In St Luke’s Gospel (12: 16-21)
we read the parable of the rich fool. This is a very important parable for our
understanding of what is important and what our priorities should be in life.
It is apparent that we do not know the day when we will depart from this world.
But, that is why it should be imperative for us to be ready for such an
occasion, as is evident in the parable of the wise and foolish virgins (Matthew
25: 1-13). Following is the parable of the rich fool,
The Lord told this parable: “The
land of a rich man produced abundantly. And he thought to himself, ‘What should
I do, for I have no room to store my crops?’ Then he said, ‘This is what I will
do: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all
my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have ample goods
laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’ But God said to him, ‘You
fool! This very night your soul is being demanded of you. And the things you
have prepared, whose will they be?’ So it is with those who store up treasures
for themselves but are not rich toward God.” When he had said this, he cried,
“Those who have ears to hear, let them hear!”
St Basil the Great, among other
Church Fathers, has commented on the above parable, explaining:
“But whom do I treat unjustly,”
you say, “by keeping what is my own?” Tell me, what is your own? What did you
bring into this life? From where did you receive it? It is as if someone were
to take the first seat in the theatre, then bar everyone else from attending,
so that one person alone enjoys what is offered for the benefit of all in
common - this is what the rich do. They seize common goods before others have
the opportunity, then claim them as their own by right of pre-emption. For if
we all took only what was necessary to satisfy our own needs, giving the rest
to those who lack, no one would be rich and no one would be poor… But what do
we find in this man? … an unwillingness to give. This is the return he made to
his Benefactor. He forgot that we all share the same nature; he felt no
obligation to distribute his surplus to the needy … Greed would not permit him
to part with anything he possessed, and yet because he had so much there was no
place to store his latest harvest … “What should I do?” It would have been so
easy to say: “I will feed the hungry. I will open my barns and call in all the
poor.”[1]
The conference will end with a tribute to the Protopresbyter of the Ecumenical Throne Fr. Apostolos Malamoussis for his long service to the local Orthodox Metropolis, and his genuine and ecumenically open witness of Orthodoxy and Hellenism to Germany. Fr. Apostolos Malamoussis was born in 1947 in a small village in Pelion, named Mouressi, near Volos. Since 1972 and for more than 40 years he is a priest of the Holy Metropolis of Germany. He is widely known both in Germany and Greece, due to his consistent commitment to the peaceful coexistence and harmonious cohabitation of people of different ethnic and religious origin and his struggle against racism, xenophobia and terrorism. He participates on behalf of the Orthodox Metropolis in the Supreme Council of Integration in Germany, which has been established by the German Chancellery. One should mention also his contribution to a) the enshrinement of the historic church of the Christ’s Transfiguration (known also as Salvator Kirche) to the Metropolis of Germany and the Ecumenical Patriarchate in 1999, located at the center of the city of Munich; b) the introduction in 2000 of the conduct of the Epitaph on Good Friday at the famous Marienplatz in Munich city center; and c) the blessing of waters at the day of the Epiphany in the Izar river that crosses the city, as well as the adoption in 2005 of the Greek-Bavarian Day of Culture.
