My Greek Odyssey

Happy New Year, 2009

May the New Year bring you and your families, peace, many good memories, much laughter and may God hold us all in his embrace and protect us.

                      Καλή Χρονιά

Cavafy, again

From Constantine P. Cavafy - Poems, translated by Manolis Aligizakis

An Old Man

In the back of the noisy cafe bent over a table,

an old man sits; with a newspaper in front of him, alone.

And in the miserable scorn of old age

he thinks of how little he enjoyed the years

when he had strength, and eloquence, and beauty.

He knows that he has grown old; he feels it, he sees it.

And yet the time when he was young seems like yesterday.

How short, how short a time.

And he contemplates how Discretion deceived him;

and how he always trusted it–how foolish– the liar who said,

"Tomorrow. You have plenty of time."

He remembers urges he restrained;

and all the joy he sacrificed.

Now for every lost chance he scolds his foolish Discretion.

...But from all this thinking and remembering the old man gets dizzy.

And falls asleep bent over the table in the café.

 

Candles

The days of the future stand in front of us

like a line of lit candles– golden, warm,

and lively little candles.

The days of the past remain behind,

a sorrowful line of burned out candles;

the closest ones are still smoking,

cold candles, melted, and drooping.

I don't want to look at them;

their shape saddens me,

and it saddens me to remember their previous light.

I look ahead at my lit candles.

I don't want to look back and see in horror how fast the dark line lengthens,

how quickly the burned out candles multiply.

 

Prayer

The sea took a sailor to its depth.

His mother, unknowing,

goes and lights a tall candle before the Virgin Mary

for his speedy return and for fair weather–

and she always tunes her ear to the wind.

But while she prays and beseeches

the icon listens, solemn and sad,

knowing the son she waits for won't come back.

Christ is Born, Glorify Him

The reading is from Luke 2:1-20

In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the
world should be enrolled. This was the first enrollment, when Quirinius
was governor of Syria. And all went to be enrolled, each to his own
city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the city of Nazareth,
to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because
he was of the house and lineage of David, to be enrolled with Mary,
his betrothed, who was with child. And while they were there, the
time came for her to be delivered. And she gave birth to her first
born son and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a
manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

And in that region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping
watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to
them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled
with fear. And the angel said to them, "Be not afraid; for behold, I
bring you good news of a great joy which will come to all the people;
for to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is
Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a babe
wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger." And suddenly there
was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and
saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men with
whom he is pleased!"

When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to
one another, "Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has
happened, which the Lord has made known to us." And they went with haste,
and found Mary and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger. And when
they saw it they made known the saying which had been told them
concerning this child; and all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds
told them. But Mary kept all these things, pondering them in her
heart. And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all
they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.

For an explanation of this icon go here.

A White Christmas

To Margaret, Kosta, John, Dimitrios, AntigoneSis, Maria, Kalliope, Ismini, Kat, Scruffy, George, Aris, Markus, Simon, Ted, Peter, Hermes, and all MGO readers,

 A BLESSED CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU AND YOUR FAMILIES

Stavros

 

 

Byzantium: A Review of the Royal Academy Exhibition

  "Icons are different.  Other paintings usually try to draw the observer into the scene that is depicted by the use of perspective.  Our eye is drawn beyond the foreground to the horizon in the distance, to the distant hills or the dark corners of a room.  The vanishing point of the lines of perspective is pointing away from us, behind the picture.

 

Icons have a reverse perspective that proceeds from the eyes of the subject depicted and the vanishing point is not behind the picture but in front of it.  The subject looks into us and disappears into our head behind our eyes.  At least, that is what the most successful icon painters manage to achieve.  Icons then are food for contemplation and meditation, looking inwards not outwards.  Even conventional portraits usually have a background that encourages us to look through the subject rather than allowing the subject to look through us.

 

Bishop Kallistos Ware, the English Orthodox Bishop of Great Britain, now Metropolitan of Diokleia, in The Orthodox Way,  describes the spiritual way to God as being divided into three parts, the middle part being a call to contemplate the world around us and to find God in it.  The challenge, he says, is as described by George Herbert in his reflection on the passage in 1 Corinthians, chapter 13 (βλεπομεν γαρ αρτι δι εσοπτρου εν αινιγματι), “For now we see through a glass darkly, then face to face”:

 

“A man that looks on glasse,

On it may stay his eye;

Or if he pleases, through it passe,

And then the heav’n espie.”

 

Bishop Ware elaborates: “To look on the glass is the perceive the “thisness”, the intense reality, of each thing; to look through the glass and so to “espie” the heaven is to discern God’s presence within and yet beyond that thing.”

 

Read the whole thing at "A Different Voice."

 

More information on the Exhibition here.

The Greek Reality

A perceptive yet chilling analysis from Athens:

"The riots, however, finally forced upon everyone in Greek society, from the highest to the lowliest, the picture of harsh reality almost everyone was trying to avoid in an unprecedented phenomenon of mass denial.

Suddenly, it became obvious that a “democratic” culture that systematically encourages blatantly anti-democratic, anti-social, vulgar, and gratuitously injurious behaviors has little, if any, future left.

Suddenly, it became obvious that a culture of unbridled sectionalism, fueled by persistent political sloganeering and masqueraded behind the various guises of “democratic process,” has nothing to offer beyond the vicious blackmailing of the many by the few and apocalyptic destruction once the broader system begins to reveal its true inabilities and malfunctions which lie hidden underneath its thick layer of make-up.

Suddenly, it became obvious that demanding and learning to expect a society where the government offers free schools, free health care, free mass transportation, free vacations, free entertainment, free housing, free universities, free student accommodation, free school books, and guaranteed for-life government employment with good salaries, fat pensions, and retirement bonuses leads to one dark, endless tunnel.

And, suddenly, it became obvious that when this level of pathological unreality is disturbed, the response could be fierce and fatal.

The reactions of the Greek political class to the ongoing crisis is living proof that Greece is locked in an impasse. A first reading of government and opposition statements, alongside the mind-boggling cacophony from the media and other “social partners,” proves there are no practical proposals that could begin to mend the situation. On the other hand, it is also obvious, that none of the “actors” in this apocalyptic absurdity can actually see the message of the contradiction between a Greek society “traditionally tolerant” of protest and habitual disruption of everyday life -- as the foreign press has repeatedly highlighted in recent days -- and the justified agony of so many, who have seen their livelihoods and properties go up in smoke in the hands of vandals their government won't oppose or pursue, and who realize, somewhat belatedly, that something, anything, must be done to stop this catastrophic slide.

Unfortunately for all these victims, and all the unknown others who look with fear and loathing upon the riots, the prospects, immediate and more distant, are not encouraging."

Read the whole thing here.

Songs of Smyrna (Τα Σμυρνέικα Τραγούδια)



From a Philhellene

The summer before last I finished reading Edmund Keeley’s 'Inventing Paradise'. It’s about a world, seemingly invented over a mere ten years, starting, in Keeley’s book, in 1937, during which modern Greece becomes Paradise for Lawrence Durrell and Henry Miller as they roam the land and its literature, making their own wondrous realm out of what they see and read and learn from the table talk of their Greek hosts and their connections. Keeley gathers into this world the people who actually met and laughed, feasted and talked together over just a few years.

The book was published in 1999 and Keeley, a great American academic, mentions a Greece, more recent, with passing slaps at mass tourism, but insists on ending his book before he switches to the ‘first person singular’. Expulsion from this paradise came with the great European civil war (not just Greece's - but the horrific internecine clashes that erupted across a largely humane continent of shared values - at least among the bourgeoisie and the upper classes for who Europe was almost one country). for Greece there came the cruelties of the Italian and German Occupation bringing miseries that gave added lustre to the memory of innumerable wonderful days and evenings of companionship with talents, present in flesh and in spirit, of Seferis, Katsimbalis, Palamos, Cavafey, Elytis, Ghika, Antoniou, Stephanides, Ioanna and Constantine Tsatsos.
There are two anecdotes among the many that I especially liked and which perhaps justify your belief that there was once a morally more elevated past (as you may guess I contest this - for my country as well as Greece). First at the crowded public funeral of the national poet Kostis Palamos on 28 February 1943 when, among a great crowd of mourners, George Katsimbalis began at the open graveside to sing the banned national anthem – a whole verse on his own followed by silence – German soldiers looking on, his wife trying to shut him up, and Ioanna Tsatsos, George Seferis’ sister, tugging at his sleeve. He begins the second verse, feeling like a drowning man, then a fat Corfiot friend makes a duet, and then, ‘like throwing a switch’, thousands took up the hymn to freedom.

And second when Ioanna Tsatsos writes on 12 October 1944, that the German flag on the Acropolis came down ‘as though swallowed by the Holy Rock, and in its place rose the flag with the beloved colour of our sky’. I am slightly embarrassed at the thought that next to my own there’s no other flag I should so gladly see marking a moment of great happiness – even though I deprecate the waving of flags in triumph (except for my brother’s sacred football) and admire Dr.Johnson for saying ‘patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.’ The deeper significance of Keeley’s work is its extended comment on a greater Fall - something not yet worked out; certainly not in my mind. The invention of Paradise was a product not only of the intoxicating mix of singular personalities – foreign and Greek – who figure in Keeley’s book but of a pre-war Greek culture that was first stifled then blighted by cruelty beyond previous imagining, events so far outside the imagination of its culture, beyond the reach of the philosophies of irony, stoicism and cynicism. Totalitarianism far beyond the authoritarianism of Metaxas, or the bullying of a village thug or the seedy dishonesty of a corrupt provincial official. Nazism brought a system unknown to Greeks - and many others across Europe.

Talking to the House of Commons on 18 June 1940 of what might happen were Hitler's army to take over the British Isles, Churchill warned that "all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science." For us it didn't happen. To the Greeks it did.
Every symbol of Greek culture became sullied. I know how uncomfortable I feel seeing old photos of red phone boxes and English bobbies next to a German uniform in the Channel Islands. Suddenly there were soldiers in Wehrmacht and SS uniforms posing in front of the Parthenon and these filthy people were praising it as a monument to culture, infiltrating their poison into every part of the Greek state. Even the evzone uniform was compromised, worn by a minority of collaborators.

A new dark age did descend on the wondrous land, making everything ugly, affecting all they knew and cared for. Atrocities at Komeno, Kalavryta, Kaisariani, Distomo, and the hostages. A woodcut on p343 of Professor Mark Mazower's powerful book 'Inside Hitler's Greece: The Experience of Occupation, 1941-44'is shows one of the infamous blokkos (round-up) at Kokkinia, Athens on 17 August 1944. A masked informer is pointing out suspects to Germans troops and Greek collaborators. Thousands netted by blokkos were 'stored' for reprisal murders at Haidari. One-off murders were designed on purpose to be random to amplify fear and spread despair, supplementing mass murder with humiliation, deprivation, separation, displacement, vulgarisation and the suffocating ugliness of defeat, invasion and occupation and then the remorseless destruction of the oldest Jewish communities in Europe and their abduction and murder - a dose of deadly efficiency. Language falters before the risk of creating a league table of comparative wickedness. Beside these we find - ridiculous and obscene - almost positive remarks being made about the other two plunderers - Italy and Bulgaria - nicer rapists than the Germans, who might never have invaded Greece had Mussolini not invaded first and then sought help from an ally after the Italians were routed by the Greek army in the mountains of Albania.
To imagine the frightfulness inflicted on dear Greece I have to imagine the truth of Mazower's observation about the Civil War that flared with the departure of the invaders. The joy described by Ioanna Tsatsos on 12 October was fleeting. True the swastika came down, but brave young Greeks had been pulling down Nazi flags including the one on the Parthenon throughout the Occupation [On the night of 30 May 1941, Manolis Glezos and Apostolos Santas removed the swastika from the Acropolis, yet they were arrested on 24 March of the following year and sentenced to death.

Mazower edits a set of essays under the title "After the war was over" - a primary source for a series of formative events that were, in his scholarly view, ‘more traumatic’ for Greece than the Occupation – the British Civil Police Liaison log book in WO 170/4049 and the subsequent account of events in Syntagma Square on Sunday 3 December 1944 by 23rd Armoured Brigade in WO 204/8312 – ta dekemvriana. On that day an icon of our fight against the Nazis, the Spitfire, was strafing parts of Athens and Englishmen in English khaki were sniping at Greeks from the Acropolis and, something few knew about, ‘the percentages agreement’, informed the fate of the wondrous land. After the occupation came five years of Civil War already metastasizing inside occupied Greece, with the carcinogens of human weakness and constant fear brought on by starvation, brutalisation, grief and fear to add to the intensity of human division. And they have yet to endure the stone years and the armoured democracy that lasted until 1974. You will not I'm sure agree with me, but Greece, like a hideously abused child is growing up. These events are terrible but not as terrible as what has happened and which indeed seeded what is now unfolding. I love Greece more than ever and feel great compassion for those who suffer with her. I deplore the keyboard colonels dispersing false history, itching to get at the throats of some of Greece's best and brightest. This long awaited crisis rooted in bloody history will be resolved by the strength of the centre - which this time *will* hold.

Simon Baddeley  http://democracystreet.blogspot.com/

A Prayer for Greece

From an anonymous reader (with apologies for my inadequate translation):

"During these difficult moments that Greek society is undergoing, let us remember the words of our late Elder Paisios, who said that the disturbances and irregularities in our nation are because God's grace has been hidden from us.....and it is hidden because as a nation, as a people and as individuals, we have completely lost our way to God.  We care only about worldly matters and comforts, for the transient vanities of this world, and not for the  majesty of heaven which is eternal, because we have lost our compassion for our fellow man who is in need, because we  abandoned the values of eternity and chase instead the ephemeral values of this life which is here today and gone tomorrow ... this is a great degradation in the eyes of the Lord .. as a nation we are collectively responsible, regardless of party affiliations or personal situations. 

 

I feel the need to tell you that if we all have something to do, it is to humbly ask from God to give us repentance, and shed fiery tears for our many sins .. and to ask the Virgin Mary to help our prayers to the Lord, because after all, our people, despite their  misconduct, have always respected and magnified the Theotokos.... and we are Her people ... even if not all Greeks are aware of this at this particular time.
 
Let us all pray that Our Lord feels sorry for us and extends his mercy to those souls in the eye of the cyclone of events, whose souls are in agony:  the family of the child whose life has been cut short prematurely and unfairly, but also the little soul that suddenly found itself in front of He who judges us all ... pray for those who are obliged by their oath to the Fatherland to do their duty, those who lost, during the holiday season, their entire livlihoods ... those who find themselves tempted by events...
 
If we all pray with contrition and with a sense of how much we have sinned, in contrast to the Lord's mercy and cry not only for our own personal sins that are like a deep ocean, but also for our sins as a people, a country and a society, then (again as Elder Paisios says) this will soften and touch the paternal heart of Christ and He will again bestow His grace upon us wretched people.

Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy upon us."

Αυτές τις δύσκολες στιγμές που περνά η Ελληνική κοινωνία, ας θυμηθούμε τα λoγια του Μακαριστού Πατρος μας Παισίου, ο οποίος έλεγε ότι οι ταραχeς και οι ανωμαλίες στο κράτος μας συμβαίνουνε επειδή η Χaρις του Θεού έχει κρυφτεί από εμάς..και έχει κρυφτεί γιατί σαν έθνος και σα λαός και σαν aτομα, ξεφύγαμε τελειως από το δρόμο του Θεού, νοιαζόμαστε αποκλειστικά και μόνο για τα κοσμικά και για τη καλοπέρασή μας, για τα παροδικά και για τα μάταια αυτού του κόσμου, και όχι για τη Βασιλεία των Ουρανών που είναι αιώνια, γιατί χάσαμε το πόνο για το συνάνθρωπο που βρίσκεται σε ανάγκη, γιατί αφήσαμε τις αξίες της αιωνιότητας και κυνηγάμε τις εφήμερες αξίες αυτής της ζωής που σήμερα είναι και αuριο δεν είναι...αυτό είναι μεγάλος ξεπεσμός στα μάτια του Κυρίου..σαν Εθνος είμαστε συνολικά υπόλογοι..ασχoτως κόμματος, ασχέτως καταστaσεως...
 
Aισθάνομαι την ανάγκη να σας πω ότι αν έχουμε όλοι μας κάτι να κάνουμε είναι να ζητήσουμε ταπεινά από το Θεό να μας δώσει μετάνοια, και δάκρυα καυτά γιά τις πολλές αμαρτίες μας..και να ζητήσουμε και από τη Παναγιά μας να βοηθήσει τις προσευχές μας προς το Κύριο, γιατί στο κάτω-κάτω, τούτος ο λαός, παρόλα τα παραπτώματά του, πάντοτε σεβάστηκε και εμεγάλυνε τη Θεοτόκο...και είναι λαός δικός Της...έστω και αν δεν έχουν όλοι οι Ελληνες συνείδηση αυτού του πράγματος ανα πάσα στιγμή...
 
Ας κάνουμε όλοι προσευχή να μας λυπηθεί ο Μακρόθυμος Κύριος και να ελεήσει αυτές τις ψυχές που βρίσκονται στο "μάτι του κυκλώνα" των επεισοδίων, που βρίσκονται εν βρασμώ ψυχής, την οικογένεια του νέου παιδιού που έφυγε πρόωρα και aδικα, αλλά και τη ψυχούλα αυτή που ξαφνικά βρέθηκε μπροστά στο Βήμα του των όλων Κριτού...όλους όσοι είναι υποχρεωμένοι από τον όρκο στη Πατρίδα να κάνουν το καθήκον τους, αυτοuς που χάσανε πάνω στις γιορτές τις περιουσίες τους..αυτούς που βρίσκονται σε πειρασμό λόγω των γεγονότων...
 
Αν όλοι προσευχηθούμε με συντριβή και με συναίσθηση του πόσο αμαρτωλοί είμαστε, αλλά και πόσο -αντιθέτως- ελεήμων είναι ο Κύριος και κλάψουμε για τις προσωπικές μας αμαρτίες που είναι βαθύς ωκεανός, αλλά και για τις αμαρτίες μας ως λαός και χώρα και κοινωνία, τότε (πάλι όπως λέει ο Πατήρ Παίσιος) θα μαλακώσει και θα συγκινηθεί η Πατρική καρδιά του Χριστού μας και θα φανερώσει και πάλι τη Χάρη του πάνω σε μας τους ταλαίπορους....

Κύριε Ιησού Χριστέ, ελέησόν μας

Difficult Times

Lately, I have been alarmed by what I see happening throughout our world. Events are spiraling out of control, but more importantly and perhaps more ominously, our societies are falling apart. Those of us who love Greece are deeply affected by the what we see happening there.

As I write this Greece is in the midst of the worst violence seen in recent memory.  The rioting started after a fifteen year old boy was shot and killed by a police officer in the Exarchia section of Athens.  The neighborhood has seen an uneasy truce of sorts between Police and the "anarchist" youths that inhabit the area. Occasionally it erupts into violence. The recent events are reminiscent of a similar situation that was also triggered by another fatal police shooting of a minor in Athens, in 1985, when I lived in the city. It too sparked months of nearly daily clashes between police and anarchists. In its aftermath the terrorist group November 17 bombed a bus full of riot police in retaliation. The two officers involved in Saturday's incident have been arrested. Prokopis Pavlopoulos, the country's Interior minister, who is responsible for the police, promised punishment for those responsible even before a full investigation was conducted.

Shortly after the shooting, which took place before 10 p.m., an angry crowd – summoned by text message and the Internet – gathered in Exarchia. They clashed with police, shouting "Murderers in uniform," and burned and looted local shops.Later that night, the rioters moved to other areas of the city center, burning or damaging at least 31 shops and breaking windows in the tourist neighborhood of Monastiraki and along one of central Athens' major shopping streets, Ermou.  Clashes have erupted in other major cities and police stations have been attacked. The government seems helpless in the wake of such widespread violence and discontent.

For many people like me with a special affinity for the country, watching helplessly as it disintegrates is a profoundly disturbing personal experience. Perhaps many of us sensed it coming sooner or later.Those of us who are older can remember a different country, one who's people, although poor, had a richness of spirit. A people who were devout and God-fearing. They were less anxious, more respectful, family oriented and they valued philotimo, a sense of honor. Today Greece, the country which illuminated the world, has assimilated and conformed to the world. It now resembles all the rest and wallows in its own muck.  It's no use trying to fix blame. No use trying to lay it at the feet of others, on foreign conspiracies, globalization, the ineffectual police, the corrupt state, or our children throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails.  We are all to blame because as a people we have lost our way.

What a coincidence that in the midst of all this turmoil I am reading the words of a lowly monk  and finding not only comfort, understanding and above all hope for the future. As I read his humble thoughts I am astonished to find how much of what he said rings true today even now, years after his death.

"If freedom is not put to good use, it is worth nothing. All it brings is disaster. That is why the country is heading in the wrong direction. Can today's people make good use of the freedom given to them? When freedom does not serve the cause of true progress, the result is catastrophe.  Combined with secular progress, this sinful freedom has given way to spiritual slavery.  True spiritual freedom is spiritual obedience to the word of God. But you see, whereas it is obedience that will give us true freedom, the tempter out of malice, presents it as enslavement, and so our youth today who have been poisoned by the spirit of rebellion, reject obedience.  It is understandable that these young people are tired of the various ideologies of the twentieth century, which unfortunately distort God's beautiful creation and fill His creatures with anxiety putting a gap between them and the true joy that is God."

"It is parents who never understood the nature of discipline that now allow their children such excessive freedom and turn them into little hooligans. You say one word to them and they will respond with five, and with such impudence! These children may one day turn into criminals. Today many children are totally unraveled by too much freedom and no discipline.  "Don't touch the children!" These are the slogans in society. And of course what do the children think?" In other words, they are deliberately turning them into little rebels who do not want to listen to parents, teachers or anyone else.This serves their designs perfectly, for if the children are not taught to be rebellious, how can they end up later destroying everything?"

"We should strive hard to be true Christians. This is how we will develop a spiritual sense, and come to feel pain in our hearts for Orthodoxy and our Homeland and fulfill our obligations to our Hellenic nation and heritage.  This is the foundation. If we are true Christians, we will care about everything that affects the Church, we will worry and pray for Her good. We should not wait for people to coax us, "Now you should care about this, later for that and so on." If we leave it to others, we will resemble a square wheel that will never turn on its own, and will need to be pushed all the time.  The point is to turn on our own. Then our turns will be beautiful and smooth like those of a well-rounded wheel.  And if this happens, we will feel the movement coming from within, and God will inform our soul about many things, more than an educated person can ever reach on his own. It won't be just the written things that we will know, but also the thoughts in the minds of those who write them. Do you see what I am saying. This is the work of divine illumination, and all of man's activities are enlightened."

"How can we abandon the legacy that Christ left for us? We don't have the right to do away with it! God will hold us accountable. You see this small nation of ours, believed in the Messiah, and God gave us the blessing to enlighten the world. The Old Testament was translated into Greek one hundred years before the coming of Christ. Think of how the first Christians suffered! Their lives were constantly at risk. Nowadays there is so much indifference! And yet, it would be easy to enlighten our nation today! We owe the peace we enjoy today to those who came before us. Do you know how many of our ancestors sacrificed their lives? We owe everything we have to them. I compare them to us; they kept their faith even though their lives were in danger; our lives are not at stake, but we let go of our faith and in return we destroy all that they have bequeathed us. Those who have never had the experience of being subjugated to another nation do not appreciate my advice.  "May God protect us from barbarian invaders and their wrath," I tell them.  "Why," they reply, "what's going to happen to us?" Listen to their attitude! Oh, why don't they go away. That's the kind of people that you run into these days. Give them money and cars....that's what matters; they couldn't care less about faith, honor, or even their own liberty.  We Greeks, the Hellenic nation, owe our Orthodox Christian Faith to Christ and to the holy martyrs and Fathers of our Church. We owe our liberty to the heroes of our Homeland, who shed their blood for us. And so we owe it to them to keep this holy legacy alive, and not let it disappear or destroy it ourselves. What a great shame it would be if our nation perished! And just as in war individuals are drafted to serve their country, so too in our days God is sending personal invitations to people, drafting them to safeguard and save His creature. God will not abandon us, but we need to do our part too. We need to do what is humanly possible, and for the rest, turn to God and pray for His help.

Elder Paisios of Mount Athos

In Orthodox tradition, an elder is not simply a person of advanced age. An elder is one who has attained the highest rank of spiritual struggle. When a person ascends to that height, the fruits of his many years of fasting and prayer vigils become readily apparent.

From the new book, Precious Vessels of the Holy Spirit: The Lives and Counsels of Contemporary Elders of Greece, by H. Middleton.

On July 25, 1924, the future Elder Paisios (Eznepidis) was born to pious parents in the town of Farasa, Cappadocia of Asia Minor. The family’s spiritual father, the priest-monk Arsenios (the now canonized St. Arsenios of Cappadocia), baptized the babe with his own name, prophesying his future profession as a monk. A week after the baptism (and barely a month after his birth) Arsenios was driven, along with his family, out of Asia Minor by the Turks. St. Arsenios guided his flock along their four-hundred-mile trek to Greece. After a number of stops along the way, Arsenios’ family finally ended up in the town of Konitsa in Epiros (northwestern Greece). St. Arsenios had reposed, as he had prophesied, forty days after their establishment in Greece, and he left as his spiritual heir the infant Arsenios.

The young Arsenios was wholly given over to God and spent his free time in the silence of nature, where he would pray for hours on end. Having completed his elementary education, he learned the trade of carpentry. He worked as a carpenter until his mandatory military service. He served in the army during the dangerous days of the end of World War II. Arsenios was brave and self-sacrificing, always desiring to put his own life at risk so as to spare his brother. He was particularly concerned about his fellow soldiers who had left wives and children to serve.

Having completed his obligation to his country, Arsenios received his discharge in 1949 and greatly desired to begin his monastic life on the Holy Mountain. Before being able to settle there, however, he had to fulfill his responsibility to his family, to look after his sisters, who were as yet unmarried. Having provided for his sisters’ future, he was free to begin his monastic vocation with a clean conscience. In 1950 he arrived on Mount Athos, where he learned his first lessons in the monastic way from the virtuous ascetic Fr. Kyril (the future abbot of Koutloumousiou Monastery); but he was unable to stay at his side as he had hoped, and so was sent to the Monastery of Esphigmenou. He was a novice there for four years, after which he was tonsured a monk in 1954 with the name Averkios. He was a conscientious monk, finding ways to both complete his obedience's (which required contact with others) and to preserve his silence, so as to progress in the art of prayer. He was always selfless in helping his brethren, unwilling to rest while others worked (though he may have already completed his own obedience's), as he loved his brothers greatly and without distinction. In addition to his ascetic struggles and the common life in the monastery, he was spiritually enriched through the reading of soul-profiting books. In particular, he read the Lives of the Saints, the Gerontikon, and especially the Ascetical Homilies of St. Isaac the Syrian.

Soon after his tonsure, Monk Averkios left Esphigmenou and joined the (then) idiorhythmic brotherhood of Philotheou Monastery, where his uncle was a monk. He put himself under obedience to the virtuous Elder Symeon, who gave him the Small Schema in 1956, with the new name Paisios. Fr. Paisios dwelt deeply on the thought that his own spiritual failures and lack of love were the cause of his neighbor’s shortcomings, as well as of the world s ills. He harshly accused himself, pushing himself to greater self-denial and more fervent prayer for his soul and for the whole world. Furthermore, he cultivated the habit of always seeking the "good reason" for a potentially scandalous event and for people’s actions, and in this way he preserved himself from judging others. For example, pilgrims to Mount Athos had been scandalized by the strange behavior and stories told by a certain monk, and, when they met Elder Paisios, they asked him what was wrong with the monk. He warned them not to judge others, and that this monk was actually virtuous and was simply pretending to be a fool when visitors would come, so as to preserve his silence.

In 1958 Elder Paisios was asked to spend some time in and around his home village of Konitsa so as to support the faithful against the proselytism of Protestant groups. He greatly encouraged the faithful there, helping many people. Afterwards, in 1962, he left to visit Sinai where he stayed for two years. During this time he became beloved of the Bedouins, who benefited both spiritually as well as materially from his presence. The Elder used the money he received from the sale of his carved wooden handicrafts to buy them food.

On his return to Mount Athos in 1964, Elder Paisios took up residence at the Skete of Iviron before moving to Katounakia at the southernmost tip of Mount Athos for a short stay in the desert there. The Elder’s failing health may have been part of the reason for his departure from the desert. In 1966, he was operated on and had part of his lungs removed. It was during this time of hospitalization that his long friendship with the then young sisterhood of St. John the Theologian in Souroti, just outside of Thessalonica, began. During his operation he greatly needed blood and it was then that a group of novices from the monastery donated blood to save him. Elder Paisios was most grateful, and after his recovery did whatever he could, materially and spiritually, to help them build their monastery.

In 1968 he spent time at the Monastery of Stavronikita helping with its spiritual as well as material renovation. While there he had the blessing of being in contact with the ascetic Elder Tychon who lived in the hermitage of the Holy Cross, near Stavronikita. Elder Paisios stayed by his side until his repose, serving him selflessly as his disciple. It was during this time that Elder Tychon clothed Fr. Paisios in the Great Schema. According to the wishes of the Elder, Fr. Paisios remained in his hermitage after his repose. He stayed there until 1979, when he moved on to his final home on the Holy Mountain, the hermitage Panagouda, which belongs to the Monastery of Koutloumousiou.

It was here at Panagouda that Elder Paisios’ fame as a God-bearing elder grew, drawing to him the sick and suffering people of God. He received them all day long, dedicating the night to God in prayer, vigil and spiritual struggle. His regime of prayer and asceticism left him with only two or three hours each night for rest. The self-abandon with which he served God and his fellow man, his strictness with himself, the austerity of his regime, and his sensitive nature made him increasingly prone to sickness. In addition to respiratory problems, in his later days he suffered from a serious hernia that made life very painful. When he was forced to leave the Holy Mountain for various reasons (often due to his illnesses), he would receive pilgrims for hours on end at the women’s monastery at Souroti, and the physical effort which this entailed in his weakened state caused him such pain that he would turn pale. He bore his suffering with much grace, however, confident that, as God knows what is best for us, it could not be otherwise. He would say that God is greatly touched when someone who is in great suffering does not complain, but rather uses his energy to pray for others.

In addition to his other illnesses he suffered from hemorrhaging which left him very weak. In his final weeks before leaving the Holy Mountain, he would often fall unconscious. On October 5, 1993 the Elder left his beloved Holy Mountain for the last time. Though he had planned on being off the mountain for just a few days, while in Thessalonica he was diagnosed with cancer that needed immediate treatment. After the operation he spent some time recovering in the hospital and was then transferred to the monastery at Souroti. Despite his critical state he received people, listening to their sorrow and counseling them.

After his operation, Elder Paisios had his heart set on returning to Mount Athos. His attempts to do so, however, were hindered by his failing health. His last days were full of suffering, but also of the joy of the martyrs. On July 11, 1994, he received Holy Communion for the last time. The next day, Elder Paisios gave his soul into God’s keeping. He was buried, according to his wishes, at the Monastery of St. John the Theologian in Souroti. Elder Paisios, perhaps more than any other contemporary elder, has captured the minds and hearts of the Greek people. Many books of his counsels have been published, and the monastery at Souroti has undertaken a great work, organizing the Elder’s writings and counsels into impressive volumes befitting his memory. (Volume One: With Pain and Love for Contemporary Man, is here.) Thousands of pilgrims visit his grave each year, so as to receive his blessing.

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“Kindness softens and opens up the heart, as oil opens a rusty lock."

“Those who come close to people in pain naturally draw near to God, because God is always by the side of His children who are in pain.

 “When someone gives his heart to God, then the mind of this man is also seized by the love of God. He is indifferent towards worldly things and continually thinks about the Heavenly Father, and being divinely in love, he glorifies his Creator day and night like an angel.”

“Ask for repentance in your prayer and nothing else, neither for divine lights, nor miracles, nor prophecies, nor spiritual gifts—nothing but repentance. Repentance will bring you humility, humility will bring you the Grace of God, and God will have in His Grace everything you need for your salvation, or anything you might need to help another soul.

 “Things are very simple, and there is no reason why we should complicate them. If we regard matters in this way, we will feel the Jesus Prayer as a necessity and will not grow weary. We will be able to repeat it many times and our heart will feel a sweet pain, and then Christ Himself will shed His sweet consolation inside our heart."

“Thus prayer does not tire but invigorates. It is tiresome only when we do not enter into its meaning and do not understand the sense given it by our Holy Fathers. Once we comprehend the need of God’s mercy, the desire of this hunger will compel us, without pressuring ourselves in prayer, to open our mouth like a nursing infant, and we will feel, simultaneously, all the security and joy of a baby in its mother’s embrace.”

“Now that conveniences have exceeded all bounds, they have become inconveniences. Machines have multiplied; distractions have also multiplied and man has been made into a machine. Machines and iron order men around, which is why their hearts have become as hard as steel.”

"Humility is acquired after struggles. When you know yourself you acquire humility, which become a (permanent) condition. Otherwise one can become humble for a moment, but your thought will say to you that you are something although in reality you're nothing. and you'll be deluded like that to the moment of death. If death finds you with the thought that you are nothing, then God will speak. If however your thought says at the hour of death that you are something and you don't understand it, all your effort goes to waste."

"Conscience is the first law of God, which He deeply carved in the hearts of the First Created, and consequently, each one of us takes it as a "photocopy" from his parents when he is born. Those who have managed to sensitize their consciences through the daily study of themselves feel themselves estranged from this world; and, as a result, worldly people are dumbfounded by their discerning behavior. Those, however, who do not examine their consciences are neither benefited by spiritual study nor by the advice of the Elders, nor are they even able to keep God’s commandments, since they quickly become insensitive."

"Those who are sensitive and have philotimo, and who observe everything with precision, are usually wronged by the insensitive ones due to the constant concessions they make for them out of love. However, God’s love is always on their side. Oftentimes, they wrong themselves due to their hypersensitivity, overemphasizing their minor sins or bearing the burden of others’ faults; but once again, God comforts them with His heavenly kindness and, at the same time, strengthens them spiritually."

“The devil does not hunt after those who are lost; he hunts after those who are aware, those who are close to God. He takes from them trust in God and begins to afflict them with self-assurance, logic, thinking, criticism. Therefore we should not trust our logical minds. Never believe your thoughts."   

“Live simply and without thinking too much, like a child with his father. Faith without too much thinking works wonders. The logical mind hinders the Grace of God and miracles. Practice patience without judging with the logical mind.”

 “To some people your love will be expressed with joy and to others it will be expressed with your pain. You will consider everyone your brother or your sister, for we are all children of Eve (of the large family of Adam, of God). Then, in your prayer you will say: ‘My God, help those first who are in greater need, whether they are alive or reposed brothers in the Lord.’ At that point, you will share your heart with the whole world and you will have nothing but immense love, which is Christ.”

"The person who asks for miracles, in order to believe in God, lacks dignity. God, if He wishes to, can make with one of His miracles everybody instantly believe. However, He does not do so, because He does not wish to exercise force on man’s free will; man will then end up believing in God, not out of gratefulness or due to God’s excessive kindness, but due to His supernatural power."

"Oh, if we could only understand the great forebearance of God! It took one hundred years to make Noah's ark. Do you think that God could not have made an ark any faster? He let Noah suffer for one hundred years so that others may understand and repent. Noah would tell them, "Repent, a deluge is coming!" But they would only mock him. "he is making cages, " they were saying and went about their business. And now God could shake the world in two minutes, and change people into believers, super believers. How? All he has to do is turn the earthquake button from five, six  or seven on the Richter scale. At eight on the Richter scale, high rise apartment buildings will be falling upon each other like drunkards in the street. At ten everyone will be screaming "We have sinned, please save us."  They may even say, "We will become monks!"  But as soon as the earthquake is over, while still shaking but standing, they will again run to the bouzouki clubs. Their return to God will not be from true repentence but they would just say it temporarily to be saved from disaster."

"When in the course of our spiritual struggle, we feel anxiety we must know that we are not moving in the realm of God. God is not a stifling tyrant.  Each one of us should struggle according to his strengths and cultivate his philotimo so that he grows in his love of God. Pressed by philotimo, his struggle , all those prostations, fasting and so on will be nothing else than the pure outbursts of his love and his path would be a path of spiritual valor."

Geronda (Old man) say something....

"What should I say?"

Whatever your heart is telling you.

"My heart is telling me to take a knife, cut it into little pieces, give them to people and then die."