There is something special about accidental conversations.

We are on holiday in Greece – so if that makes you curl your lip, please don’t read on as there will be mention of food, sea, sunshine, wine, relaxation and all those other privileged things – though mostly in the next installments.

So, one of the Sundays we were on holiday, the Greeks went to the polls again – it was a foregone conclusion that the New Democracy centre right party would win.

According to an accidental conversation with a taxi driver we learned what the canny Greeks do – and apparently there are a lot of canny Greeks

It appears they can choose to keep their voting rights in the area where they grew up.

So, you can legitimately say to your boss, you need one day to get there, one day to vote, take one or even two days off, and then you come back. Long weekend all round then.

Not sure that was what Joseph and Mary had in mind when they had to go to Nazareth to pay their taxes but I am pretty sure they didn’t go to make a long weekend of it.

Anyway, that leads me on to the next conversation.

Staying in Athens in the same hotel we stayed last year, I was set on re-visiting a small, rather dilapidated church which was apparently one of the first built when the Greeks shucked off the Ottoman ‘yoke’. 

Allegedly, the first ‘free’ cathedral in Athens. 

Of course, there is a much bigger, posher ‘proper’ cathedral built later.

(By the way a German aristocrat was made king and not by the Greeks, so not entirely free then…)

In St Demetrios’s the frescos are blackened by years of incense burning and swinging about the place, there are water damage marks, the icons are overlaid in (possibly) tin not silver. 

There are upstairs galleries where the women used to sit in the old days but apparently are not now needed on a usual Sunday as everyone sits together, and they only get a dusting off at Easter.

But still, it is a gem of a place

When we went in, an unmistakable Greek Orthodox priest was sitting at a desk by the door.

We have a look round and the Best Beloved sighs as I say, I am going to have a chat.

It turns out Father Nickolaus was a real font (excuse the pun) of information.

He told us that as part of the rejection of Ottoman/Turkish style, the artwork and icons were Western style – more realistic faces than the more abstract Eastern style. 

And as one of the first such churches in Athens, it was Western frescos all the way until there was a swing back to the abstract, which he preferred.

He said, no-one knew what these saints looked like so why pretend, just a beautiful artistic symbol was much better in relation to how you thought about saints.

There are now some Eastern icons.

So, in an Orthodox church there is a wood-carved and icon-covered wall with a door and the priest operates in the space beyond with his back to the congregation for much of the service.

Apparently the wall is relatively new innovation, by Orthodox standards, – a place to show off your icons and carvings.

There is an interesting theological difference of views about the priest having his ( well maybe her, but not in the Orthodox persuasion) back to or facing the congregation.

The Orthodox view is that having his back to the filled pews and facing the cross means he is with the congregation looking to God. 

He is part of the people, not God’s intermediary to the people.

At this point, I mentioned the Pope who is, so I gather, God’s intermediary on earth and infallible and so on.

Father Nickolaus was beautifully diplomatic –  smiled, and pointed out something else of interest in the church.

As a special treat, he opened the door in the carved wall and let us see inside where he performed his duties as the priest. (But to take a photo would have seemed rude, so I didn’t.)

And he told us that the bread and wine ritual is also part of the Orthodox communion but instead of wafers and a slurp, they have proper home-made bread brought in by local women and marked with a special square stamp.

It is cut up and into squares and I think, but maybe I misinterpreted or you dip it into the wine.

As if on cue, a local woman brought a loaf to the church so we could see it – but of course until it is blessed, it is not the body of christ.

Father Nickolaus told us, he had spent time with a friend who was an Orthodox priest in London, and St Albans.

It turns out that St Albans – a protestant cathedral is on a bit of an ecumenical mission.

It has services not only Orthodox, but German Lutheran ( who knew), Catholic ( well not that surprising) and the Free Church ( which is not that free if you are a gay, or a woman who needs an abortion, or a divorce.)

But anyway, good on St Albans.

(I looked up St Demetrius and it turns out he was run through with spears in 306 CE as part of the emperor Galerius’ persecution of christians.

Presumably, he got martyr status pretty rapidly as a result of that, but he made it into sainthood by, though dead, intervening against Barbarian barbarities in his city of Thessaloniki.

Now, Demetruis was the son of a senatorial family and in his time was proconsul of the district, so it was surprising to learn he was patron saint of agriculture, peasants and shepherds.

But on closer inspection of Wikipedia, it turns out that he was doing that familiar christian thing of adopting ‘pagan’ practices.

Apparently Demeter, the greek goddess and handily with a similar name, had a local cult going on.

She was the Olympian goddess of the harvest, the earth’s fertility, crops, etc.

As her cult died out, St Demetrius stepped into the breach and took over her responsibilities.

(All sorted then.)

Needless to say, Father Nickolaus’s English was great and I could have spent much longer listening to him.

But he kept getting mobile phone calls and so we left him to his (in his own words) small flock, but not as small as they are in England.

I think he had a pretty good idea that we were not practising christians of any sort, but  he liked to talk to people who asked questions, and maybe he was a bit bored of re-arranging the candles.

As I left, he said, I will give you an icon of St Demetrius, and I thought wow! But actually I got a card with an icon image of said saint.

Still it will be a nice reminder.