Photios Kontoglou: A Prophet of Suffering Romiosini

Yesterday marked the 44th year since the passing of the ever-memorable and blessed Photios Kontoglou (November 8, 1895 - July 13, 1965), the foremost iconographer of Greece in the 20th century.

Following the Asia Minor tragedy in 1922, Kontoglou was exiled to Greece and would come to have as his main goal to bring back to Greece all the best that Romiosini had to offer as opposed to the European spirit which was oppressing the Greek soul. So in 1923 he travelled to Mount Athos, a fashionable destination for the most prominent intellectuals, and became awe-struck upon his discoveries. He writes:

"I must say I had not expected to find such perfect art in the monastery churches. From what I had read about Byzantine art I had formed the idea that it was less worthy of attention than the art of the Italian Renaissance... [but] on Mount Athos there are paintings of the most superb artistry, such as the Archangel Gabriel and St. Mercurios by Katelanos. So far as I am in a position to judge, it is very seldom that one comes across paintings executed with such shrewd artistic judgment and charged with such powerful rhythm. I approached these paintings with a feeling which arises from a cast of mind similar to that of the Byzantines and from a strict Christian upbringing" (The Art of Athos, c.1923, quoted in Nikos Zias, "The Greek Tradition and Fotis Kontoglou", Zygos, vol. III, Athens, 1984, p. 58).

It is this experience which initiated a revival in traditional Orthodox iconography throughout the world and would many years later compel Kontoglou to confess the following:

"Byzantine art is for me the art of arts. I believe in it as I believe in Orthodox religion. Only this art nourishes my soul through its deep and mysterious powers; it alone quenches the thirst that I feel in the midst of the arid desert that surrounds us. In comparison with Byzantine art, all the others appear to me trivial, 'troubling themselves about many things, when but one thing is needed'."

Besides inspiring a revitalization in the culture of Romiosini (which included upholding all the traditions of Orthodoxy such as Byzantine Music, traditional clerical attire and appearance, faithfulness to the canons, etc), Kontoglou was also a prolific writer and theologian. Speaking against the cerebral, scientific and liberal forms of theology that Greeks were bringing to Greece from the West, he said:

"Such theologians regard traditional Orthodox theology, which comes from the roots of Christianity and from the Greek Fathers, as ossified, and they come as renewers of it. Actually, they lack real faith, lack interior, spiritual life. They view theology as a science, comparable to chemistry and physics, which employ discursive reason as their instrument and give rationalistic explanations" (Constantine Cavarnos, Meetings With Kontoglou, p. 128).

He would further write of such theologians:

"Todays theologians have become scientists, like the doctors, chemists and engineers, because by presenting themselves as such they will be honored by the world. And they go to Europe, the place of spiritual darkness, to receive a degree. They stuff their heads with a multitude of ungrounded and vain philosophies, and come to our land to transmit their unbelief instead of the Faith…. They do not enter into the Heavenly Kingdom, and hinder others from entering, as our Lord has said. Their punishment is that they do not see any of the wondrous things that are seen by believers, and hence they lack contrition and are cold. They are separated from God and His Kingdom, because they love the glory of men, instead of the glory of God" (Semeion Mega [A Great Sign], 1962, pp. 16-17).

In another book, Papa-Nicholas Planas, which was published three years later, again emphasizing the importance of faith and piety, he says:

"They endeavor today, with the plight of the Church, to find its causes, and hold that the answer is to be found in scientific theological education. But the evil is to be remedied only by education in piety…. What will it benefit the Church if students go to (say) Geneva? They will return with Protestant principles. We are told by these same persons that our Church has remained behind a whole century. How good it would have been if the members of the Church today had the piety of those who lived a century ago! External [secular] scientific education is fine when it is joined to piety" (Athens, 1965, p. 46).

The inculturation of the European spirit in all its forms was seen by Kontoglou as a threat to Orthodox culture in Greece (and of course even to Orthodox outside of Greece). This caused him to lament, what he called, "suffering Romiosini":

"Romiosini came out of Byzantium, or, to say it better, Byzantium in its last years stood the same as Romiosini. Even in the time of Phocas its characteristics appeared clearly, and in the years of the Paleologoi, even as the kingdom was at the point of death, tortured Romiosioni became stronger, a brand new Greece. Christian Greece grew in the midst of agony, because pain is the new mark of Christ. Romiosini is suffering Greece. Ancient Greece might have been glorious and strong, but the new one, the christian one, is much deeper, because pain is something that is much deeper than glory and joy and of whatever else. The people who live with pain and faith imprint much deeper their character in the hard rock of life, and they are marked with a mark that does not erase with misfortune and unbearable persecution, but they become more uneraseable. With such a mark is Romiosini marked. The nations which redeem every hour of their life with blood and agony, bear fruit with spiritual joys, which are unrecognizable to people who live the good life. These remain poor of both spiritual treasures as well as of human, because the good life weighs down the inner man."

The influence of Kontoglou in contemporary Orthodoxy as an artist and intellectual is unmistakable, and his faith and piety is inspiring. His life is worthy of emulation by all Orthodox men in the world, as his sanctity is testified by his incorrupt relics which lie in the Monastery of Saint Ephraim the Newly-Revealed in Nea Makri of Athens.

Below are some links to gain a deeper understanding of the life and writings of Photios Kontoglou:

The Life and Writings of Photios Kontoglou

Various Icons, Drawings and Pictures of Photios Kontoglou

What Orthodox Iconography Is

On Byzantine Music

Various Articles in Greek

On Spiritual Life and On the Holy Spirit

On John the Blessed

Christianity and Islam - Two Related, Yet Different Religions

A Letter to Elder Philotheos Zervakos Concerning the Ecumenism of Patriarch Athenagoras

On the Works of Dr. Constantine Cavarnos

The Small Churches of Maroussi

The Great Wager Between Believers and Unbelievers

The Myth of the Octopus - Smiling Enemies

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A Dome's Eye View of Hagia Sophia

Kept Light Photography has posted some photographs on a video that offers a rare glimpse of Hagia Sophia from the dome. See this entirely different perspective of this astonishing cathedral here.

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A Miracle of Elder Paisios the Athonite

A few days ago marked the 15 year memorial of the renowned Elder Paisios the Athonite since his falling asleep (+ July 12, 1994). I never had the blessing to meet the Elder, but I have known many over the years that did know him very well. So much has been written on the Elder, that I could hardly think of anything unique to add to the existing corpus. I will therefore relate the first time I ever heard of the Elder about a miracle he performed for one of my friends.

A friend of mine named Nicholas told me how he visited Mount Athos in the early 1990's. While there he desired to visit Elder Paisios at his cell because of his reputation as a miracle-worker. One thing that was on his mind was his sister Christina who suffered from epilepsy. When he arrived he was told the Elder was away and would have to wait, so he waited until the Elder arrived and he was recieved into his cell. When they sat down Nicholas brought up his sister for the Elder to pray for her, but he never mentioned her epilepsy. The Elder then pointed to a particular region on his head in the brain area and said something like: "She has something here". Then flicking away his hand he said: "It's gone." From that moment she never had a seizure again, and this is regarded by the family to be a miracle of the Elder.

May the holy and blessed Geronda Paisios pray for us!

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A Guide to Russian Sects and Fringe Beliefs - Part 4 of 6

Russian Sects and Fringe Beliefs - Part Four: Magical Services

Moscow, Russia
July 13, 2009
Marc Bennetts
RIA Novosti

The popular image of the Soviet Union is of a grey, monolithic state where belief in anything that failed to correspond to the teachings of Marx and Lenin was stamped out by brutal KGB agents.

However, beneath the secular surface, thousands of healers and sorcerers went about their age-old professions, practising ancient traditions that date back to pre-Christian Rus. The collapse of the Soviet Union saw these widespread beliefs in the magical and the paranormal rise rapidly to the surface.

From their humble beginnings of whispered recommendations, “magical services” have made the crossover into the mainstream. Estimates suggest there are over 100,000 occult practitioners in Russia, with the business worth some $10 million in Moscow alone.

The Tainaya Vlast (The Secret Power) semimonthly, with a print run of 250,000, is Russia’s most popular paper devoted to all things supernatural. However, if in the West, a similar newspaper would most likely be filled with adverts for New Age self-development courses and the like, Tainaya Vlast’s classifieds are of a much more down-to-earth nature, featuring ads offering to, among other things, “magically cure alcoholism and resolve family problems.”

Hypnotist and Psychic healer Anatoliy Kashpirovsky

“Ancient magical and mystical traditions of the Russian north. Business problems resolved!” reads another ad, in a breathtaking mixture of the magical and the mundane.

In a nod to the realities of 21st-century urban life, the vast majority of Russia’s professional occultists have their own Internet sites. The simply-named Magicheskie Uslugi (Magical Services) website is just one of them. “Curses - 100 euros, success in court - 20 euros,” offers the oddly flesh-coloured site, its pricelist stating that “all services will be fulfilled only after 100% pre-payment.”

The economic downturn that hit Russia hard towards the end of 2008 has also had an effect on the marketing techniques of modern occult gurus, with many proudly advertising “new anti-financial crisis magic!” Apart from the usual curses and love spells, many witches and wizards claim to be able to magically protect their clients against getting the sack by using their powers on unpleasant bosses, maintain pre-crisis salaries by bewitching the entire bookkeeping department, and even make sure that loan applications are approved.

Hypnotist and Psychic healer Alan Chumak

“Casting spells on banks is more expensive, however,” I was told by the owner of one such business when I called to enquire further.

Why?

“It involves black magic.”

“We don’t have the right, legally, to use the word magic in our adverts,” Mikhail, owner of an occult centre in the centre of Moscow told me. “I took the word magic off our advert and got a license.”

But why did the word “magic” cause so much offence when, say, the word “clairvoyant”, was fine?

“Ah, you know,” Mikhail went on. “Those officials. Around five years ago, there was a weird period, let’s call it a witch-hunt, when the authorities started cracking down on the whole occult thing. We came to a compromise, and the word magic got banned. They had to ban something,” he shrugged.

Mikhail is an ex-Soviet air force pilot who, like many people in Russia around the time of the breakup of the Soviet Union, got interested in the occult. However, he differed from most in that he set up his own business, hiring “people with special gifts” to work for him.

He was obviously doing well. His premises were plush, in one of Moscow’s most exclusive areas, and he seemed to have no shortage of clients.

“People in Russia are far more drawn to magical services than to psychiatrists or psychoanalysts,” Mikhail said. “They believe more in miracles than people in the West. And they really love a show.”

A news report on Anatoliy Kashpirovsky and Alan Chumak

Mikhail introduced me to new employee, psychic healer Olga who had applied for a position after seeing the center’s program on a satellite TV channel.

“I came in for an interview, had a test, and they took me on,” she told me.

What exactly was a psychic healer, I asked. What did her powers consist of?

“I can see people’s illness, diagnose them, and cure them. It usually takes about five sessions.”

I had no interest in exposing Olga as a fraud, and, to be honest, I was not even sure that she was. She certainly seemed to believe in her abilities.

“My powers were discovered when I went on holiday with my school, back in the Soviet era,” Olga told me. “This was the era of Anatoliy Kashpirovsky, and that lot, and every sanitarium had its very own bio-energy therapist.”

As the Soviet Union entered its death throes, Kashpirovsky and his great rival, Alan Chumak, were state-approved psychics who appeared on national television, curing the nation of various illnesses through the power of the mind. Able at their height of their fame to fill stadiums all over the country, their individual weekly TV shows had the entire country captivated.

Kashpirovsky, clad all in black, his piercing eyes staring into flats across the USSR, “healed” millions, his sonorous voice both reassuring and oddly threatening.

“For those of you with high blood pressure, your blood pressure will lower…whoever has hip injuries, they will heal…” he droned.

Chumak, a white-haired figure for whom the word eccentric could have been invented, was entirely the opposite. After a brief matter-of-fact introduction, he would silently and slowly, like some Soviet Zen master, move his hands for half-an-hour or so, “charging” with healing energy the jars and saucepans full of water that his millions of viewers had placed around their flats.

Dr. Kashpirovski healing session

“Anyway,” Olga continued, “I started to feel ill when I went to one of the bio-energy sessions, and afterwards the psychic told me that I should never attend again as I had my own powers.”

Had she been frightened, I wondered, by this sudden discovery of her gift?

“I remember feeling extremely interested,” she smiled. “My friends didn’t know that much about it, but my parents did. I used to take my mother’s headaches away.”

Olga also had her own theory as to the popularity of magical services in Russia.

“It’s much more interesting,” she said. “When you go to a psychoanalyst, you have to tell him your problems. Here, psychics and clairvoyants tell you your problems. That’s far, far better.”

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Video of Elder Joseph of Vatopaidi with Translation (3)

[Below is a rough translation which hopefully will help someone with better skills than me to offer a more accurate translation. -J.S.]

Elder Joseph of Vatopaidi

Subject: Admonition to Monks. Egoism and the Cutting of the Will (1 of 3 videos)

1st minute -- We wanted to thank again our Christ who has brought us together in Himself. In order to show us that in fact his paternal affection and love is with us. Today you had sort of a feast in this great synaxis and gathering here. Of course each has their own spiritual significance. And here you must understand that which I tell you often: that people come to Vatopaidi, everything you see here, because I believe there is something spiritual here.

2nd minute -- And this spiritual thing we must hold on to and incorporate to reawaken our own brotherhood and that of our nation. I, in order to remind you, did not have any competence, but I honored the respect and honor you gave in my community to help, so that the relationship between us in love could unite our bond to be even closer. This is all of our strength. And we must remember, of course, that our aim is repentence. This is why I am here. But now I was meditating on something in Paul so as to find help...

3rd minute -- ...because in the midst of the repentance we live in there are also great traps of the devil to disturb us. Which is why beforehand we prepare ourselves so that we do not get terrified. Paul says concerning sin "I do that which I do not want, and that which I want to do I can't. And even though I see within myself the law of good that it dwells within me, at the same time I see the law of evil within me and there begins a war" (Rom. 2). And here, exactly, is where we need the assistance of divine grace in order to withstand the war. Otherwise we won't be able to, because this law of perversion within us is not natural to us but an unnatural energy which pulls us by force.

4th minute -- And if we don't hold on to with exactness our submission to God so that our mother grace stays within us, then we will not withstand. Because the devil...look we try daily to live repentance according to each one's strength. But then suddenly, with no reason, their comes to us some sort of grief, trouble, disappointment or discouragement - "Where are my clothes?", "I don't know anything", "I don't know where I am". All these are alterations and you should know they are tools of repentance. We did not flee to the warmth of our Christ...

5th minute -- ...so that through repentance we can receive His love. Because He fulfilled everything by his divine epiphany. He saw as God that our fall was not only in being exiled from Paradise, but in the distortion of our personhood. And there exists because of this these alterations. For this out of His great love He lowered Himself further and gave us repentance. And now this repentance is our target and aim and for this we must be very careful, because the whole aim of repentance is practical, but it is not a practical energy - this is blasphemous to say!

6th minute -- Our purpose is to chase away all evil because we don't want it within us. We do this practically by divine grace. Divine grace takes the place of a mother and stays beside us to see what we are thinking, what do we want, what do we prefer on the practical level. But then she gets involved to bring in freedom, and resurrection and salvation. This is the word I want you to be very aware of. The repentance that we do, even if we don't do it right unfortunately, because if we do it right we must be careful as to what is the divine will and on this alone must we hang.

7th minute -- Our first commandment and duty is to love God. He says: "By this will I know if you love Me, if you have my commandments and do them" (Jn. 14). If we don't love Him we won't do them. Therefore we must protect the commandments. Now what are the commandments? We read it last time also. The commandments are not orders of a despot or lord to complete. They are the medicine by which healing comes to our distortions. Because when you think about there works within us that which is unreasonable and practically because of the fall we do not have much guilt because we are far from the blame. The devil is near our nous however and he shoots arrows at our nous continuously.

8th minute -- This is why mother grace is illusive. The purpose of it all is to offer confession or denial. The denial of the divine will was the fall. The denial of the divine will, individualism, and selfishness were the catastrophy. And for this did the Son of the Living God come to show us on a practical level the way of repentance which leads to a return into Him. Because the fall happened practically we didn't think our thoughts went against God and for this we were hanged. No, we applied it practically and we got up and said: "We don't need God, we can be by ourselves."

9th minute -- ...And because of this that which was forbidden because it was deadly the devil said it would be beneficial. And we went and we ate for our benefit and the fall occurred practically with individualism and selfishness as part of the fall. The meaning of repentance is here. Now we must practically show through our will that we do not associate with the aim of unreasonableness. Have this within your mind and take great care. A monk is known as one who guards his mind. Which is why we are here, because of the fall. The mind does not stop.

10th minute -- The devil does not leave it alone. If therefore the monk is repenting, but with his mind is in dialogue with the unreasonableness, how is it possible that mother grace which is holy will come and dwell in a body of sin? When the mind practically has a dialogue with unreasonableness grace does not come. And if grace does not come all is lost for nothing.

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Video of Elder Joseph of Vatopaidi with Translation (2)

[Below is a rough translation which hopefully will help someone with better skills than me to offer a more accurate translation. -J.S.]

Elder Joseph of Vatopaidi

Subject: The Inheritance of the Greeks.

1st minute -- When the fullness of time had come He [Jesus] was born and became the God-Man - God and man together. He continued in His preaching to the Jews, because He came from among them and had visited their ancestors and had provided for them to become the center of the human race. They did not receive Him. He showed all His love, all His sympathy, all of His paternal affection and goodness - but nothing was returned from them.

2nd minute -- Because of their corrupt faith, even though He did so many miracles among them, His justice proclaimed the following word: "You are of your father the devil (Jn. 8:44), and whatever your father tells you, you think. How can you receive Me then? From them therefore I will take away My Kingdom and give it to the nations to bear fruit upon the earth." This, my brothers, is our main duty. It is just like He spoke the first time to Abraham and told him: "I am God and I chose you to follow Me." But these did not receive Him. So He abandoned them and threw them away. "Behold your house shall be left to you desolate" (Lk. 13:35).

3rd minute -- So He turned His paternal affection and compassion towards us, to our ancestors, who gave us philosophy and knowledge and learning and a way of life. And despite all their trying they understood that something was missing. Philosophy, technology and human revelation could not achieve it. And they understood that "we need to find the Cause. We have uncovered the particles and minerals and systems of astronomy, and so forth. That which alludes us however is our unconquered enemy death, with all the philosophy and study we have done.

4th minute -- "To what gain therefore is all our labor, since our unconquered enemy death and corruption still remains among us. These must be destroyed. But this does not come from humanity. We must find the Cause, for the universe proclaims that there is order in all things. We must therefore find the First Cause for Him to tell us how to destroy death...." They learned therefore that in the area of Palestine a person appeared supernaturally and He taught the essence of their writings. So they thought maybe it could be Him, the Cause, and He has become a person.

5th minute -- They left therefore seeking for the answer in Palestine. This is a story which truly glorifies our roots and is our boast! They went and sought for Him but didn't know how to find Him. The fishermen, before they received divine grace, were simple and unlearned fishermen and they could not converse with them. But still they were desperate and asked: "Sirs, we beg you, we are Greeks. We came here in order to see Jesus. We are not leaving until we see Him." So they [the disciples] grew desperate and approached our Lord to tell Him: "Lord, some Greeks have come and want to see you". Our Lord became firm. And the Absolute out of love said: "The time has come for the Son of Man to be glorified" (Jn. 12:23).

6th minute -- Therefore He took away from them [the Jews] the Kingdom and gave it to the nations such as these [the Greeks] to bear fruit, and through them to us. It was foreseen by His paternal affection that we will receive the fullness of the divine message and the correction of universal distortions. We are therefore the continuators of these. And I ask in your love to not ever forget this. Because we did not hear this from some prophet, from angels or from other Saints, but from the same One "through whom all things came into existence" who came down for us and became man for our salvation.

7th minute -- It was ordained by this same One that we are that nation given to Him for an inheritance. And from within our nation will be established by the Holy Spirit our faith [audio is a bit distorted here].... And you should remember this blessing to give you courage, faith and hope. Because the same Creator, who was begotten before all ages, destroyed the apostates and ordained us by his own mouth, not through a prophet, but by his own mouth He who is begotten before all ages illumined us and ordained us to be the continuators of this divine revelation for the fulfillment of the divine gospel.

8th minute -- Our millions of ancestors full of holiness are proof of this divine message. It is this inheritance of which we are continuators, of the millions of martyrs and confessors; of the Saints for whom we make icons and embrace their image and we plead with them for aid. These are our ancestors, who out of submission and obedience to the divine will received the fulfillment ...[recording ends abruptly].

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Video of Elder Joseph of Vatopaidi with Translation (1)

[I found this video a bit difficult to understand, so I offer the basic message below which hopefully will help someone with better skills than me to offer a more accurate translation. -J.S.]

Elder Joseph of Vatopaidi
Subject: Admonition to Monks

1st minute -- The Elder is speaking of the Theotokos. He magnifies the fact that she gave birth to God the Logos who is the glory of the Father. He magnifies her ever-virginity and her perfection which allowed Him who is perfect to regenerate His entire creation. Her paternal affection is not limited to this. She has given us other blessings such as her most holy clothing [Vatopaidi Monastery is in possession of the belt or zoni of the Theotokos and there are other such articles of clothing throughout the world] which held the most holy infant and which by her allowance was given to us out of paternal affection for these to exist as both timeless and living for the sanctification of christians and of all people. And as the Epistle reading of the day says...

2nd minute -- ...these things were written about in the Old Testament as a shadow. All these shadows in the Old Testament about the divine economy spoke of her - the golden vessel holding the manna, the entrance to the Holy Place, and so many other things which my memory won't allow me to remember. All these symbols symbolized her and they foresaw back then by the power of the Holy Spirit the mystery of this daughter. And the Holy Spirit showed us through the type, the shadow of the law, that she, the ever-virgin daughter will become the tool through which the world is regenerated.

3rd minute -- The Elder goes on to speak how the Theotokos protects us through the power of the Holy Spirit which resides in her clothing that have been given to the monastery and resides in their midst as a living witness. She is in our midst in this center of the universe of her motherly compassion throughout the Holy Mountain and here at our monastery which has its foundations since ancient times and which has offered so much to christendom.

4th minute -- She has made us worthy to have her form and icon [the miraculous Panagia Pantanassa icon resides in the Monastery of Vatopaidi] to receive her sympathy and affection abundantly. When she confessed with her own mouth, the Queen of heaven and earth, that she is named Pantanassa and a resident of Vatopaidi...When the Queen of heaven and earth...is not in the heavens or with the God of gods but resides at Vatopaidi, how much consolation, how joy, how much help,...

5th minute -- ...how much of a sure hope of our purpose should we have since she lives here with us with maternal affection. All these things, my beloved brothers, should be alive in our memory to shadow us when the dark cloud of perversions and violations confuse us and mix us up. Let us not lose our courage. But with sure hope and faith that the mother of mercy, the mother of God the Logos, the mother of all of christendom and humanity is with us and is the mother of Vatopaidi. How much courage do we have now! How much hope!

6th minute -- How much joy should we feel! And with how much force will we battle against the words of perversion which the devil and his armies propose. We will not be separated, for God is with us. God will judge in righteousness. It has been promised to us that God will not leave us as orphans, but will be with us until He calls us to Himself. He does not want us to be alone, but wants us to be with Him.

7th minute -- The synthesis with divinity makes us saints of God and brothers of Christ and we receive gifts which the angels long for. The illumined angels which behold divinity are jealous because they are not worthy to receive what we have received because we have become brothers of Christ and sons of the Father, though they are only servants. Do not forget these things my brothers because these will be our greatest weapons against words of perversion.

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Obama - A Student of History?

[President Obama may be a self-proclaimed student of history, but like most in the West his understanding of history is severely distorted and even misleading. Just because certain Muslims stole certain texts and adopted the culture of the conquered Romans of the East and merely transported them to the West during their bloody reign in the Middle Ages does not mean they "carried the light of learning" and paved "the way for Europe's Renaissance". An accurate student of history knows that the European Renaissance came from the Roman (Byzantine) Empire of the East and Islam in fact did more to suppress learning than enhance it. -J.S.]

OBAMA-STUDENT OF HISTORY?

William J. Federer
June 1, 2009
Worldviewtimes.com

In his speech in Cairo, Egypt, June 4, 2009, President Obama stated:

"As a student of history, I also know civilization's debt to Islam. It was Islam that carried the light of learning through so many centuries, paving the way for Europe's Renaissance."

Civilization is indeed indebted to Islam for Europe's Renaissance, but the President's speech was conspicuous in its omission of certain details.

The Renaissance was a revival of interest in Greek art, architecture, sculpture and philosophy, brought about by Greeks fleeing the Islamic invasion of the Byzantine Empire.

It began in the year 1071, when Turkish Muslims defeated the Byzantine army at the Battle of Manzikert and proceeded to invade the Byzantine Empire, which is today Turkey.

First Muslim Seljuk Turks, followed by Muslim Ottoman Turks, turned Byzantine Churches into mosques, melted church bells into cannons, leveled cities, dug up remains of Christian Saints and gave them to dogs.

In fact, civilization is indebted to Islam for Santa Claus, for in 1087, to prevent desecration, Christians moved the bones of Saint Nicholas, the generous 4th century Bishop of Myra, to Bari, Italy, thus introducing his gift-giving traditions to Western Europe.

Later Muslim Ottoman Turks took boys from Christian families and forced them into the Sultan's service as janissary soldiers, and if they were handsome, into Muslim pederasty - "the sodomy of the Turks."

In 1095, the proud Byzantine Emperor, Alexius I Comnenus, humbled himself and sent ambassadors to beg the Roman Catholic Pope for help.

Robert the Monk recorded in the Medieval Sourcebook (Fordham University) that Pope Urban II pled at the Council of Clermont for Europe's monarchs to help their Byzantine brethren, whom Muslims "compel to extend their necks and then, attacking them with naked swords, attempt to cut through the neck with a single blow."

In 1097, Europe sent help - the First Crusade.

In the next 200 years there were nine major Crusades, notable among them were the 3rd Crusade, led by Richard the Lionheart, and the 7th and 8th Crusades, led by Saint Louis, King Louis IX of France, for whom the city of Saint Louis, Missouri, was named.

Toward the end of the Crusades, there arose a Muslim warlord named Tamerlane (1336-1405).

Related to Genghis Khan, Tamerlane killed an estimated 17 million, conquering from the Black Sea to India.

Tamerlane built a grand mosque at his capital of Samarkand and had a Qur'an so large it had to be carried in a wheelbarrow. He insisted his troops observe Islamic prayer, even on marches, which brought complaints from his soldiers.

Tamerlane captured Moscow and the Afghan city of Isfizar, building a tower of bricks, mortar and 2,000 prisoners cemented into it.

He destroyed the city of Kartid, massacred 70,000 in Ishfahan and destroyed Sarai Berke, one of Eastern Europe's largest cities with a population of 600,000.

In his memoir "Malfuzat-i-Timuri," Tamerlane wrote:

"There arose in my heart the desire to lead an expedition against the infidels and to become a ghazi, for it had reached my ears that the slayer of infidels is a ghazi, and if he is slain he becomes a martyr.

"It was on this account that I formed this resolution, but I was undetermined in my mind whether I should direct my expedition against the infidels of China or against the infidels and polytheists of India.

"In this matter I sought an omen from the Qur'an, and the verse I opened upon was this, 'O Prophet, make war upon infidels and unbelievers, and treat them with severity.' (Sura 66:9)

"My great officers told me that the inhabitants of Hindustan were infidels and unbelievers. In obedience to the order of Almighty Allah I ordered an expedition against them."

Tamerlane slaughtered 100,000 in Delhi, leaving pyramids of skulls. His memoirs record that at Hardwar his troops:

"Displayed great courage...slaying the foe (during a bathing festival on the bank of the Ganges)...

"So many of them were killed that their blood ran down the mountains and plain, and thus (nearly) all were sent to hell."

Tamerlane turned west and captured Syrian cities of Aleppo and Damascus, leaving 20 towers of skulls. He bombarded the Christian city of Smyrna with decapitated heads of its fallen defending knights.

Tamerlane buried alive 4,000 Georgian soldiers, and forced their Christian King, Bagrat V, to convert to Islam at sword point.

French Academy member, Rene' Grousset (1885-1952), wrote in his original edition of L'Empire Des Steppes (p. 513), how in 1403, Tamerlane destroyed all the Christian churches in Georgia's capital of Tiflis:

"Mongols were mere barbarians who killed simply because for centuries this had been the instinctive behavior of nomad herdsmen toward sedentary farmers.
"To this ferocity Tamerlane added a taste for religious murder. He killed from Qur'anic piety. ('Il tuait par piete coranique')

"He represents a synthesis, probably unprecedented in history, of Mongol barbarity and Muslim fanaticism, and symbolizes that advanced form of primitive slaughter which is murder committed for the sake of an abstract ideology, as a duty and a sacred mission."

To escape the Islamic invasion, Byzantine Greek scholars fled west to Florence, Italy, bringing with them their architecture, art, sculpture and philosophy, fueling Europe's fascination with Greek culture.

This was called the "Renaissance," which President Obama reminded Europeans they were indebted to Islam for.

Additionally, as Greeks fled west with their ancient manuscripts, scholars began translating the Bible not just from Latin, but from Greek - thus laying the groundwork for the Reformation, - so even Protestants are indirectly indebted to Islam for the Reformation.

In fact, the very concept of "Europe" was a result of Islamic invasion, as previously, Europe viewed itself as innumerable independent kingdoms.

"As a student of history," President Obama did indeed acknowledge "civilization's debt to Islam...paving the way for Europe's Renaissance," though his lack of detail hints of a little intentional ambiguity, or as it has been euphemistically called, "obamaguity."
_____________________________
William J. Federer is author of the best-selling book, What Every American Needs to Know About the Qur'an-A History of Islam & the United States.

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The Revival of Romiosini in the Thought of Romanides and Yannaras

Korais attempting to resurrect pagan Greece and Rhigas attempting to save Christian Romiosini.

From the publication of his dissertation to his death in 2001, Fr. John Romanides sought the completion of the work, which his friend and mentor, Fr. Georges Florovsky, had begun: the return of Orthodox theology to the Byzantine patristic sources. The Neo-Orthodox critique of modernity, basically, attacks the roots of western theological and social thought. Both Romanides and Yannaras critique the West on its basis in Augustinian theology. Romanides argues that Augustine’s Platonism blinded him to three major understandings of the Christian tradition.

First, Augustine failed to grasp the important distinction of God’s essence and energies for understanding the relationship of the creation with the Creator.

Second, Augustine embraced Platonic eudaemonism for understanding the telos of the Christian life. This eudaemonism leads Augustine and his successors to the possibility of the apprehension of the divine essence.

Third, Augustine failed to understand the Cappadocian teaching on the hypostatic relations in the Trinity, leading him to develop the heretical doctrine of the filioque. Essentially, Augustine’s theological method of credo ut intelligam is criticized as being an incorrect approach to matters of truth.

Romanides argues that Charlemagne and his court adopted the Augustinian position as a political ideology against the Christian East. Charlemagne used the filioque and the renaming of the Eastern Romans as “Greeks,” indicating their heretical stance against the Church of Rome. This enabled Charlemagne to then offer as replacement to the East Roman Empire, his own Holy Roman Empire as mirror of the heavenly kingdom. Hence, Romanides places much importance on the Romeic thesis for understanding Greek Orthodox identity.

Because Augustine had failed to understand the purpose of Christian theology to be deification, the ancient Christian approach to salvation was forsaken in the West. Knowledge of God, rather than participation in God, became the goal of the Christian life. What developed was what Romanides calls the “neurobiological sickness of religion.” Essentially, Christianity in the West gave birth to all of the social illnesses that disturb modern humanity. What is needed, according to Romanides, is a return to the authentic Christian tradition, which he equates with hesychasm. However, the project started by Romanides has evolved into a movement that not only seeks to offer authentic Orthodox theology but also desires the recovery of Orthodox identity culturally, socially, and politically. Herein lies the difference that Makrides notes between the theological revival of the 1960s and the neo-Orthodox movement of the 1980s.

Neo-Orthodoxy wants to purge Orthodox culture of all vestiges of the West, and in turn offer a society, which is authentically Orthodox and authentically Greek. Yannaras essentially agrees with Romanides, yet he utilizes Heidegger’s critique against modernity. The problem with the West is that it divorced itself from the relational understanding of knowledge and being, articulating an individualist approach to truth, which is equated with empiricism. Yannaras, like Romanides, argues that the problem essentially began with Augustine’s credo ut intelligam and was developed by Descartes. Within this intellectual tradition were the seeds that eventually led to the death of God in western thought, allowing for the creation of secular liberalism and the birth of modernity. He states, “I would add in summation that those differences, which during the eleventh century (1054) led to the Schism between Christian East and West, are the same ones that caused western Christianity to give birth to the preconditions for Historical Materialism.” Yannaras argues in his critique of the West that such an understanding of human society is not authentic to human flourishing, for it essentially denies the hypostatic freedom of humanity within community, replacing it with an understanding of humanity in its sinful state. The West in its eudaemonistic pursuit of truth, adopted a cataphatic understanding of reality, which limits human freedom. Drawing upon Dionysian apophaticism and Vladimir Lossky’s understanding of the human person, Yannaras articulates a social theology that supports human freedom within the context of the community. In his thought hesychastic understandings of the person are paramount.

Furthermore, Yannaras has espoused an anti-globalization position in his writings. In his book, The Church in Post-Communist Europe, Yannaras argues that the fall of Eastern European socialism was not the victory of the spirit of freedom over historical materialism, but rather the “desire for more Historical Materialism, and a more consistent Historical Materialism . . . . What triumphed was a more ingenious and more efficient system of historico-materialist management of human life against a system that was inadequate and ineffective.”

The globalization of the capitalist economic system of the West “thoroughly imposes upon peoples and nations the most vulgar practical application of Historical Materialism: consumerism made absolute.” Furthermore, Yannaras does not accept the other aspects of modernity that derive from the Enlightenment, especially the concept of human rights. Samuel Huntington has argued that there exists the potential for a “clash of civilizations” between Western and Orthodox civilizations, essentially because Orthodox civilization has not embraced the Western Enlightenment. In his critique of Samuel Huntington’s thesis, Yannaras states that there is indeed a “clash of civilizations” but not that which Huntington has argued. Instead, the clash is between historical materialism deriving from Enlightenment thought and Christianity.

Yannaras states:

“It is crystal clear that Huntington employs as his criteria of cultural difference among Europe’s religious traditions the very products of European man’s anti-religious rebellion. All of us know that individual rights, political liberalism, utilitarian rationalism, economic development and progress are the most representative products of the Enlightenment, products of modern Europe’s zealous insistence on naturalism (physiocracy) as a substitute for Christian ontology, cosmology and anthropology.”

During the late eighteenth century, the idea that Hellas is the harmonious origin of civilization became popular in the West; it became a kind of topos of the Western imagination that continues to feed upon itself, at times more avariciously than at other times.”

Hellas and the ideals that emerged from it, then, was not so much a place for Western Europeans, especially Germans, but more a mythic ideal to be imitated. “Hellas represents a historical, philological, and literary logos as well as a topos of social, economic, and cultural activity. In Western Hellenism, Hellas occupies the realm of the imagination and intellect. It is a country of the mind, even when put on tour.”

When Western Europeans journeyed to the lands of ancient Hellas, then they had in mind what Hellas was supposed to be. What they found genuinely shocked them. Olga Augustinos has argued that the Western European travelers to the Greek world did not understand the modern Greeks to be Oriental but European, separated from their Ottoman overlords by language, religion, and cultural history. Because of their studies of the ancient world through ancient texts, “Western travelers felt that they were entering not an alien terrain but a land whose legacy they had absorbed and integrated into the matrix of their own civilization. The contemporary Greek reality that confronted them, however, disoriented them because it diverged vastly from their expectations.” In order to rectify the cultural dissonance that they experienced, Western philhellenes attempted to “bridge this gap and see Greek culture reunified by resuscitating its Hellenic past and expelling what were perceived as foreign intrusions. This envisioned rehabilitation of the Greek world sought to reclaim it and redeem it by purifying it and consequently, by suppressing certain eras of its past.”

In particular, the Christian, Byzantine, and Ottoman legacy was disavowed. As Augustinos notes, [Western philhellenism] was above all a manifestation of the mission civilisatrice of the culturally superior Europeans, who sought to bring about the rehabilitation of the modern Greeks on their own terms, namely, through the efficacious imitation of Western-derived classical models. Ironically, although it proposed the reunification of Greek culture, in actuality it fostered its bifurcation because it pitted its more recent Christian- Byzantine-Ottoman legacy against its ancient past.

Thus, the Hellenic identity was more shaped by Western ideals of the ancient past than the self-understanding of the Greek speaking peoples. Philhellenism and the Enlightenment combined to construct a secular Greek identity apart from their Christian identity of Romeosyne.

Furthermore, historical and genealogical texts were produced by Western Europeans retelling the story of the ancient world. These texts were quickly translated into Greek, providing textbooks for the Grecophone schools. Charles Rollin’s sixteen volume Histoire Ancienne (1730-1738) was extremely influential in this regard. With the spread of these texts, what occurred was a cultural reevaluation in the Balkan world. The works of Iosipos Moisiodax and Adamantios Korais reflect this critical evaluation.

Moisiodax, the director of the Princely Academy of Jassy, observed two problems with Greek culture. First, “knowledge of ancient texts was fragmentary, since the texts were largely unavailable.” Second, he noticed a great superstition in that “the ancients were revered without question.” His solution was to look to the West as a model for Greek culture.

Korais played a much more important role in the Greek Enlightenment. As his biographer, Stephen Chaconas, states, “The most important intellectual figure of the Greek national revival in the first decades of the nineteenth century was the patriot and philologist of Smyrna, Adamantios Korais.”

The English historian, Richard Clogg writes, “A leading role in this effort to re-awaken interest in the classical was played by that ‘new Hippocrates,’ Adamantios Korais, the dominant figure in the pre-independence cultural revival.”

Korais was born in Smyrna in 1748, and attempted his hand as a merchant in Amsterdam. He learned medicine at Montpellier, but his chief interest was classical philology. He resided in Paris from 1788 to 1833 where he “laboured ceaselessly to raise the educational level of his fellow countrymen and to instil in them a sense of Hellenic consciousness.” He was known for his nationalist polemics and being “one of the foremost Hellenists of the Europe of his day.”

In Paris, he witnessed the events of the French Revolution first hand. Michael Jeffreys describes his reaction: “His strongest personal reaction is to project the events from Paris to the Ottoman Empire. The confiscation of church property, for example, gives him an opportunity for the vicarious satisfaction of his own anticlericalism against the Orthodox Church, an attitude he seems to have combined with unquestioned religious faith.”

As Chaconas notes, the French Revolution “transformed Korais from a dreaming patriot into a revolutionary nationalist.” Korais “applauded” the anticlericalism and republican sentiments of the French. Basically, the influences upon Korais were the same that influenced the French Revolution: the ancient Roman and Greek writings. The ancient republican heroes of Greece and Rome were imitated by the French revolutionaries. This could not have pleased Korais even more. As Chaconas comments, “Consequently, the words and deeds of the revolutionaries always implied, in Korais’ mind, some connection with the ‘subjugated’ Greeks of his day. It was during this period of war in France and Europe that he wrote his anonymous pamphlets urging the Greeks to rise up against the Turks and to unite with their spiritual brothers, the French, for the cause of national independence and liberty.” However, he came to the realization that the Greek people were not prepared for such a revolution for they had yet to become enlightened. To this end, Korais devoted his life work.

Korais sought to bridge the distance between the ancient Greeks and the modern Greeks through the use of education, especially by republishing Greek classical literature. His work became the leading textbooks in the Greek schools. He believed that the ideas found in the classic literature would inspire the Greeks to the nationhood and thus to liberty. His editions of the classic literature were published as the Éλληνικη Βιβλιοθηκη (Hellenic Library). The volumes of the Hellenic Library included Korais’s introductions that espoused his nationalism and the desire that the Greeks would overthrow their Turkish overlords. Furthermore, Korais argued for the purification of the Greek language. The language should be purified, according to Korais, because the use of Turkish forms and vocabulary demonstrated the subservience of the Greek nation.

Furthermore, other non-Greek forms and words should also be removed because they demonstrated additional subjugations. Additionally, he “attacked the monkish ignorance and obscurantism of the Orthodox clergy.” By liberating themselves from their religious and political rulers, the Greek people would be able to regain their ancient glory in establishing their own rule. Of course, Korais never stated how this was to occur. Believing that the revolution should occur in 1850, Korais was completely surprised, believing that the Greeks were unprepared, when they revolted in 1821.

Besides the revitalization of the ancient Greek world in the minds of the modern Greeks, the French Revolution also inspired thoughts concerning government. What type of government would be best for a liberated Greek people? French republicanism became the chief inspiration. In responding to the Paternal Instruction of 1798, Korais issued the Fraternal Instruction, “which disowned Ottoman tyranny and its Christian sycophants and reiterated the hopes in political emancipation on the French model.”

While Korais and some of his French compatriots, Konstantinos Stamatis and Dimo and Nicolo Stephanopoli, encouraged French republicanism throughout the Greek diaspora and the Peloponnesus, the work of Rhigas Velestinlis ranks as the most important. As Kitromilides states, “The most significant case of republican activism was that of Rhigas Velestinlis, a Greek [Vlach] patriot who absorbed integrally the radical message of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution and attempted to implant them in the politics of Southeastern Europe.” Similar to Korais’s plan of educating the Greeks to their ancient glory, Rhigas translated French republican texts, like Montesquieu and Marmontel, to bring about a rise in understanding of republicanism among the Greeks.

Furthermore, he translated an important text that served as an educational tool for the Greek people: Abbé J.J. Barthélemy’s Voyage du jeune Anacharsis en Grèce, dans le milieu du quatrième siècle avant l’ère vulgaire. This story of the journey of the fabled Anacharsis and his conversations with famous Greeks between 363 and 338 BCE, served to educate and inspire the Greeks about their glorious past. While Georgios Sakellarios began the translation, Rhigas was the one who brought it to fruition in 1797. However, the project of translating the work came to an end with Rhigas’s arrest and execution in 1798.

Rhigas’s republicanism was mixed with the universalism of Orthodoxy to create a secular nationalistic republican state for the Balkan peoples. In his Χáρτα της Ελλáδος (Map of Greece), which was based on his reading of The Voyage of the Young Anacharsis in Greece,73 Rhigas “identifies Hellas [ancient Greece] with the Ottoman Empire’s ‘central lands’ (i.e., the Balkans and Anatolia) and calls for the overthrow of the despots by the coordinated action of all Balkan peoples.”74 What this entailed, notes Roudometof, was a replacement of the Orthodox understanding of the Rum Millet with a secular national vision based on French republicanism. The radical French constitution of 1793 provided the basis for Rhigas’s own constitution of the Greek republic.

However, his constitutional charter was not limited to Greeks alone, but also for all peoples, including Turks, Jews, and all Christians. His constitution provided for religious freedom for all religions, and articulated a doctrine of individual rights. As Roudometof comments, “In place of the Rum millet’s religious Orthodox identity, the new mentality postulated a secular identity based on the knowledge of the West and the ideology of liberalism.” However, Roudometof does not mention that underlying Rhigas’s vision is Orthodox universalism maintained in the political vision. Rhigas did not limit his concept of the political institution to Greeks alone, but allowed for a republic to exist for all the Orthodox peoples, similar to the idea of the Byzantine commonwealth at the time of its demise.

Rhigas organized a secret society, similar to a Masonic organization. In 1796-97 Rhigas’s society planned an insurrection in the western and southern parts of mainland Greece. This insurrection was planned to coincide with Napoleon’s presence in the Adriatic as he journeyed to his campaigns in Egypt and northern Africa. Many had believed, including Korais, that Napoleon could help liberate the Greek people. The revolutionary plans came to an end when in 1798 he was arrested in Trieste by the Habsburg authorities, who desired to learn of his relations with the French forces. After his interrogation, the Austrians turned the society over to the Ottoman authorities who promptly executed them in Belgrade in the same year.

Rhigas’s attempt to mount an insurrection party and a Balkan revolution cannot be over emphasized. His political movement and the republican ideas on which they were based provided a model for future liberation attempts. As Kitromilides states regarding the importance of Rhigas, 'By bringing together in his program the most progressive elements of Enlightenment thought with the politics of the French Revolution, he projected for the first time in the history of Southeastern Europe an unequivocally radical collective future of all Balkan peoples. In his political theory the accent was unequivocally on equality and his constitution stipulated important measures that gave specific social content to his legislation. His proclamation appealed to the fraternity and common moral humanity of all Balkan nationalities–including the Turks–whose moral liberation was to be achieved by the values of republican hellenism."

Thus, what we see in Rhigas’s political vision is actually the transmutation of Orthodox political culture into a secular vision. As a result, the Church of Constantinople condemned Rhigas and his thought.

Consequently, the Ottoman authorities pressured the Orthodox Church to maintain control over its peoples. In order to maintain its position in Ottoman society as well as to pronounce its own theological position on the matter, the church condemned liberalism and all of its excesses coming from the West. Additionally, as Kitromilides points out, “All aspects of modern culture, including modern science came under vehement attack by traditional intellectuals as destructive of the fabric of society and poisonous of all morality and faith.” The Paternal Instruction of 1798 was a response to the supporters of liberalism in the Rum Millet.

However, both the liberalism from the West and the revival in pagan literature concerned the church. Richard Clogg points out, "It was the hierarchy of the Orthodox Church that was most outspoken in its attacks on this resurgence of interest in the classical past. Equating as it did the ancient world with idolatry, the hierarchy was fearful that this obsession with antiquity, combined with a growing interest in the natural sciences, might fatally undermine the attachment of the Greek people to the Orthodox faith."

In this regard, the Orthodox Church of Constantinople, according to Clogg, descended into cultural obscurantism and political conservatism, eliciting the anticlericalism of the Greek intelligentsia in the early nineteenth century. One of the chief traditionalists was Athanasios Parios of the Kollyvades Movement on Mt. Athos. In response to Korais’s rebuttal of the Paternal Instruction of 1798, Parios offered his Neos Rapsakis, which was never published due to its theft by two followers of Korais. According to George Metallinos, “Athanasios Parios (1722- 1813) was the most militant of the Kollyvades,85 and also the most martyric. From 1776 to 1781 he remained unfrocked as a ‘heretic’ because of his vigorous stand on the issues of tradition. He passionately fought the European Enlightenment, Voltaireanism, and atheism, and was accused of being an obscurantist by his ‘West-struck’ contemporaries.”

Parios’s stance against the Enlightenment and the West can be understood from the traditional hesychast understanding of the separation of theological and scientific truth on the one hand and the universal vision of Orthodoxy on the other. Hesychasm has traditionally not been aligned with the state, seeing its role pertaining to heavenly salvation. However, at times hesychasm, and monasticism in general, have supported the state in securing the universal vision of Orthodoxy apart from heresy. The nationalism and republicanism of Korais and Rhigas both represent a dangerous innovation in terms of the universalism of Orthodoxy. The church, and its most traditional adherents, attacked these innovations as heresy.

Along with the cultural and political revival of the Greeks, Korais instigated an identity change. According to John Romanides, Korais “started the war against Romanism.” Korais argued that the proper name for the Greek speaking people was either Γραικοí or Éλληνες (Greeks or Hellenes). Because Western Europeans called them Greeks, Korais chose that term. But this acceptance of the Western understanding of Greek identity created a disjunction in the territorial understanding of the Greek people.

The Western European understanding of Greece was associated only with what is properly known as Hellas, not the larger area of Romania or Roumeli known by the Orthodox peoples. As Roudometof comments, “Hence the identification of the ‘Romans’ as ‘Greeks’ was bound to create an important disjuncture between the intellectuals’ version of ‘Greece’ (the so-called Hellenic ideal) and the popular ‘Romeic’ religious and political identity. Not surprisingly, the Phanariot-religious establishment was at odds with Korais’s project.”

As we have already noted, Athanasios Parios was one of the more vocal opponents of Korais. Christos Yannaras argues that Parios attacked Korais not only for his Western Enlightenment ideas but also for the change in name for the Orthodox people. “Parios opposed the obsession with the idea of the polyethnic empire which grounded politics of unity in a cultural basis.”

While Korais’s program amounted to an attempt to provide a cultural continuity between ancient and modern Greeks, it also had the more subtle idea of replacing Orthodox identity with a secular identity. As Roudometof argues, the use of “Greek” or “Hellene” in place of the Orthodox “Roman” identity was a deliberate attempt to challenge the authority of the patriarchate. It also can be argued that it was a deliberate attempt to undermine the religious identity of the people as the basis of unity, substituting an alternate secular vision of national identity, divorced from religion. “The gradual use of the words “Greek” or “Hellene” and similarly of the word εθνος reflects the slow transformation of a religious identity into a secular one.” Rhigas’s republican vision was the political instantiation of the replacement of the Orthodox identity with a secular one.

While Rhigas’s planned insurrection of 1796-97 did not come to pass, and his arrest and execution in 1798 prevented any future attempt by his secret society, the Philiki Etairia continued his vision and attempted an armed revolution in the Romanian provinces on 6 March 1821. The Philiki Etairia (Friendly Society) was a semi-masonic organization, similar to that of Rhigas Velestinlis, organized by three Greeks in the Diaspora. It was organized in 1814 in Odessa by Nikolaos Skoufas, Athanasios Tsakalof, and Emmanuel Xanthos with the express purpose of the overthrow of the Ottoman Empire. There has been some discussion as to whether their intent was to create a Greek nation-state or a multinational state similar to the vision of Rhigas. Stephen G. Xydis has argued that the resultant formation of the Greek nation-state was part of the plan of the Filiki Etairia. He notes that the society combined with Greek nationalists in the Diaspora and in the Pelopponesus for a coordinated uprising in the Greek lands of the Ottoman Empire. However, Zakythinos and Roudometof both argue that essentially the Filiki Etairia desired the formation of a multinational state, employing the universalism of Byzantine Orthodoxy as the model. Only later after the initial uprising in Romania did the revolt, led by Greek nationalists and Philhellenes in the Pelopponesus, become a movement for a Greek nation-state. Xydis’s argument betrays a reading of Greek history through the lens of later nationalism that simply did not inform the thought of the majority of Greek Orthodox intellectuals, who continued to emphasize the importance of the universal vision of Orthodoxy and a restoration of the Byzantine Empire.

Roudometof’s argument that the vision of the Friendly Society was a multinational republican state is based on three basic premises. First, the name “Greek” or “Hellenic” had not come into “common discourse” by this time. Its use still implied the concept of “Roman.” Second, the idea of the “nation” still was imbued with the concept of the Rum Millet; thus, it did not have the connotation of an ethnic nation-state at this time. Third, if the revolution is limited to the Pelopponesus, “it was religious and not ethnic solidarity that shaped the popular attitude vis-à-vis the revolt.” This claim is legitimated by the fact that other Balkan peoples participated in the revolt alongside the Greeks.

(From: The Revival of Political Hesychasm in Greek Orthodox Thought by Daniel Paul Payne)

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A Turkish Perspective on the Rights of the Ecumenical Patriarchate

[Below is an interesting column published yesterday in the Turkish newspaper Today's Zaman which offers a Turkish opinion on the future of the Ecumenical Patriarchate and a method on how it should go about obtaining its rights to reopen Halki Seminary. The author of this piece accuses the Ecumenical Patriarchate's methods in obtaining its rights as if it was "waiting for Godot" and proposes that the Ecumenical Patriarchate take legal action against Turkey to assume its rights as valid Turkish citizens.

The problem that I see with the opinion in this article is that it offers a lot of "could have" solutions instead of "would have" solutions. Litigation on a matter does not guarantee the judgment will be in your favor. If litigation were pursued against the Turkish government by the Ecumenical Patriarchate to obtain everything it asked for it could in turn also backfire and cause the total annihilation of the Ecumenical Patriarchate as well. The stance of the Ecumenical Patriarchate is not an "old world" policy nor is it a matter of "waiting for Godot" (for those not familiar with the novel Waiting for Godot, there is a promise that a character in the story named Godot would come to save the characters in the story but in the end the promise remains unfulfilled). It is a wise strategic move that allows for the possibility of survival in a hostile country, which in the end has a far better chance for the Ecumenical Patriarchate to receive its rights as Turkish citizens than a legal process that could be manipulated to go either way and thus close the Ecumenical Patriarchate forever. -J.S.]

Is the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Turkey Waiting for Godot?

10 July 2009, Friday
By ORHAN KEMAL CENGİZ
Today's Zaman

Since the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) came to power in 2002, the reopening of the Halki Seminary has repeatedly returned to the political agenda in Turkey.

There is almost a pattern. Some government officials say, “There is no harm in reopening the school [which was closed down in 1971], and there are some preparations taking place to that effect.” If you read these statements you can get the (wrong) impression that there is only technical work needing to be done, and the government is working on it. For the last seven years, we have heard exactly the same story. But, in the end, nothing comes out. Why?

Because the Halki Seminary is only a part of a much more complex question that may not be well appreciated even by the government itself. The question is namely the existence of the ecumenical patriarchate in Turkey. There is a deep-rooted state policy that has brought the patriarchate to the verge of total extinction. This policy was shaped during the late Ottoman and early republican era and has been applied vigorously since then. This is a policy of taking gradual steps to push this historical institution into a corner to force it to choose one of the two options: Either it will stay in Turkey and will lose everything slowly and painfully, or it will leave Turkey once and for all.

The lesser of two evils

The name of the street in front of the patriarchate is Sadrazam Ali Paşa (Sadrazam means grand vizier). Ali Paşa was the state official who hanged Patriarch Gregorios over the front door of the patriarchate in 1821. His name was given to the very street to which the patriarchate opens its doors every day. It is a constant reminder of the “past,” of course. (I suggest the EU Commission get this onto their agenda and encourage the government to change this name showing some respect to this historical institution.) Neither was it a coincidence that a so-called “Turkish Orthodox Church” was established in the early years of the Turkish Republic. The Turkish Orthodox Church was designed to fight against the ecumenical patriarchate and was established with financial aid provided by the state. Papa Eftim, so-called patriarch of the Turkish Orthodox Church, had spent his entire life in war with the ecumenical patriarchate. We now know that the Ergenekon (deep state) gang held some of its strategic meetings on the premises of the Turkish Orthodox Church. Sevgi Erenol, press spokesperson of this church, is now in prison for being one of the high-ranking members of this gang.

During all these years, the Turkish state not only fought against the patriarchate with these kinds of puppet “institutions,” but also pursued a very active policy to create an atmosphere in which the patriarchate could not breathe. Thousands of acres of land and buildings that belonged to the patriarchate and its associated institutions have been taken one by one through legal trickery (the biggest one was carried out by the Court of Cassation in 1974, making property ownership by minority foundations legally invalid after 1936), expropriations and so on. Turkey has never recognized the legal identity of the ecumenical patriarchate, even though it has to recognize these kinds of structures under the Treaty of Lausanne. The question of the legal status of the patriarchate has never been solved. This “legal gap” of course was created to add to the uncertainty from which the patriarchate has suffered deeply.

Impossibility of choosing new patriarch

One of the biggest constraints, though, has been applied through excessive control over the election process of the ecumenical patriarch. According to Turkish official policy, the patriarch only represents Turkish citizens of Greek descent in Turkey. Therefore, the patriarchate and the Holy Council that will elect him should only be composed of Turkish citizens. Just to remind you, we have only 3,000-4,000 Orthodox citizens remaining in İstanbul, and most of them are elderly people. Look at the closure of the Halki Seminary from this perspective as well; most of the patriarchs were educated in this institution. We seem to have reached this formula: The new patriarchate has to be elected from a handful of citizens of Greek descent, and the very school that will raise the new patriarch has been closed for almost four decades. How can an eligible, qualified patriarch possibly be chosen?

I honestly believe in the goodwill of this government. If they were alone, they would open the Halki Seminary. However, as soon as they make a real attempt to this effect, they will have a sharp confrontation with the nationalist front. Even if they overcome the opposition coming from the nationalist front (political parties and bureaucracy), the “formula” (there are some different legal avenues through which the government could choose to open the school) the government has created will somehow come before one of the high courts. If the government makes legal changes, they will be reviewed by the Constitutional Court; if they open the school with administrative directions, their actions will be evaluated by the Council of State and so on. These high courts' approach to minority-related issues are very well known, and they have played an important role in the creation of the current situation that minority groups find themselves in.

The dance

I have tried to provide a brief historical perspective to show you the state policy concerning the ecumenical patriarchate. The application of this state policy would not have been possible without having the active contribution of the ecumenical patriarchate. This is a dance that has been going on for many decades. This is a dance of the “deep state” and the ecumenical patriarchate -- a dance of aggression and submission. It is hard to believe, but we know that the patriarchate has never tried to take recourse to legal remedies, except for property-related issues. During these long years, Turkey has signed and ratified many different human rights conventions. Turkey's Constitution has been changed, these international legal instruments have gained precedence over domestic laws and many other laws have been replaced with new ones. But again, the patriarchate has never tried any legal instruments to gain new rights, hoping that this “loyalty” will be appreciated one day. The patriarchate, in maintaining its passive role, has missed some crucial points. Taking recourse to legal instruments may also be read as a sign of being well integrated in the country in which you exist. Citizens use legal action, right? And using legal action shows that you feel you are a citizen of the country concerned, you have confidence in the legal system to a certain degree. In addition, obtaining a positive judgment from a national or international court would have provided a good excuse and an acceptable pretext for this government to make some legal reforms in favor of the patriarchate. No one, for example, could have ever stopped Abdullah Öcalan's execution when he was captured and brought to Turkey. However, the decision of the European Court of Human Rights brought huge relief to the nationalist government coalition in power in 1999; they attributed all “responsibility” to the European court, and later on the “death penalty” was lifted altogether. And finally, pursuing an active litigation policy never meant that you are close to fruitful cooperation with state authorities. On the contrary, active litigation means that you will always be at the negotiation table as a quiet, powerful party that is backed by the power of judgments from international courts and public opinion.

If you ask me, the patriarchate could have obtained and deeply benefited from a favorable judgment of the European court on the question of the Halki Seminary a long time ago. They could also have done the same thing for their legal identity problems and for the constraints surrounding the election process of a new patriarch. Instead they preferred to maintain their old policies, which allowed this historical institution to be brought to the verge of total extinction.

Will Godot come? We will see…

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Archimandrite Zacharias Explains the Theology of St. Silouan and Elder Sophrony

Tomorrow being the memorial of the repose of Blessed Elder Sophrony of Essex (+July 11, 1993), I am offering a talk given by Archimandrite Zacharias of the St. John the Baptist Monastery in Essex, England (founded by Elder Sophrony). Fr. Zacharias explains the theology of St. Silouan the Athonite and his spiritual child Archimandrite Sophrony Saharov. The recording is made during his visit for the presentation of the Bulgarian edition of the book Saint Silouan.

I also offer a morning prayer I like to pray on the anniversary of Elder Sophrony's repose. Elder Sophrony gave this prayer to his own spiritual children, to be said ‘on rising from sleep.’ This version of the prayer is adapted from Hesychia and Theology by Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos, who writes, "If someone reads this prayer in the morning with contrition and attention, the whole day will be blessed."

Prayer at Daybreak
to be said each day on rising from sleep

Eternal King without beginning, You who are before all worlds, my Maker, Who have summoned all things from non-being into this life: bless this day that You, in Your inscrutable goodness, give to me. By the power of Your blessing enable me at all times in this coming day to speak and act for You, to Your glory, in Your fear, according to Your will, with a pure spirit, with humility, patience, love, gentleness, peace, courage, wisdom and prayer, aware everywhere of Your presence.

Yes, Lord, in Your immense mercy, lead me by Your Holy Spirit into every good work and word, and grant me to walk all my life long in Your sight without stumbling, according to Your righteousness that You have revealed to us, that I may not add to my transgressions.

O Lord, great in mercy, spare me who am perishing in wickedness; do not hide Your face from me. And when my perverted will would lead me down other paths, do not forsake me, my Savior, but force me back to Your holy path.

O You Who are good, to Whom all hearts are open, You know my poverty and my foolishness, my blindness and my uselessness, but the sufferings of my soul are also before You. Wherefore I beseech You: hear me in my affliction and fill me with Your strength from above. Raise me up who am paralyzed with sin, and deliver me who am enslaved to the passions. Heal me from every hidden wound. Purify me from all taint of flesh and spirit. Preserve me from every inward and outward impulse that is unpleasing in Your sight and hurtful to my brother.

I beseech You: establish me in the path of Your commandments and to my last breath do not let me stray from the light of Your ordinances, so that Your commandments may become the sole law of my being in this life and in all eternity.

O God, my God, I plead with You for many and great things: do not disregard me. Do not cast me away from Your presence because of my presumption and boldness, but by the power of Your love lead me in the path of Your will. Grant me to love You as You have commanded, with all my heart, and with all my soul, and with all my mind, and with all my strength: with my whole being.

For You alone are the holy protection and all-powerful defender of my life, and to You I ascribe glory and offer my prayer.

Grant me to know Your truth before I depart this life. Maintain my life in this world until I may offer You true repentance. Do not take me away in the midst of my days, and when You are pleased to bring my life to an end, forewarn me of my death, so that I may prepare my soul to come before You.

Be with me then, O Lord, on my great and sacred day, and grant me the joy of Your salvation. Cleanse me from manifest and secret sins, from all iniquity hidden in me; and give me a right answer before Your dread judgment-seat.

Amen.

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"Capitalism's Ideology" by Metropolitan Hierotheos Vlachos

[In light of the previous post regarding a statement of Russian Orthodox sentiments against Capitalism and how the West is on the brink of disaster due to its Capitalist system, I thought a little more clarification needed to be made. Below is an article by Metropolitan Hierotheos Vlachos of Nafpaktos and St. Vlassios titled "Capitalism's Ideology" and published by the newspaper BHMA (10/19/2008). For more detailed treatment of this subject, I refer you to the more extended booklet by the same author titled Capitalism as the Offspring of Western Metaphysics which I highly recommend. J.S.]

Capitalism’s Ideology

By Metropolitan Hierotheos Vlachos of Nafpaktos and St. Vlassios

Nowadays, two prominent ways of life prevail in mankind, which have been transformed into two ideologies respectively; that is, Western individualism and Eastern collectivism. In Western individualism, characterized by liberalism, an unbridled freedom of the individual prevails, along with competition which is a detrimental factor to society overall. In Eastern collectivism state dominance prevails, which undermines people’s freedom. In both instances, man is overlooked as a persona, just as human society is not regarded as a society of human personae.

These two systems of living and ideological models are both made manifest in societal reality. Liberalism prevails in the West and its “headquarters” are the United States of America – the “Mecca” of globalization, while collectivism appeared in countries of the former Soviet Union, but also in countries of the Far East generally.

In both cases capital has a prominent place, except it is differentiated in who possesses it and who manages it. In liberalism, capital ends up among the few and it moves, mostly unrestrained, along the principle of market self-adjustment. In collectivism-communism, capital is state-controlled. In both cases the average person is victimized, the difference being that he is victimized either by the oligarchy of a handful of wealthy tycoons or by an insatiable State. Capitalism thus has only a callous face to show.

The view has been expressed that capitalism is the creation of Western individualism and especially of Protestant morality, as indicated by Max Weber, and that it aspires to the accumulation of wealth by a few, while Marxism, which originated from Marx’s views, is only a reaction to capitalism and is concerned with the whole of society. Deep down however, both these systems are the offspring of the same, Western metaphysics - given that Marx was a German Jew raised in the West - however his theories, which were born in the Western “sphere”, were transfused to the East, because that was where the practice of Orthodox Christianity existed, with its principles of common ownership and communal use and could therefore be implemented.

In our day, we have become witnesses to the crumbling of both these two systems, but equally of their ideologies. In the period between 1989 and 1991, collectivism-Communism collapsed in the countries of the former Soviet Union where State power dominated over people’s social and financial lives, while in our day, we are witnessing the collapse of liberalism with its mentality of “free markets” and the market’s “self-adjustment”, which functions to the detriment of society overall. Of course it should be noted that the bankruptcy of Communism cannot be regarded as a vindication of Capitalism, just as the collapse of Capitalism cannot be ascribed to Communism. It is the failure of capital’s ideology, which is totally disrespectful of people’s poverty.

At any rate, both these systems are contrary to the Orthodox teaching in its perfect form, since neither liberalism nor Marxism – as ideologies and world theories – can be accepted by Orthodox Tradition, in which extensive mention is made to avoid the passion of avarice, but also about the experiencing of love towards fellow-man, especially those who are suffering. This combination of love and freedom solves the problem altogether, given that the freedom of the individual/persona without the element of love will lead to unbridled liberalism, and the love of the whole minus the freedom of the individual will result in unbridled collectivism.

To anticipate a possible objection to the above, I will admit that unfortunately, the ideology behind the capitalist system with its two forms – the individualist and the state-controlled – has In certain cases influenced and continues to influence the lives of certain Orthodox communities. This can be discerned in several contemporary monasteries also, which, instead of being examples of coenobitic living and the revival of the original community of Jerusalem, are nevertheless operating along the contemporary capitalist system’s model, in which case, we could aptly label this phenomenon “Orthodox Capitalism”.

Whereas monks proclaim and basically adhere to the virtue of non-possessing and communal possession, still, they continue to amass – for better or for worse – both lands and funds for the monasteries and take risks by playing with that property, utilizing every capitalistic-liberalistic means to increment it. In other words, monks are striving to live with indigence inside wealthy monasteries and they develop both social and political power.

This situation reminds me of certain Eastern European countries – Romania for example – where the people went hungry and were in fact non-possessors (albeit involuntarily) and yet its leaders amassed wealth and built majestic mansions-palaces (for example Nicolae Ceausescu). However, this mentality is not favoured by the teaching of the Church and Orthodox monasticism, which asks of the monk to lack any personal possessions and the monasteries to be places of philanthropy, love and multi-faceted healing. In the Orthodox Tradition, Sacred Monasteries are spiritual infirmaries.

We clergymen and monks need to understand that everything legal is not necessarily ethical, but also that everything ethical – according to the rules of social ethics – is not necessarily Orthodox, from the aspect that Orthodox, Gospel ethics differs from secular ethics and is in reality ascetic by nature. We should not only condemn the amassing of material wealth by specific individuals; we also need to condemn the amassing of material wealth by “ecclesiastic communities” for display, as well as stigmatize the participation of ecclesiastic personages and communities in the games of the capitalist system and the liberal or neo-liberal market.

We Christians, especially the clergy and monks, must display in practice that which we believe in and preach, otherwise we will be dishonest and hypocrites. We must fend off the temptation to be possessed by a particular, “Christian capitalist” ideology.

Source & Greek

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