The Secret School

THE SECRET SCHOOL
There were times in Azogires when the children were forced to learn another religion and another language; this was the way the Ottoman Empire tried to force people to forget their original Greek and Byzantine roots. To prevent this the people developed the secret school - schools that for several hundreds of years were moved from basements of houses, to caves into the hills, to bushes, up in forests and in dark corridors and cracks on the hillsides, in fac all over Greece and Crete. They spread like wildfire and became the origins of many revolts for freedom and religion. The teaching always took place quietly in the dark or by candlelight, and the children were sworn to secrecy – swearing that even if tortured, they would never tell where their school was.
One of the last one in Azogires was right in front of the Turks eyes’, located in the neighbourhood of Kriariana, near the monastery. In those days all the houses in that neighbourhood were connected, that is they had doors in between them so if you were wanted or on the run, you could kick open doors and run away through someone else’s house. The secret school was located in the basement of one of these Venetian houses, a 3 flat home with only two entrances. The children would study in the dark and if ever it would be given away, there was a secret tunnel that only the house owner knew of, not even the teacher knew about it. The tunnel was beneath the floor and would be opened by removing some soil and a big flat stone. The children would crawl in to it and the house owner then closed it from outside, placing a clay pot on top of it so the Turks had no idea what was going on. They had just watched 20 or 30 children go in to this house and now they could not find them! The tunnel would come out by the river somewhere but to this day we don’t know exactly where, perhaps you can find it next time you visit Azogires?

THE FESTIVAL OF ST.JOHN THE HERMIT IN AZOGIRES

The weather was great this year on St. John the Hermit's festival.

About 60 people showed up and most of them remained after for the traditional feast that has been taking place for the past 300 years; a feast that has been handed down from generation to generation of the
Koukoutsakis family.

Since St. John is our family protector, this year as every year, Tony cooked some of the most delicious steaks I've ever had in my life and furthermore, the wine was great.

You should come next year on the 8th of October!

And don't forget that the Hermit is one of the most powerful Saints in Crete so, if you need something in your life just call out to him and he will help you.

More Hydraulics

Hydraulic Engineering

Take a walk up the hill from the Alfa Kafenion and if you turn off to the right just before the entrance of the Alfa Hotel, you’ll be more of less able to follow the route of the once extensive water works that drove the mills that supplied the flour for the whole of the Azogires area.

The theory behind the network was that water, initially collected from the river, was stored in a series of concrete cisterns above each factory. When needed, it was then extracted from the cisterns by gravity feed through channels and used to drive simple water turbines within the factory. Having been used, the water was then channelled into the next cistern in line to be stored for use further down the hill.

The remains of the network can be seen to start with a cistern at the top of the valley, just below the road but now hidden and partially destroyed, and lead on through a series of concrete water channels, ending up in a final cistern located just above the now abandoned olive oil factory by the Ever Green Plane tree.

The scheme was initially developed by the famous local priest Pater Papagregorakis towards the end of the 19th century and though now in ruins, in its day the complex of channels and cisterns provided the motive power for three flourmills, an olive oil factory and a tannery. To provide some measure of comfort for the Azogirans while waiting for the flour to be ground, and presumably some income when the mills weren’t working, a kafenion was located on the top of the building containing the third, lowest, flourmill and olive oil factory.

The first flourmill, the one at the top of the slope, along with one of the two lower flourmills, the old olive oil factory and kafenion, went out of use in the 1930’s although the tannery is believed to have continued in use for some time beyond this. The second flourmill was still in use, and still driven via the original water scheme, until the 1970’s.

Of the three mills only the second one now remains. The first flourmill has long fallen into ruins. The lower buildings, flourmill, olive oil factory and kafenion, were eventually demolished in the 1970’s to make way for a new olive oil factory that can still to be seen by the Ever Green Plane tree. Although driven by electricity, this new mill didn’t last as long as its water driven forerunners, closing in 1992. Planted next to the remains of the tannery, and having outlasted it, is fine specimen of Quercus ithaburensis subsp. macrolepis (Q. macrolepis), Valonia Oak or Velanidia; an oak that was deliberately planted here in order to harvest its large, long scaled acorn cups, from which a black dye was extracted for use in the tanning process

The best spot for something approaching an overall view of this impressive feat of engineering is standing at the Venetian style bridge. Here you can see both the channels running down towards you, the second and third cisterns behind you and just a bit downhill on the path towards the Ever Green Plane tree, the remains of the second flourmill.

The Priest's Vinyard

If you take the road over the mountain from Azogires to Asphendiles, about 3 Km after the turn outside Azogires, and shortly after you’ve gone around to the Asphendiles side of the mountain, down in the bottom of the valley on your right hand side you will see what appears to be the remains of a large building.

In fact these are the remains of a vineyard constructed by Pater Papagregorakis, the miracle working priest of Azogires.

The long wall facing you was the mountain perimeter wall and the thicker wall at right angles to it on the right hand side of the ruins marks the end of the priest’s land in the valley. The square ruins on the left hand side are the remains of the watch keeper’s building – apparently it was not unknown for people to try and steal the grapes!

The vineyard was apparently in use up to the 1950s but now is just used for goats and sheep.

Tales of the Pater Papagregorakis #4

The Grave of Pater Gavriel Papagregorakis at the Holy Father's Monastery

The Funeral of Pater Gavriel

At the funeral of Pater Gavriel, one of the nuns who had been spiritually very close to him was praying in the church said, “If we had a good time together, give us a sign that you are here.”

At this, the thurible (the incense burner - currently in the museum) that was hung on the wall came off the wall and was seen by all swinging about in the middle of the church and panic broke out.

The nun again said, “If that was you and if we had a good time together, give us another sign.”

It was raining at the time and very windy and then a large rock fell off the cliff side onto the roof of the church but instead of breaking the roof and crushing everybody inside it rolled harmlessly off and down the hillside.

The nun then said, “If it was from you Pater Gavriel and if we had a good time together, on your 40 day anniversary I want to die and join you.”

40 days later, she died.

Tales of Papa Papagregorakis #4

Protecting the village

Papa Gavriel was the Archimandrites of the monastery, the head monk and he was also a healer. Once in 1928 he was breaking stones and he got some cuts on his legs from the stone chips so he put some soil on the cuts and they stopped bleeding and healed up, that’s how pure the soil here was.

He was a good doctor and would heal the people of the village, healing broken bones lifting curses. He rescued people stopping feuds over land but he would also start feuds himself – he was the wrong priest to argue with!

When he was dying he left a curse on : ' he who stole from his land or cheated people over his land or saw someone stealing his land or cheating someone else over his land,' the curse being that that person would leave no male heirs.

'They would have as many male heirs as there are hairs on the palms on my hand,' he said.

4 or 5 families are said to have vanished from the village over the years, leaving only daughters – some were chopping down his trees, some putting animals on his land, some trying to steal his land.

It is said that one man sold him some land and in the 1940’s decided to take the land back. He became very ill and even the Doctors couldn’t help him. A wise old man in the village remembered Pater Gavriel’s words and told him “ Nephew, leave the Church lands alone.”

So the man wrote a letter giving up his claim to the land and two days later all his symptoms were gone and he was like a 20 year old again.

It is said that in the 1950s the villagers of Anidri tried to build a road from Anidri to Asfendiles by passing the village of Azogires, and going across the priest’s land. All the men of Azogires were ready to stop them with their guns but a temporary halt was called when lawyers got involved. Eventually, work was due to start again. This time the villagers from Asfendiles sided with those from Anidri in favour of the road and as a result only 4 men from Azogires turned up to stop them. They were faced with about 50 Anidrians and the Police stepped in to prevent a fight. The next day, as soon as the Anidri bulldozer got onto the priest’s land, it cut out, rolled down the hill and that was the end of the road.

About 30 years ago the church land up in the hills caught fire. The fire started to expand and to move towards Anidri and Asfendiles. The Azogires people saw the fire up on the hills through their binoculars and saw 100 or so people fighting it, The general view was that the Azogires men did not want the Asfendiles men to say that they had put out the Azogires fire so they went off from Azogires to fight it. When they got to the scene, the fire was out . There was nobody there but the were 99 brushes made from Oleander and Olive branches on the ground.

When the road from Asfendiles was built, they used dynamite to blow up the rocks. On one occasion a rock twice the size of a car was blown up and started rolling down the hillside.

A man started laughing and saying, ”There goes the priest’s olive trees!”

20 metres from the priest’s olive trees the rock started to go to the right and then to zig-zag through the priest’s olive trees, it turned right again and then into laughing man’s trees, knocking down half of them. The rock ended up below the Turkish Settlement in the valley and it’s still there to this day.

Tales of Papa Gavriel Papagregorakis #1

Gavriel Papagregorakis
(Photograph in Azogires Monastery Museum. For access to the Museum, enquire at the Alpha Kafenion.)


The monastery at Azogires was a monastery before the Holy Fathers came; it’s shown in old icons but no one knows how old it is.

There is another cave there somewhere with the treasures of the monastery; that’s where the Holy Fathers first came. In the cave is said to be the soul of Gavriel Papagregorakis, the watchman of the monastery, the priest who is said to be still guarding the monastery and Azogires.



He has many stories told about him; he was a very powerful man but no one knows where his power came from.

He was a short stocky man with a big bushy beard and he lived from 1838 to 1929.

He was a priest who had been involved in one of the wars against the Turks and was shot in the wrong place and therefore he couldn’t have children.

He eventually became the head of the monastery, which at that time had both monks and nuns.

He had nothing; he was a workingman all his life, working day and night, living on olives and bread. In the end he bought one third of Azogires and when he died he left it all to what is called the Church Committee formed of 5 people.

The Goat

He had a flourmill here; a second mill below (the monastery?); another by the bridge; an olive oil factory and a kafenion. They all worked from the same small water source; he was the Leonardo De Vinci of Azogires.

He was also a merchant and he had another kafenion by Agios Georgos. He was once sitting in this kafenion looking at some pine trees he had planted that stretched from there up to the monastery when a goat came along and started eating his pine trees. He started shouting at the goat and he said “Damn you goat!’ and the goat started rolling down the hill.

The villagers went to eat the goat but Papa Gavriel said, “Don’t bother, it’s cursed.”

They sliced open the goat and smoke started coming out of it.