Tales of the Viennese Jews: 21, Marianne Faithfull and a self-styled baroness who resisted the Nazis in Austria

Marianne Faithfull, who died last week at the age of 78, had a strong Jewish family background in Austria, Hungary, Romania, Serbia, Ukraine and Germany

Patrick Comerford

Marianne Faithfull, the singer, muse and actor who helped write and inspired some of the Rolling Stones’ greatest songs, died last week at the age of 78. She was 17 and I had just started secondary school when she took every teenage boy’s world by storm with her hit version of ‘As Tears Go By.’

The story of Marianne Faithfull’s disturbing early life, her brave efforts at recovery, and her death last week brought back so many of my teenage and school years. They reminded me too of the amazing story of her mother, Eva von Sacher-Masoch, who styled herself Baroness Erisso, and called me back again to a blog series, ‘Tales of the Viennese Jews,’ which I began in November 2019, although I had not returned to it since the story of Max Perutz almost for four years ago (18 May 2021).

The Tales from the Vienna Woods is a waltz by the composer Johann Strauss II (1825-1899), written just over a century and a half ago, in 1868. Although Strauss was baptised in the Roman Catholic Church, he was born into a prominent Jewish family. Because the Nazis had a particular penchant for Strauss’s music, they tried to conceal and even deny the Jewish identity of the Strauss family.

However, the stories of Vienna’s Jews cannot be hidden, and many of those stories from Vienna are told in the exhibits in the Jewish Museum in its two locations, at the Palais Eskeles on Dorotheergasse and in the Misrachi-Haus in Judenplatz.

Rather than describe both museums in detail in one or two blog postings, I decided after a visit to Vienna in November 2019 to post occasional blog postings that re-tell some of these stories, celebrating a culture and a community whose stories should never be forgotten.

The newspaper obituaries last week focussed on Marianne Faithfull as a singer, actor, her brave battle for recovery from addiction and against cancer, and her short relationship with Mick Jagger, and portrayed her as the archetypal wild child of the 1960s.

She had a convent school education, and was often described as the daughter of an aristocratic baroness who had survived the Nazi occupation of Austria. Both details added to the media attention to her lifestyle in the 1960s and 1970s.

Marianne Faithfull’s mother, Eva von Sacher-Masoch, who called herself Baroness Erisso

In recent years, the singer also explored her Jewish background and her Jewish ancestry featured in the BBC series Who Do You Think You Are?. She once declared she had to thank her Jewish roots for her renditions of the songs of Bertholt Brecht and Kurt Weill and for an innate flair for their music.

Recent genealogical research reveals that, despite her Catholic background and schooling, Marianne Faithfull was Jewish by all rabbinical definitions. Although she never practised Judaism, her mother, her maternal grandmother, and all her ancestors on that side of her family are Jewish, which meets the definition of being Jewish according to halacha or Jewish traditional law.

Her mother, Eva von Sacher-Masoch, who called herself Baroness Erisso, was a dancer in Weimar Berlin and was then living in Vienna when World War II began. Eva’s mother Flora was born into a well-known Jewish family; she converted to Christianity when she married an Austrian aristocrat Artur Wolfgang Ritter von Sacher-Masoch (1875-1953), but she still attended synagogue on High Holy Days.

Marianne Faithfull’s father, Major Robert Glynn Faithfull, was a British intelligence officer during World War II and later Professor of Italian Literature at Bedford College, London University. He met Eva in Vienna after the defeat of the Nazis.

Marianne Faithfull’s mother was known as Eva but was born Hermine von Sacher-Masoch (1912-1991) on 4 December 1912 in Budapest, then the second city in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Eva’s father, Artur Wolfgang von Sacher-Masoch, was an Austrian writer who used the pseudonym Michael Zorn. His family was descended from central European minor nobility through Leopold Johann Nepomuk Ritter von Sacher – the title ritter indicates an hereditary knight, and is somewhat equivalent to the title of baronet. Leopold combined his own family name with that of von Masoch, to keep alive the name of the family of his wife, who was the last descendant of a Slovak family of minor aristocrats. He did this when the Habsburg emperor gave him the title of ritter to recognise his work as the imperial police commissioner in Lemberg, present-day Lviv in Ukraine.

Another family member was the writer Leopold von Sacher-Masoch (1836-1895), whose last name and scandalous novel Venus in Furs gave rise to the word ‘masochism’.

Eva’s mother, Flora Ziprisz (1881-1955), was born into a central European Jewish family whose members included many prominent medical doctors. She was known in her family as Flora but was born Elisabeth Rosa Ziprisz on 29 September 1881 in Karánsebes, then in Hungary and now Caransebeș in the Banat region in south-west Romania. Flora’s mother, Therese (Deutsch) Ziprisz, was also born in Caransebeş.

Flora’s father, Eva’s grandfather, Dr Wilhelm ‘Vilmos’ Ziprisz (1844-1922), was born in the Banat region on 23 November 1844 in Neusatz or Novi Sad, once known as the ‘Serbian Athens’. It was then an important city on the Danube in the Hungarian part of the Austro-Hungarian. Today it is the second largest city in Serbia.

He was a son of Salamon Ziprisz, a member of a leading Jewish family from Bač, now in Vojvodina in Serbia. He studied medicine in Vienna under Dr Ignaz Semmelweis, and later became a doctor battling the diphtheria and cholera in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He publicly vaccinated his daughter Flora with the smallpox vaccine to show villagers that it would not poison them. He died in Vienna at the age of 78 on 28 April 1922.

Despite strong disapproval from both their families, Flora married Artur Wolfgang Sacher-Masoch in Caransebeș on 9 January 1901 when she was 18. She converted to Christianity – not an uncommon experience at the time – but continued to attended synagogue on High Holy days.

The main building of the Jewish community in Vienna, housing the Stadttempel or City Synagogue at Seitenstettengasse 4 … Eva Sacher-Masoch moved with her family to Vienna in 1918 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

After the collapse of the Hapsburg empire, Austrian abolished and outlawed all aristocratic titles. As a child, Eva was known as Eva Sacher-Masoch. She spent her early childhood living on her family’s estates near Caransebeș, and moved with her family to Vienna in 1918. Her brother was the novelist Alexander Sacher-Masoch (1901-1972), author of Die Parade.

As a young woman, Eva moved to Berlin where she studied ballet at the Max Reinhardt Company. She danced in productions by the German theatrical duo Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill, as well as in the cabaret scene of Weimar Berlin, depicted in the film Cabaret. In one anecdote, she recalled how she was befriended by a prostitute on the Kurfurstendamm who would see her home safely at night.

As World War II loomed, Eva returned to her parents’ home in Vienna and lived with them throughout the war. The family opposed Hitler since the Anschluss or forced annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany. Flora thought of herself as a Hungarian patriot, first and foremost, but was as shocked as any other Jew by the Nazi racial laws.

Despite their Jewish ancestry, Flora and Eva were protected to a degree because of Artur’s World War I military record, his standing as the writer Michael Zorn, and perhaps his aristocratic claims. This may have saved Flora from having to wear a yellow star and from being sent to the death camps but did not remove the constant fear, and Eva was officially labelled a mischling or ‘a mongrel’.

At times, the family secretly helped Jews fleeing Austria, and hid socialist pamphlets in their home. Artur joined the anti-Nazi resistance, and ended up being arrested and hung by his hands in torture chambers in his 60s.

Soviet troops liberated Vienna in April 1945, but Eva and Flora were among 100,000 or so women in Vienna who were raped by Red Army troops. A Russian soldier found Eva and Flora hiding in a room. He raped Eva, but she then picked up a gun and shot him before he could do the same to Flora; later Eva had an abortion.

In post-war Vienna, Eva met a British intelligence officer, Major Robert Glynn Faithfull (1912-1998), a lecturer in Italian at Liverpool University. They married in 1946, moved to England and were the parents of a daughter Marianne, born Marian Evelyn Gabrielle Faithfull in Hampstead, London, on 29 December 1946.

The family lived for a time in Ormskirk, Lancashire while the father completed his PhD at Liverpool University. Marianne then spent part of her childhood in Braziers Park, a commune in Oxfordshire formed by John Norman Glaister in which Robert Faithfull played an instrumental role.

The couple divorced in 1952. Despite Austrian law, Eva chose to style herself Eva von Sacher-Masoch, Baroness Erisso, despite Austrian constitutional laws. Research for Who Do You Think You Are? revealed Eva’s claim to a title was exaggerated though rooted in reality.

To help support her daughter, Eva taught dance at Bylands School, a private boarding school near Basingstoke, Hampshire. She later lived in Reading, Berkshire, where she worked as a waitress at a Sally’s Café on Friar Street. Eva’s mother Flora came to live with them and died in Reading at the age of 74 in July 1955.

Eva and Marianne seem to have lived in straitened circumstances, and Marianne’s childhood included bouts of tuberculosis. She went to a primary school in Brixton, London, and had a bursary to attend Saint Joseph’s Convent School, Reading, where she was a weekly boarder and part of the Progress Theatre’s student group.

Eva died on 22 May 1991. Dr Robert Glyn Faithfull died on 5 February 1998, aged 85.

Marianne Fathfull’s mother Eva von Sacher-Masoch, who was half-Jewish, and her mother Flora, who was a Hungarian Jew (Photo courtesy of http://www.cabaret-berlin.com)

Despite Eva’s bohemian past, Marianne Faithfull said she broke her mother’s heart when she embarked on her own wild time. As a singer, she was discovered at 17 by the Rolling Stones manager Andrew Oldham. Her first single, ‘As Tears Go By’, was written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards and made her a star. She would dismiss any rumours that she had had a hand in writing the song.

Her life quickly became a whirlwind. By 18, she was married to the artist John Dunbar and the mother of a son, Nicholas. Her affair with Mick Jagger ended in 1970, and that same year she lost custody of her son. She survived a suicide attempt and spiralled downwards, spending two years sleeping rough in Soho and addicted to heroin. Later in life, she was seen as the rock ’n’ roll casualty who had survived to tell her tale.

She acted in films including The Girl On A Motorcycle with French actor Alain Delon, as well as theatre productions. She entered a new phase with an understated performance as Maggie in Sam Garbaski’s film comedy-drama Irina Palm that was lauded by critics at the Berlin Film Festival in 2007.

She also fought anorexia, hepatitis and breast cancer, broke her hip in a fall and was in hospital with Covid-19. Her final album was an experimental collaboration in 2021 with the Australian multi-instrumentalist Warren Ellis, She Walks In Beauty.

Although Marianne Faithfull was raised a Catholic, she was proud of her Jewish heritage through her mother and grandmother and once said music by Kurt Weill, a cantor’s son, was ‘very much the tonic scale from the temple.’ She had never been to a synagogue nor heard the music there. ‘But I think there must really be some genetic memory of my Jewish background,’ she once told the Jewish Chronicle.

Marianne Faithfull would say she had lived out her dreams and her nightmares. She died on 30 January 2025.

May her memory be a blessing, זיכרונה לברכה‎

Shabbat Shalom, שבת שלום‎



Tales of the Viennese Jews:

1, the chief rabbi and a French artist’s ‘pogrom’

2, a ‘positively rabbinic’ portrait of an Anglican dean

3, portraits of two imperial court financiers

4, portrait of Sigmund Freud, founder of psychoanalysis

5, Lily Renée, from Holocaust Survivor to Escape Artist

6, Sir Moses Montefiore and a decorative Torah Mantle

7, Theodor Herzl and the cycle of contradictions

8, Simon Wiesenthal and the café in Mauthausen

9, Leonard Cohen and ‘The Spice-Box of Earth’

10, Ludwig Wittgenstein and his Jewish grandparents

11, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and his Jewish librettist

12, Salomon Mayer von Rothschild and the railways in Vienna

13, Gustav Mahler and the ‘thrice homeless’ Jew

14, Beethoven at 250 and his Jewish connections in Vienna

15, Martin Buber and the idea of the ‘I-Thou’ relationship

16, Three Holocaust survivors who lived in Northern Ireland.

17, Schubert’s setting of Psalm 92 for the synagogue.

18, Bert Linder and his campaign against the Swiss banks.

19, Adele Bloch-Bauer and Gustav Klimt’s ‘Lady in Gold’.

20, Max Perutz, Nobel laureate and ‘the godfather of molecular biology’.

21, Marianne Faithfull (1946-2025) and her mother Eva Hermine von Sacher-Masoch (1912-1991)

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time with French saints and writers 5: 7 February 2024

Canon Frederic Anstruther Cardew (1866-1942) … known in Paris as the ‘chorus girls' friend’

Patrick Comerford

We are in Ordinary Time, the time between Candlemas and the 40 days of Lent, which begins next Wednesday.

Charlotte and I arrived in Paris yesterday, and we are staying here for two days. So, in these 11 days in Ordinary Time, my reflections each morning are drawing on the lives of 11 French saints and spiritual writers.

As this series of reflections began, I admitted I am often uncomfortable with many aspects of French spirituality, and that I need to broaden my reading in French spirituality. So, I have turned to 11 figures or writers you might not otherwise expect. They include men and women, Jews and Christians, immigrants and emigrants, monks and philosophers, Catholics and Protestants, and even a few Anglicans.

I am taking some quiet time early this morning for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:

1, A reflection on a French saint or writer in spirituality;

2, today’s Gospel reading;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary.

Canon Frederic Anstruther Cardew at the wedding of Lord Dudley and Gertie Millar in Paris in 1924

French saints and writers: 5, the Revd Canon Frederic Cardew (1866-1942):

Saint George's Church, the main Church of England church in Paris, is at 7 rue Auguste Vacquerie, just a few steps from the Arc de Triomphe. Although the present church is a modern church dating from 1978, the church dates back to 1824.

Saint George’s is one of two Church of England congregations in central Paris, the other being Saint Michael’s. There are four other Church of England congregations in the suburbs. Paris also has an American Episcopal Church at avenue George V.

Saint George’s says it seeks, ‘in the very heart of this busy city, to be a place of the holy, a place of silence and of prayer,’ where visitors may experience ‘something of the wonder and loving mystery of our God, and may feel drawn gently into His sacred presence.’

The foundation stone of ‘old Saint George’s’ was laid in 1887 on the site of the present church. That church was high in both senses – Victorian Gothic and Anglo-Catholic. The church, with its colourful chaplains and curates – including Father Frederic Cardew and his ministry to English ‘dancing-girls’ – survived two World Wars and the Nazi occupation of Paris, and in more recent decades became the centre for Anglican-Roman Catholic ecumenism.

Throughout much of the first half of the 20th century, Canon Frederic Anstruther Cardew (1866-1942) was known in Paris as the ‘chorus girls' friend.’

He was born in Mean Meir in Lahore, now in Pakistan, on 6 March 1866, a son of Colonel Sir Frederic Cardew, an army officer in India, and Clara (Newton) Cardew. Sir Frederic was later the Governor of Sierra Leone (1894 -1900).

Canon Frederic Cardew had many prominent church figures in his family. His aunt Lucy Cardew was married to Frederick William Farrar (1831-1903), Dean of Canterbury; his first cousin Maud Farrar married the SPG secretary, Bishop Henry Montgomery (1847-1932) from Moville, Co Donegal, and they were the parents of Viscount ‘Monty’ Montgomery of Alamein.

Frederic Anstruther-Cardew was still in his late teens when he went to Canada in 1884, volunteered to fight Indians and sought adventure as a cowboy in the US. He returned to England, was ordained in 1891.

He was Precentor of Brisbane Cathedral when he married Norah Skye Kington in Saint Mary Abbots Church, Kensington, in 1894. Her father, Colonel William Miles Nairne Kington (1838-1898), played cricket for Gloucestershire. In Australia, Cardew was the Vicar of Charleville in Queensland for three years from 1894.

In Charleville, Cardew ministered to the biggest cattle stations in the world. It was there that he became famous across the colony as the ‘Cattle Punchers Padre.’ It was said his parish was the biggest in the world, covering 120,000 square miles.

Cardew then spent three years as the Vicar of All Saints’ Church, Brisbane. There he officiated at the wedding in 1898 of Travers Robert Goff (1863-1907), a bank manager from Dublin, and Margaret Agnes Morehead – their children included PL Travers (1899-1996), born Helen Lyndon Goff, the author of Mary Poppins.

Cardew was back in England, living in Leicestershire and Derbyshire in the early 20th century. He became the chaplain of Saint George’s Church, Paris, in 1907, and remained there until 1939. He was also the rural dean of France and a prebendary of Saint Paul’s Cathedral, London.

Soon after his arrival in Paris, Cardew founded the Cardew Theatre Girls’ Hostel in Montmartre for American and English ‘chorus girls’ in 1907. For over 30 years, he fed and sheltered countless chorus girls who sought their fame and fortune in the burlesque shows of Paris. He became the confessor, matchmaker, and legal adviser to thousands of ‘Les Girls’ and in doing so became famous across Europe as the ‘Chorus Girls’ Friend.’

During World War I he visited the frontlines, the trenches and the battlefields, and one of his sons was taken prisoner of war at the Second Battle of Ypres in 1915. At a victory dinner in Paris after the war signed himself with aplomb as ‘Chaplain of Blighty.’

Cardew continued his work among the ‘chorus girls’ after World War I. His fame and personality were so great that he was worked into the storyline of a show, The Nymph Errant, that became a musical by Cole Porter. He was also chaplain to the Actors’ Union and the Actors’ Association, was involved in the Anglo-Catholic Congress in 1923.

Canon Cardew officiated at the marriage of one of his ‘chorus girls,’ Gertie Millar (1879-1952), who married the widowed William Ward (1867-1932), 2nd Earl of Dudley, in Paris in 1924. Lord Dudley’s first wife had drowned in 1920 while she was visiting Connemara. The wedding caused a stir because Gertie was well-known on stage and in the chorus halls, while Lord Dudley had been Viceroy of Ireland (1902-1905) and Governor-General of Australia (1908-1911). He is named in James Joyce’s description of his Vice-Regal progress through Dublin in Ulysses.

But the publicity surrounding the wedding attracted public support for Cardew rather than notoriety, and in 1928 the British Ambassador in Paris presented him with a cheque for £1 million. The long list of subscribers was headed by the Prince of Wales, later Edward VIII, who had known Cardew from childhood but was also known to many of the chorus girls and was a close friend of Lord Dudley.

Canon Cardew’s first wife Norah died in London on 27 July 1931. He married his second wife, Margaret Sophie Stokes, on 17 August 1933. He had been made OBE the previous year, and the French government recognised his work by making him a Chevalier du Legion d’Honneur, the highest award from the French government.

When Edward VIII abdicated in 1936 and subsequently married Wallace Simpson at the Château de Candé in Tours on June 1937, Cardew became embroiled in the controversy. The civil marriage was followed by a Church of England service conducted by the Revd Robert Anderson Jardine, Vicar of Darlington in the Diocese of Durham.

Cardew said he the former king was ‘an old friend of mine and I have known him since he was a boy.’ But, he said, Jardine had conducted the service without his permission as Rural Dean of France and in defiance of the Bishop of Fulham, Bishop Basil Batty, who was in charge of Anglican affairs in continental Europe, and in defiance of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of Durham.

Cardew said he was responsible for Anglican matters in France, and called for Jardine to be dismissed. He added that ‘any clergyman under my jurisdiction here in France who performed such a breach would almost certainly be deprived of his living.’ Cardew may also have disliked Jardine’s aggressive evangelical views. Jardine was eventually forced to retire and never worked again in parish ministry in the Church of England and died penniless in 1950.

Meanwhile, Cardew retired in 1939, and moved back to London. Canon Frederic Cardew died at the age of 76 in Shrewsbury House, Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, on 12 July 1942. He was the father of four sons.

After World War II, a memorial was erected to Canon Cardew in Saint George’s Church in 1950. With the help of the Girls’ Friendly Society, his widow Margaret refounded his club in 1952. In 1970, the YMCA contributed a legacy to the organisation, later known as the YMCA-Cardew Club. The club supports young English speakers, many of them au pairs, and the clubroom is at Saint George’s Church.

Saint George’s Church had been badly damaged during World War II. The site was sold to developers and the church is now housed in the ground floor and the basement of a modern apartment building on the site.

Frederic Anstruther Cardew is remembered to this day as a saintly and pastorally caring priest. The American writer Julien Green (1900-1998), who was born and lived in Paris, became a Roman Catholic in 1916. But in his autobiographical Young Years (1984) he recalled the influence on him of Cardew during his childhood days when he went to church in Saint George’s with his parents:

‘I remember that when the Reverend Cardew knelt in front of the altar and in an uncertain voice, but with an accent that did not deceive, intoned a hymn immediately taken up by the faithful, an indescribable emotion took possession of me. There was in this man a humility so deep and a faith so pure that I received something from it without even guessing what it was about. Because of this man, I loved God. I didn’t know anything about it and Reverend Cardew didn’t know anything about it either. Recently, a Catholic priest told me that this man had left behind the memory of an unblemished life after having been for a long time the chaplain of the girls at the Folies Bergère.’

Saint George’s Church was rebuilt in 1978. The Revd Mark Osborne is the chaplain, the Revd Nicolas Razafindratsima is the curate, and the former Dean of St Albans, the Very Revd Jeffrey John, is Associate Chaplain. The Sunday services include the Said Eucharist (BCP 1662) at 8:30 and Solemn Eucharist at 10:30.

Saint George’s Church, Paris, was rebuilt in 1978

Mark 7: 14-23 (NRSVA):

14 Then he called the crowd again and said to them, ‘Listen to me, all of you, and understand: 15 there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.’

17 When he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about the parable. 18 He said to them, ‘Then do you also fail to understand? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile, 19 since it enters, not the heart but the stomach, and goes out into the sewer?’ (Thus he declared all foods clean.) 20 And he said, ‘It is what comes out of a person that defiles. 21 For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, 22 adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. 23 All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.’

Édouard Manet’s ‘A Bar at the Folies-Bergère’ (1882) … Canon Frederic Cardew was known in Paris as the ‘chorus girls' friend’

Today’s Prayers (Wednesday 7 February 2024):

The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Gender Justice in Christ.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday by Ellen McMibanga, Zambia Anglican Council Outreach Programme.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (7 February 2024) invites us to pray in these words:

Let us pray for gender justice across the world, remembering that gender equality can lead to the abolishment of poverty.

The Collect:

Almighty God,
you have created the heavens and the earth
and made us in your own image:
teach us to discern your hand in all your works
and your likeness in all your children;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who with you and the Holy Spirit reigns supreme over all things,
now and for ever.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

God our creator,
by your gift
the tree of life was set at the heart of the earthly paradise,
and the bread of life at the heart of your Church:
may we who have been nourished at your table on earth
be transformed by the glory of the Saviour’s cross
and enjoy the delights of eternity;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Almighty God,
give us reverence for all creation
and respect for every person,
that we may mirror your likeness
in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflection (Albert Schweitzer, 1875-1965)

Continued Tomorrow (Simon Weil, 1909-1943)

‘F Anstruther Cardew, Chaplain of Blighty’ … a post-war dinner card in Paris in 1918

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org

Daily prayers in Ordinary Time with USPG: (24) 21 June 2023

Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Cathedral is in the historic Greek neighbourhood in Vienna (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

This week began with the Second Sunday after Trinity (18 June 2023) and Father’s Day. Before the day begins, I am taking some time for prayer, reading and reflection.

Over these weeks after Trinity Sunday, I am reflecting each morning in these ways:

1, Looking at relevant images or stained glass window in a church, chapel or cathedral I know;

2, the Gospel reading of the day in the Church of England lectionary;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary.

The Griechische Kirche or Greek Church was designed by the Danish-born architect Theophil Hansen in the Byzantine Revival style (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Cathedral, Vienna:

This week I am reflecting on Orthodox churches named after the Holy Trinity. These Trinity reflections continue this morning (21 June 2023) with photographs of Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Vienna, in the historic Greek neighbourhood in the Innere Stadt or old town.

The area has also been known as the Fleischmarkt, for this was the city of the city’s first meat market from 1220. Greek merchants first settled around the Fleischmarkt in the early 18th century, and there have been Greek Orthodox churches on this site since 1787, following the Patent of Toleration issued by the Emperor Joseph II in 1781.

. The neo-Byzantine style Griechische Kirche or Greek Church, with its rich, gilt structure, was designed by the Danish-born architect Theophil Hansen (1813-1891) in the Byzantine Revival style.

The cathedral was officially opened on 21 December 1858. The exterior features two-tone brickwork and gilded archways. The elaborately ornamented sanctuary shows a stylish allusion to Baroque church architecture that is typical of southern Germany and Austria.

A number of frescoes for the façade and the vestibule were commissioned from the Austrian painter and art professor Carl Rahl, with other frescoes by Ludwig Thiersch.

Baron Theophil Edvard von Hansen was born Theophilus Hansen in Copenhagen on 13 July 1813, and later became an Austrian citizen. He is known particularly for his buildings in Athens and Vienna and is an outstanding representative of neoclassicism.

After training with the Prussian architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel and studying in Vienna for some years, he moved to Athens in 1837, where he studied architecture and design, with particular interest in Byzantine architecture.

In Athens, Hansen designed his first building, the National Observatory of Athens, and two of the three neighbouring buildings forming the so-called ‘classical trilogy’: the Academy of Athens and the National Library of Greece, alongside the National and Cappodistrian University of Athens, designed by his brother Christian Hansen.

The Greek-Austrian financier Georgios Sinas called Hansen back to Vienna in 1846. There Hansen took up an apprenticeship with noted Austrian architect Ludwig Förster.

In his early works, such as the museum at the Arsenal in Vienna, Hansen still displayed a more romantic style. In later years, he became the most outstanding representative of Renaissance-inspired historicism or the Neo-Renaissance style, which also came to be known as Viennese-style. This style extended into the smallest details of the interior design and partially accepted the courses of a synthesis of the arts.

Hansen became one of the most influential architects of the Viennese Ringstrasse. His best-known work is the Austrian Parliament building, designed in the style of an ancient, neo-classic temple and a reference to the Greek beginnings of democracy.

Hansen was originally a staunch critic of the Classical style that was taught to him at the Copenhagen Academy. Over the years, however, he came to incorporate Classical elements into his forms.

Hansen’s Musikverein in Vienna is one of the most notable concert halls in the world. Its design and acoustics are often admired and copied in music houses.

Hansen worked with Austrian sculptor Vincenz Pilz and artist Carl Rahl, as well as the architect Otto Wagner. The Emperor Franz Joseph honoured Hansen in 1884 with a title in the Austrian nobility as Freiherr or Baron von Hansen. He died in Vienna on 17 February 1891.

Hansen’s Greek cathedral in Vienna was financed by the Greek-Austrian diplomat and philanthropist Simon Sinas (1810-1876), and this was one of their many collaborations in Vienna and Athens.

Simon Sinas (Σίμων Σίνας), or Simon von Sina, was an Austrian banker, aristocrat, benefactor and diplomat of Greek descent. He was born in Vienna on 15 August 1810, but his family were Greeks who came originally from Moscopole in what is south Albania today.

He was the Greek consul in Vienna, and later the Greek minister to Austria, Bavaria and Germany. His father, Georgios Sinas, was also a benefactor and diplomat, and Simon Sinas expanded his father’s business.

Simon Sinas made major donations to educational and scientific foundations in Austria, Hungary and Greece. While he was the Greek Ambassador in Vienna, he hosted the ‘Greek Ball’ in the Palais Sina for which Johann Strauss II composed the Hellenen-Polka (Hellenes Polka).

Sinas became director of Austria’s central bank, Oesterreichische Nationalbank, and established the Simon Georg Sina banking house in Vienna. After the Second Schleswig War or German-Danish War came to an end in 1864, Sinas funded the return of Austrian forces from Schleswig-Holstein. Sinas held a seat in the Herrenhaus or upper house in the of Austrian parliament from 1874.

Along with Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church in Vienna, Sinas was the donor or financed many public buildings, including the Hungarian Academy of Budapest, the Athens Orthodox Cathedral and the Athens Academy, and others. He died in Vienna on 15 April 1876.

In the past, the parishioners of the Greek Cathedral in Vienna have included the family of the conductor Herbert von Karajan (1908-1989). They were descended from Georg Karajan (Geórgios Karajánnis, Γεώργιος Καραγιάννης), was born in Kozani, in the Ottoman province of Rumelia, now in Greece.

The cathedral has been the seat of the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Austria since 1963, and is part of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople.

Beside the cathedral, the Griechenbeisl is one of other landmarks associated with the Greek community in Vienna. It was once frequented by Beethoven, Brahms and Schubert. A passage links the Griechenbeisl to Griechengasse or ‘Greek Street,’ with its own Greek restaurant, Artemis.

There have been Greek Orthodox churches on the site of the cathedral since 1787 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Matthew 6: 1-6, 16-18 (NRSVA):

[Jesus said:] 6 ‘Beware of practising your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven.

2 ‘So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. 3 But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 so that your alms may be done in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

5 ‘And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. 6 But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

16 ‘And whenever you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so as to show others that they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. 17 But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, 18 so that your fasting may be seen not by others but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.’

The Greek-Austrian financier Georgios Sinas financed the building of the cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayer:

The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel) is ‘The snowdrop that never bloomed.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday.

The Prayer in the USPG Prayer Diary today (21 June 2023) invites us to pray:

We pray for all the children displaced through war and conflict. We pray for peace and comfort over their hearts and minds and give thanks for creative activities that help them process their trauma.

Collect:

Lord, you have taught us
that all our doings without love are nothing worth:
send your Holy Spirit
and pour into our hearts that most excellent gift of love,
the true bond of peace and of all virtues,
without which whoever lives is counted dead before you.
Grant this for your only Son Jesus Christ’s sake,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Post Communion:

Loving Father,
we thank you for feeding us at the supper of your Son:
sustain us with your Spirit,
that we may serve you here on earth
until our joy is complete in heaven,
and we share in the eternal banquet
with Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued tomorrow

The parishioners of the Greek Cathedral in Vienna have included the family of the conductor Herbert von Karajan (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org

Greek merchants first settled around the Fleischmarkt in Vienna in the early 18th century (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Missing a Bellini in Harry’s Bar for one of the rival cafés in Saint Mark’s

Napoleon described Saint Mark’s Square as ‘the drawing room of Europe’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Patrick Comerford

There are cafés and bars with such history and aura that their names become symbols of their cities. Yet, while I cannot count how many times I have got on and off vaporetti at San Marco in Venice, I have never had a Bellini in Harry’s Bar. Nor, until Charlotte and I were in Venice last week, had either of us ever been in any of the cafés on each side of Saint Mark’s Square, Piazza San Marco.

There are two sides of Saint Mark’s Square: the Procuratie Vecchie on the north side, once the apartments of the nine Procurators of Venice, and the Procuratie Nuove on the south side. At its east and west ends, the square is book-ended by Saint Mark’s Basilica and the Museo Correr and the Napoleonic wing.

Napoleon described Saint Mark’s Square as ‘the drawing room of Europe.’ Each side of the square has rival cafés, known for their romantic locations, their competing musicians, the ideal venues for people-watching, and the unrivalled atmospheres on a balmy summer night.

Florian Francesconi first set out his tables under the arcade of the Procuratie Nuove in 1720 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

These two famous rivals on opposite side of the square are Caffè Florian and Caffè Quadri. Which one you chose today is a matter of taste. But in the 19th century, these two cafés defined the political views of Venetians and divided the city.

Gianfrancesco Morosini – whose family gave their name to the Morosini Fountain in Lion Square in Iraklion – first brought coffee to the attention of the Venetians in 1585. He reported to the Senate that the Turks had developed a taste for drinking ‘a black water, boiled up as hot as they could bear it, which is distilled from a seed called kahvé and which they say has the property of making a man stay awake.’

By the mid-17th century, coffee was being sold in Venice as a medicine. Its popularity increased and imports rose.

Florian Francesconi first set out his tables under the arcade of the Procuratie Nuove over 300 years ago, on 29 December 1720. He named his café ‘Alla Venezia Trionfante’ or ‘Triumphant Venice.’ The name did not stick, however, and the café was soon known by its owner’s name, Florian.

Café le Procope was founded in Paris in 1686, and Baroque Haus Zum Arabischen Coffe Baum was founded in Leipzig in 1694. So, Caffè Florian in Venice is the third oldest café in Europe to be continuously open in the same location. This is also the first café ever to be open to women.

Patrons who have visited Florian’s over the centuries include Rousseau, Canova, Foscolo, Goethe, Byron, Dickens, d’Annunzio, Stravinsky, Proust and Modigliani. Its six beautifully decorated rooms include the Sala del Senato, the birthplace of the international arts fair, Il Biennale.

Giorgio Quadri opened his café after he returned to Venice from Corfu in 1775 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

When Giorgio Quadri returned to Venice on 28 May 1775 after many years in Corfu, his Greek wife Naxina urged him to buy ‘Il Rimedio’ or ‘The Cure,’ a restaurant under the arcade of the Procuratorie Vecchie, and to open a coffee house on the Piazza.

Following the defeat of Napoleon, Venice was occupied by the Austrians for half a century, from 1815 to 1866. Florian’s was favoured by local patriots who dreamt of reviving their country and of Italian unification. On the other hand, on the opposite side of the square, the Gran Caffè Quadri, was chosen by the Austrian officers.

Quadri’s was more bustling, pretentiously pro-Austrian, and the guests included Stendhal, Honoré de Balzac, Alexandre Dumas and Richard Wagner.

But Quadri’s was shunned by Italian patriots. The garrison was ignored, no-one applauded when their bands played Wagner and they were unable to mingle with the people. As Wagner observed, ‘the Austrian officers … floated about publicly in Venice like oil on water.’

Since then, though, Quadri’s more recent guests have included Gorbachev, Mitterrand and Woody Allen. Quadri has been run since 2011 by the Alajmo family from Padua and it was redecorated in 2018 by the French architect Philippe Starck.

Close by, Harry’s Bar was founded in 1931 by Giuseppe Cipriani (1900-1980), and has given the world the Bellini. Harry’s Bar was a favourite of Hemingway and Evelyn Waugh mentions it in Brideshead Revisited.

Other clients have include Toscanini, Marconi, Charlie Chaplin, Alfred Hitchcock, Humphrey Bogart, Jimmy Stewart, Truman Capote, Orson Welles, Baron Philippe de Rothschild, Aristotle Onassis, Barbara Hutton, Peggy Guggenheim, George Clooney and Woody Allen.

Today, Florian’s and Quadri’s have tables in the square and each has its own quartet or small orchestra. They may have different interiors and menus, yet they seem to complement each other. Although rivals, their musicians alternate playing so as not to drown out the sound of each other.

Florian’s is still seen as a bohemian institution, and it was there – rather than Quadri or Harry’s Bar – we elected for a drink in ‘the drawing room of Europe’ late in the evening last week.

Listening to the quartet at Florian’s on a balmy summer evening (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

The Greeks have a word for it (21) Holocaust

‘The Ballad of Mauthausen’ … the Holocaust cantata by Mikis Theodorakis, who was buried in Chania today

Patrick Comerford

I am in Rethymnon in Crete, and for the past week I have been writing on my blog about words in the English language that are borrowed from Greek.

On this Friday evening (10 September 2021), Shabbat Shuvah, between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, my choice of word is Holocaust.

The word Holocaust comes from the Ancient Greek ὁλόκαυστος (holokaustos), which, in turn, is derived from ὅλος (‘whole’) and καυστός (‘burnt’), used for one of the major forms of sacrifice also known as a burnt offering.

The word Holocaust was later used in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Bible, to refer to the olah (עלה‎), the communal and individual sacrificial burnt offerings in the Temple in Jerusalem. In time, its Latin form, holocaustum, was first used with specific reference to a massacre of Jewish people by the chroniclers Roger of Howden and Richard of Devizes in England in the 1190s.

But the Holocaust of the 20th century was not a sacrifice by the Nazis to God, and the 6 million Jews burned to death and murdered in the death camps were not burnt offerings. The former Regius Professor of History a Cambridge, Sir Richard J Evans, wrote in 1989 that the term Holocaust is unsuitable and should not be used.The Biblical word Shoah (שואה), meaning ‘calamity’ in Hebrew, has become the standard Hebrew term for the 20th-century Holocaust since the early 1940s.

Iakovos Kambanellis, author of ‘Mauthausen’ … is regarded by many as the greatest Greek playwright of the 20th century

All this week, the news in Greece has been dominated by the funeral of the composer Mikis Theodorakis (Μίκης Θεοδωράκης), who was buried today in his family’s home village near Chania. Television channels have been providing minute-by-minuted live coverage of the funeral and showing movies with music he composed, and restaurants here in Rethymnon have been playing his music and compositions constantly.

Theodorakis was the composer of the great Greek cantata of the Holocaust, The Ballad of Mauthausen. The poem was written by the Greek playwright and poet Iakovos Kambanellis and was set to music by Theodorakis in 1965, 20 years after the Holocaust.

The Ballad of Mauthausen (Η Μπαλάντα του Μαουτχάουζεν) is based on the experiences of Iakovos Kambanellis (1922-2011), who wrote four poems that Theodorakis set to music.

Kambanellis was a poet, playwright, screenwriter, lyricist, and novelist, best known as a screenwriter for films, including Stella (1955), directed by Michael Cacoyannis. It was first written the script as a play, Stella With the Red Gloves, based on Carmen, but was never produced on the Greek stage because of its sexual frankness. The film, shot in the streets of Athens, follows a singer (Melina Mercouri) who refuses to marry her lover and begins a passionate affair with a football player. The film made a star of Melina Mercouri and boosted Greek cinema’s international reputation.

Perhaps La Stella, the hotel where I am staying in Platanias, on the eastern fringes of Rethymnon, is named after Stella.

Kambanellis was born on 2 December 1922 in Hora on the island of Naxos. He had to leave school at an early age and to find work after the family moved to Athens. But he continued his studies at an evening technical school. He was arrested in 1942 after attempting to flee Nazi-occupied Greece, and was sent to Mauthausen in Austria, where he spent the rest of World War II.

The ‘Stairs of Death’ in Mauthausen

Unlike Auschwitz, Mauthausen was not an extermination camp, but countless people were murdered and died there in horrific circumstances. There the Nazis forced their victims to work in a stone quarry, hauling large pieces of rock and stone up the ‘Stairs of Death’ along steep and uneven ramps. The Jewish prisoners there included Simon Wiesenthal, along with Jehovah’s Witnesses, Romanies and Spanish republicans. Between 240,000 and 320,000 people, including Jews, intellectuals, and people classified as ‘political undesirables,’ were murdered in Mauthausen.

Kambanellis owed his survival to the protection of a Philhellenic German prison guard who assigned him to the architectural drafting office, where additions to the camp were designed.

Mauthausen was the last of the concentration camps to be liberated in May 1945. Kambanellis was not a Jew, and he was free to return with the other Greek prisoners to Greece. But knowing there were Greek Jews who dreamed of reaching Palestine, he elected to stay on in the camp until the last Greek Jew left.

Interviewed later in life, he said: ‘I don’t want to make myself into a hero. What could I do? I saw the eyes of the sick, of the weak, of the abandoned; could I have said okay, fine, I’m leaving now? I was their friend.’ He admitted he was deeply envious of them ‘because we all went back to an old world and we were scared of it. We couldn’t, after those three years, go back to the world of the past, of before the war. And they went to a new, virgin, country and started a new world in Palestine.’

On his return to Greece, Kambanellis began writing a newspaper column in Athens before turning to the theatre and film.

A recurring feature of his work is the use of multiple, often unexpected voices. He attributed this to the years he spent in Mauthausen, listening to the voices of nameless sufferers. His success as a writer seemed miraculous to him and perhaps contributed to his unique blend of realism and mysticism.

His most successful play, Our Grand Circus, was staged in 1973 at the height of the colonels’ dictatorship. Weaving history, myth, and the traditional shadow puppet theatre with folk motifs, the play ridicules the heroic view of Greek history favoured by the colonels, rewriting Greek history from a left-wing perspective.

By calling the performances a circus and transforming his bleak view of the regime and of Greek history into a series of amusing vignettes, he escaped the strict censorship of the time. Our Grand Circus broke all box-office records and made Kambanellis a popular symbol of resistance.

He wrote the scripts for about a dozen films and directed two of them. He died in Athens 10 years ago, on 29 March 2011. He is regarded by many as the greatest Greek playwright of the 20th century.

Mauthausen, his only novel, is a memoir recalling his experiences in the concentration camp. It was first published in Athens in 1965 and has been translated into English and German. At the same time, he wrote the Mauthausen Cantata with a setting by his close friend Theodorakis, when his publisher suggested that they publish their works together.

The book and the music were born in an incendiary political and cultural milieu in Greece. Two days after its first performance, all music by Theodorakis was banned from Greek state radio. Within two years, the military had seized power and the colonels silenced Theodorakis and many other voices for seven long years.

Kambanellis was inspired by a photograph of an unknown girl which he found in the camp and which he kept with him.

The memoir begins in the camp and the neighbouring villages in the weeks immediately after their liberation. The horrors the inmates have seen and have suffered are recalled by the author and the woman he falls in love with, a Lithuanian Jew, in merciless detail as the lovers exorcise their demons by revisiting the sites of the atrocities they witnessed. When the inmates are gradually repatriated, many of the Jews wait to find a way to get to Palestine.



The best-known song of all, performed by Maria Farantouri, is the first song, Άσμα Ασμάτων (Asma Asmaton, ‘Song of Songs’), which opens with the words:

Τι ωραία που είν’ η αγάπη μου
με το καθημερνό της φόρεμα
κι ένα χτενάκι στα μαλλιά.
Κανείς δεν ήξερε πως είναι τόσο ωραία.

‘My love, how beautiful she is in her everyday dress.’

This first song recalls the poignant questioning of a man who describes how beautiful his beloved is and asks the other inmates if they have seen her. They tell him they have seen her on a long march, standing on a large square with a number on her arm and a yellow star on her heart. Maria Farantouri hauntingly sings the repeated line: ‘No-one knows how beautiful my beloved was.’

This song maintains the poetic structure of the Biblical Song of Songs, until the chilling line, coming as if in response to ‘have you seen him whom my soul loves,’ echoes with the question: ‘Young girls of Mauthausen, Young girls of Belsen, Have you seen my love?’ and the answer ‘We saw her in the frozen square, A number in her white hand And a yellow star on her heart.’



The second song, O Αντώνης (O Antonis, ‘Adonis’) is also known from the score of the film Z. This song tells the story of a Jew who collapses on the ‘Stairs of Death’ at the base of the quarry and is shot by the guard who then orders the Greek prisoner Antonis to lift a double burden or he too will be shot.

Antonis lifts this second rock and defiantly walks on with it. In this song we also hear the stairs being depicted in the introduction to every couplet.



The third song, Ο Δραπέτης (O Drapetis, The Fugitive), is the story of a prisoner who escapes the camp but cannot find refuge in the hostile surroundings. He is captured again and is shot.

The introduction to this song depicts the landscape of Austria with a Mozart-like melody.



In the last song, Όταν τελειώσει Ο Πόλεμος (Otan Teliossi O Polemos, When the War Ends), the poet addresses one of the girls he sees standing by the fence of the female camp and asks whether they can come together when the war is finally over, kiss at the gate, make love in the quarry and in the gas chamber until the shadow of death is driven away.

The song ends with an epilogue, returning to the first song and ending with the plaintive words that no-one knows how beautiful my beloved was.

The instrumentation includes bouzoukis, spinet, electric guitar, baglamas, flute, bass and percussion, all helping to create a desolate yet beautiful atmosphere.

Greek popular music in the 1960s became known all over the world thanks to the scores by two composers in particular, Manos Hadjidakis and Mikis Theodorakis, for two popular movies, Never on Sunday (Ποτέ την Κυριακή) and Zorba the Greek. Both worked in the laika tradition of Greek popular music influenced by European melodic form. Each had his own muse or angel in a female singer who interpreted his music – for Hadjidakis she was Nana Mouskouri, for Theodorakis she was Maria Farandouri.

The recording of The Ballad of Mauthausen marked the beginning of one of the most fruitful collaborations in Greek music. Theodorakis discovered the singer Maria Farandouri when she was a 16-year-old young singer. He is said to have told her at the time, ‘You will be my high priestess.’ Her unique dramatic voice and style complements his music, and it is so productive a partnership that it has lasted for half a century.

Listening to The Ballad of Mauthausen, it is difficult to grasp that this is the voice of a teenager who has just left school, for she sings with a raw force and energy that reaches into the heart and soul with intensity.

Farandouri and Theodorakis had a life-long musical collaboration, intensified by their shared political activism. This album is both a classic and the high point of that collaboration.

Farandouri’s voice is a marvel of depth and beauty, and the songs are among the best by Theodorakis. The power and majesty of his music combined and the soaring beauty of her voice make The Ballad of Mauthausen a profound testament to the power of human resistance to tyranny and oppression.



The most accessible recording by Maria Farantouri (Μαρία Φαραντούρη) is complemented by a cycle of six songs for Farantouri, named ‘Farantouri’s Cycle’:

5, Κουράστηκα να σε κρατώ (Kourastika na se Krato, ‘I Am Tired of Holding Your Hand’).

6, Ο ίσκιος έπεσε βαρύς (O Iskios Epesse Varis, ‘The Shadow is so heavy’).

7, Πήρα τους δρόμους τ' ουρανού (Tous Thromous T’Ouranou, ‘I Took to the Streets of Heaven’).

8, Στου κόσμου την ανηφοριά (Stou Kosmou Tin Aniforya, ‘The Uphill Road’).

9, Το Εκκρεμές (To Ekremes, ‘The Pendulum’).

10, Τ' όνειρο καπνός (Tóniro Kapnos, ‘Dreams Go up in Smoke’).

The Ballad of Mauthausen is a difficult poem to read and a difficult cantata to listen to, and yet it is compelling.

It is difficult to realise how a poet could be inspired to write about love in the all-encompassing atmosphere of evil and death in a concentration camp.

Yet this is the dream of love, and love is the way a great soul not only survives such terror, but finds meaning and triumphs over it.

A sketch by Simon Wiesenthal in Mauthausen for ‘Café As’ … part of an exhibition in the Jewish Museum, Vienna (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Άσμα Ασμάτων

Τι ωραία που είν’ η αγάπη μου
με το καθημερνό της φόρεμα
κι ένα χτενάκι στα μαλλιά.
Κανείς δεν ήξερε πως είναι τόσο ωραία.

Κοπέλες του Άουσβιτς,
του Νταχάου κοπέλες,
μην είδατε την αγάπη μου;

Την είδαμε σε μακρινό ταξίδι,
δεν είχε πια το φόρεμά της
ούτε χτενάκι στα μαλλιά.

Τι ωραία που είν’ η αγάπη μου,
η χαϊδεμένη από τη μάνα της
και τ’ αδελφού της τα φιλιά.
Κανείς δεν ήξερε πως είναι τόσο ωραία.

Κοπέλες του Μαουτχάουζεν,
κοπέλες του Μπέλσεν,
μην είδατε την αγάπη μου;

Την είδαμε στην παγερή πλατεία
μ’ ένα αριθμό στο άσπρο της το χέρι,
με κίτρινο άστρο στην καρδιά.

Τι ωραία που είν’ η αγάπη μου,
η χαϊδεμένη από τη μάνα της
και τ’ αδελφού της τα φιλιά.
Κανείς δεν ήξερε πως είναι τόσο ωραία.

Ο Αντώνης

Εκεί στη σκάλα την πλατιά
στη σκάλα των δακρύων
στο Βίνερ Γκράμπεν το βαθύ
το λατομείο των θρήνων

Εβραίοι κι αντάρτες περπατούν
Εβραίοι κι αντάρτες πέφτουν,
βράχο στη ράχη κουβαλούν
βράχο σταυρό θανάτου.

Εκεί ο Αντώνης τη φωνή
φωνή, φωνή ακούει
ω καμαράντ, ω καμαράντ
βόηθα ν’ ανέβω τη σκάλα.

Μα κει στη σκάλα την πλατιά
και των δακρύων τη σκάλα
τέτοια βοήθεια είναι βρισιά
τέτοια σπλαχνιά είν’ κατάρα.

Ο Εβραίος πέφτει στο σκαλί
και κοκκινίζει η σκάλα
κι εσύ λεβέντη μου έλα εδω
βράχο διπλό κουβάλα.

Παίρνω διπλό, παίρνω τριπλό
μένα με λένε Αντώνη
κι αν είσαι άντρας, έλα εδώ
στο μαρμαρένιο αλώνι.

Ο Δραπέτης

Ο Γιάννος Μπερ απ’ το βοριά
το σύρμα δεν αντέχει.
Κάνει καρδιά, κάνει φτερά,
μες στα χωριά του κάμπου τρέχει.

«Δώσε, κυρά, λίγο ψωμί
και ρούχα για ν’ αλλάξω.
Δρόμο να κάνω έχω μακρύ,
πάν’ από λίμνες να πετάξω.»

Όπου διαβεί κι όπου σταθεί
φόβος και τρόμος πέφτει.
Και μια φωνή, φριχτή φωνή
«κρυφτείτε απ’ τον δραπέτη.»

«Φονιάς δεν είμαι, χριστιανοί,
θεριό για να σας φάω.
Έφυγα από τη φυλακή
στο σπίτι μου να πάω.»

Α, τι θανάσιμη ερημιά
στου Μπέρτολτ Μπρεχτ τη χώρα.
Δίνουν το Γιάννο στους Ες Ες,
για σκότωμα τον πάνε τώρα.

Όταν τελειώσει Ο Πόλεμος

Κορίτσι με τα φοβισμένα μάτια
κορίτσι με τα παγωμένα χέρια,
άμα τελειώσει ο πόλεμος
μη με ξεχάσεις.

Χαρά του κόσμου, έλα στην πύλη
να φιληθούμε μες στο δρόμο
ν’ αγκαλιαστούμε στην πλατεία.

Κορίτσι με τα φοβισμένα μάτια
κορίτσι με τα παγωμένα χέρια,
άμα τελειώσει ο πόλεμος
μη με ξεχάσεις.

Στο λατομείο ν’ αγαπηθούμε
στις κάμαρες των αερίων
στη σκάλα, στα πολυβολεία.

Κορίτσι με τα φοβισμένα μάτια
κορίτσι με τα παγωμένα χέρια,
άμα τελειώσει ο πόλεμος
μη με ξεχάσεις.

Έρωτα μες στο μεσημέρι
σ’ όλα τα μέρη του θανάτου
ώσπου ν’ αφανιστεί η σκιά του.

Κορίτσι με τα φοβισμένα μάτια
κορίτσι με τα παγωμένα χέρια,
άμα τελειώσει ο πόλεμος
μη με ξεχάσεις.

The Song of Songs

How beautiful she is, my love
in her everyday dress
and the little comb on her hair
Nobody ever knew that she is so beautiful

Girls of Auschwitz
Dachau’s girls
have you seen by chance my love?

We saw her leaving on a long voyage
she was no longer wearing her dress
nor a little comb on her hair.

How beautiful she is, my love
the one pampered by her mother
and her brother’s kisses
Nobody ever knew that she is so beautiful

Girls of Auschwitz
Dachau’s girls
have you seen by chance my love?

We saw her in the frigid town square
with a number stamped on her white hand
with a yellow star pinned by her heart

How beautiful she is, my love
the one pampered by her mother
and her brother’s kisses
Nobody ever knew that she is so beautiful

Adonis

There on the wide staircase
the staircase of tears
in Wiener Graben’s deep stone-
quarry of cries and lamentation

Jews and partisans stroll by
Jews and partisans fall down
a rock they carry on their back
a rock a burden cross of death

There comes Adonis and a voice
a voice, a voice he hears
oh comrade, oh comrade,
help me to climb these stairs

But there on the wide staircase
that staircase of tears
such help is taken as insult
such a compassion is a curse

The Jewish man falls on the step
and red bleeds through the staircase
and you young lad come over here
a double rock you’ll carry

A double rock I’ll take, a triple
my name, they call me Adonis
come and meet me if you are a man
at the marble threshing circle.

The Fugitive

Janos Ber from the North
can’t stand the barbed wire.
He takes heart, takes wing
runs through the villages of the valley.

Ma’am, give me a piece of bread
and clothes to change into –
I have a long way to go
and lakes to fly across.

Wherever he goes or stops
fear and terror strike
and a cry, a terrible cry:
Hide from the fugitive!

Christians, I’m no murderer,
no beast come to eat you.
I left the prison
to go back to my home.

Ah, what deathly loneliness
in this land of Berthold Brecht!
They hand Janos over to the SS
They’re taking him, now, to be killed.

When the War is Over

Girl with the weeping eyes,
Girl with the frozen hands.
Forget me not when the war is over.

Joy of the world. come to the gate
So that we could embrace in the street.
So that we could kiss in the square.

So that we could make love in the quarry.
In the gas chambers,
On the staircase, in the observation post.

Love in the middle of noon
In all the corners of death
’Til its shadow will be no more.

Girl with the weeping eyes,
Girl with the frozen hands.
Forget me not when the war is over.

Simon Wiesenthal was a prisoner in Mauthausen-Gusen … a portrait in the Jewish Museum, Vienna (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Meanwhile, this Shabbat, between Rosh Hashanah (last Monday) and Yom Kippur (beginning at sunset on Wednesday evening) is known as Shabbat Shuvah, or the Sabbath of return.

Repentance, is a core concept of the High Holy Days, and the services on this Sabbath, Shabbat Shuvah, have an emphasis on the themes of repentance and forgiveness. Sephardic Jews here in Greece read Hosea 14: 2-10 and Micah 7: 18-20, while Ashkenazi Jews read Hosea 14: 2-10 and Joel 2: 15-27. The selection from Hosea focuses on a universal call for repentance and an assurance that those who return to God will benefit from divine healing and restoration. Hosea focuses on divine forgiveness and how great it is in comparison to human forgiveness.

Shanah Tovah – a good and sweet New Year! – to you and to all yours

Shabbat Shalom

Yesterday: Rhapsody

Tomorrow: Hygiene

Praying in Ordinary Time 2021: 14, The Stephansdom, Vienna

The Stephansdom, or Saint Stephen’s Cathedral, is the most visited site in Vienna (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

During this time in the Church Calendar known as Ordinary Time, I am taking some time each morning to reflect in these ways:

1, photographs of a church or place of worship;

2, the day’s Gospel reading;

3, a prayer from the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel).

This week my photographs are of cathedrals in European capitals or former capitals. This morning (12 June 2021), my photographs are from the Stephansdom, or Saint Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna, in the heart of the city and the most visited site in the Austrian capital.

The glory of Saint Stephen’s Cathedral is its ornately patterned, richly coloured roof (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

For many, the cathedral in Stephansplatz is their lasting image of Vienna, with its spires, delightful multicoloured roof and bell towers. The most striking parts of the cathedral include the main tower, which rises over 136 metres, and the roof’s 230,000 multi-coloured tiles.

The Diocese of Vienna was founded 650 years ago in 1469. But the cathedral predates the diocese, and was first built in 1137, and the current cathedral dates from 1263.

The Stephansdom has seen many important events in Habsburg and Austrian history. Over the centuries, towers, doors and extensions have been added to give the city the present Gothic building with its sprinkling of baroque features.

Saint Rupert’s Church is considered the oldest church in Vienna – although that claim is contested by the Peterskirche or Saint Peter’s Church. The new church was built on the site of an ancient Roman cemetery.

By the mid-12th century, Vienna had become an important centre and the four existing churches, including only one parish church, no longer met the town’s needs. In 1137, Bishop Reginmar of Passau and Leopold IV, Duke of Bavaria, signed the Treaty of Mautern, which referred to Vienna as a civitas for the first time.

Under the treaty, Leopold IV received large stretches of land, except the site allocated for a new parish church that would eventually become Saint Stephen’s Cathedral.

The present Romanesque and Gothic form of the cathedral was largely initiated by Rudolf IV (1339-1365) and stands on the ruins of two earlier churches, the first a parish church consecrated in 1147.

The new Romanesque church was only partially built when it was solemnly dedicated in 1147, at the beginning of the Second Crusade. The first church was completed in 1160, but rebuilding and expansion lasted until 1511, and repairs and restoration projects have continued to the present day.

The first Romanesque structure was extended westward in 1230-1245, and the present west wall and Romanesque towers date from this period. A great fire in 1258 destroyed much of the original building, and a larger replacement, also Romanesque in style and reusing the two towers, was built over the ruins of the old church and consecrated in 1263.

King Albert I ordered a Gothic three-nave choir to be built at the east of the church in 1304, wide enough to meet the tips of the old transepts. His son, Duke Albert II, continued work on the Albertine choir, which was consecrated in 1340.

The middle nave is dedicated to Saint Stephen and All Saints, while the north and south nave are dedicated to Saint Mary and the Apostles.

Although Saint Stephen’s was still only a parish church and Vienna was not yet a diocese, Rudolf IV established a chapter of canons befitting a cathedral in 1365.

Emperor Frederick III persuaded Pope Paul II to give Vienna its own bishop in 1469, and the Diocese of Vienna dates from 18 January 1469. During the reign of Karl VI, Pope Innocent XIII made Vienna the see of an archbishop in 1722.

The Stephansdom survived the bombings of World War II, only to suffer from mindless vandalism when looters set fire to nearby buildings in April 1945. The fire spread and destroyed parts of the cathedral. But the city and the community came together all the damage was repaired within a few years, and the cathedral reopened on 23 April 1952.

The glory of Saint Stephen’s Cathedral is its ornately patterned, richly coloured roof, 111 metres long, and covered by 230,000 glazed tiles. Above the choir on the south side, the tiles form a mosaic of the double-headed eagle that is a symbol of the Habsburg dynasty.

The cathedral is oriented toward the sunrise on Saint Stephen’s Day, 26 December. It is built of limestone, is 107 metres long, 40 metres wide, and 136 metres tall at its highest point.

Over the centuries, soot and other forms of air pollution accumulating on the church have given it a black colour, but recent restoration projects have again returned some portions of the building to its original white.

The front of the nave and part of the north side are open to visitors, but everything else requires a ticket or is only open to people attending Mass. The accessible areas give views of the full length of the cathedral and some of the many small side altars.

The massive South Tower standing at at 136 meters is the highest point of the cathedral and a dominant feature on the skyline of Vienna. It is known affectionately to the people of Vienna as Steffl, a diminutive form of Stephen.

It took 65 years, from 1368 to 1433, to build the south tower. During the Siege of Vienna in 1529 and again during the Battle of Vienna in 1683, it served as the main observation and command post for the defence of the walled city. It is a 343-step climb with an observation chamber that offers views of Vienna.

The North Tower has a lift up to a viewing platform and the 21,283 kg Pummerin bell. The north tower was originally intended to mirror the south tower, but the plan was too ambitious and building stopped in 1511. The tower-stump was given a Renaissance cap, nicknamed the ‘water tower top,’ in 1578. The tower is now 68 metres tall, about half the height of the south tower.

The main entrance is known as the ‘Giant’s Door’ or Riesentor, referring to the thighbone of a mastodon that hung over it for decades. The tympanum above the Giant’s Door depicts Christ Pantocrator flanked by two winged angels. On the left and right of the door are two Roman Towers, or Heidentürme, each about 65 metres tall. They were built from the rubble of old Roman structures, and with the Giant’s Door they are the oldest parts of the cathedral.

Ludwig van Beethoven discovered the totality of his deafness when he saw birds flying out of the bell tower when the bells tolled but he could not hear them.

A memorial tablet recalls Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s relationship with the cathedral, where had been appointed an adjunct music director shortly before he death. This was his parish church when he lived at the ‘Figaro House,’ he was married here, two of his children were baptised here, and his funeral was held here.

The main part of the cathedral contains 18 altars, with more in the various chapels. The High Altar and the Wiener Neustadt Altar are the most famous.

The marble, baroque High Altar was built in 1641-1647. The Wiener Neustädter Altar at the head of the north nave was commissioned by Emperor Frederick III in 1447. On the predella is his famous AEIOU device. The Wiener Neustädter Altar is composed of two triptychs. Restoration began in 1985 and took 20 years to complete.

The Maria Pötsch Icon or Pötscher Madonna is a Byzantine-style icon of the Virgin Mary with the Christ Child, commissioned in 1676 by László Csigri after his release as a prisoner of war from the Turks who were invading Hungary.

The stone pulpit is a masterwork of late Gothic sculpture. It was long attributed to Anton Pilgram, although it is now believed that Niclaes Gerhaert van Leyden was the carver.
The carvings include relief portraits of the four original Doctors of the Church: Saint Augustine of Hippo, Saint Ambrose, Saint Gregory the Great and Saint Jerome.

The handrail of the stairway curving its way around the pillar from ground level to the pulpit has fantastic decorations of toads and lizards biting each other, symbolising the struggle between good against evil. At the top of the steps, a stone puppy guards the preacher against intruders.

Beneath the stairs is one of the most beloved symbols of the cathedral: a stone self-portrait of the unknown sculptor gawking out of a window and known as the Fenstergucker. It may be a self-portrait of the sculptor.

There are several formal chapels in the cathedral, including Saint Katherine’s Chapel, the baptismal chapel, and Saint Barbara’s Chapel.

Saint Eligius’s Chapel is said to hold the body of Saint Valentine – but this is also said to be in the Carmelite Church in Whitefriar Street, Dublin. The other relics claimed by the cathedral the beard on the crucified Christ and a piece of the tablecloth from the Last Supper. The remains of over 11,000 persons are buried in the catacombs.

The Stephansdom remains a working cathedral and the seat of the Archbishop of Vienna, Cardinal Christoph Schönborn.

The middle nave of the cathedral is dedicated to Saint Stephen and All Saints (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Matthew 5: 33-37 (NRSVA):

[Jesus said:] 33 ‘Again, you have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, “You shall not swear falsely, but carry out the vows you have made to the Lord.” 34 But I say to you, Do not swear at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, 35 or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. 36 And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. 37Let your word be “Yes, Yes” or “No, No”; anything more than this comes from the evil one.’

The main entrance of the cathedral is known as the ‘Giant’s Door’ or ‘Riesentor’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Prayer in the USPG Prayer Diary:

The Prayer in the USPG Prayer Diary today (12 June 2021) invites us to pray:

Let us pray for the work of the Alliance of Small Island States, consisting of countries from the Caribbean, the Pacific and the Atlantic Oceans, and join them in their calls for more urgent action to prevent climate change.

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued tomorrow

The stone pulpit is a masterwork of late Gothic sculpture (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org