20 April 2021 2:32pm
On Monday night, His Eminence Archbishop Makarios could not contain his emotions at events held to mark the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Crete at the Holy Monastery of Axion Esti, Northcote.
Speaking about the role of the church during the Battle of Crete, Archbishop Makarios told the tale of Erhardt Kestner, a German, who visited German cemetery of Crete in 1952 to pay his respects to his countrymen had lost their lives during the Nazi Occupation of Greece. There, he found a black-clad woman lighting candles at the graves of German soldiers.
“I approached her,” Kestner said. “And I asked her, ‘Are you from here?’.