Olya Gluschenko and Costis Drygianakis

One more book was just released by Volos Academy Publications of the Volos Academy for Theological Studies. It is a photo album, entitled “on the roads we travelled”: Unfrequented places in the Metropolis of Demetrias , crafted by Olya Gluschenko and Costis Drygianakis. It includes a short introductory text and over two hundred colour photographs of churches, chapels and monasteries of mainland Magnesia and Agia (which belongs to the jurisdiction of the Metropolis of Demetrias). The book was published with the financial support of the Region of Thessaly (Regional Units of Magnesia and Sporades) and the European Programme “Resilience”, and is part of the activities of the Department of Byzantine and Post-Byzantine Monuments and Relics of the Volos Academy.

As the title indicates, the album focuses on a lesser-known part of the ecclesiastical world of the region, which, despite its aesthetic and often archaeological interest, has not yet been recognized as a pole of interest. However, there are also shots from emblematic churches of the region, such as the church of Taxiarches in Milies, or the temple of the St John the Baptist in Makrinitsa, Pelion, while the last part of the book attempts to capture the ceremonial life, in central temples of the city of Volos, but also in the suburbs and in remote villages. Taking concepts for granted of contemporary cultural anthropology, the two photographers record images they come across, with no attempts of beautification; they search for the particularity hidden in everyday details, they attempt to cross the line that separates the past from the present and finally they spotlight the beauty that results from the combination of all these partial elements.

The album is the fruit of almost twenty years of work (with images dating from Easter 2005 to October 2022) and incorporates two different perspectives that essentially talk to each other; that of the "local" Costis Drygianakis who knows the geography of the area and its “web of meanings” and that of the "newcomer" Olya Gluschenko –from Voronezh, Russia– who approaches the same subjects free from the usual stereotypes. These two glimpses, each in its own way, trigger questions on the self-evident but also call for receptivity towards the unknown, thus raising questions about the strength of the weak and the weakness of the powerful, about the volatility of the stable and the permanence of the transitory, and ultimately attempting a transcendence of all kinds of dualisms.

The book is available from the Volos Academy (you can send a message to this page) and in selected bookstores.