Talk:Arkadi Monastery

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In GoogleEarth the place appears 5.75 miles WNW from where it is... I corrected the coordinates in the article - perhaps it takes time for them to be transferred into GE.If this isn't beeing processed automatically, maybe someone who is more qualified than I am could take care of it...Greetings - Dreysacz from German Wikipedia


 * Date of Arkadi explosion: I notice no date for the explosion is given other than it occured AFTER 8 Nov 1866. I've found dates of: 8 Nov, 9 Nov, 19 Nov, 21 Nov on the internet and in various text books. Anybody throw any light on this?Mickmct (talk) 10:20, 5 March 2010 (UTC)


 * According to Detorakis (p. 397), the monastery was surrounded on November 8, 1866 and the gunpowder was ignited on November 9, 1866. Nipsonanomhmata (talk) 22:20, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

How was the Monastery distroyed ?
There seems to be a serious discrepancy between the passages marked for the occasion in bold, the latter being inferred by me on account of the last passage of text.

Now, the following text makes up for the very beginning of the WP article on the subject:


 * This church with two naves was destroyed by the Turks  in 1866 and rebuilt since. As early as the 16th century, the monastery was a place for sciences and the arts, and had a school and a rich library. Situated on a plateau only accessible with extreme difficulty and surrounding by thick and high wall, the monastery is a true fortress.


 * The monastery played an active role in the Cretan resistance of Ottoman rule during the Cretan revolt in 1886, 943 Greeks sought refuge in the monastery, the majority of which were women and children. After three days of battle, under orders from the hegumen (abbot) of the monastery, the Cretans blew barrels of gunpowder, preferring to sacrifice themselves rather than surrender.

The underlined passage amounts to saying that  the Cretans blew themselves up.

Perhaps somebody could reconcile these versions?

The date 1886 is equally disturbing. Was the monastery first destroyed by the Turks and then by the “Cretans”? I put Cretans entre guillemets because Muslim Cretans were also Cretans – or were they not? If you ask Giritliler in today’s Turkey, i.e. descendants of “Cretan Turks [= Muslims]”, I think the answer – after so many years – would be fairly unequivocal. Hirpex (talk) 19:26, 18 April 2010 (UTC)


 * The 1886 date is incorrect. Have corrected accordingly and removed the confusing sentence. The Turks surrounded the monastery on November 8, and got in to the monastery by using cannon on the 9th. As the Turks moved in they ransacked the church and the monastery. There were more than 600 gynaekopaida (meaning women and children) who were kept safe in the store rooms of the monastery which is where the gunpowder was also stored. The Cretan insurgents who fought to protect the monastery had instructions to save the dignity of the women and children from the Turks by blowing up the store (and to try to take as many of the Turks with them as possible). This they did. You can still see the damage to the church and the monastery from the event. Nipsonanomhmata (talk) 22:36, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Dating convention
Just a note for the record.... the dates given in the article are given in the Julian calander as used in Greece at that time (this explains my earlier confusion. The dating system used on Crete in 1866 would have been the Julian or, if you were Muslim, the Ottoman one, and all the British and other European records use the Gregorian calander; add 12 days to the Julian.Mickmct (talk) 09:13, 12 October 2010 (UTC)