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March 27, 2012

The Spiritual Meaning of the Greek Revolution


Below are significant historical passages showing the deep spiritual and ideological meaning of the Greek Revolution, primarily from heroes of the Revolution.

On the eve of the declaration for a national revolution against the Turks at Holy Lavra Monastery, Asimakis Zaimis said the following:

"Nothing remains but the immediate proclamation of Revolution. Nothing separates us and there is no dispute. Let us rest tonight, and tomorrow in the church, after having received the Immaculate Mysteries, let us all pray, according to the Doxology of Saint Alexios and the Panagia, that they may help us in the unequal struggle which we are undertaking. This hour tomorrow let us meet herein, that we may arrange the Struggle."

Demetrios Ypsilantis, when he came to Greece to take on the leadership in the Struggle, having reached Hydra he wrote on on 08/06/1821:

"Almighty God, the King of Heaven and Earth, the Protector of the aggrieved and the Father of orphans, decided to put an end to injustice and lawlessness and raised the chariots of the Christian race."

The Old Man of the Morea, Theodoros Kolokotronis, said:

"God put His signature for the freedom of Greece and He will not take back His signature."

The legendary congressman Konstantinos Kanaris narrating his achievements to the poet Aristotelis Valaoritis, said:

"The Turks were such, that if they threw themselves upon us, we would have undoubtedly drowned. But Almighty God did not allow this and saved us."

The commander heroine Laskarina Bouboulina told the politicians:

"I lost my husband. Blessed be God! My eldest son fell with his weapon in his hands. Blessed be God! My second and only son, 14 years old, fought with the Greeks and eventually found a glorious death. Blessed be God! Under the sign of the Cross my blood will also flow. Blessed be God! We will conquer or die with the living, but we will have the consolation that in the world we did not leave behind the Greeks in slavery."

General Makriyannis addressed to God the following prayer:

"Thou, Lord, will resurrect the dead Greeks, the offspring of famous people, who adorned humanity with virtue. And with Thy strength and Thy justice Thou wants to revive the dead, and Thy decision is just to revive Greece, that it may be illumined with the religion of Christ and for there to be honorable and good men, where they defend justice."

Odysseas Androutsos wrote to the people of Galaxidi on 03/22/1821:

"It was certainly written by God to bear arms one day and pour out against our tyrants who for many years tyrannized us. What do we want, my brothers, with this very bitter life, to live under slavery, and for the sword of the Turks to be directed to our heads? Do you not see that nothing is left for us? Our churches have become mosques or slums of the Turks. Nothing brothers is left for us. It is inappropriate to cross our hands and wait upon heaven. God gave us hands, knowledge and minds. Let us ask our hearts and whatever moves us let us quickly put it into action, and let us be brothers certain that our Christ, the much-beloved, will put His hand upon us.... To the armories, my brothers, in order to free ourselves from slavery or to die."

And Photis Kontoglou, in his book Suffering Romiosini, writes:

"The Greek Revolution is the most spiritual revolution to ever occur in the world. It is sanctified. The slavery which pushed the Greeks to rise up against the Turk was not only about the deprivation and evils against the body, but, above all, the tyrant wanted to ruin their Faith, bothering them with their religious debts, changing their Faith and slaughtering and hanging them, because they did not deny their Faith to become Mohammadens. For them Faith and Homeland became one and the same thing, and the freedom they longed for was not only the freedom all revolutionaries long for, but it was the freedom to preserve their sacred Faith, with which they hoped to save their souls. Because for them, though near to the body which has many needs and with its suffering requires maintenance, there also existed a soul, which Christ said is worth more than the body...."