By morning there seem to be small groups of wet refugees and floating debris everywhere.


People who have been coming to Samos for twenty years now, say that there is no precedent for what we are seeing this season.  Web sources estimate that in the first five months of 2015 alone, more than 42,000 illegal "immigrants" have come ashore on Greek islands, or six times the total number that were estimated for all if 2014.  Given all the noisy press Greece has been getting about their economy, we thought it odd that there had been so little in the news about the refugees





Refugees in Pythagorio - photo by Newell

 

Patmos and the Book of Revelation

by Alec Newell

 Monastery of St. John the Theologian - photo by Newell

 

Entrance to the Cave of the Apocolypse
photo by Kristin Brodt

Yesterday I made a day trip to the neighboring island of Patmos with Kristin Brodt, a friend just in from Florida.  Patmos is just two hours south and west of Samos by ferry.  A smaller, drier Island than Samos, its main claim to fame is that it is where the Book of Revelation was written by John the Apostle while in exile from Ephesus during a period of Christian persecution under the Roman Emperor Domitian (reigned: 81 to 96 ad).

John's eighteen month stay on Patmos is fairly well documented, and the island has become a destination for tourists and pilgrims who come there to visit the monastery built in 1088, and to see the cave where the Book of Revelation was written. There is a natural stone niche and writing stand in the cave where the book was dictated from God's lips to John's ears, and faithfully recorded:

photo by Newell

Book of Revelation 1:11 - God to John the Apostle: I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last: and, What thou seest, write in a book, and send it unto the seven churches which are in Asia; unto Ephesus, and unto Smyrna, and unto Pergamos, and unto Thyatira, and unto Sardis, and unto Philadelphia, and unto Laodicea.

 



Tour guided lunch at a large open air restaurant

photo by Newell

 

The monastery has miraculously escaped major looting over the centuries and still has a vast trove of important original icons, relics, and one of the best collections of Biblical manuscripts anywhere outside the Vatican.  There is a manuscript that is believed to be the oldest extant copy of the Gospel according to Mark, and an original rendering of an icon by El Greco on display in the museum.  The excursion took a full day and included a guided tour to the cave, museum, and monastery, a walking tour of Chora, a 16th  Century community built just outside the monastery, lunch at a nice open air restaurant, and a guided bus tour of the south end of the island.

 

 

The waiters who entertained us with traditional Greek dancing
photo by Newell

 

The restaurant is a family operated business where the mother and uncles still do the cooking and the waiters are all brothers and nephews who dress in traditional garb and perform authentic Patmian dances for their guests.  Patmos is a little off the beaten path for most tourists  and picture taking is not allowed inside the monastery church, the museum, or inside the Cave of the Apocalypse, but the experience is worth the trip if you have the time to visit the island.

 

 


Sporty little convertible at the port of Skala, Patmos
photo by Newell