John Kittmer
@johnkittmer.bsky.social
Greek literature and culture | Anglicanism | Pre-Raphaelites | Churches, abbeys, cathedrals | Poetry | School governor | Visiting professor | Ex-ambassador | Enthusiast for Yorkshire
The Church’s year draws to a close, with what is known in English tradition as “Stir-up Sunday” and is widely celebrated now as the Feast of Christ the King. Here the collect for the day and an icon of Christ as King of Kings.
November 23, 2025 at 7:30 AM
The Church’s year draws to a close, with what is known in English tradition as “Stir-up Sunday” and is widely celebrated now as the Feast of Christ the King. Here the collect for the day and an icon of Christ as King of Kings.
A lovely window for #stainedglassSunday by Harry Harvey at St Mary’s #Brandesburton, #Yorkshire. The parable of the seed that fell on stony ground.
November 9, 2025 at 9:10 AM
A lovely window for #stainedglassSunday by Harry Harvey at St Mary’s #Brandesburton, #Yorkshire. The parable of the seed that fell on stony ground.
Much enjoyed this highly innovative and stylistically poised novel, “Brandy Sour”, about the #Cyprus problems, by #ConstantiaSoteriou in an elegant translation by #LinaProtopapa. It focuses on the #LedraPalace Hotel, caught now in the Green Zone between the 1974 lines. Recommended!
November 4, 2025 at 3:52 PM
Much enjoyed this highly innovative and stylistically poised novel, “Brandy Sour”, about the #Cyprus problems, by #ConstantiaSoteriou in an elegant translation by #LinaProtopapa. It focuses on the #LedraPalace Hotel, caught now in the Green Zone between the 1974 lines. Recommended!
I will never forget what it was to celebrate Holy Week and Easter in 1984 on the island of #Aegina. My current trip to Greece ended yesterday with a return to the island and calls on friends, living and dead.
October 19, 2025 at 5:17 AM
I will never forget what it was to celebrate Holy Week and Easter in 1984 on the island of #Aegina. My current trip to Greece ended yesterday with a return to the island and calls on friends, living and dead.
Maria Komninou giving an excellent intro to the short retrospective of #IrenePapas at the Greek Film Archives in Athens. Tonight we saw her star in #Cacoyannis’s #Electra (1962): a magnetic performance in a great film of #Euripides’ tragedy.
October 16, 2025 at 8:22 PM
Maria Komninou giving an excellent intro to the short retrospective of #IrenePapas at the Greek Film Archives in Athens. Tonight we saw her star in #Cacoyannis’s #Electra (1962): a magnetic performance in a great film of #Euripides’ tragedy.
Day #7 of the Anglo-Greek pilgrimage. Books & art. Caved into temptation at Politeia bookshop. Then the wonderful #Goulandris Gallery. An astonishing private collection, open to the public. Much French and, of course, Greek art. But Mr and Mrs G found space in their lives for #Bacon and #Hepworth…
October 15, 2025 at 2:47 PM
Day #7 of the Anglo-Greek pilgrimage. Books & art. Caved into temptation at Politeia bookshop. Then the wonderful #Goulandris Gallery. An astonishing private collection, open to the public. Much French and, of course, Greek art. But Mr and Mrs G found space in their lives for #Bacon and #Hepworth…
Day #6 of my Anglo-Greek adventures. Back at the #Benaki’s historical archives, completing my examination of the Ritsos-Stangos correspondence. Two excellent books of translations by #Stangos of #Ritsos’s work emerged from often angry correspondence—conducted in very different styles of handwriting.
October 14, 2025 at 3:04 PM
Day #6 of my Anglo-Greek adventures. Back at the #Benaki’s historical archives, completing my examination of the Ritsos-Stangos correspondence. Two excellent books of translations by #Stangos of #Ritsos’s work emerged from often angry correspondence—conducted in very different styles of handwriting.
Day #4 of my Anglo-Greek decameron. Having reached #Athens yesterday, I spent the day in the wonderful historical archives of the always hospitable #Benaki Museum, exploring #YannisRitsos’s collaboration with #NikosStangos and #PenguinBooks.
October 13, 2025 at 1:35 PM
Day #4 of my Anglo-Greek decameron. Having reached #Athens yesterday, I spent the day in the wonderful historical archives of the always hospitable #Benaki Museum, exploring #YannisRitsos’s collaboration with #NikosStangos and #PenguinBooks.
Day #2 of my ten Anglo-Greek days. A great morning at the 9th Greek-British Symposium, in #Cambridge, where I heard a thought-provoking keynote by Greek Defence Minister, Nikos Dendias, and a stimulating if gloomy panel discussion on geo-political trends.
October 10, 2025 at 3:45 PM
Day #2 of my ten Anglo-Greek days. A great morning at the 9th Greek-British Symposium, in #Cambridge, where I heard a thought-provoking keynote by Greek Defence Minister, Nikos Dendias, and a stimulating if gloomy panel discussion on geo-political trends.
Day 1 of 10 intense Anglo-Greek days.
A talk by David McClay of @britschoolathens.bsky.social, hosted by John & Virginia Murray in the historic home of John Murray publishing: 50 Albemarle Street.
Here, Thos. Phillips’s great painting of Byron, above the fireplace where his memoirs were burned.
A talk by David McClay of @britschoolathens.bsky.social, hosted by John & Virginia Murray in the historic home of John Murray publishing: 50 Albemarle Street.
Here, Thos. Phillips’s great painting of Byron, above the fireplace where his memoirs were burned.
October 9, 2025 at 7:49 PM
Day 1 of 10 intense Anglo-Greek days.
A talk by David McClay of @britschoolathens.bsky.social, hosted by John & Virginia Murray in the historic home of John Murray publishing: 50 Albemarle Street.
Here, Thos. Phillips’s great painting of Byron, above the fireplace where his memoirs were burned.
A talk by David McClay of @britschoolathens.bsky.social, hosted by John & Virginia Murray in the historic home of John Murray publishing: 50 Albemarle Street.
Here, Thos. Phillips’s great painting of Byron, above the fireplace where his memoirs were burned.
The great west door at #Salisbury Cathedral. Thirteenth-century elegance, with fine Victorian statuary.
#aDoorableThursday
#aDoorableThursday
September 25, 2025 at 6:33 AM
The great west door at #Salisbury Cathedral. Thirteenth-century elegance, with fine Victorian statuary.
#aDoorableThursday
#aDoorableThursday
The grand font in the baptistery (1879) of St #Martin-on-the-hill, #Scarborough, by G.F.Bodley. The platform is made of Derbyshire fossil limestone and encaustics by Godwin & Son.
#FontsOnFriday
#FontsOnFriday
September 19, 2025 at 7:08 AM
The grand font in the baptistery (1879) of St #Martin-on-the-hill, #Scarborough, by G.F.Bodley. The platform is made of Derbyshire fossil limestone and encaustics by Godwin & Son.
#FontsOnFriday
#FontsOnFriday
My first #almond crop since I had a tree in Athens. But this is a fine #Yorkshire harvest.
September 16, 2025 at 8:51 AM
My first #almond crop since I had a tree in Athens. But this is a fine #Yorkshire harvest.
Magnificent #Salisbury. The chapter house. Yesterday.
September 13, 2025 at 8:33 PM
Magnificent #Salisbury. The chapter house. Yesterday.
This is a great year for lovers of #Cavafy. After the superb new bio by Jeffreys & Jusdanis comes this important new study by the brilliant Foteini #Dimirouli of @kebleoxford.bsky.social.
September 10, 2025 at 4:53 PM
This is a great year for lovers of #Cavafy. After the superb new bio by Jeffreys & Jusdanis comes this important new study by the brilliant Foteini #Dimirouli of @kebleoxford.bsky.social.
Excited to receive my copy of the new biography of #Cavafy. It has been favourably reviewed in several places already. Now it’s my turn to get to grips with this new life of the poet who initiated me, aged 15, into modern Greek poetry, into gay poetry, into a positive idea of gay life itself.
September 5, 2025 at 5:00 PM
Excited to receive my copy of the new biography of #Cavafy. It has been favourably reviewed in several places already. Now it’s my turn to get to grips with this new life of the poet who initiated me, aged 15, into modern Greek poetry, into gay poetry, into a positive idea of gay life itself.
A chunky Norman-esque font (1868) by R.R.Banks & C.Barry Jr at All Saints, #Helmsley. Font spire by George Pace.
An usually “high” church for a rural parish in the York diocese, with fine devotions (in glass and murals) to the northern saints #Aelred, #Cuthbert and #Aidan.
#fontsonFriday
An usually “high” church for a rural parish in the York diocese, with fine devotions (in glass and murals) to the northern saints #Aelred, #Cuthbert and #Aidan.
#fontsonFriday
September 5, 2025 at 7:38 AM
A chunky Norman-esque font (1868) by R.R.Banks & C.Barry Jr at All Saints, #Helmsley. Font spire by George Pace.
An usually “high” church for a rural parish in the York diocese, with fine devotions (in glass and murals) to the northern saints #Aelred, #Cuthbert and #Aidan.
#fontsonFriday
An usually “high” church for a rural parish in the York diocese, with fine devotions (in glass and murals) to the northern saints #Aelred, #Cuthbert and #Aidan.
#fontsonFriday
A plain door leading to some architectural finery. The parish entrance to the Augustinian house of St #Germans Priory, #Cornwall.
#aDoorableThursday
#aDoorableThursday
August 28, 2025 at 5:17 AM
A plain door leading to some architectural finery. The parish entrance to the Augustinian house of St #Germans Priory, #Cornwall.
#aDoorableThursday
#aDoorableThursday
The Scarborough cricket ground yesterday morning, as Durham took to the field against Yorkshire.
It’s a great pleasure to spend a day watching cricket, while chatting with friends and, over lunch, enjoying fish and chips and a pint of Timmy T’s.
And it was a decisive Yorkshire victory. Sweet.
It’s a great pleasure to spend a day watching cricket, while chatting with friends and, over lunch, enjoying fish and chips and a pint of Timmy T’s.
And it was a decisive Yorkshire victory. Sweet.
August 23, 2025 at 7:36 AM
The Scarborough cricket ground yesterday morning, as Durham took to the field against Yorkshire.
It’s a great pleasure to spend a day watching cricket, while chatting with friends and, over lunch, enjoying fish and chips and a pint of Timmy T’s.
And it was a decisive Yorkshire victory. Sweet.
It’s a great pleasure to spend a day watching cricket, while chatting with friends and, over lunch, enjoying fish and chips and a pint of Timmy T’s.
And it was a decisive Yorkshire victory. Sweet.
A glorious Romanesque doorway, without a door—and without most of the buildingsit led to.
The door was the link from cloister to refectory at the Augustinian house of #Kirkham Priory, on the banks of the Yorkshire #Derwent. The second foundation of Walter l’Espec.
#aDoorableThursday
The door was the link from cloister to refectory at the Augustinian house of #Kirkham Priory, on the banks of the Yorkshire #Derwent. The second foundation of Walter l’Espec.
#aDoorableThursday
August 21, 2025 at 6:20 AM
A glorious Romanesque doorway, without a door—and without most of the buildingsit led to.
The door was the link from cloister to refectory at the Augustinian house of #Kirkham Priory, on the banks of the Yorkshire #Derwent. The second foundation of Walter l’Espec.
#aDoorableThursday
The door was the link from cloister to refectory at the Augustinian house of #Kirkham Priory, on the banks of the Yorkshire #Derwent. The second foundation of Walter l’Espec.
#aDoorableThursday
Η #Κοίμησις της Θεοτόκου. Χρόνια πολλά στους εορτάζοντες και τις εορτάζουσες. Καλή Παναγιά σε όλους και όλες.
Greetings to all those commemorating today the #Assumption of the BVM and seeking her prayers.
#Δεκαπενταύγουστο
Greetings to all those commemorating today the #Assumption of the BVM and seeking her prayers.
#Δεκαπενταύγουστο
August 15, 2025 at 6:08 AM
Η #Κοίμησις της Θεοτόκου. Χρόνια πολλά στους εορτάζοντες και τις εορτάζουσες. Καλή Παναγιά σε όλους και όλες.
Greetings to all those commemorating today the #Assumption of the BVM and seeking her prayers.
#Δεκαπενταύγουστο
Greetings to all those commemorating today the #Assumption of the BVM and seeking her prayers.
#Δεκαπενταύγουστο
The magnificent, 17th-century oak door at 10 Cathedral Close, #Exeter: once the home of the Archdeacons of Barnstaple and Totnes.
#adoorableThursday
#adoorableThursday
August 14, 2025 at 7:02 AM
The magnificent, 17th-century oak door at 10 Cathedral Close, #Exeter: once the home of the Archdeacons of Barnstaple and Totnes.
#adoorableThursday
#adoorableThursday
J.L.Pearson’s extravagantly magnificent font in his exquisite baptistry. The sacrament accorded full honour. #TruroCathedral #FontsonFriday
August 8, 2025 at 7:15 AM
J.L.Pearson’s extravagantly magnificent font in his exquisite baptistry. The sacrament accorded full honour. #TruroCathedral #FontsonFriday
