 |
| Odysseas Androutsos, Rigas Feraios and Athanasios Diakos. Mural "in liquid form" in a hall of the Athens City Hall. Painted by Photios Kontoglou. |
The Sanctified Revolution
By Photios Kontoglou
By Photios Kontoglou
The Greek Revolution is the most spiritual revolution that has ever taken place in the world. It is sanctified.
Revolutions are most often due to material causes, such as slavery, deprivation, hardship, torture, and contempt. Freedom is the deity that the revolutionary worships, and for which he sheds his blood. But freedom, many times, when the revolutionary obtains it, is not used for spiritual purposes, but only to enjoy material life. Spiritual life comes close to material life, but most often people consider spiritual life to be some pleasures that are also material, even though they appear to be spiritual. A revolutionary of the French Revolution, for example, considered spiritual things that were not, in reality, spiritual. He wanted to obtain freedom, to do what he thought was right and just for the life of people in this world only, that is, for their material life, not believing that there is anything else for man to pursue. That is why I say that, for most revolutions, the causes that made them break out were material, and the freedom they sought was intended to satisfy only material needs.
However, the Greek Revolution had as its cause both material deprivations and physical suffering, like every revolution, but, on top of these causes, it also had some that are purely spiritual. And spiritual, in my opinion, truly spiritual, is everything that has to do with the spiritual part of man, with his soul, that is, with religion.
The slavery that pushed the Greeks to rise up against the Turk was not only deprivation and physical suffering, but, above all, the fact that the tyrant wanted to spoil their faith, preventing them from their religious duties, converting them and slaughtering or hanging them, because they did not deny their faith in order to become Mohammedans. For this reason, faith and homeland had become one and the same thing, and the freedom they desired was not only the freedom that all revolutionaries desire, but the freedom to guard their sanctified faith, by which they hoped to save their souls. Because, for them, next to the body, which has so many needs and whose maintenance is achieved with so much suffering, there was also the soul, which Christ said was worth more than the body, as much as it is worth more than clothing.
Those simple souls, who lived in the mountains and wildernesses, were taught by their fathers in the faith of Christ, and knew, although they were illiterate, some of His words, such as these: “What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?” “The soul is more valuable than food, as the body is more valuable than clothing!” etc.
For this reason, during the years of slavery, thousands of young men were slaughtered and hanged for their faith, disregarding their youth and not paying attention to their bodies in this temporary life. The holy neomartyrs are a whole army, who were not killed for the material goods of this life, but for their precious souls, which they knew would not die with the body, but would live eternally. They listened and believed unshakably the words of Christ who said: “Do not fear him who kills the body and can do nothing more. But fear him who is able to kill both body and soul.”
The freedom for which they sacrificed was not some vague divinity, but was Christ Himself, of whom the Apostle Paul said: “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” And elsewhere he says: “Stand firm in the freedom that Christ has given you, stand firm and do not fall back into the yoke of slavery. For He called you to freedom. But do not take freedom only as an occasion for your flesh.”
For this reason the Greek Revolution is sanctified and its warriors are sanctified, just as those who fought with Constantine Palaiologos, three hundred and sixty-eight years ago, during the capture of the City, against the same enemy of their faith were sanctified.
Hear with what words that sanctified emperor spoke to his soldiers, as if he were saying a troparion: "You are well aware, brothers, that this impious Sultan, the enemy of our holy faith, since he started the siege and the blockade, every day he opens his fathomless mouth and is seeking an opportunity to devour us and this City, which thrice-blessed Constantine the Great founded and dedicated to our all pure and most pure Lady the Theotokos and ever-virgin Mary, the mistress and helper and protectress of our homeland, the refuge of Christians, the hope and joy of all Greeks, the boast of all who are under the setting of the sun." And at the end he said: "I hope that God may redeem us from this present just threat, and secondly, that the diamond crown in heaven is prepared for us, and that there will be an eternal memory and we be found worthy of the world to come."
In the revolution of Twenty-One, as in the siege of Constantinople, along with the laity, a multitude of cassock-wearing monks, priests and bishops fought, and they marched ahead with the cross in their hands, and behind them the people poured out weeping, and sang:
For the freedom of the fatherland,
for the holy faith of Christ,
for these two I fight,
with these I desire to live.
And if I do not obtain them,
what does it profit me to live?
Patriarch Gregory was hanged in Constantinople, initiating the first martyrdom of the Revolution. Thanasis Diakos fought like a young Leonidas, and was impaled for his faith. Germanos of Old Patras, Isaiah of Salona, Joseph of Rogoi, Papaflessas, Thymios Vlachavas, and many other bishops.
In Tripolitsa, the bishops of the Morea were imprisoned during the Revolution and most of them died in unbearable tortures. Likewise in Constantinople, many bishops were imprisoned and hanged.
Below I include a few words from the diary of Vice Admiral Georgios Sachtouris:
“Friday, December 25. Feast of the Nativity of our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ. Anchored in Dardiza with a calm Tramuntana wind, except with snow. On this day, for the joy of the day.”
Admiral Kountouriotis made his prayer, like those of old, that the Panagia would help him in the naval battle of Elli, and wherever else his duty called him. All Greeks did the same and do the same in war.
During the Asia Minor catastrophe, people of religion were the first to pay with their lives the new toll on the enemy of our faith. The Metropolitan of Smyrna Chrysostomos was hanged,* Bishop Gregory of Kydonia was buried alive, Ambrosios of Moschonisia was mercilessly killed, and all the priests and monks fell by the sword.
The Germans and Italians also killed the village cassock-wearers, so that they would not be left behind by the other God-fighters.
Yes! Faith and homeland are one thing for us. And whoever fights for one, fights for the other, and let him not be deceived. Our spiritual mother is our Orthodox Church, which was watered with much sanctified blood. No people has shed and does not shed its blood to this day for the faith, as much as ours. The Orthodox faith is the hidden treasure and the precious pearl that Christ speaks of.
Source: From the book Suffering Romiosini. Translation by John Sanidopoulos.
* Metropolitan Chrysostomos was not in fact hanged, but blinded and dismembered by a Turkish mob.
