Why We Went To The Local Church In Vrahassi Today

It’s Sunday morning in the middle of January 2012 and Jane and I attend the local church in our adopted village of Vrahassi. This is not a normal occurance for us but it is the 12 months anniversarry of the death of one of the first people we ever met in Vrahassi, Yannis Souladakis, who with his wife Elaini ran a very popular and traditional Greek taverna, Platenos.

It is the custom with the orthadox church to have regular memorials for people who have past away,  the 12 months one being the last.

We first met Yanni and Elaini 17 years ago after we had walked the five miles from Sissi to Vrahassi searching for an old ruin of a house to possibly buy and renovate to live in. As we walked through the village we were filled with forbodeing, it was a cold and wet winters day and Cretan mountain villages had a reputation for being very insular and wild.

We stood outside Platenos wondering if we dare go inside, we did!  As we entered the cosy taverna we were greeted by Yanni and Elaini, as well as the heat of a large woodburning stove,  we sat down near the stove. We looked across at our hosts and they looked back at us, tourists where never encountered much in Vrahassi and never in winter.

With the aid of a Greek phrase book we opened a conversation, ordered a couple of beers and gradually we all got used to each other as both couples realised that we could actually talk to each other. That day was our first encounter with Vrahassi and only a couple of weeks later we made contact with someone who had an old house for sale in the village, we met him at Platenos, did the deal there and had a celebratory meal there when we had bought the property.

We paid one and a half million drachmas for the old place and were the first outsiders to come and live in the village, it was a very special time living amongst these hard mountain folk and we could not have been made more welcome by anyone.

So that was why a couple of outsiders went to an orthodox service in Vrahassi, to pay our last respects to a man who probablyl never know the impact he and all his family, along with the people of Vrahassi, have had on our lives.

Times change and Vrahassi sometimes seem to be full of ex-pats sometimes and Jane and I are so grateful for the Cretan experience that we had, that sadly is now a part of history.

Dave