15 Apr Panagia the Mermaid: A partly lost Aegean storyworld
Viktoria Tasoula takes us to Panagia the Mermaid, a small, mysterious church built on top of a cliff, at the harbour off Skala Sykamineas (Sykamias) on the island of Lesvos.
A wall painting depicting the Virgin Mary with a mermaid’s tail gave the church its name, and one of the rarest descriptive titles of the Virgin Mary refers to the veneration of certain icons, departing from the Byzantine tradition. Panagia the Mermaid (Παναγιά η Γοργόνα) and her enigmatic story inspired the novelist Stratis Myrivilis, a native of the village of Sykamia, to write his novel of the same name in 1948. According to this tale, the chapel of Panagia the Mermaid, built on a rock called Rachta of Panagia by the elderly, is not as old as some of the gems of Byzantine architecture scattered all over Greece.
Four-squared and solid, it was built less than a century ago by some god-fearing craftsmen and sailors with more reverence than artistic taste. This is how Myrivilis describes Panagia’s first encounter with the seamen of the Aegean: “Together with their contractor, they [the craftsmen] were sailing in a barque on their way to a village in the north of the island, where they had been contracted to build a soap factory. Suddenly a great storm came up and they were caught up in a violent squall. The sailing boat was about to capsize not far from Cape Korakas when they suddenly saw Panagia’s Rachta. ‘Our Panagia, save us,’ the builder vowed, ‘and we will build you a chapel!’ Immediately the storm calmed down. The craftsmen and the crew were relieved to finally reach the small port of Panagia. They moored the boat and hurried to fulfil their vow. That is the reason why this chapel looks like a small olive oil store [the small church was built by humble craftsmen using their worldly skills]”.
Myrivilis then tells the story of Captain Lias, the icon-painter whose life is as strange as his creation: the story of a secular monk of unknown origin, probably from the mysterious Anatolia, who lived in the chapel of Panagia until he left the island, never to return. The icon of Panagia the Mermaid has adorned the wall of the chapel ever since. Here is the description of Panagia the Mermaid in the author’s own words: “…a strange painting which he [Captain Lias] left up on the wall of the little church. It is still there, though faded by the salt sea air, and it depicts a Panagia, the strangest in Greece and in all Christendom. Her head looked as we know it from the icons of Platytera. Olive skin, delicate features, a modest face. She has a rounded chin, almond-shaped eyes and a small mouth. A crimson red maphorion surrounds the upper part of her body, covering her head up to her eyebrows, and a golden halo is placed around her head, as in all the icons. Except for her eyes, which are green and extraordinarily wide. From the waist down, however, she is fish-like with blue scales, holding a boat in her right hand and a trident in her left, just like the one the ancient sea god Poseidon is depicted holding in pictures and schoolbooks. When the fishermen and the villagers first saw the painting, they stood in awe, but it did not seem strange to them at all. The women, who went up to worship her, fell on their knees before her, and they burned incense to her just as they do to all icons. They called her Panagia the Mermaid, as she is still called today, and from then on, she gave her name to both the church and the harbour.
And no one thought that, on that day, [when Captain Lias conceived the idea of a Panagia as a mermaid] a new Greek divinity sprang from the forehead of this secular monk’s forehead, just like from Zeus,’ and settling on this unique sea rock of our Aegean island, miraculously bridged the gap between the past and the present, creating spiritual and meaningful links in our tribe; A tribe that lives and fights with the ghosts and the storms of the world, half on the land and half at sea, with the ploughshare and with the keel, always under the protection of a warlike, female and virginal deity”.
This deity finds a human counterpart in Myrivilis’ protagonist, Smaragdi, a young girl with powers traditionally attributed to mermaids. Her unique beauty, her dynamic and emotional nature, her moral superiority and her exemplary character create challenges and conflicts for independent women in a male-dominated society. She resists patriarchal violence and claims her freedom, sharing her inspiring journey of personal suffering at the hands of fate. The novel incorporates elements of mythology and folklore into the narrative of Smaragdi’s life stories. With melodramatic pathos and ethnographic curiosity, Myrivilis succeeds in revealing the symbolic power and the cultural significance of Panagia the Mermaid. The life of the refugees from Asia Minor in 1922, among them Smaragdi as a baby, who settled in Skala, where Panagia the Mermaid is the main point of reference for these people, a source of help and protection, is told. As the story unfolds, the characters, deeply connected to the sea, are confronted with the poverty, desperation and violence of life there, while the uncertainty of the inter-war period increases. In this period of transition from tradition to technocracy, Panagia the Mermaid becomes a symbol of the cultural synthesis of references and beliefs, rendered timeless by the uninterrupted oral and written narrative, which plays a significant role in the creation and the development of collective memory, as exemplified by Myrivilis’ novel and its characters. Panagia the Mermaid, like its source of inspiration, has a dual nature: it is a folk tale with a lyrical style, and a piece of realist historical fiction.
Mermaids are visual metaphors that embody and represent concrete and traditional metaphysical concepts, a perfect interfusion of human and divine reality. The contemplation of nature as a source of inspiration for creativity remains a valuable aesthetic experience. In Panagia the Mermaid, created by the old hermit, the natural landscape is involved, representing an aesthetic value and a prototype; Panagia’s Rachta looks like the rocks on which the mermaids sit and comb their hair. Sailors are aware of the presence of Panagia, with her shining fishtail, who wanders the Aegean, watching over the ships and occasionally performing miracles, such as holding the boat over the stormy sea and then carefully setting it down in the harbour. Contemplation can thus be understood as an experience of transcendence or mysticism. “Contemplation is the highest expression of man’s intellectual and spiritual life. It is that life itself, fully awake, fully active, fully aware that it is alive. It is a spiritual wonder. It is spontaneous awe at the sacredness of life, of being” (Merton,1972,1-2).
The visual qualities and symbols in Panagia the Mermaid are drawn from other religions and mythologies, but mostly from the iconography of the Orthodox Christian tradition. The unknown artist managed to extract the sacred essence from the religious figure and, despite his unusual perception of Panagia, the faithful villagers exclaimed: ”No other Panagia in the whole of Christendom has such a maphorion!” The link between the material world and the transcendent reality is experienced through the icon. St Maximus the Confessor wrote: “The whole spiritual world is mystically imprinted on the sensible world, while the whole sensible world cognitively subsists in the intelligible world, and their activity and function are one.” In Eastern Orthodox Christianity, miraculous events associated with the icons of Theotokos, have shaped and sustained the faith of the community. There is a rich tradition of the intercession of Theotokos for those who pray before her as a source of continuing devotion expressed through spiritual practices and worship. Icons associated with these apparitions reflect the historical context and tell their visual stories by incorporating elements of popular imagination. Panagia the Mermaid, familiar and strange, does not only embody both human and aquatic realities, but can also be interpreted as a reflection of the mystical and incomprehensible union of humanity and divinity.
Today, Panagia the Mermaid, the most beautiful Panagia of the Aegean, is no longer on the iconographic wall-painting of the chapel of the same name in Skala Sykamias. The circumstances of her disappearance remain unclear.
Douglas, C Youvan. 2024. Apparitions of the Virgin Mary in Eastern Orthodox Tradition: A Study of Miraculous Icons and Local Devotions.
Massimo Confessore (R. Cantarella ed.). 1931. La mistagogia ed altri scritti, 122-214. Florence: Testi Cristiani. (Thesaurus Linguae Graecae 2892:049:563).
Merton, Thomas. 1972. New seeds of contemplation. New York: New Directions Paperbook.
Μυριβήλης, Στρατής. 2008. Η Παναγιά η γοργόνα. Αθήνα: ΕΣΤΙΑ. [1948]
English translation: The Mermaid Madonna, 1981. Athens: Efstathiadis Group.
Swedish translation: Den heliga sjöjungfrun, 1958. Stockholm: Alb. Bonniers Boktryckeri.
Viktoria Tasoula
is an MA student in Ancient Greek and Byzantine Studies at Uppsala University. She has worked for over 20 years as a philologist in Greek secondary schools in the public and private sectors.