Exo Lakonia: family hamlets and a frescoed church behind Agios Nikolaos

Leave Agios Nikolaos by the road that heads west and you will be in Exo Lakonia in barely ten minutes, though it feels as if you have come a good deal further. The seafront promenade, the hotels and the harbour fall away behind you, and the road slips into a green belt where pines and eucalyptus throw their shade across the tarmac, olive groves alternate with gardens, and small clusters of farmhouses lie loosely strewn over the ground. The mountains of Lasithi show themselves beyond each bend; between the houses there are vegetable beds, rubble walls and old churches. Roughly eight kilometres separate the hollow from the town, and Neapoli and Kritsa are each only about a quarter of an hour away by car. It spreads out as a small plain ringed by hills, lying between the Lasithi uplands and the coast around Agios Nikolaos, and its shape is best understood by pulling up on the rim and looking down into it.

The name Exo Lakonia (Έξω Λακώνια) means “Outer Lakonia”. It does not refer to a single compact village but to a group of small settlements which, administratively as well as historically, form one rural district. Six hamlets belong to it: Panagia, the principal one, together with Fioretzides, Karterides, Marnelides, Vlachides and Peponides. Its counterpart is Mesa Lakonia, “Inner Lakonia”, and the two together make up the complex of little villages that people in Agios Nikolaos simply call Lakonia. The distinction is a useful key to the local geography: these are neighbouring communities bound together by lanes and footpaths, by related surnames and by a shared religious and economic life. At the census of 1881 Lakonia was still counted as part of the municipality of Kritsa and had 119 inhabitants; in 1946 it broke away from Kritsa and became a community in its own right, and today it belongs to the municipality of Agios Nikolaos. In 2001 just under 300 people lived in the six hamlets taken together – 144 of them in Panagia alone and 82 in Marnelides, while Peponides was down to four residents. The census of 2021 recorded 254 inhabitants for the community as a whole.

Villages that bear the names of families

Most of the settlements of Exo Lakonia carry family names: five of the six hamlets are called after a clan – only Panagia, named for the Virgin, is the exception – and the majority of these names go back to Byzantine or Venetian times. Fioretzides, Marnelides and Karterides are plural forms – “the Fioretzis family”, “the Marnelis family” – of the kind that, all over Crete, turned a single farmstead into a village. That does not mean that each present-day house has belonged to the same family for centuries. Rather, the names preserve the memory of lineages that owned land here, founded small quarters or left a lasting mark on the life of the district.

Such a pattern is characteristic of Crete. A village might consist of several adjacent groups of houses which local people told apart by surname, nickname, trade or position. The official map may lump them together under a single heading, while in conversation the more precise local names live on. That the district was inhabited long before these families arrived is shown by the remains of a Minoan settlement identified near Fioretzides.

A landscape between town and mountains

Exo Lakonia lies in a zone of transition. On one side the district is tied to Agios Nikolaos and the north coast; on the other, the roads climb into the Cretan uplands and towards the villages of the interior. A spring fed from the mountains of Lasithi rises here, one reason why the hollow is so much greener than the slopes around it. The mild climate of the coast and the farming world of the mountains can both be felt here at once.

Pines and eucalyptus along the roadside give the impression of a wooded stretch, although the landscape is not wild forest in any strict sense. Right beside them lie cultivated plots, olive trees, vines and small orchards. The contrast between this greenery and the dry, stony hillsides is especially striking in summer, when the shade of the trees becomes a fixed part of the daily walk or drive.

This is a landscape that asks to be looked at slowly. From a car you catch only fragments – a bend, a wall, a bell-cote, a gap between the trees. Stop, and you begin to see how the hamlets are fitted into the relief: the houses do not form a dense, town-like mass but are strung out along the slopes and lanes, each cluster with its own gardens around it.

The Archangel Michael – the outstanding monument of the district

In the heart of Lakonia, a little way outside the houses and reached by an asphalt road, stands the church of the Archangel Michael (Ναός Μιχαήλ Αρχαγγέλου), one of the most important Byzantine monuments of this countryside. From outside it is unassuming: a small single-aisled building with a barrel vault, of the kind typical of the village churches of eastern Crete. It does not feel like a museum piece set apart, for it is bound up with the village, the lanes, the feast days and the memory of the people who live here. It should therefore be seen not only as architecture but also as the living spiritual centre of a rural community.

The Archangel Michael holds a special rank in Orthodox tradition. He is venerated as the commander of the heavenly hosts and the protector of the faithful; his principal feast, the Synaxis of the Archangels, falls on 8 November, and that is the day on which this church keeps its festival. In Crete, churches dedicated to him are often found where religious life served several neighbouring settlements. The church then became a common point of reference for a whole district rather than merely the parish church of a single quarter.

The real artistic treasure is the cycle of wall paintings inside, which is dated to the years 1431–1432 and counts among the best-preserved fresco ensembles of the 15th century in Crete. The Gospel cycle is confined to five scenes; alongside it the programme includes a sequence devoted to the patron of the church: the prophet Nathan rebuking King David, the archangels announcing to David the forgiveness of his sins, the Miracle at Chonai – the archangel’s intervention at Colossae in Asia Minor – and the Assembly of the Bodiless Powers, with Michael and Gabriel at its centre. Most touching of all are the portraits of the founders. Michael and Nikolaos Mochiotis appear in the dress of the district, the younger man, Nikolaos, with bow and arrows in his hand; Ioannis Mochiotis and his wife present a model of the church to the archangel. The value of the paintings thus lies not only in the individual figures of saints but in the whole system of medieval church decoration: in the arrangement of the scenes, the symbolism of the colours, the gestures of the figures and the relationship between building and liturgy – and not least in the fact that a family of the 15th century still looks us in the face here.

A visit calls for respect for the religious character of the place. The church is neither a backdrop nor an open gallery: photography inside is acceptable only in so far as local rules allow it and permission has been given.

The church calendar and the village community

For a long time the life of the small Cretan settlements followed the church calendar. A saint’s day was not only a service but also a reunion of relatives, neighbours and all those who had moved to the town or gone abroad. On such days people who otherwise lived far away came back to the village – as they still do for the Archangel on 8 November, or at the old church of St George, which also belongs to the district.

It is not only the great official festivals that count here. A small churchyard, the school playground or the square in front of the kafenion – Exo Lakonia still has its traditional coffee houses, and a small folklore museum besides – can all become places of shared remembrance. Here people talk about the harvest, the news, family events and the state of the roads, and in doing so they carry on the tradition of the village community in a form suited to the present.

Klidonas: the oracle on the eve of St John’s Day

In Exo Lakonia the custom of the *Klidonas* (Κλήδονας) has been revived, a midsummer ritual belonging to the feast of the Nativity of St John the Baptist on 24 June. According to Greek tradition, on the eve of the feast the unmarried girls fetched the “silent water” – water carried from the well or spring without a word being spoken – and poured it into an earthenware jar. Each dropped in a personal object, the *rizikari*: an apple, a ring, a key. The jar was covered with a red cloth, tied shut and left out overnight under the stars; the girls, it was said, would dream of their future husbands. On the following day the objects were drawn out one by one while improvised verses – in Crete, rhyming *mantinades* – were recited over each, hinting at the bridegroom and the fortune awaiting its owner. Part of it all, along with singing in which the whole village joined, was the bonfire lit on the evening of 23 June, over which people leapt – three times, for good health – and on which in many places the May Day wreaths were burnt.

The present-day performance is not a literal continuation of the old ritual. It is organised by the Cultural Association of Exo Lakonia, at times with the support of the Region of Crete and the municipal cultural and sports organisation of Agios Nikolaos; it is held on an evening at the end of June in the yard of the primary school, with a bonfire, music and a Cretan band. The aim is to give children and young people an idea of the former way of life, of the role of religion and of the village festivals. The distinction matters: a revived festival is tradition and, at the same time, a contemporary form of cultural memory.

Raki, the rakadiko and country hospitality

In Exo Lakonia you will come across small establishments of the *rakadiko* type. The name derives from *raki*, also known in Crete as tsikoudia – a strong spirit distilled, once the wine has been made, from the pomace of the grapes, and anything from 40 to 65 per cent alcohol depending on who made it. A rakadiko is not simply a bar. People come for the small dishes, for the talk and for a kind of company that is in no hurry.

The making of raki belongs to the autumn cycle of wine. After the vintage the pomace was not thrown away: it was left to ferment for about six weeks in a tightly sealed barrel and then distilled, once only, in copper stills, and the finished drink became part of country hospitality. Typically one or two people in a village hold the licence to distil. The distilling itself, usually over two or three weeks in late October and early November, remains a sociable occasion to this day, when neighbours and friends gather round the still. With raki come cheese, olives, vegetables, meat and small bites; in tavernas it tends to arrive unasked at the end of a meal, chilled, with fruit or something sweet.

Close to Agios Nikolaos, but not a suburb

Its nearness to Agios Nikolaos has changed Exo Lakonia a good deal. Many residents drive into town for work, for education and for errands, and travellers pass through the hamlets on their way inland. Even so, the district should not be regarded merely as a dormitory suburb.

A distinctive ordering of space has survived here: the church, the old family names, narrow lanes, farm plots and meeting places. The town provides the link with the outside world, but the village setting keeps the local memory. For the traveller this is a chance to see how the Crete of tourism shades into the Crete of everyday life – with no sharp line between the two.

Exo Lakonia combines well with an excursion to Agios Nikolaos, Lato and Kritsa. Such a route shows different layers of eastern Crete: the modern harbour town, the ancient Dorian city-state – below which a stone relief marks the spot where the Cretans fought the Ottoman forces in January 1823 – and small villages in which history lives on not in great ruins but in family names, church festivals, recipes and paths.

How to look at Exo Lakonia

Do not be content with a photograph of the church or a brief stop by the roadside. It is better to choose a quiet stretch, walk for a while and pay attention to the masonry, the trees, the old houses and the lie of the slopes. If the church is locked – which is often the case with village churches; the best course is to ask for the key at the kafenion or from the neighbours – the journey is still not wasted: the building itself, its position in the village and its connection with the lanes are enough to show what part the monument has played in local life.

In the small eating places you should take your time, for a rakadiko reveals itself not as a restaurant with quick service but as a place where people meet.

Exo Lakonia has no wish to compete with the great sights of Crete. Its value lies on a different scale. There is no single monument here that would explain everything at once. The story is pieced together from a Byzantine church with the portraits of its founders, from family names, olive terraces, a midsummer custom, the distilling of the pomace and the road that links the village with the town. It is places like this that let Crete appear not only as an island of palaces and fortresses but as a living web of small communities.