Nikos Kazantzakis, a prominent Cretan writer, finds his final resting place atop the Martinengo Bastion, the highest point of the Walls of Heraklion, offering panoramic views of both the starkly urban yet historically significant landscape of Heraklion.
His notable works such as “The Last Temptation,” “Christ Recrucified,” and “Captain Michalis” courted controversy, deemed “anti-Christian” and “sacrilegious” by some, nearly leading to the author’s excommunication in 1955. The Greek Church had sought governmental intervention to halt the distribution of these books. Kazantzakis succumbed to leukemia on October 26, 1957, in Germany.
The archbishop Theoklitos denied permission for the public display of his body in Athens on November 4th. Subsequently, on November 5th, Kazantzakis’s body was brought to Crete, briefly exhibited at the cathedral of Saint Minas for a day.
The following day, November 6th, Archbishop Eugen of Crete, alongside Greek Minister of Education Gerokostopoulos, presided over the funeral rites, marred by zealots burning books outside the church. Thousands of Cretans then escorted Kazantzakis’s body to its final resting place atop the Martinengo Bastion. His grave is austere with a wooden cross and a plaque engraved with his famous phrase: “I hope for nothing. I fear nothing. I’m free”.
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