The Living Archive
Ottoman Fleet Withdraws After Mysterious Figure Reportedly Appears Above Corfu
Defenders say a robed bishop carrying a torch was seen during the final assault as the invading forces abandoned the siege.
Against overwhelming odds, the Venetian-held island of Corfu has survived one of the largest Ottoman assaults in its history, and many of its defenders insist they know why.
As Ottoman forces pressed their attack by land and sea, the clergy processed the incorrupt relics of St Spyridon through the city, asking God to spare the island.
“We do not deny the storm. We say Who sent it.”
Then came the storm.
Violent winds battered the Ottoman fleet while confusion spread through the besieging army. As panic mounted, reports began circulating among defenders and attackers alike that a towering bishop clothed in dark vestments had been seen upon the city’s walls, carrying a flaming torch and driving the invaders back.
Within days, the Ottoman army abandoned the siege and withdrew.
Military men will give other reasons, and this paper does not dismiss them. The weather was severe and came at the worst possible moment for a fleet at anchor. The supply lines were long. The Venetian defense, under a commander who knew his ground, was determined and well conducted. Any one of these would have counted; together they are a sufficient account of why a siege fails.
The people of Corfu have never regarded that as an answer to a different question.
They do not deny the storm. They say who sent it, and they say it was asked for by name.
Every year since, the island has commemorated the deliverance with one of its most solemn public processions — the largest of the four it keeps, held each August, following the same route the relics took when the guns were still firing.
The siege of 1716 is a matter of public record on both sides, and the withdrawal after it is one of the better-documented episodes of the Venetian–Ottoman wars in these islands.
The apparition on the walls is not. It comes to us from the religious tradition of Corfu, where it has been preserved for three centuries alongside the procession that commemorates the deliverance.
Sources & Documentation
The Cloud of Witnesses reports nothing it cannot source. Each account is held to the standard of the Church’s own discernment.
- Contemporary accounts of the 1716 Siege of Corfu
- Church of St Spyridon, Corfu
- The Great Synaxaristes (Greek Orthodox tradition)
- Local ecclesiastical tradition of Corfu
- Orthodox Church in America — St Spyridon the Wonderworker
- Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America — St Spyridon the Wonderworker
- Historical studies of the Venetian–Ottoman wars in the Ionian Islands