CRETE. - An island in the Mediterranean, southeast of Greece, also called Candia from the name of its principal city.
It is 250 km long from east to west, averaging 35 km in width, with a surface area of 8,500 sq km, and it closes off the southern part of the Aegean Sea. It is formed by mountain ranges that enclose small plains, with the great massif of Ida at its center. It has no major rivers, but numerous valleys become torrents during the rainy season. The fertility of the soil and the lush vegetation in the limited spaces were well known to the ancients (Strabo, X, 4, 4; Pliny, Nat. hist., XII, 11, 45).
Little is known of the primitive history (Early Minoan period, 3500–2100 B.C.; Middle Minoan up to 1580; Late Minoan up to 1200 B.C.) of the island, where the Aegean-Mycenaean civilization, which so greatly influenced Greece, developed between 1600 and 1700 B.C. Today the prevailing opinion is that Keftiw of Egyptian documents and Cephor of the Bible (Gen. 10:14) (Kafara in cuneiform texts) refers to Crete, the original land of the Philistines (Jer. 47:7; Am. 9:7). Archaeological explorations attest to extensive commercial activity with Egypt and other Mediterranean regions from the 3rd millennium to 1400 B.C. Indeed, many objects of Cretan art have been found in Egypt, and many Egyptian imports on the island. After the Dorian conquest (1200 B.C.), the island became highly fragmented, with countless cities. Homer speaks of 60 cities (Odyssey, XIX, 174) and 100 (Iliad, II, 649), naturally of very different sizes and importance; yet Knossos and Gortyn, where the great inscription of ancient Cretan law (6th–5th century B.C.) was discovered, gained and retained predominance. Crete did not take part in the war against the Persians or in the Peloponnesian War. The various cities maintained lasting relations with the Ptolemies and Cyrenaica. In 67 B.C., Crete fell under Roman power, and Caecilius Metellus received the title of Creticus. In the imperial reorganization of 27 B.C., Augustus united Crete with Cyrene into a single senatorial province. The governor, of praetorian rank, resided at Gortyn.
The Jews were numerous in the island’s cities, especially at Gortyn, as evidenced by the letter of the consul Lucius (1 Macc. 15:23; Flavius Josephus, Ant. Jud., XVII, 121; Bell. Jud., II, 7, 1). Witnesses to the Christian Pentecost in Jerusalem brought the Christian message back to their homeland (Acts 2:11). The ship carrying Paul on his voyage from Caesarea to Rome, after rounding Cape Salmone, sailed along the southern coast to reach the harbor of Fair Havens (καλῶι λιμένι, Vulg. Boniportus), near the city of Lasaea (Acts 27:7–8). Against Paul’s advice (Acts 27:10, 21–26), the centurion set out from there to reach Phoenix, a harbor more suitable for wintering, but contrary winds drove the ship out of control (Acts 27:16–21). After his release from a Roman prison, Paul visited Crete with Titus and departed, leaving him to appoint “elders” or “overseers” for the churches and to safeguard the evangelical doctrine, which Judaizing corrupters were attempting to pervert.
The Cretans were already held in poor repute in antiquity; in his Letter to Titus (1:12), Paul cites, with approval, the saying from the oracles of Epimenides: “Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.”
In the 5th–8th centuries, Crete had 8 dioceses, since 8 bishops signed a letter addressed to Emperor Leo I at the Council of Chalcedon (451), and the same number were present at the Second Council of Nicaea (787).
A group of 10 martyrs (BHG, nos. 1196–97), known in the aforementioned letter of the Cretan bishops to Leo I as the “provincial martyrs,” was venerated in Crete. Their passion may have been written in Gortyn in the 4th century and was thus known to the said bishops (P. Franchi de’ Cavalieri, I dieci martiri di C., in Miscellanea G. Mercati, V [Studi e Testi, 125], Vatican City 1946, pp. 7–40).
Of St. Cyril, bishop and martyr of Gortyn, no authentic details survive. To the Byzantine period in Gortyn belong the domed church of St. Titus, supported by four pillars, and the one discovered at Vigles. Explorations have led to the discovery of a group of early Christian inscriptions, among which notable is the epitaph of a bishop named Eclesiadorus.
For the later period: V. CANDIA.