Kritsa: mountain village, handicrafts and the memory of the wars

Kritsa: an old village at the foot of the Dikti Mountains

Kritsa (Κριτσά) lies in the foothills of the Dikti Mountains, among olive groves, stony slopes and tracks leading down to Mirabello Bay. Its houses are stacked like the tiers of an amphitheatre against the rocky hill of Kastellos, from a little over three hundred to just under four hundred metres above sea level, some ten kilometres inland from Agios Nikolaos; seen from the plain after dark, the lights of its several quarters – Palemilos, Koukistres, Christos, Pergiolikia – are said to trace the shape of a scorpion. With some 2,600 inhabitants it is still one of the largest villages in Crete. Kritsa is known for its Byzantine churches, but its history goes beyond any single sight: early settlement, Venetian administration, the Ottoman centuries, risings and the living culture of eastern Crete all meet here.

Kritsa grew up where the mountain paths meet the routes to the coast. That position made it the chief place of Upper Mirabello. It was reckoned the largest village in Crete throughout the Middle Ages, with its heyday in the 13th and 14th centuries – the very period in which its churches were painted. The inhabitants tilled the soil, tended olives and vines, kept livestock, wove, and maintained their ties with the neighbouring villages and the ports. In 1867 Kritsa became the seat of a municipality that included, besides Krousta, Prina, Kalo Chorio and Tapes, the then still insignificant Agios Nikolaos. The olive has remained the mainstay: the village’s agricultural co-operative dates from 1927 and its oil mill from 1937.

The earlier history of the place is to be found three kilometres to the north, on a saddle between two hills: there stand the ruins of Lato, one of the most powerful Dorian city-states of Crete, built over twin acropolises and named after Leto – Lato in the Doric dialect – the mother of Apollo and Artemis. Lato was the home of Nearchos, the admiral of Alexander the Great. Closer still, the hill of Kastellos above the village carried a settlement of the 13th and 12th centuries BC, the troubled last phase of the Minoan Bronze Age, when people all over Crete withdrew to defensible heights.

Byzantine churches and Panagia Kera

The country around Kritsa is famous for its many Byzantine and post-Byzantine churches. A good number of them are painted with frescoes of the 14th and 15th centuries. Such a density of churches speaks of the prosperity of the local communities and of the importance of Kritsa as a spiritual centre of eastern Crete.

The principal monument of the district is Panagia Kera, about a kilometre before the village, beside the road from Agios Nikolaos at a place called Logari. Its three aisles are dedicated to the Dormition of the Virgin, to St Anne and to St Anthony. The frescoes, of the 13th and 14th centuries, unite Byzantine tradition, the art of the Palaiologan age, Macedonian influences and local Cretan painting; the fourteen scenes from the life of St Anne and the childhood of the Virgin in the south aisle, and the great Last Judgement with the donor family of Georgios Mazizanis in the north aisle, rank among the most important wall paintings on the island.

But Panagia Kera is not the only church at Kritsa. In the village itself and round about, small churches survive with remains of paintings, carved details and inscriptions – Agios Georgios Kavousiotis, for instance, and Agios Ioannis Theologos (St John the Divine). Together they form a historical network from which the development of the Christian community can be read over the centuries. Most are kept locked, and the key has to be asked for in the village.

Kritsa in the years of the revolution of 1821

When the rising against the Ottoman Empire began in 1821, Kritsa became one of the main centres of resistance in the east of Crete. In November 1822 armed bands from the districts of Heraklion and Lasithi mustered here, and from here they marched against the fortress of Ierapetra, on the south coast.

In January 1823 Egyptian troops under the command of Hasan Pasha advanced on Kritsa – the same army that had laid waste the Lasithi Plateau that winter. In the village and around it stood the insurgents who had gathered to defend the east of the island; tradition names captains such as Alexomanolis, Koziris, Papa-Pothos, Tavlas and Kazanis. The battle, which spread as far as the neighbourhood of ancient Lato and the spot called Koutarantos, lasted almost a whole day. Both sides attacked stubbornly, and there was bitter fighting along the foot of the mountains.

After the battle Kritsa was burned and destroyed. Villagers and defenders lost their lives, and many families had to abandon their homes. The devastation did not stop at the houses: churches, farmsteads and the stores on which the life of the whole district depended were damaged as well. A few weeks later, in February, came the tragedy in the Cave of Milatos, where the people of the coastal villages had sought refuge from the same troops.

The memory of these events lives on in local stories, church commemorations and annual ceremonies. For the people of Kritsa the revolution is not a distant date in a schoolbook but the history of families, houses and churches.

Village life and Cretan traditions

Kritsa has kept its traditional look: stone houses, narrow lanes, courtyards full of flowers, old-fashioned coffee houses and small squares. Weaving, embroidery, basketry and the working of olive wood all flourished here. The women’s needlework was handed down in the family and is part of the character of Kritsa; along the main street woven rugs and lace still hang outside the doors. That street is steep and largely closed to traffic, so visitors leave their cars at the parking area at the entrance to the village and walk up.

Cretan music, dance and wedding customs have an important place. Historical and folklore societies stage the traditional wedding here, with the “psiki” – the procession that goes to fetch the bride – with the wedding feast, the lyra and mantinades, the short rhymed couplets of fifteen syllables that are improvised and sung at celebrations. The real Cretan wedding, with psiki, feasting and lyra, remains for many couples the natural way of doing things to this day.

Kritsa today

Today Kritsa receives travellers on their way to Panagia Kera, to the ruins of Lato, to the gorges of Dikti – first among them the narrow Kritsa Gorge immediately below the village – and to the mountain villages of Lasithi. The gorge is some four kilometres long and in places no more than a metre and a half wide; it ends near the village of Tapes, and the walk, which involves a little scrambling over boulders, takes about two and a half hours. Spring is the season for it, and it should be left alone after heavy rain. A mountain road climbs sixteen kilometres to the Katharo plateau, a basin four kilometres long at an average height of 1,150 metres beneath the peaks of Spathi (2,148 m) and Lazaros (2,085 m), where the people of Kritsa have always had their summer fields and flocks: potatoes, vegetables and fruit are grown there, a few tavernas open in the warm months, and in winter it is left to the snow. At the same time the village keeps its farming character and remains a place where olive groves, family workshops and church festivals still set the course of the year.

Kritsa is worth seeing for more than any one sight. Its history can be read in the paths that lead into the mountains, in the churches that survived the wars, in the memory of the battle of 1823 and in the crafts that link the present village with the past of eastern Crete.