Churches Dedicated to Other Divine Figures
There is a Church of Michael the Archangel (Ιερός Ναός Μιχαήλ Αρχαγγέλου, Ieros Naos Michaēl Archangelou). Michael is a figure in Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Bahá’í. He is sometimes called in the Orthodox Church “The Taxiarch”, from ταξίαρχος, “Commander of a Military Corps” or “Brigadier”. He shows up in the Revelation of St. John (12.7–12.12) doing battle with Satan in the form of a dragon.
The Church of St. Raphael is dedicated to another named Angel. Raphael first appears in the apocryphal Book of Tobit and is the Angelic Being associated with healing.
There is a Church of the Prophet Elijah (Ναός Προφήτη Ηλία, Naos Profētē Ēlia). The Prophet Elijah appears in many places in the Hebrew Bible; he is a revered figure in Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Bahá’í.
If you navigate Greece using a topographical map, you may come to the conclusion that every third mountain is called “Profitis Ilias”. This was confusing to me at first, given my background, because “Ilias”, Ἰλιάς, is the Greek for the Homeric Iliad. But of course the name in Greek is Προφήτης Ηλίας, “Prophet Elias”, transliterated according to the modern convention that turns eta into “i”… so, “Profitis Ilias”. Legend and tradition associate Elijah with mountains—one story says that he had been a sailor and almost drowned in a shipwreck; ever after he tried to stay as far from the sea as possible.
The mountains themselves are not “Profitis Ilias”, but there are hundreds and hundreds of little Profitis Ilias churches on the mountains of Greece, and these appear on our maps. We hiked up to a few of them during our travels.
