Agioi Anargyroi - a traveller reports

 
On 1 July the Orthodox Church celebrates Saints Kosmas and Damian, the “Anargyroi” - literally “without silver”. The twin brothers were Syrian doctors who treated the ill without requiring them to pay. As such, they could be viewed as heralds of the National Health Service. I first encountered the Anargyroi on 1 July 1976 on Antiparos. They have been special to me ever since.
 

That summer I was travelling alone through the Greek islands, seeing them for the first time. I arrived on Antiparos on 29 June and spent that night “under the stars”, as was the way back then for poor backpackers like me. The following day I met a warm-hearted woman who offered me a room in her house: the room rate was 50 Drachmas a night. For this, I got a large double bed with a deep mattress and a hot shower.
 
No wonder I slept late on the morning of 1 July. When I emerged, blinking into the sunshine late morning and walked down to the little harbour, a band was playing and outside Spiro’s taverna long tables were laid and at them sat Greek families, out to enjoy themselves. Soon the dancing would begin. I ate there and took it all in. So this was how Greeks party.
 
I knew no Greek and it took me a while to understand what was going on: they were celebrating The Anargyroi who seemed to have some special significance on Antiparos and whom they regarded, somehow, as ‘their own’. In my diary I noted: “name day of the doctor saints – the saints of my new church”. I read this now with curiosity: I was not Orthodox then, and am not now, but I referred to “my new church”. Was I claiming the church as mine or was it claiming me as one of its own?
 
Antiparos was a magical place. The two weeks or so I spent there that summer seem to have started with a blessing. After waking up that morning to a party, I had a strong sense my time there was going to be special. A couple of days later, in the cave on Antiparos, I met a Greek girl who was to have a most profound impact on my life. For many reasons, one of them being she found me a job in Athens that September teaching in a phrontisterio.
 
When I learned more about Saints Kosmas and Damian, I realised I had other points of connection with them also. They are the patron saints of twins: I have a twin sister. They were doctors, good doctors on a mission to heal and without regard to the cost to themselves: my late wife was such a doctor.
 
So, every year, I have remembered The Anargyroi with particular affection. Antiparos is a very different place now: it has opened up in a big way to tourism, Tom Hanks has a mansion there, films are shot there on, but I am sure it continues to honour the Anargyroi.
 
Richard Devereux