Post 3 of 7
On the slopes of Mount Helicon today, we visited the monastery of Hosios Loukas. Charming. Indeed, a vision of heaven on earth, or at least of heaven as seen in the past by some of those then on Earth.
By way of a stupefying contrast, on the way across we stopped off for a coffee in Distomo, the site of an horrendous massacre by Waffen-SS troops in June, 1944. Truly a vision of hell on earth. Some further background here.
Even if these events happened five years before I was born, it’s not hard to see why Greece’s relationship with Germany remains an often troubled one to this day.
Later, as our small group headed towards the Peloponnese, some of us were busily monitoring what looks set to be one of the biggest shocks to the global economy since WW2, the coronavirus outbreak now ripping into Italy – and set to turn Europe into its new incubator and transmission hub.
It’s all-too-tempting to fall back on a Manichean view of this world of ours, with an ongoing battle between the forces of good and evil. But such terms, as a certain U.S. President demonstrated with his “axis of evil” ideology, are all-too-easy to pervert.
Leave a Reply