Sicily - part seven

Syracuse’s cathedral spans Sicily’s transition from Greek to Roman to Christian to Arab and back to Christian, so I was disappointed the front was covered with scaffolding …

… but will purloin an internet image … 

… to help explain the church actually incorporates the 5th century BCE temple of Athena (Minerva). First a temple, then church, then mosque, becoming church again in 1086. The front is baroque, but, as you can see in my own photo, the base and framework is formed by twelve great fluted Doric pillars of the ‘pagan’ temple. 

Perhaps someday it will become a temple of reason.

Indeed, largely I prefer the Greek temples …  however, must make an exemption for Mazara’s seaside Chiesa di San Vito a Mare. 

At quick glance, when driving by, I first thought the church was a modern example of the often stunning European postwar church architecture. How wrong I was. The church was built in 1776 and its austere, ‘un-baroque’ simplicity appeals … to me, at least. 

Appropriately for a church honouring a saint said to protect fishermen, the foundations are lapped by the Mediterranean. I gather the church is well situated on a rock and not on sand (see Matthew 7:24-27), but, as sea levels rise, wonder what its future holds.

I’ve been unable to date the main doors, but delighted to find that, as Jesus preaches from a fishing boat, even dogs and perhaps a cat join the gathering crowd.

And finally, when in Taormina, a relatively small town, something completely unexpected. I was surprised to come on a small, built in 1922, Anglican church. 

St. George’s speaks to the number of British visitors who, from the 1870s on, have escaped UK winters in this Mediterranean resort.

Its plain exterior and unfussy nave and chancel … 

… memorials to British soldiers who passed by in the 1943 invasion …

… and welcoming priest and his wife fortuitously there on a weekday …

… made this a happy find.

The Reverend Shawn Denney and Mary Ann Denney, preparing for the Remembrance Day service, made sure I left with a poppy.

 

And here I’ll give a plug for British poppies with sensible plastic attachments, unlike the Canadian poppies that have pins with which I yearly stab myself.