Sunday, May 31, 2015
Saturday, May 30, 2015
The Eternal Priest
The eternal priest story has
become a tradition in the Orthodox and Greek world. According to this tradition
(myth), when the Ottoman Turks beat the Byzantine army and eventually entered
the holiest city of the Byzantine era, Hagia Sophia, there was a Divine Liturgy
taking place. The moment the conquerors entered, the priest saw them running
in; he went into the holy of holies and miraculously ran through a door, which
appeared in the wall. Another tradition, claims that he ran through a door,
which still exists today, on one of the sides of the Church. According to this
legend, when Constantinople will again become a Christian city, the priest will
reappear from the wall and continue the Divine Liturgy. Despite this being
merely a story, it is a belief many Greek Orthodox still have today.
Friday, May 29, 2015
The Last Divine Liturgy in St. Sophia, Constantinople
Many, even Orthodox, even Greeks,
believe that the last Divine Liturgy in St. Sophia, in Constantinople, was
celebrated on the 29 May 1453. However, the last Liturgy took place in 1919.
The priest who celebrated the Divine Liturgy was Fr. Lefteris Noufarakis, who
was from Alones Rethymnou, Crete. He was an army priest in the Second Greek
Army Division, one of the two army divisions which was part of the allied
expeditionary body in Ukraine. This Army Division went to Ukraine via
Constantinople, which then was under ‘allied sovereignty’, after the end of WW
I.
A group of Greek Officers, led by
the priest, General Frantzis, Major Liaromati, Captain Stamatiou and Lieutenant
Nikolaou were observing the City and Hagia Sophia, keeping to themselves their
secret, i.e. to celebrate the Divine Liturgy in St. Sophia – a decision taken
primarily by the priest. The difficulty of this endeavour was the fact that
during that period St. Sophia was a mosque, creating therefore some major
issues. This could have created a diplomatic incident between Greece and
Turkey. However, Fr. Lefteris had decided that he was going to celebrate the
Divine Liturgy in St. Sophia, whatever difficulty came his way.
-
If you do not come, I will go alone! I just need
a chanter. You, Konstantine (Liaromati), will you be my chanter?
-
Ok Father, he replied. He had agreed to go with
him.
The other officers followed too.
They all boarded a small boat, with a Greek rower from Constantinople. Kosmas,
the local boater, took them through a shortcut to Hagia Sophia. The doors were
open. The Turkish guard was about to stop them, but General Fratzis gave him an
angry look, which left the guard speechless. They all entered the Holy Church
with reverence, making the sign of the cross. Father Lefteris said, quietly,
with great emotion: “I enter into your house; I worship towards your Holy
Church in fear…”
He quickly moved towards the Holy
Sanctuary, where the Holy Table would have been. He found a small table and
placed it within the Sanctuary. He had everything in a small bag; he took
everything out, he put on his vestments and began:
“Blessed is the Kingdom of the
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, now and for ever, and to the
ages of ages”.
“Amen”, replied the Major
Liaromatis. The Divine Liturgy had begun in Hagia Sophia, for the first time
since the 29 May 1453. All of them wished one thing that they could finish the
Divine Liturgy, without being interrupted. Everything had happened so quickly,
they could not believe what was happening.
In the meantime the church was
filling up with Turks; however, they remained silent, probably not
understanding or not being able to believe what was actually happening. It was,
in many respects, an unimaginable reality. During this time more and more
people. Among them were also Greeks who lived in Constantinople, who happened
to come to Hagia Sophia by chance. They were surprised and extremely moved by
what was happening. During the Anaphora, all the Greeks bowed, listening to the
chanter chant: “We praise you, we bless you, we give thanks to you, O Lord, and
we pray to you, our God”. The time then came, where all of the Greeks went and
received Holy Communion, after 466 years. After the Holy Communion they quickly
finished the Liturgy. Fr. Lefteris told Lieutenant Nikolaou “quickly gather
everything and place them in the bag”.
The Divine Liturgy is finished.
However, by the end of the Liturgy the church was packed with Turks, who began
to get aggressive, understanding what just happened. Their lives were in danger.
However, they do not hesitate. They joined together and walked out. The mob is
ready to hit them. At that point a Turkish Officer told them to let them come
through. He was also angry, but he understood that he had to let them go, for
political reasons. It would have not looked good for Turkey to have killed five
Greek officers in Hagia Sophia. Let us not forget that there were two Greek
Divisions near the City, and Constantinople was under foreign occupation, under
the winners of WWI. The Greek officers made it to the boat. However, a ‘giant’
Turk followed them, he grabbed a large wooden branch and tried to hit the
priest, understanding that it was him who initiated this event.
The priest crouched down, but the
wood hit his shoulder. Major Liaromatis and Captain Stamatiou achieved to take
the wood from the Turk, who was ready to hit the priest again. They eventually
achieved to reach the Greek War Ship. However, this event did create a
diplomatic incident, with the allies complaining to the Greek Prime Minister,
Eleftherios Venizelos, who eventually had to reprimand Fr. Lefteri.
Nevertheless, he contacted him privately and congratulated him, for realising
in Hagia Sophia the dream all Greeks have.
The unfortunate fact about this
real story is the fact that not many people know about it. Even in his home
town they are ignorant about it. However, he is the only one, who after 1453,
gave life to Hagia Sophia, reminded it of its past glory, and showed its true
colours. We, now, can only hope that in the near future, the Turkish Government
will see the significance this Church has for the Christian world, and might
allow for it to become a Church again. Maybe this is an ideal thought and wish.
However, it cannot and should not return to its previous status, i.e. to become
a mosque, as many Turks now wish to see it[1].
[1]
For a more elaborate version, in Greek, please look at: Σπουδάγματα, Τεύχος 11, Πάσχα 2004, pp. 58-62
Thursday, May 28, 2015
The Immortal Emperor, last Emperor of Byzantium
The Immortal Emperor, who was the
last Emperor of the Byzantine Empire, Constantine XI Paleologus, isbelievef to
have died in battle, 29th May 1453, when the Imperial City fell to
the Ottomans. However, his body was never found, creating a number of myths
around his life and his death.
The last confirmed sighting of
the Emperor was near the Gate of St Romanus. Constantine was fighting next to
common soldiers. It is believed that he died there and then; however, what
happened to his body, no one knows. After his death, it is believed that he was
beheaded. Was it brought to the Sultan? Apparently he had cast off his emblems
of rank before the battle, therefore his body would not be distinguishable from
that of any other soldier. Even the statue, depicted here – which stands in
central Athens -, has an imagined face, since no authentic picture of
Constantine survives.
There are, of course, legends
that Constantine did not die at all. Some mystical accounts whispered among the
Greeks in the decades and centuries after the fall hold that Constantine is
“sleeping,” in some sort of suspended animation in a secret chamber near the
Golden Gate of the Theodosian Walls, a gate that was bricked up long before the
fall. The legends go that if Byzantium rises again, Constantine XI will “wake
up” and come out of his prison to rule again. Many songs and traditions in
Modern Greece refer to the immortal Emperor, awaiting his awakening, to create,
a new, the Byzantine Empire.
Wednesday, May 27, 2015
Saint John the Russian, Euboea – Greece
One of the most famous modern
saints in Greece today, who is venerated by hundreds on a daily basis, is St
John the Russian, located in New Prokopi on the island of Euboea (the second
largest island of Greece).
Saint John was born in the
Ukraine in South Russia (end of the 17th century). During the
Russian-Turkish war (1711-1718) he was in the imperial army of Peter the Great.
As a soldier, St John fought to protect his country; however, due to his
Orthodox upbringing, he was appalled by the reality and cruelty of war.
Unfortunately, during the battles for the recapture of Azof (Black Sea), he and
thousands of Russians fell prisoners to the Turks. He was moved to
Constantinople and then to Prokopi, near Caesaria of Cappadocia in Asia Minor.
He was given to an Aga who had a camp of Janissaries.
Because he was a Christian, John
was tortured; he was beaten with sticks, kicked and spat on. A tremendous
torturous act was when they placed a red-hot metal bowl on his head, burning
his hair and scalp. He was then thrown into a stable, to live with the animals.
He accepted the tortures; this acceptance impressed his tormentors, making them
cease their brutality, giving him the name ‘veli’, which means saint.
On the 27th May 1730
Saint John passed away. After his death and his burial, in 1733, the old priest
who every Saturday had listened to his sufferings and tortures and who had
given him Holy Communion, saw a dream. In the dream the Saint explained that
God had preserved his body entire and uncorrupted. He asked that they retrieve
it and keep it as a blessing for the Christians to have.
In one of the conflicts between
Ibrahim of Egypt and the Sultan of Turkey, Osman Pasha set fire to the holy
relic of St John, as revenge against the Christians. Amid the flames, the Turks
saw the body moving. Terrified, the abandoned this act. The next day, the
Christians dug and amid the ashes they found the body blackened, but
nonetheless intact and whole.
The Saint was venerated in all of
Asia Minor. After the Asia Minor Catastrophe (1922) and the population exchange
between Greece and Turkey, the local population from Prokopi took with them the
holy relics of Saint John the Russian to their new home, New Prokopi in Euboea.
A new church was built in his honour, where his relics are to be found to this
day, being one of the greatest Christian attractions of Euboea.
Tuesday, May 26, 2015
St John Chrysostom on Marriage
What is the right relationship
the couple, the man and the woman, should have upon entering the new stage of
their life? Married life has been understood by many in a number of ways,
according to their beliefs, their philosophical, ideological, social, economic,
traditional and religious beliefs. However, the Orthodox Church shows the
richness of this relationship through its Marriage Service, found in the
Euchologion of the Orthodox Church. Nevertheless, St John Chrysostom below
gives a revolutionary understanding of marriage, which applies not only in his
time, but also today:
‘Through fear you may bind a
servant, though he will not be long in escaping: but it is not by fear or
threats that you can bind the companion of your life, the mother of your children,
the well-spring of your happiness, but only by love and affection. What is a
household where the wife trembles before her husband? What joy is there for a
husband when he lives with his wife as with a slave and not with a free woman?’[1]
[1]
Quoted by Jean Meyendorff in Le marriage
dans la perspective orthodoxe, YMCA Press/O.E.I.L., Paris, 1986, p. 120.
Monday, May 25, 2015
The 175th Anniversary of the Penny Black – Royal Mail First Day Cover
The new Royal Mail First Day
Cover is dedicated to the 175th Anniversary of the Penny Black.
Before 1840, postage rates in the UK were very high and postage was normally
paid by the recipient. Charges were based on the distance a letter travelled
and the number of sheets in contained, and there were also numerous extra fees.
As a result, few people could afford to send letters. At the same time, a lot
of mail was carried free. Members of both houses of parliament had franking
privileges, and newspapers were also carried without a charge. With a mixture
of paid, unpaid and free letters, the system was complicated and expensive.
In 1837, teacher and innovator
Rowland Hill proposed sweeping changes: he recommended that postage should be
reduced to a uniform one penny, based on weight rather than distance, and that
it should be prepaid. Merchants supported Hill’s ideas and set up a committee
to campaign for cheap postage. They were successful, with an Act passed in 1839
to introduce Hill’s reform.
One of Hill’s ideas for
implementation of the reforms which was agreed after a public competition
organised by the Treasury was that of adhesive labels to indicate prepayment.
These eventually came to be known as postage stamps. For the design, Henry
Corbould was commissioned to draw the Queen’s head based on the ‘City’ medal by
William Wyon, which commemorated Queen Victoria’s first visit to the City of
London in November 1837. The Penny Black, as it came to be known, became valid
for postage on 6 May 1840.
Sunday, May 24, 2015
God Created Us
In the book of Genesis we read
about the creation of the world, the creation of every living being. This
creation established a relationship the Creator and the Created. God is the
eternal Creator and source of Creation. St Maximus, talking about creation,
claims:
‘God has created us in order that
we may become partakers of the divine nature, in order that we may enter into
eternity, and that we may appear like unto Him, being deified by that grace out
of which all things that exist have come, and which brings into existence
everything that before had no existence.’[1]
Saturday, May 23, 2015
Spanish Synagogue, Prague
The Spanish Synagogue located in
the heart of the Jewish Quarter (Josefov) in Prague, Czech Republic, is known
for being the most beautiful synagogue in Europe. This synagogue was built in
1868, on the site of the oldest Prague Jewish house of prayer, the Old Shul.
The beautiful interior decoration features a low stucco arabesque of stylised
Islamic motifs, which are also applied to the walls, doors and gallery.
Under both Nazi and Communist
rule, the Spanish Synagogue was neglected, leading to its eventual closure. Nevertheless,
it was re-opened on the 130th anniversary of its establishment,
forming part of the Jewish Museum in the Czech Republic capital.
Friday, May 22, 2015
Lost professions
Every epoch brings new
professions. However, due to the technological advancement of human
civilisation we also observe the extinction of a number of professions. The
pictures below show professions which have been lost for more than a century.
They might seem funny now, but then they were part of daily life. The
professions depicted below are:
a.
Pinsetter. Young children used to place the pins
back in their place after each game.
b.
The human alarm clock. A man used a wooden stick
or small stones and tapped the bedroom window or their doors in order to wake
them up.
c.
Ice cutters. Before our modern cooling systems
there were people who cut ice and place them in the house.
d.
The radar-man. The military used acoustic
systems in order to determine, through sound, what aircrafts approached the
area.
e.
Rat-hunter. This was a profession which was
widely spread in many European metropolises, due to the great dangers of
spreading infections to the human population.
f.
The person who lit the streetlights. This was a
profession for the cities, before we all started using electricity.
Thursday, May 21, 2015
Enoseos Monument, Corfu
This monument is dedicated to
commemoration of the unification of the Ionian Island with Greece in 21 May
1864. Etched on the monument are the emblems of all seven Ionian Islands (which
are Corfu, Paxi, Lefkada, Ithaki, Kefalonia, Zakynthos, Kythira). Corfu Town
being the capital of Corfu and the largest city in the Ionian islands, is the
best location for such a monument.
Wednesday, May 20, 2015
The human spirit and the divine Spirit
The word spirit (πνεύμα) can be explained in various ways,
according to the philosophical and theological beliefs one has. Can we apply
this word to both the humans and the divine? Can the word Spirit be used for the
soul, the spirit of man and the Holy Spirit (Άγιο Πνεύμα)? We tend not to use the same words for the created world and
the uncreated one, in order to show a distinction between the two; however,
language – which is a created entity – can only go so far. Therefore terms such
as Father, Son and Holy Spirit can also be applied to our created life and
form. Below, John Meyendorff examines the issue of using the word spirit for
both the human and the divine:
‘. . . Interestingly enough,
there was never a debate in the East concerning the Pauline use of pneuma and its application to both the
human “spirit” and the divine “Spirit”, coming from God. This usage, which
embarrasses so many modern theologians because it goes against their
presuppositions on “nature” and “grace” as distinct realities, was not a
problem at all for Irenaeus, who simply affirms that man is by nature made up
of “Spirit, soul, and body,” meaning by that that a divine presence is indeed what makes man truly himself (Adversus haereses V, 6, 1). Whether
later theologians adopted a more Neoplatonic language to define the same
reality (Gregory of Nyssa, for example, spoke of the “divine spark” in man), or
whether they started to distinguish between the human pneuma and the Holy Spirit in order to maintain the original
“parenthood” between God and man, they developed the theology of the imago Dei as living communion and always
took for granted that man’s nature and
ultimate destiny is life “in God,” or
deification (theosis).’[1]
Tuesday, May 19, 2015
Pontos in Nafplio
Following a previous blog-post,
this is a second dedication to the Gaudi of Greece[1],
i.e. my uncle Paraskevas Konstantinidis. He is himself from Pontos (the
northern part of modern Turkey, which was Greek for thousands of years).
Current living in the Peloponnesian city of Nafplio (in Southern Greece) he has
maintained his heritage, by dedicating one of his latest works to Pontos, by creating the eagle that is the symbol of
the Pontian Greeks, as seen on the flag of Pontos. Therefore, in his own
artistic way he brings a Pontian Greek presence to the first capital of Modern
Greece, to Nafplio.
Monday, May 18, 2015
A Song Dedicated to the Pontian Greek Genocide
Sunday, May 17, 2015
Glasgow Cathedral
Glasgow Cathedral was at the very
heart of the early development of Glasgow as a city. Dedicated to St Kentigern,
the first bishop of Strathclyde, the awe-inspiring edifice attracted countless
pilgrims to his shrine. Originally built in the 1100s, and substantially
enlarged in the 1200s, it survived the Protestant Reformation of 1560 almost
intact and stands today as the most complete medieval cathedral on the Scottish
mainland. Currently it is under the Church of Scotland.
At the crypt of the church one
can find the chapel and tomb of St Kentigern, also known as St Mungo, the ‘dear
beloved;’ he was a much revered bishop of Glasgow who died in about 612.
Tradition says that he was buried at the spot where the Glasgow Cathedral was
built. St Mungo was a missionary in
Strathclyde and may have built his church on this site. His sanctity was
promoted by later bishops and he became a cult figure in the Scottish church.
The tomb, located in the crypt, attracted many pilgrims, who followed a
stage-managed route to get there. They prayed for salvation, confessed crimes
and sought cures. Their offerings helped to swell church funds and the
cathedral developed around the tomb.
Stories about St Mungo are
largely the creation of enthusiastic biographers in the 1100s. Important saints
were promoted by the church to bolster the faith of believers. Mungo’s
legendary deeds were exploited during the early days of Alba, the unified
Scottish kingdom in the late 9th century. This was repeated, 500
years later, to reinforce the identity of the Scottish church after the Wars of
Independence.
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