Panaghia tou Harou

The church of Panagia tou Harou stands on a hill on the eastern side of Lipsi, a small island in the northern Dodecanese roughly midway between Patmos and Leros. It is the best known building on the island, and the reason is an icon that departs from the standard iconography of the Orthodox church.

Foundation

The church dates from about 1600, when monks came to Lipsi to live as ascetics and built a small fortified monastery on the hill; the walls were a precaution against the pirates then working these waters. Accounts of who they were differ. The municipality of Lipsi records five monks from Mount Athos, while other sources connect the foundation with the Monastery of Saint John on Patmos, which held property across the surrounding islands. Either way the date places the building well after the fall of Constantinople in 1453, so the church is post-Byzantine rather than Byzantine, even though the plan it follows, a cross with a low central dome, belongs to the Byzantine tradition.

The icon

The icon shows the Virgin holding the body of the crucified Christ rather than the infant. Haros in Greek means death, and the name of the church, Virgin Mary of Death, comes from that image. The subject is rare almost to the point of being unique in Orthodox painting, where the Virgin is normally shown with the child, and it is what brings people up the hill. For most of the year the icon is kept in the church of Agios Ioannis Theologos down in Lipsi town; it is carried up in procession for the feast and returned afterwards.

The lilies

In 1943 the Dodecanese were under occupation, Italian until the armistice that September and German after it, and supplies on Lipsi had run down to almost nothing. A family living beside the church kept back a little of their oil to keep the Virgin's lamp burning. On 25 March, the feast of the Annunciation, the family's youngest daughter left six white lilies in front of the icon with a prayer for the liberation of the island.

The lilies dried out, as cut flowers do, and were left where they were. During the summer they began to turn green again, and by 23 August they had put out twelve fresh buds and were giving off scent. The islanders read it as a sign, and the same thing has been reported every year since; local accounts say the only exception was the year the woman who first brought the flowers died.

The feast on 23 August

23 August is the leave-taking of the Dormition of the Virgin, and on Lipsi it is the day of the year. The procession sets out from the village on the 22nd and ends at the church. On the 23rd pilgrims arrive from across the Dodecanese for the liturgy and to see the dried lilies on the icon, and the panigiri that follows runs on food, wine, music and dancing well into the night.

Visiting the church

The walk up from Lipsi town is short but steep, and the church looks out over the sea toward Leros and the islets off the east coast. Inside, the low dome admits very little light: oil and electric chandeliers hang over a black and white mosaic floor, the pews are carved wood, and a carved wooden iconostasis separates the nave from the sanctuary. Outside the feast the building is usually empty, and it is not staffed all day, so it is worth asking in the village about opening times before making the climb.

The anchorage below the town leaves the church within walking distance of the quay, and 23 August falls in the middle of the sailing season, so anyone chartering a gulet in Greece in late August can take in the feast without rebuilding a route around it. Lipsi is a couple of hours from Patmos and about the same from Leros.