Close up of the condemned, in chains, being led to hell. I like how there's a devil at both the front, and end of the line. The guy in the back is so excited to shepherd everyone to hell. He's like the worst camp counselor of all time.
"It represents the Last Judgement as described in the Gospel of Saint Matthew.
On the lower lintel, the dead are being resuscitated from their tombs. Just above that, on the upper lintel, the archangel Michael is weighing their souls according to the lives they led on earth and the love they showed to God and to men. The chosen people are led to the left towards Heaven (to Christ’s right) and the condemned are lead to the right, to hell, by a devil."
After getting settled into our new place, we got dressed up and took the bus to the Church of Our Lady of the Assumption in Dauis, Bohol. (Unfortunately, a bunch of this church was destroyed by the big earthquake in 2013).
The ceremony was held at Seton Shrine, a really cool church built in 1809 that's all the way down at the southern tip of Manhattan in the financial district.
Scott actually decided that the best way for Tim to be his best man would be to get his head surgically grafted to Scott's left shoulder. Now that's a friend!
Scott and Tim doing a "walk down the aisle" run through. This was the first time I ever got to see all the "behind the scenes" action that goes into making a wedding run smoothly. I felt like such a VIP insider!
And finally, here's a flaming heart with seven daggers in it and the church's name: Our Lady of Sorrows? Jesus! (Ha!). Makes you realize that the Catholic church basically originated the Hot Topic Emo T-shirt movement like 1700 years ago.
A small chapel off to the side of the Monestary tells the story (which I grabbed a rehash of from this site):
"The Greek freedom fighters would register their displeasure with the Turks (normally some Turks would be discovered dead) and the Turks would show their displeasure by killing everyone in a town or village. In 1866 around 1,000 Cretens took refuge in the Monastery fearing Turkish retribution. The people, which did include several freedom fighters, held out for two days before the 12,0000 Turks laying siege were able to rupture the walls. However, instead of surrendering the abbot (a local hero) and the people inside decided to ignite the gun powder in the powder keg room. 829 of the Cretens died. It is said anywhere from 100 to 1000 Turks were killed in the explosion."
After all the condo hijinx, we hopped into the car and drove to the northwestern town of Hania for some dinner. After parking the car, we walked over to the Venetian Harbor. Here's the eerily lit Djamassi mosque built by when the Turks after they invaded and toppled Venitian rule in 1645.
Amazing right? Who would've ever thought a random church would be more interesting than a freaking labyrinth that contained an evil bull/man hybrid? Here's Fatty's pic of me taking. . .
After we all had showered, we headed into Rethymnon to find the steak restaurant we'd seen a few days earlier. While wandering around in search of it, we came across this really beautiful Greek Orthodox church and decided, after watching all the evening parishioners leave, to pop in and have a look.
On the scooter ride back towards Rethymnon, we saw this really neat, little roadside Chapel and pulled over to explore. These were all over the place in Crete. Little Chapels that you can just pull over and pray in. The best we could figure, they were there so when a crazy Greek driver kills a tourist on a scooter they can immediately pull over and make pennance.
Mr. & Mrs. Chris Hanigan!!! (The best part of this pic is that Mandy has the exactly same her face as in the picture above...it looks like I Photoshopped her in!).
Fast forward a few days to Saturday and we're actually in the church in Wharton, NJ. (Actually, this is the same church I ended up having to go to for Abbey's Christening.
