A photo journey in Greece

I suppose you mean why Crete, the south islands and Northern Greece are under the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, while central and south mainland Greece are under the Church of Greece.

The answer is because these regions gained independence from the Ottoman Empire at different time periods. The Independence War and the foundation of the Modern Greek state took place in central / south mainland Greece. Due to the war between the Greeks and the Ottoman Empire, the Patriarchate of Constantinople came into severe danger of being shut down as retaliation and because there were a lot of difficulties in managing the faith matters of those who are in a war with the country you are in. At some point there was even some discussion for the Patriarchate to be rescued by being tranferred from Constantinople to the Greek State. Eventually the Greek State however, in order to ensure that the Patriarchate will keep functioning undisturbed in its origin historical place of Constantinople, chose to form an autocephalous church, the Church of Greece.

Northern Greece, Crete and the Dodecanese islands united with Greece several decades later, at the same time the Ottoman Empire was falling, and they found ways to overcome this obstacle with the rising republic of Turkey. As a result, the later liberated lands remained under the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate.

It should be noted that for practical reasons the Church of Greece runs the matters of northern Greece, Crete and the other southern islands as well, with the full agreement of the Patriarchate, despite nominally belonging to the jurisdiction of the latter.

In short the Church of Greece does not have any theological differences from the Ecumenical Patriarchate, neither does it have ambitions of its own and it would not have been formed, if not to rescue the Patriarchate. However, now it runs most of the matters because due to the still strained relations of the two countries it is preferred for the Greek religious matters to not be managed from Turkish land.

Haha well of course it’s different placements on the planet therefore different norms! If Greece (or the Mediterranean in general) did not reach mid 30s in the summer then something really scary would be going on with Earth.

You said your country has at some points reached mid 30s (extreme heatwaves, I assume) so it wouldn’t be different from what you would be wearing in your country during these days. A tank top, a t-shirt, shorts etc

All you need to not get roasted is to apply 50 SPF sunscreen and wear sunglasses, maybe a hat as well. If you do all that, there’s no concern whatsoever. I am pale skinned and yet I have only had a considerable sunburn once and a minor sunstroke also once in my entire life and both were because I was way way too careless. Now, if you are the transparent-y type of northern fair skinned, then ideally don’t go out from 12 PM to 5 PM or at least stay in the shade during these hours.

But tbh you sound like you should probably not come during hot times in Greece. Maybe better from October till April? You can still swim in the beaches in October (the rest of the months the water will be too cold). Then again I also don’t think you should be so concerned about this, I mean Greece gets most tourists in the hottest months and they come from all places so… But everybody’s body is different so perhaps you should weigh whether it is more worth coming during the deep heat or better at another time.

If you *must* come in hot times though, then definitely opt for May, June or September instead of July or August.

People in different parts of the wolrd adapt to different conditions. I mean, fashion in the Middle East and North Africa is all you have to look at. I am a little amused by the 30 degrees example so I must say it :

+30C⁰ is a pretty cool, a very pleasant, a great summer day.

Greece’s temperature range with its record high and low is: +48 C⁰ to - 30 C⁰ . The personal range I have experienced in Greece is a +44 C⁰ (I think) to a - 7 C⁰. I remember both days vividly. In the extreme hot day I remember going to the sink, turning the cold water tap on and unceremoniously dipping my entire head under the running water. In the extreme cold day I had to walk outside, my forehead had frozen and was achy and I couldn’t make facial expressions.

As a person that has lived their entire life in Greece, I would choose to go out at +30 degrees a ten times over anything below + 10 (which is a common winter daytime temperature). At +30 you can stay outside indefinitely, lie at a beach or a park, walk, spend hours lounging in a coffee shop, dress stylishly without thinking about it (except applying sunscreen in daytime). Below + 10 might be a pretty manageable winter temperature but you still have to wrap like an onion and staying outside indefinitely is unpleasant. Your skin might dry and your nose might start running. You’ll have to find a place indoors soon. You can’t be like “oh it’s 7C⁰, let’s spend the whole day out or stay out after midnight (standard practice in Greece, I don’t mean clubbing, I mean OUT) or go to the sea or do a daytrip on a mountain without equipment or go to an open air coffee shop (as most coffee shops in Greece are) without worrying whether they have heaters or the wind won’t blow the wrong way”. +30 gives endless opportunities, in short XD

The real shit of the heat starts over + 37, which is a lot of the summer days in Greece anyway. The +44 was indeed more unpleasant than the - 7 but both sucked big time. I could not imagine living somewhere where going outside at - 7 and being expected to do stuff in this temperature is a norm. Anyway, that’s just to show how people adapt in different places.

As for how people pulled through with their historical clothes, I wonder this too because these clothes always seem to me too heavy for summer but also too light for winter, basically this applies for all the folk clothes of the temperate countries. In any case, they used different fabrics for different seasons. The different fabrics used were wool (winter), cotton (spring and autumn) and linen (summer). The rich people and the rest in special occasions also used silk, which was good for the summer as well. Furthermore, the full attire that you see in the images is usually the standard spring / autumn version. In the summer, they removed some of the garments, like the sleeved jackets. They would replace them with waistcoats or nothing at all, going around in the shirt only. In the heavy winter, they added more garments than the ones you usually see in the pictures.

The certain thing is that they must have always felt a little too hot or too cold but people back then weren’t as dependent on their comfort as we are nowadays.

Germany has primarily moral and to some degree financial responsibility. People believing however that Greece’s debt would not exist or it would be in a significantly better state if Germany had paid the reparations are delusional.

The moral issue however still stands. Germany never paid for the extreme devastation it caused to Greece, from which the country’s recovery has been very lengthy and poorly managed, although it did pay other countries.

The Axis Occupation in Greece caused:

• The death of an estimated 7 - 11 % of the Greek population, due to the Great Famine, conflicts and executions
• The death of the 87% of the Greek Jewish population
• The burning of one fourth of the villages in the country
• More than 100,000 buildings utterly destroyed
• The devastation of 80% of the industry, 28% of the infrastructure (ports, roads and railways), 90% of the country’s bridges
• The burning of 25% of the country’s forests and other natural resources
• The compulsory loan of 1942 to Nazi Germany, that’s right, Greece was forced to lend money to Germany (!), the great majority of which was never repaid!
• Deportation and immigration of 700,000 Greeks
• the looting of antiquities
• Indirectly led to the Greek civil war afterwards

* It should be noted that Greece was not occupied by Germany only but it was a simultaneous occupation by Germany, Italy and Bulgaria.

So, the finger wavering and the unprecedented worldwide slander and defamation Greeks were subjected to during the financial crisis were a bit much because they were coming from the German government and media first and foremost.

Turning a blind eye to its own shortcomings, Germany took it upon itself to “save” Greek economy by enforcing extreme austerity measures to the Greek public, which made the famous Greek lifestyle and the very high standard of living plummet to an unrecognisable sad day-to-day survival for the working and the low financial class. Young Greeks born into the crisis or a little prior have never experienced the old life quality, which the rest of us even slightly older reminiνsce constantly. The then German Minister of Finance, Wolfgang Schäuble, the main instigator of the austerity measures, hardly hid his obvious distaste for the Greeks.

Now, to those who know the basics of contemporary economic studies, it is known that when a country is in an extreme financial recession, austerity measures is the LAST strategy you should follow because it OBLITERATES the productive capacity of the country and therefore the country DOES NOT PRODUCE ANYTHING in order to create value, then sell it and get any money to eventually pay its debts!!!!

As a result, with Germany’s archaic financial strategy it is suspected that Greece’s recovery from the crisis has been hindered and delayed way more that it would have been otherwise.

PS. Wolfgang Schäuble has now passed away. His open distaste for the Greeks and their corruption encouraged the media to drag Greece through the mud. The irony is that it has been since revealed that Schäuble was involved in cases of corruption in Germany himself.