The bus ride to Thermo took nearly four hours. The bus made its way through the mountain passes to the coastal route along the southern coast of mainland Greece, heading west. I wasn't yet ready to return to Athens since I had promised a friend to visit the town and write about the nursing home being built there. Having spent a few days with my son, a monk, in the monastery where he lived, my mind was full of many mixed emotions. Yet God in his infinite wisdom would bring me some semblance of peace amongst strangers. Thermo a small town with a population of two thousand is located in the perfecture of Aeotolia, on the banks of the largest natural lake in Greece named Lake Trichonia.
The town is about 10 km from the Messolonghi, the scene of much fighting during the Greek Revolution and a stones throw from the village of Mega Dendron, the birthplace of Saint Kosmas. The people of Thermo and its surrounding villages are part of the "other Greece" I often write about. The remnant of a Greece where faith, tradition and filotimo are still prized, where children play outside, fresh laundry sways in the breeze and the church bells call the faithful to prayer.
There is an old Russian saying, you get the priest you deserve. In this regard the people of Thermo are truly blessed to have Father Konstandinos, as presbyter of St Demetrios Church. God has given them the kind of priest every community needs. He is their priest, their neighbor, and most importnatly someone who shares their trials and tribulations. Born and raised in one of the distant mountain villages near Thermo during the Greek Civil War, he was ordained a priest and served in a small village named Krisovista where he was also the school teacher. The small school house where he taught for so many years is empty now, a silent witness to a time when the village echoed with the sounds of children playing. Father Konstantinos is only the latest version of a long line of village priests that have been with us since Greeks cast aside their idols and first accepted Christianity almost two thousand years ago. A few miles away is the birthplace of Saint Kosmas. During the Ottoman occupation it was he who traveled throughout Greece and Northern Epirus now part of Albania, where he is revered, preaching the gospel and helping people preserve their Orthodox faith. He was hanged for his efforts. He and generations of other priests during the five hundred long years of occupation and enslavement ensured the survival of a Greek identity, the ramblings of revisionist historians notwithstanding. Father Konstantinos is readily visible, long white beard and black cossack. Walking through town people come up to him and greet him, kissing his hand respectfully. I think that there are times he would prefer the quiet life of a monastic, tucked away in the serene setting of an isolated monastery where he could pray and seek a modicum of peace from the world we live in. God had other plans for him. He married, became a priest and the father of seven children and the sheperd of a wayward flock of assorted struggling believers and non-believers. The village priest sees us through the important milestones in our lives. He baptizes us, unites us in holy matrimony, hears our confessions, and prays for the salvation of our souls when we die. An Orthodox priest offers God’s gifts to His people as well as being set aside as being the people’s gift to God. God comes to us in a very special way through the sacraments and only a priest who has been given the authority by the Church through Christ can administer those sacraments. Like the Apostles they remind us of what Christ taught when He was among us. We expect a great deal of our priests and they in turn labor diligently on our behalf, though at times they too stumble and fail as we do.
Small villages and communities were once the lifeblood of the nation. As Greeks left moving in droves to large urban areas like Athens or abroad, eventually so did the Greek state. No more City Hall, no police, fire department, school, or doctor. Only the stroke of the church bell remained and a few old men and women. The only one who could still minister to those who stayed behind is the priest, teacher and doctor of souls, at their side during times of great joy and great sorrow. Even in the midst of such despair and pessimism, genuine and authentic priests stand by our side. When they fail to do so, when the Church stands idly by in the midst of such agony, it shirks its historic role and the source of its strength. In Greece elder care has been the responsibility of family members and the extended family home. Increasingly, however, as in other modern societies, many elderly, living longer lives and separated from family, are no longer able to adequately care for themselves. For a variety of reasons they have to fend for themselves and often are unable to do so. Too proud to ask for help, they are marginalized, living lives of quiet desperation, unseen and unloved. Science and technology have extended but have not always improved the quality of their lives. Father Konstantinos who ministers to the needs of his older parishoners, traveling to their homes to visit them, understands better than most their need. A few years ago, one of his flock, an elderly widow, lost her home in a house fire. Homeless and without family to care for her, Father and his Presbytera took her in to their home and she became one of the family until her death. The idea of building a nursing home for the elderly was planted in one man's mind and has since begun to bear fruit. Today with the help of a Greek-Austraian architect who has drawn up a state of the art design for such a refuge and the efforts of the local populace, the first phase of the construction has been completed. The shell of the building now stands as a silent witness to what a community and their faithful priest can accomplish.
As we walked through the structure I could sense that Father Konstantinos was looking at it differently. He was envisioning it not as it was, large cement columns, stairs and floors but as a real home where the elderly could be cared for and live out their final years in dignity and fellowship. While I wondered how such a small community in the midst of what can only be called a depression, could raise the remaining one million Euros to complete the project, bereft of any outside government aid, he was full of hope and faith that God would indeed provide.
We talked for hours that evening next to a warm fire eating our meal. We talked about his dream, about the people of Thermo, his family and my family. I was a stranger yet this kindly man and his family had opened their home and hearts not only to me but to others and in so doing his dream became my dream. That night I slept more peacefully than I had for quite some time. The next day I left for Athens. As the countryside sped past I thought to myself about the crisis that Greece finds itself in. How will Greeks find a way out of the economic morass they now find themselves in? Will they turn inward and tear each other as they have often done in the past or will they summon the very qualities that have allowed to them to survive thousands of years? In this little corner of Greece I had seen hope for the future. A future where citizens take care of each other without depending on the government handouts that make them wards of a capricious state. A future where people at the local level make the important decisions about their lives, not some faraway bureaucrat. A future where the people begin to put into practice in their own lives what Christ preached to the multitudes.
We Greek-Americans don't forget where we came from. We idealize Greece, even when at times it lets us down. Gentle reader, may we find it in our heart to help deserving Greek communities in their hour of need remembering that as long as Greeks and their progeny, no matter where they live in the world, have compassionate village priests and are the reciepients of their inspired leadership, we will survive no matter what comes our way. If you would like to contribute to the dream, please send your donation to:
Stavro would you be kind enough to tell me who sings ΠΑΟ ΣΤΟ ΧΩΡΙΟ in your music player.
I have always had a soft touch for that style of violin.
Beautiful!
Posted by: Dimitri | 04 December 2011 at 01:14 AM
Dimitri,
Here is the link at YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpgYl4LHsLQ
I butchered the name of the song I'm afraid, it's HΘΕΛΑ ΝΑ ΜΑΙ ΣΤΟ ΧΩΡΙΟ.
Enjoy.
Posted by: Stavros | 04 December 2011 at 09:04 AM
Stavro I've listened to that track 20 times since you posted it and I've just played it to my Mum and it made her cry straight away!
Enjoy your blogs.
Thanks
Posted by: Dimitri | 05 December 2011 at 09:48 PM
Dimitri,
Type the word χωριὸ οn Youtube and you will realize how ingrained in our consciousness it is. There are many more tragoudia like this.
Posted by: Stavros | 05 December 2011 at 09:59 PM
Oh yes Stavros I understand our plight that we have been forced into over the past 100 years.
My ancestors lost their land twice, but I accept us Greeks are no angels either and we are not a people's that cry about it too easy .
We are now the outcasts to people and people think what we gave to the world is now theirs.
Capitalism is on it's last legs now and globalism is trying to put to death the small minorities and their language.
Posted by: Dimitri | 06 December 2011 at 01:36 AM