The Life of Saint John the Russian

The righteous John was born in a village in southern Russia, of pious Orthodox parents, for the blessed Russians have the same spiritual Mother as the Greeks-the Orthodox Church-and has given birth to many great saints. Saint John was born around 1690, during the reign of Peter the Great. When John was a brave lad he served as a soldier in the war which that daring Tsar was then waging against the Ottoman Empire in the year 1711. In this war, John was taken prisoner by Tartars along with thousands of other Russians. The Tartars sold him to a Muslim cavalry officer who lived in Prokopion in Asia Minor, near Caesarea of Cappadocia, and this Aga carried John to his village. At this time Turkey was filled with a multitude of Muscovite slaves who groaned under the harsh Muslim yoke. Sadly, the majority of these loathsome wretches, to lighten their burden, denied the Faith of Christ and embraced Islam.

John, however, had been nurtured from childhood " in the instruction and admonition of the Lord," and he loved God and the religion of his fathers exceedingly. Indeed, he was one of those young men whom the knowledge of God makes wise.

As the sage Solomon declared, "The just man is wise even in his youth. For honourable age is not that which standeth in length of time, nor that which is measured by number of years. But wisdom is the gray hair unto men, and an unspotted life is old age (Wisdom 4:8,9)." Possessing that knowledge which God imparts to those who love him, blessed John was patient in the ill-treatment of his master and the insults and annoyances of the Muslims who called him Kafir, which means unbeliever. To show their contempt and aversion. Prokopion was the site of an army camp of the Christian-hating Jannisaries, who were sons of Christians taken from their parents while young and raised as fanatical Muslim soldiers. John was a particular object of hatred to the Jannisaries because to his master and to all who urged him to deny his Faith he answered with conviction that he preferred to die rather than fall into such a fearful sin. To the Aga he said, "If you leave me free in my religion, I will be very eager to carry out your commands. But if you try to force me to change my faith, I will first surrender my head. I was born a Christian and a Christian I shall die."

Seeing John's faith and hearing his confession, God at length softened the Turk's hard heart so that at last the Aga relented. From then on John was left in peace without further threats from his Muslim lord who kept him in a stable to care for animals. In one comer of the stable John would lie his tired body down to rest. John thanked God for being deemed worthy to have as a bed a manger like the one in which our Lord Jesus Christ had likewise lain at his birth. Dedicated to his work, John affectionately cared for the animals; and they, perceiving the love that the saint had for them, would look for him expectantly whenever he was absent. When he petted them, they looked at him with love and whinnied with joy as though they were talking with him.

As time passed, the Aga and his wife came to love John and gave him a small room near the hayloft. Even so, John refused this continuing to sleep in his beloved stable to bring his body into subjection by privation and asceticism amid the reek of the animals and the stamping of their feet. At night, however, that stable was filled with the prayers of the saint, and the smell would become an odor of a spiritual fragrance. Blessed John made that stable a hermitage, living there according to the rule of the Fathers, kneeling and praying for hours at times taking a little rest by curling up on the hay with no covering except for an old coat. Often he took only a little bread and water, fasting on most days and quietly chanting psalms in Slavonic. "He that dwelleth in the help of the Most High shall abide in the shelter of the God of heaven. He shall say to the Lord: Thou art my helper and my refuge. He is my God, and I will hope in him. For he shall deliver thee from the snare of the hunters and from every troubling word (Ps. 90:1-3)." "They laid me in the lowest pit, in darkness and in the shadow of death (Ps. 87:6)." "Unto the Lord in mine affliction have I cried, and he heard me (Ps. 119:1)." "The Lord shall keep thy coming in and going out, from henceforth and forevermore (Ps. 120:8)." "Unto thee have I lifted up my eyes, unto thee that dwellest in heaven. Behold, as the eyes of servants look unto the hands of their masters, so our eyes look unto the Lord our God, until he take pity on us (Ps. 122:1,2)."

John would even silently chant psalms while he followed the horse of his master as hostler when the master rode in the country. The blessing that the saint brought to his master's house soon enabled that cavalry officer to grow rich and become powerful in Prokopion. The holy stable boy - besides the prayers and fasting which he carried on day and night, winter and summer, inside that stable while lying upon the dung like another Job - would go at night and keep vigil in the narthex of the Chapel of Saint George, which was built in the hollow of a rock near the house of his master. John would go there secretly at night, and every Saturday he partook of the immaculate Mysteries. Greek Orthodox clergy were living in Prokopion serving the local native Greek population as well as the Russian slaves of the Turks. The Lord, who examines the hearts and the reins, looked upon his faithful slave and caused John's fellow slaves and other believers who had previously done so to cease mocking and insulting him. The Lord continued to bestow riches on John's master, who understood from what source such blessings came and proclaimed this to his fellow citizens.

After the Aga had become wealthy, he determined to go on the annual pilgrimage to Mecca to give thanks to God for his blessings, which he actually received through the intercessions of Saint John and not from any devotion to the Islamic religion, and to offer sacrifice for his sins. The Hadj, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca, is commanded of Muslims to make at least once in their lifetime. After leaving Prokopion, and enduring the hardships suffered in those times by pilgrims, he arrived at the holy city of the Muslims. Meanwhile, some days after his departure, the Aga's wife gave a banquet, at which she invited her husband's relatives and friends to rejoice and to pray that he might return safe from his journey. Blessed John served at table. Pilaf, a dish favored by the Aga, was placed on the table. Then the mistress remembered her hus-band and exclaimed to John, "How much pleasure your master would have if he were here now and could eat this pilaf with us!" John then asked for a plate of the pilaf, saying that he would send it to his master in Mecca. Upon hearing these words, the guests laughed. The mistress told the cook to give John a plate of the food, thinking that he would either eat it himself or carry it to some poor Christian family as was his custom. Taking the dish, the saint went to the stable where he knelt and prayed from the depths of his heart that almighty God would send the food to his master in whatever manner he might choose. In his simplicity the blessed one had faith that the Lord would hearken to his prayer and that the food would arrive in Mecca by supernatural means. He believed "without doubting," according to the word of the Lord that God would perform this miracle. As the great ascetic Saint Isaac the Syrian writes, "These supernatural things will occur for those who are simple in mind and fervent in the hope." Indeed the plate of food vanished from before John's eyes. Then the holy one returned to the dining room and told his mistress that he had sent the pilaf to his master.

"Some time later the Aga returned from Mecca, and to the amazement of his household brought with him the very copper plate that had held the food. Only blessed John was not surprised. The Aga told his household, "On that exact day (that is, on the day of his wife's banquet in Prokopion) as I was returning from the Great Mosque to the house where I stayed, I found this plate filled with pilaf on the table in a room that I had locked. I stood pondering who could have brought it. Above all, I could not understand how the door which I had locked well had been opened. Not knowing how to explain this mystery, I examined the plate of steaming pilaf. I saw with amazement that my name was engraved in the copper just as all such vessels in our house. Despite confusion from that unexplainable circumstance, I sat down and ate the pilaf with great relish. Observe the plate which I have brought back. It is truly ours. For the sake of Allah, I do not understand how it came all the way to Mecca, or who brought it."

When the Aga's household heard this, they marveled. The wife told how John had asked for the plate saying that he would send it to Mecca, and how they had laughed to hear him say that he had sent it. Behold, what he had said was true! This miracle was soon made known to the whole village and surrounding area, and from now on John was considered righteous and beloved of God. No one any longer dared to bother the holy one but rather looked upon him with fear and reverence. His master and his master's wife esteemed him all the more, and entreated him again to leave the stable and occupy a more comfortable dwelling. Even so, John refused to change his residence and continued to live as an ascetic, laboring as before to care for the animals and eagerly obeying the commands of his master. Saint John spent his nights in prayer and psalmody, according to the word of the Lord who says, "Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and unto God the things which are God's."

John approached the end of his life after several years of fasting, prayer, and sleeping on the ground. Falling ill, he lay on the straw in the stable that he had sanctified with his supplications and privations for the love of Christ who became man for us and was crucified for our sake. Foreseeing his end, John called for a priest and asked to partake of the immaculate Mysteries. Because of the fanaticism of the Turks, the priest was afraid to openly bring the Holy Mysteries into the stable. He was made wise with divine enlightenment however, and, taking an apple, he dug the core out, lined the cavity with beeswax, and placed the divine Communion inside. Thus he went to the stable and gave Communion to blessed John. After receiving the immaculate Body and Blood of the Lord, John surrendered his holy soul into the hands of God whom he loved so much. The date of his falling asleep was May 27, 1730. In this manner, then, reposed Saint John the Russian, a new Job who passed his life upon a dung heap, a second Lazarus who endured the mockings of his fellow servants and whose wounds his master's dogs licked.

John was about forty years old at the time of his repose. Because he was beloved by God, the Lord brought John quickly near his throne that he might suffer no more torment in this sinful world, and that he might rejoice in the tents of the righteous where there is neither pain, nor sorrow, nor sighing, but the untroubled sound of those that keep festival and cry unceasingly, "O Lord, glory to thee!" We should recall the Prophet King Solomon's words on the death of a righteous man, "He pleased God, and was beloved of him: so that living among sinners he was translated. Yea, speedily was he taken away, lest that wickedness should alter his understanding, or deceit beguile his soul. For the bewitching of wickedness doth obscure things that are honest; and the wandering of concupiscence doth undermine the simple mind. He, being made perfect in a short time, fulfilled a long time: for his soul pleased the Lord; therefore, hasted he to take him away from among the wicked. This the people saw, and understood not, neither laid they up this in their minds, that his grace and mercy is with his saints, and that he hath respect unto his chosen (Wisdom 4:10-15)."

Yes, the world lives carnally seeking to please only the senses and eating, drinking, revelling, and caring only for "the things of vanity and the much afflicted flesh." The senses, together with tangible things and delights of this world, were fashioned by God so that it is no sin for a man to rejoice in this world. Even so, he should not be consumed wholly by material things, but should take care also for the things of the spirit, keeping in mind that in the temporary body there dwells an immortal soul that, in the Lord's words, is as much more honored and valued than the body as the body is held important than its clothing. If a man truly believes this, he will take care for his salvation and will be blessed in this would with the joy of a pure conscience, and in the next (which is eternal) he will rejoice in the bosom of Abraham. If he rejects God and his Word, he will become wretched and unhappy, even though he acquires many possessions, great worldly glory and honor. According to the words which the all-holy and truthful Lord: For what will it profit a man if he wins the whole world and loses his soul, or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?

Thrice-blessed therefore is the man who has treasured these words in the depths of his heart, hearkening to them until his last breath, conforming to them, and walking always according to them. Blessed and thrice-blessed therefore was the holy John, whose memory we celebrate today with great compunction and spiritual joy. He knew few letters and neither did he know the evils of the world. He lived far from complex systems of humanistic rationalism, remaining simple, poor in spirit, and therefore full of faith. The Holy Spirit dwelled in his heart. Within a disdained and tyrannized body, within a quiet and ragged slave, there burned the mystical spark of faith.

"The people saw, and understood not, neither laid they up this in their minds." For the carnal men around him were inwardly dark like extinguished lanterns, beholding the saint, they understood nothing because they saw only with bodily eyes, not having-wretched as they were-spiritual eyes for seeing the holy mystery of his life. They, with earthly pride, considered him insane for preferring to sleep with animals, for avoiding men, for fasting, for dressing in rags, for silently en-during abuses and insults, and for not lifting his eyes to the face of a woman. Who of the clever of this world would have surmised that this "insane" person, this fool for Christ, was the wisest of the wise because he possessed that foolishness in Christ that makes manifest the revelation of great and terrible mysteries to him who possesses such foolishness and bestows upon him the great hope of immortality?

As we celebrate the feast of the righteous John with psalms and hymns, we are assured that the saint is at this moment among us living and crying out, "Rejoice" in the midst of glory and effulgence. Where are those who saddened and despised our holy John? Where are the mighty of the earth? Where is the Muslim master of this slave who was yet free? Where are the fearsome Jannisaries? Where are the Tartars who bound him and beat him and sold him like an animal? They are dispelled like morning mist and "their bones are scattered in hades," according to David, the Prophet-King. The tombstone of oblivion has covered them.

In Jerusalem on high, the dwelling of the First-born where there are found the blessed souls of the saints who endured privation in this world as to pass through "the narrow and afflicted way that leadeth unto life," there rejoices also the humble John whom we celebrate today, brother to animals, new Job, and second Lazarus.

In the other life, those who grieved the saint and those who indulged their passions are groaning. Behold what the Prophet King Solomon says concerning the righteous man and his persecutors, when they open their eyes after death, then shall the righteous man stand in great boldness before the face of such as have afflicted him, and made no account of his labors. When they see it, they shall be troubled with terrible fear, and shall be amazed at the strangeness of his salvation, so far beyond all that they looked for. And they repenting and groaning for anguish of spirit shall say within themselves, "This was he, who we held sometimes in derision, and a proverb of reproach; we fools accounted his life madness, and his end to be without honour. Now is he numbered among the children of God, and his lot is among the saints! Therefore have we erred from the way of truth, and the light of righteousness hath not shined unto us, and the sun of righteousness rose not upon us. We wearied ourselves in the way of wickedness and destruction: yea, we have gone through deserts, where there lay no way, but as for the way of the Lord, we have not known it. What hath pride profited us, or what good hath riches with our vaunting brought us? All those things are passed away like a shadow, and as a post hasted by, and as a ship that passes over the waves of the water, which when it gone by, the trace thereof cannot be found, neither the pathway of the keel in the waves! Even so we in like manner, as soon as we were born, began to draw to our end, and had our wickedness. For the hope of the ungodly is like dust that is blown away with the wind, like a thin froth that is driven away with the storm, like as the smoke which is dispersed here and there with a tem-pest, and passes away as the remembrance of a guest that tarries but a day (Wisdom 5:1-14)."

These things will the lawless say in the other world where the right-judging Lord shall judge man. They will receive no benefit from their change of heart after death for in hades there is no repentance. Saint John the Russian reposed in the Lord and received the recompense of the labors and toils that he endured for Christ, whom he loved more than all corrupt and fleeting things so that now, wearing a crown in heaven, he rejoices with the choirs of the saints and beholds in glory the Prize-bestower, our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory and dominion and worship unto the ages of ages. Amen.

Faith and Foundations: Orthodoxy, Catholicism, and Protestantism

The following is for those interested in exploring the differences between Orthodoxy, Catholicism, and Protestantism in an honest and non-polemical manner, particularly as it relates to foundations of faith and authority.  I hope you will enjoy and I would be interested in your comments. 

Catholicism- Reason and Revelation (scripture and tradition)

1)      Thomas Aquinas- CONTRA GENTILES, BOOK ONE: GOD

http://www.josephkenny.joyeurs.com/CDtexts/ContraGentiles1.htm#3

2)      Catholic Encyclopedia

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15006b.htm

Protestantism- Sola Scriptura

1)      Epitome of the Formula of Concord

http://bookofconcord.org/fc-ep.php

2)      Westminster Confession

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/creeds3.iv.xvii.ii.html

Orthodoxy- The Ecclesial Event

“But our opinion is in accordance with the Eucharist,

and the Eucharist in turn establishes our opinion.”

IRENÆUS, Against the Heretics: Book IV, Chapter XVIII

Christos Yannaras: Concerning “Source” and “Sources”

Elements of Faith, T&T Clark (Chapter 7)

In radically disputing the objectified “authority” of the papacy, Protestantism proposed the Bible as the exclusive source of Christian truth. The Bible contains the complete truth of the revelation of God in an objective and definitive way. It is a text which makes the word of God directly accessible to us as an objective given without our needing supplements to revelation or intermediaries for faith and the reception of the divine word. The Roman Catholic “counter-Reformation” objected to this absolutization of the authority of the Bible by Protestantism, proposing that there are two sources of Christian truth: the Holy Scripture and the Sacred Tradition. The “college of bishops” expresses and administers the Sacred Tradition, but only by means of its “infallible” head, the Pope of Rome, who is defined as the “visible head of the whole Church” (visibile caput totius Ecclesiae). By his sanction, the ecclesial Tradition acquires genuine authority. All those ways by which the revelation of God is formulated and interpreted constitute this Tradition: Ecumenical Councils, opinions of the Fathers, liturgical practice, creeds, and rules of life.

Whether the Scripture alone or the Scripture together with the Tradition, it is still a matter of the source or the sources by which the individual derives the truth “from the object”; it is a matter, that is, of the need for objective authority, the need of western man to be assured individually that he possesses an indisputable truth— even if this assurance is achieved by his submission to an idolized schematization of the “infallible”, to the authority of supernatural revelation, or to the authority of science, to the divine inspiration of the texts of Scripture or, later, of the texts of Marx or any other ideology, to the “infallibility” of the Vatican or to the “infallibility” of Moscow or any other “see”. The history of western man is a dialectic of submission and rebellion, where rebellion means in each case the choice of a different authority, consequently of a new submission, while the goal remains always the same— individual security, the protection of individual certainty about the truth to be believed.

Aside from the blood which was spilled (by the “holy wars”, the “Holy Inquisition”, the tortures which were established as an “investigative method in the trials of heretics”), enough ink was spilled to defend the authority of the Vatican, the “infallibility” of the Pope. Blatant forgeries of history were enlisted: that Peter was the first Bishop of Rome, that he exercised a primacy of power over the other Apostles and subsequently bestowed this power to his successor Bishops of Rome, that Constantine the Great assigned the government of the western Roman state to the Pope with imperial rights (“pseudo-Donation of Constantine”), that very ancient canons treated the Pope as the supreme head of ecclesiastical— and also of political— power (“pseudo-Isidorean Decretals”), that Cyprian already in the 3rd century preached the papal primacy (“pseudo-Cyprian writings”) and many others. But ample ink has been spent as well by Protestants to defend the inspiration of Scripture, the immediate revelation of God within the biblical text alone. It has been maintained that the writers of the Bible were simply passive instruments without their affecting the writing, even by influencing the style or punctuation of the texts; they merely lent their hand writing mechanically what the Holy Spirit dictated to them. And this because only such a rational inspiration could assure supernaturally and without contradiction the infallible authority of the texts and give to the faithful the certainty that the Bible could possess the truth.

Within such a climate, scientific dispute about the historical credibility of the Scriptures or the supports for the Tradition took away the foundation of “faith”, that is, of submission to authority. Western man had to choose between atheism and the emasculation of his reason, or to accept compromise with a censored version of the gospel narrative, stripped of every “supernatural” element, suitable only for morally uplifting use, or even for political exploitation.

The life and practice of the undivided Church, like its historical extension in the theology and spirituality of the Orthodox Churches, knew neither one nor two sources of infallible authority. This does not mean that it disregarded or underestimated the meaning and the authority of the Holy Scripture and the Sacred Tradition. But it refused to separate truth from the realization and experience of the truth, the realization of life “in truth”. Before any formulation, the truth is an event: the historical realization of the triadic mode of “real life”. It is the body of Christ, the Church. The event of life which is the Church precedes both Scripture and Tradition— as his divine-human hypostasis precedes the teaching of Christ, and without this hypostasis of life the gospel word remains, perhaps, a wonderful teaching, but unable to save the human race from death.

Scripture and Tradition define the truth and revelation of God to people without exhausting them. The words “truth” and “revelation” do not mean for the Church some “supplement” to our knowledge unattainable by our scientific or other reasonable method; they are not some “articles of faith” which we must accept without contradiction because they have been given to us in a “supernatural” way, such that no one would dare to dispute them. For the Church, truth and revelation refer to God who reveals himself to people as “real life”. And life cannot be revealed with concepts “about” life, but only as an existential realization accessible to man. God’s mode of being incarnate in an historical person— in the Person of Christ who realizes life free from death— is the truth and revelation of life. Christ is “the way and the truth and the life” (Jn 14.6) and remains “yesterday and today the same” (Heb 13.8) as the way and mode of existence of his body, the Church. We know, consequently, the truth and revelation not simply by reading the Holy Scripture and the “credal” texts of the Tradition, but we verify these texts with our participation in the Church’s mode of existence, in the way of the triadic prototype of life. We transform our individual approach to the texts into an ecclesial communion of the truth which the texts mark out. Outside of this communion, the ecclesial mode of existence, there exists neither truth nor revelation, but only some religious knowledge better or worse than other analogous knowledge. In order for us to know the word of the Holy Scripture, we must study it incarnate in the ecclesial Body of Christ, in the persons of the saints, of our spiritual fathers who “give us birth” into the life of the ecclesial communion.

The reading of the Holy Scripture in the undivided Church and afterwards in the Orthodox Church constitutes an act of worship: that is, an act of communion of the ecclesial body. We communicate with the word of the Apostles who became 11 witnesses” and “observers” of the “manifestation” of God (they heard and saw and handled his historical revelation), we communicate with them by reading their texts, not as historical information, but accepting their testimony as a confirmation of life and unity of the Eucharistic body. Every Eucharistic gathering is also a revelation in practice of the gospel word; it is the realization of the life of people, living and dead, according to the model of the triadic unity, beyond corruption and death. This is the Gospel, which we celebrate every time in the Eucharist by accepting the reading of the word of the Apostles as confirmation of our direct experience there.

The gospel word of the Apostles is a word and revelation of Christ, not because Christ dictated it to them by some form of mechanical “inspiration”, but because the Apostles wrote down the relationship of life which they realized with Him, the same relationship of life which constitutes the Eucharistic body in unity. They wrote down the word and revelation of this relationship which means as much the events or “signs” which reveal the mode of existence which this union renews as the didactic indication of the limits and presuppositions of God’s union with man.

When the Church in the Eucharist lives the miracle of life freed from every natural necessity, then the miracles of Christ which the gospel narrative recounts are nothing but particular manifestations and details of this miracle itself. If the initial miracle is true— if the created can exist in the mode of the uncreated— then no other miracle is impossible, then “ the limits of nature are conquered”, the limitations and necessities which govern the created are lifted. Then “the blind see again, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, deaf hear, the dead are raised” (Lk 7.22). For the Church, the gospel narratives of the miracles of Christ were never apologetic proofs which coerce reason and demand faith in the divine-humanity of Christ. But they were “signs”, signs which point to that event which the Church experiences every time “in the breaking of the bread”: Life becomes imperishable and the mortal immortal in a manner “most becoming of God”.

The Ascension

Chapel of the Analypsi

6th century Icon of the Ascension

7th century Ascension Icon (Sinai)

Pentzikis: Life as Freedom

In Byzantine art, poetry, painting, and music, life appears stylized. In other words, the human body, clothes and ornaments, furniture, inside and outside spaces, houses and streets, trees and animals, are presented not for the value which they may have in the present but as intermediaries that help us perceive another life. Through the centuries we came to identify the other life with the world of the ideas, which gave way, after the  French Revolution, to various monistic conceptions and has become for us shadowy and ambiguous. . . . But the other life is not a question of ideas; and if Europe has forgotten this in its wasting of the moral resources of faith, we, who during four hundred years of slavery, preserved ourselves only by the conventions of our worship, after the fall of vain ornamentation in Byzantium, are in a position to know it, since we have witnessed the resurgence of our life as freedom, without any ideological rhetoric. By simply persevering, our life was able to refill the framework which we received from our myth.

N.G. Pentzikis

In Church by C.P. Cavafy

(Painting by N.G. Pentzikis)

Στην Eκκλησία

Την εκκλησίαν αγαπώ — τα εξαπτέρυγά της,
τ’ ασήμια των σκευών, τα κηροπήγιά της,
τα φώτα, τες εικόνες της, τον άμβωνά της.

Εκεί σαν μπω, μες σ’ εκκλησία των Γραικών·
με των θυμιαμάτων της τες ευωδίες,
μες τες λειτουργικές φωνές και συμφωνίες,
τες μεγαλοπρεπείς των ιερέων παρουσίες
και κάθε των κινήσεως τον σοβαρό ρυθμό —
λαμπρότατοι μες στων αμφίων τον στολισμό —
ο νους μου πηαίνει σε τιμές μεγάλες της φυλής μας,
στον ένδοξό μας Βυζαντινισμό.

I love the church: its labara,
its silver vessels, its candleholders,
the lights, the ikons, the pulpit.

Whenever I go there, into a church of the Greeks,
with its aroma of incense,
its liturgical chanting and harmony,
the majestic presence of the priests,
dazzling in their ornate vestments,
the solemn rhythm of their gestures—
my thoughts turn to the great glories of our race,
to the splendor of our Byzantine heritage.

Translated by Edmund Keeley/Philip Sherrard

(C.P. Cavafy, Collected Poems. Translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard. Edited by George Savidis. Revised Edition. Princeton University Press, 1992)

The Memoirs of Yannis Makriyannis-Chapter 1

Translated by Rick Μ. Newton: The Charioteer 28/1986
The land of my birth is a village named Avoriti, which is near Lidoriki. The village -five huts- is three hours from Lidoriki. My parents were very poor, and their poverty stemmed from the pillagings by the local Turks and Ali Pasha's Albanians. My parents were poor and had a large family, and when Ι was still in my mother's belly, she went to the forest one day to gather wood. After loading the wood οn her shoulder and setting out laden οn the road in that isolated area, she was overcome by labor pains and gave birth to me. Αll by herself, the poor exhausted woman risked her life, hers and mine. Αll alone, she delivered herself and tidied up, stacked a few pieces of firewood together, put some grass οn top, placed me οn all this, and went back to the village.

Shortly afterwards, three people in our house were murdered, including my father, by Ali Pasha's Turks, who wanted to take us as slaves. One night then our entire family and all the relatives got up and fled and headed for Livadia, with the hope of settling there. They had to cross a bridge in Lidoriki known as "The Narrow One," since there was nο other way to cross the river. The Turks kept guard there and captured anyone who tried to cross. For eighteen days all my people roamed about in the forest, eating wild acorns. My mother ate them too, and so did Ι -through her milk.

Unable to endure the hunger any longer, they decided to cross the bridge. Since Ι was a tiny infant who might cry and endanger everyone's lives, they decided to leave me behind: they abandoned me in the forest known as "The Red Woods" and set out for the bridge. Then my mother repented the decision and told them, "Our sin against the baby will be our ruin! You go ahead to that spot over there and wait […] I will take the baby. Ιf Ι am lucky and it doesn't cry, we'll come over" […] my mother and God saved us. My mother and other relatives told me all this. The notables supported us until we could get οn our feet, build houses and start farms.

When Ι turned seven, they put me to work for someone for 100 paras a year. The next year Ι was paid five grosia. After I did many jobs, they wanted me to do some humiliating household chores and take care of the children. That was the end of me! Ι refused to do that kind of work, and both my masters and my relatives beat me. Ι sneaked away and got some other boys together and went to Thebes. But as my bad luck would have it, my relatives came after us there too and brought me back to Livadia and to the same master. Ι spent a considerable time working at that same job. But day and night my self-respect never left me in peace. And so, in order to get out of that work, Ι started beating the children and knocking their heads, hitting even my οwn mother, and then Ι'd head for the hills. They finally got tired of this and let me go, since that job had nearly done me in.

When Ι turned fourteen, Ι went to Desphina to stay with a fellow-countryman there. His brother was with Ali Pasha, serving as an officer in Desphina. Ι spent one day with him. It was the feast of St. John, and we had gone to the celebration. He gave me his rifle and asked me to hold it for him. Ι wanted to fire it, and it burst. Right then and there, in front of all those people, he grabbed me and beat the life out of me. It wasn't the beating that hurt so much as the shame Ι felt before the crowd. Then everyone started eating and drinking, but Ι was crying. Not finding any judge to hear my grievance and vindicate me, Ι thought it appropriate to resort to St. John, since it was in his house that Ι had suffered such harm and disgrace. That night Ι went into his church, shut the door, prostrated myself, and started crying in loud sobs, "What's this that's happened to me? Am Ι a donkey that they can beat me so?" Ι begged him to give me some fine silver weapons and fifteen poungia** in cash; if he did, I would have a big silver votive-lamp made for him. After much shouting, Ι reached an agreement with the saint. Shortly after that, my master's brother wrote from Yannina that he needed a boy in his service. Ι was the one they sent there: it was 1811. Ali Pasha had married him to a woman in Arta. He stayed a while in Arta. Ali Pasha sent for him, since he loved him and kept him as a private secretary. He was an honest man named Thanasis Lidorikis. He wanted to leave me behind in his house, but I refused to stay. He said to me, "Υou will stay, even if Ι have to force you to!" Ι couldn't do anything about it, since he had the power. Ι agreed to stay οn only with the understanding that I would not be a servant. "Ι will work for your house, but Ι will also get to knοw the residents so that Ι can borrow money from them and start a trade: for Ι don't have a shirt οn my back and I must buy some clothes." (He was a miser and was giving me nothing) . "That's the first agreement," Ι told him. "Second, about the shopping for the household: let your wife manage the money and accounts -she can read and write. She will give me cash to do the shopping. When Ι bring the purchases in, she can weigh them and pay whatever they cost. The same goes for anything else Ι buy for you. Ι don't want you to say that Ι cheated you, since now you see me without a shirt οn my back, but tomorrow you will find me with clothes οn, and you will think Ι am a thief." Only under these terms that Ι had dictated did I stay with him, and Ι worked for him for ten years. He also paid me a wage of 400 grosia in all. Ι asked him for a lοan, and he lent me the money at 20% per year. Ι made out a promissory note, which Ι have to this day. That much of a favor he had done for me.

Ιn front of his house was a piazza where the town's notables and merchants would gather οn summer evenings and sit until midnight. Ι'd have the area cleaned and Ι got οn their good side by giving them anything they needed. Ι got to know them all, including the leaders of the villages. Ι asked all these merchants and leaders for a loan, and they lent me five or six thousand grosia. By that time Ι had a capital of 24 grosia. Ι made an agreement with the people in the villages to prepay them for their oats in the winter and take delivery in the summer at the threshing floors. Ι bought oats at four grosia per sack, took delivery at the threshing floors and sold them at sixteen per sack: there had been a shortage that year. Ι made all that money. Ιn the winter of the following year Ι bought maize for eleven grosia per sack: Ι took delivery at the threshing floors and sold it in Arta for 33. For there had been a plague in Arta and a shortage of bread. Then Ι made a silver rifle, pistols, and other arms, plus a fine votive-lamp. Decked out in all this finery, Ι took the lamp to my patron, benefactor, and true friend, St. John. The lamp still survives, and my name is engraved οn it. Ι knelt before him and cried from the depths of my soul, since Ι remembered all the sufferings Ι had endured […].

Later, Ι started a business, and the Greeks and Turks in the area considered me their treasurer. Ι soon had the affluence of God: Ι bought a house and some property, Ι had cash in the hand and a stack of promissory notes from others totalling around 40,000 grosia: Ι still have them to this day. And my money-bag was full. Ι got all Ι wanted and was dependent οn nο one. Ι spent ten years in Arta and made many friends, among whom was a clergyman who later became a chief priest. He was a close friend of mine, since Ι kept company only with my superiors. This priest loved me more than he loved his οwn children. Ι spent day and night at his house, for there was a single wall between his house and mine, which Ι had bought from a notable who had fallen οn hard times. My friend was a very diligent priest: there was nο one like him in Arta, and he had four sons. One of them was studying in Europe, a dear friend of Capodistrias. The boy had saved his money and asked Capodistrias if he should go away to study medicine. "We are busy trying to liberate Greece, Capodistrias told him. "When that's done, you will have nο need of studying medicine. But if this doesn't happen, Ι will send you the means from Russia so that you can go away to study. Ιn that case Ι will write you and we will meet." The boy came to Arta, informed his father of this, and went back to Corfu. Some time passed, Capodistrias wrote to him, and they met. Capodistrias initiated him into the Secret Society for our country's liberation.

Since Ali Pasha was very powerful and had bought Parga and committed other improprieties, they charged him with a heap of crimes to make him guarrel with the Sultan. They acted οn many of these charges and thereby the discord between him and the Sultan grew worse. After his initiation, the boy came to Arta, administered the oath to his father, and went back. His father wanted to induct me into the Secret Society as well. Each time he tried to administer the oath, he would change his mind: he did this several times. Then Ι grew stubborn toward him and said, "Has the notion come into your head that Ι am unworthy of your house, and you are ashamed to tell me? Well, Ι' ll be unworthy indeed if Ι ever set foot in your door again!" Ι got up and left. The priest called me back, but Ι did not return. Α couple of days passed, he came to see me, and then he came again; but Ι did not go near him.

After he had come several times, Ι told him with tears in my eyes, "Ηοw can you think so lowly of me, who am a son to you?" He too cried and begged me to go back with him and give him a chance to explain and then not to go again if Ι still felt that way. Ι went. He set out the icons, administered the oath, and began initiating me into the Secret Society. Since he was well into the ceremony, Ι took the oath that Ι would not reveal the secret to anyone. But Ι asked him to give me some time -eight days- to consider whether Ι was worthy of this mystery: if Ι could help the cause, Ι would take the oath; if not, Ι would stay as Ι was. So far, it was as if Ι knew nothing at all about it. Ι went and thought and laid it all before me -the killing, the dangers, the struggles- Ι ωίll endure them all for the liberation of my country and my faith. Ι went and told him, "I am worthy!" Ι kissed his hand and took the oath. Ι asked him not to reveal to me the signs of the initiation: for Ι was young and might lack the stamina, take pity οn my οwn life, betray the mystery, and endanger my country. We agreed οn this too, and he told me that in my work Ι could not make any money […] and Ι should not abuse my trust; Ι should only get some recognition for my acts and consider this to be my riches. Following the wishes of the blessed priest, my country, and my faith, to this day God has not allowed me to bring shame οn myself. Ι have suffered terrible things, wounds, and life-threatening risks, but Ι am fine: God wills it so. Ι told my friend, "Everything will turn out fine, but Ali Pasha is very powerful: he will be our danger, since the captains are in his forces." He explained the situation to me and soon, in 1820, God willed it and they besieged Ali Pasha οn all sides.

Initiated into the mystery, Ι departed from my fellow-country- man and went home to begin working for my country and my faith. Ι wanted to put forth my best effort for my country, as I have always done, so that she might call me not "thief" or "robber" but, rather, her "child" and Ι her "my mother." The Sultan had appointed Hoursit Pasha commander-in-chief and sent him with a lot of other pashas to lay siege to Ali Pasha. Yannina and Arta were full of Turks, Albanians, robbers, and thugs. They had taken several Greek women by force, including a servant of my fellow-countryman. They also wanted to take his wife from him: she was beautiful, and a pasha in Arta named Hasan Pasha was going to get her. He was an evil man who, along with a certain Baba Pasha, robbed the people of their wealth and honor.

This Baba Pasha captured me and my fellow-countryman and put us in jail. He intended to kill us but, thanks to the huge bribes my fellow-countryman offered him, we survived. After we had escaped, Ι told him we should go back to our hometown, Lidoriki: we would be safe there. He would not listen to me. He listened only to the women, and he suffered a great deal for it. That was why Ι left him. Later, when he was facing death at the hands of Hasan Pasha, he fled in secret, leaving his family behind in Arta. Hasan Pasha had designs οn his wife: she was pregnant, about to give birth, and he waited until she delivered the baby before taking her.

There were a lot of Turks in Arta, Preveza, Souli, and the other parts of Epirus under Ali Pasha's control, including Υannina. The Sultan's large forces were everywhere, keeping a tight rein οn the Greeks and confiscating their weapons. They also intended to lock up the magazine in Arta which contained the gunpowder, lead, and flints. This magazine belonged to a good man, a close friend of mine with whom Ι had done some business. His name was Georgakis Korakis, a relative of the brave and patriotic clan of the Zosimades. Since Ι knew he was an honest man, Ι asked the priest, the late Gogos Bakolas, and Skarmitzos (brave men and fine patriots who had joined the Secret Society) if we could initiate Korakis. But when Ι asked them, they refused to do it out of fear he might betray the mystery. We had absolutely no munitions whatsoever in those parts, and the entire region was under occupation: and we were going to stage a revolution without munitions! Even most of our rifles were held together by ropes. Then without asking the others, Ι took it upon myself and swore in the magazine-keeper, a fine patriot. We emptied the entire magazine and took the gunpowder, lead, and flints. We each had a couple of hiding places in our houses where we could conceal them. Leaving just a little bit behind in the magazine, we carried the ammunition home. And, glory be to God, His divine grace blinded the Turks and kept them from catching sight of us as we carried it all off. Then the unforgettable Korakis (for he was later killed) put up some money along with me, and we secretly managed to purchase some weapons, which we hid along with the gunpowder and in the rafters of our houses. And we supplied arms to those in the Ionian islands and elsewhere, giving the men supplies and sending them […] off to the Captains who needed them. We also gave munitions to the Captains themselves.

After Hoursit Pasha was ordered to leave the Peloponnese, where he was stationed, to fight Ali Pasha, he took all his troops with him, leaving very few behind in the Peloponnese. The remaining Turks began suspecting that the Peloponnesian Greeks had started organizing a revolution. The same suspicion cropped up in Roumeli. We kept lulling the Turks to sleep by saying that nothing was going οn, but that the Greek subjects in Roumeli had grown wildly angry over the great number of Turks who, because of Ali Pasha, had overrun the entire region: the plundering and slave labor forced upon the people had devastated the area. Αll of Roumeli had, in fact, been laid waste, especially Yannina and Arta, and all the places there had been completely destroyed. The local Turks in the Peloponnese had written to Hoursit Pasha of their suspicion of the Greeks and asked him to take action οn it. At the time we were closed in οn all sides by the Turks and had nο way of learning what was going οn. Then the chief priest of Arta, Gogos, and Skarmitzos thought it best to send me to Patras ostensibly as a merchant. From there Ι was to cross over to eastern Greece and meet first with Diakos, ask him what was happening, and tell him to attack in all those parts. Then Ι was to go speak to Panourgias and the other captains and urge them to attack too. Ι was to do the same with the Peloponnesians. That way, some of the Turks besieging us might withdraw and thereby enable us to launch an attack from our position.

Ιn the month of March in 1821 Ι took some money and crossed over to Patras. The sight of someone from Roumeli made the Turks suspicious: it was dangerous for me. Ιn the Russian consulate there, where Vlassopoulos was consul, the Greeks began asking me some ridiculous questions. Ι was staying at a place called "Tatarakis' Ιnn." People from Yannina and Arta were also staying there. Ι went to the consulate and told them of the events in Roumeli. Ι also told them of Ali Pasha's run of bad luck: in the city of Yannina a large number of his troops had rushed out of the fortress to fight the royalist forces and had been killed. The flower of his troops were mowed down. The people in Patras would not believe a word Ι said, since they wanted Ali Pasha to win and come liberate them: that tyrant would bring victory to Greece and freedom to our country! And if he had won, he wouldn't have left a single one of us alive! After Ι had told them all this and they refused to believe me, I left to go to a big merchant's shop to buy some merchandise: Ι wanted to remove any suspicion until Ι could ask questions and learn what was happening there. When Ι went inside his store, the merchant told me, "Buy whatever you want and pay whatever your soul bids you." After Ι bought what Ι needed, he took me to his house to eat dinner and spend the night. When we got there, he asked me questions. He began making the secret signs of the Society. Then Ι made him swear his confidence to me and told him that Ι had not been taught the signs by the clergyman who initiated me. Then Ι told him all Ι knew from Roumeli, and he told me all he knew from the Peloponnese. Ι asked him if there would be any more delays and if they had made their preparations.

"The Turks have begun growing suspicious," he told me. "Not even ten days ago they asked me for a lοan, and so, in order to 1ull them to sleep, Ι lent them 150,000 grosia. But we must not delay in this matter."

"If that's the case," Ι answered, "what preparations have you made ?"

"We sent some money to Kolokotronis in Zakynthos," he said. "He came along with some thirty or so men and now they are in Mani. That's the only preparation we've made."

"But all this money," Ι said to him, "these piles of cash I see here!" (There were five or six clerks writing in their ledgers). "Why don't you send it where it could be of use not just to yourself but to your country as well ?"

"'What do you think?" he said to me. "Do you believe that the Greek cause will be delayed? We'll go to bed in Turkey tonight and wake υρ in the morning in Greece!"

"Υοu are big, important people who know a lot," Ι replied. "Me, Ι'm small and don't know that much. Do whatever your conscience-and God's light-bids you."

Ι went to bed. At dawn Ι went to buy whatever else Ι needed. The Turkish constable had heard Ι was there, and he was searching everywhere for me. They arrested one of Varnakiotis' men, mistaking him for me, and they took him in. After examining him, the officer saw that this was not the man. "He's not the one", he said. "It's another fellow. The one we want has been brought here as a spy. Catch him and bring him to me so that Ι can hang him: Ι'll give him exactly what he's come looking for!" Varnakiotis' man mentioned all this in the inn, and the men from Arta came and told me. Ι went to the Russian consulate, explained my situation, and asked if Ι could stay there under their protection. The consul refused to keep me there. At times like these, he said, he too was in danger. Ι forced them to keep me there until evening: at dusk Ι would leave. They locked me inside a room, and nο one would come near. Ι had to piss: there was a hole in the floor and Ι pissed through it. Then a servant came and railed at me.

"Ι'm only human," Ι told him, "and Ι couldn't stand it any longer!" The servant asked me where Ι was from. When Ι told him Ι was from Roumeli, he told me he was from Vrachori (Agrinion) . Ι asked him if he knew Constantine Yerakaris (who had been present at the consulate when the consul interrogated me) and asked if he would tell him to come see me.

"Yesterday," said the servant, "Odysseas was here too. He left."

"Go οn and tell Yerakaris," Ι said. He went and told him, and Yerakaris came to me.

"Tonight," Ι told him "take me where Odysseas is: you will hear a lot of news that Ι came here to tell him." He asked me to tell him first. "Ι am sworn to confidence," Ι said. "Ι cannot tell anyone else."

Yerakaris left. It started getting dark. They were pressuring me to leave the consulate at once. Ι arranged my pistols and sword οn my belt, said a prayer, and told the boy to bring me some raki, which Ι downed to bolster my courage to go out with my sword οn -coward though Ι was. Stationed outside the door were the guards, the Turks working for the consul, and other Turks: they had learned Ι was in there and they wanted me to come out so they could arrest me. Ι was determined not to be taken alive: they would torture me, my will might weaken, and Ι might betray some secret -Ι'd rather face immediate death.

While Ι was getting ready to leave, a Cephalonian came and said, "Are you the one who was inside here ?"

"There are a lot of people in here," Ι replied. "Who are you looking for? Who sent you?" "Yerakaris," he answered. "Yes, Ι'm the one," Ι told him.

"Let's go and get to work," he said. "The Turks are guarding the door," Ι said. "Take a look at the garden wall there: Ι'm going to jump off it. Υοu, go around and guard the spot where Ι will land. We'll run away together, since Ι don't know the backroads."

He went outside. Ι threw myself from the wall -it was a high one- and nearly killed myself οn my weapons. The fear made me run faster than Ι would if Ι had not been hurt. We headed toward the sea. Ι told him we should take the route that goes along the vineyards, and he agreed: for there were Turks in the customs house who might capture us. Ι told him Ι would hide in a ditch while he called for a boat, since Odysseas was in a cutter. When Ι told him Ι would hide, he said to me, "What a bunch of chicken-shit cowards you guys […] are! Υοu're afraid of your οwn shadow!" Ι felt ashamed and went with him. When he called for the boat, the Turks caught sight of us and started after us. By God's grace, a small boat pulled up. Ι spoke to them, they let us jump in, and they took us to their schooner. Then the Turks all rushed up. But the men in the boat picked up their guns and fired back.

Later, they took me to meet Odysseas, and Ι told him everything that was going οn. Ι also told him Ι was going to see Diakos and others. He said that he had already talked to them himself and that they were going to strike. He got weapons and ammunition to take to Xeromeron in Zavitsa. He said that we should go there together. "Ι'll see things through to the end here," Ι told him. "Then Ι will get my rifle, which is at the inn. Ι will bring word of anything Ι fιnd out, as well as what you told me." That night he left.

Shooting broke out two days later in Patras. The Turks had seized the fortress, and the Greeks had taken the seashore. Then Ι took a dozen or so young fellows from the boat and went ashore with our weapons. Crowds of people were jamming the customs house area, and the sea was full of women and children standing neck-deep in the water. Then Ι saw my friend the merchant. With his one hand he was leading his wife; with his other, his children -he had nothing else out of all his great wealth. And this was the man who was counting οn waking up in Greece! The bigger people are, the bigger their mistakes. The little guy makes smaller errors. Ι went up to them, took them οn board the boat, and offered them consolation. After staying there for one more day, Ι crossed over to Missolonghi. A ship had docked there from Trieste, and Ι bought some white candles, rum, oil, and tobacco: Ι was going to take them to Arta and sell them, so that the Turks who saw me would not be suspicious. Ι loaded the caique and put up outside Vasiladi at a nearby harbor called Voukentro. At daybreak οn Palm Sunday, when it was still dark (since the weather was severe), we saw many fires burning in Patras οn the other side. We could also hear the cannons and rifle shots. At noon Vlassopoulos arrived in the harbor along with more caiques loaded with families. When Ι asked them, they told me that Isouf Pasha had invaded Patras, destroyed the city, and wiped out the inhabitants.

Ι left there οn Good Friday. Ι went to Preveza and sold my candles, rum, and tobacco at a high price. Οn the night of Holy Saturday, as Easter Sunday was dawning, Ι went to Arta, met with our people, and told them what was going οn. They brought the leading men of Patras along and were taking them to Hoursit Pasha. Then they arrested me too as a rebel against the Sultan, since Ι had been in the Moreas, and took me to the fortress in Arta. They put shackles οn my feet and subjected me to other tortures to make me betray the secret. They tortured me for 75 days.

They took 26 of us for hanging, and Ι was the only one God saved. The others were from Vonitsa and other places, and they were all hanged in the market place. Since they wanted to interrogate me further and force me to reveal where Ι kept my money, they took me from the execution site back to the pasha, who asked me where Ι and my fellow countryman kept our money. They took me back to the prison, planning to kill me later, and threw me into a dungeon. There were 180 men inside. There were loaves of rotten bread in the place, and the prisoners relieved themselves οn them, since there was nο room to do it anywhere else. Αll that filth and odor made a horrible stench: there can be nο fouler smell οn earth. We would stick our noses through the keyhole to get air. And they kept beating me and subjecting me to countless tortures; they almost killed me. The beatings made my body swell up and turn yellow with pus. Ι was at death's door. Ι promised a healthy sum of money to an Albanian to let me out to see a doctor, get some medicine, and bring him the money. He had a Turk escort me to my house. Οn our way there, Ι was walking doubled-over, limping and moaning a great deal. The Turk, who was as dumb as an οx, must have thought Ι was giving up the ghost -he had nο idea how deeply rooted my soul was in my body. Ι went into the house and lay down as if it were my death bed. The doctor came in. Ι was trying to figure out a way to give the Τurk the slip. Ι took out the money, pulled the Turk aside, and said, "Take it! (as if it were a secret). The Albanian told me that you should give it to him, so that nο one else would be in οn this. "Ι gave about a hundred grosia to him as well. He took it, and Ι told him, "Take it (secretly) to the prison and come back; by that time the doctor will have my medicine ready: we'll go back there together, since Ι wοn't go out by myself. Ι'm afraid of the Turks in the area." He took the money and, as he was walking out the door, Ι got myself ready. Ι slipped out and went to the residence of one of Ali Pasha's cousins: his name was Smail Bey of Konitsa, God rest his soul. He took great pity οn me the moment he saw me. Ι told him what Ι had suffered and asked him if he would protect me and not give me up.

"Ι'll have a shoot-out with the Koniarian Turks if necessary," he said, "but Ι will not give you up." Right away, he gave me weapons, took me with his troop, and together we went to Komboti. The Turkish camp was there, a three hour journey from Arta.

After we had spent a few days there, the poor man fell gravely ill. Since he had been my benefactor, Ι nursed him better than I would have nursed by οwn father. If Ι had wanted, Ι could have escaped from there: my οwn people were fifteen minutes away. But Ι was determined not to prove unfaithful to my benefactor and leave him in sickness. Ιll as he was, he got οn his feet, and Ι went back with him to Arta, where Ι would work for him until he got his strength back and also Ι would try to rescue the wife of my other benefactor, my fellow-countryman whose bread I had eaten for so many years; the Turks were planning to seize his wife and make a Turk out of her. It was for the sake of these two benefactors of mine that Ι returned to face the dangers in Arta. One day, after we had arrived in Arta, the pashas and all the Albanian commanders came to the bey's residence to see him. Ι told the bey about my countryman's wife, whom Hasan Pasha was going to seize. He spoke to the pashas and the others, including the high-ranking Albanians:

"Pashas and beys, we will be destroyed! Destroyed, Ι tell you," the bey said, "since this war is not with the Muscovite nor with the Englishman nor with the Frenchman. It's the Greek infidel that we have wronged: we have violated his wealth and his honor. He is glowering at us with dark eyes and has risen up in arms. And the Sultan, the stupid beast, doesn't know what's happening: everyone around him is deceiving him. And this will be the beginning of the downfall of our kingdom. We've been paying a fortune to find a traitor. But there's nο way any of them will betray their secret whereby we can find out if the Greeks are fighting οn their οwn or with the support of the great Powers. That's why we've been paying out money, impaling captives, killing prisoners -and we have not been able to learn the truth."

After telling them all this, the bey then said that the Sultan was sending the most wicked among the pashas who had plundered the land and stolen all the women. "They will go back to their οwn homes, but we will be left here. "Then he went οn to tell them about my countryman's wife and how the pasha wanted to take her. Then they all agreed with one voice to take her from the place she was being held. They took her to the English consulate and left her under their protection.

After Ι had rescued the wife of my other benefactor, the poor bey was overcome by a high fever one day, and Ι went for the doctor. The Turks were οn the lookout for me, since Ι had escaped from their prison and the pasha had learned that Ι was the one behind the rescue of the woman. They were looking out to capture me and hang me. After Ι set out for the doctor, the Turks attacked me. But Ι was a fast runner and escaped. They hunted me down as far as the bey's house, where our οwn men appeared at the door: we started fighting and I was saved.

After the bey recovered, Ι asked for his blessing and told him, "Ι'm leaving." He wouldn't let me. "If Ι had wanted to" Ι told him, "Ι could have run away even back at Komboti. But Ι didn't, for the sake of my honor." When he saw that Ι was not going to stay, he gave me his blessing and told me to tell the captains out at Petas and elsewhere that they should treat the people justly and fairly in order to succeed. For the Turks had committed such injustices that they would be ruined.

"Let them observe justice," he said, "so that this affair may come to an end and we Turks too may find some peace. For by now our kingdom is doomed in the eyes of God, since we have strayed from His justice."

Ι kissed his hand as Ι left. He gave me some money, and I told him, "My dear bey, Ι do not want your money: you have many expenses in maintaining your own people. "He gave me weapons and ordered me to conduct myself properly and to go with Gogos, who was an honest and upstanding man and a friend of his. He bid me to tell the captains not to enter Arta, since there were too many Turks there and they might get killed; but they should close the Turks in and they would leave οn their οwn, since they had no provisions. Ι also asked him to take care of my countryman's wife and, in early August 1821, Ι departed.

Serbian chant - Богородицe Дево

Christos Yannaras on Yannis Makriyannis

General Makiyannis's reputation now overshadows that of his contemporaries. Well known as a War of Independence fighter, he had shown legendary courage against Ibrahim in the Peloponnese and Kutahi on the Athenian Acropolis. He also led the uprising of September 3, 1843, which forced Otto to grant Greece a constitution.

Makriyannis's fame would have rested there if his Memoirs had not come to light fifty years after his death. Without any formal education, he learned to read and write only in later life. He kept a journal recording events he had lived through from the Revolution until 1851, hiding the manuscript in his garden.

In 1907 John Vlachoyannis transcribed and published this manuscript, but the Memoirs attracted only limited attention amongst a narrow circle of intellectuals, chiefly historians. It was only in 1943 that the poet George Seferis aroused more general interest in Makriyannis, through a lecture he gave in Alexandria and Cairo asserting to general astonishment that "Makriyannis is the most important prose writer of modern Greek literature, not the greatest only because we have Papadiamantis." His vigorous reading of extracts supported his analysis.

The Memoirs then went through several editions and were widely read and discussed. An illiterate fighter's popular sensibility elucidated history like a revelation.

As a witness to factional in-fighting, his work became popular with the left, sustaining their interpretation of the War of Independence as a class struggle between peasant soldiers and landowner (or Phanariote) politicians.

Makriyannis's vigorous language has appealed to Marxists, who have dominated the interpretation of his Memoirs. But there is popular piety and genuine faith on every page, unselfishness and a refusal to compromise. In his views on society and the individual he was always faithful to traditional Orthodox practice.

In 1983 a second spiritual testimony of Makriyannis was published. This was his Notebook, recording his personal spiritual experiences and prayers, interspersed with daily events.

This second manuscript could be described as an Orthodox saint's autobiography or Synaxari. The revolutionary fighter, tough garrison commander, opponent of politicians and Ottoman despotism, and famous general who was condemned to death and had spent years in jail, had led a discreet life of asceticism, prayer and charismatic tears, his experience of the vision of God recalling the greatest hesychasts of the neptic tradition. His unselfconsciousness is evident:

I said on Holy Thursday and Good Friday I would on these two days do 3300 prostrations day and night ... I have no other way of thanking God but by my sinful prayer, 1300 prostrations morning and evening and 100 with the prayer-rope, and whatever I can manage before I go to work and when I come home to give thanks, sinner that I am.

Zisimos Lorentzatos says that The Notebook

is permeated by the three characteristics we find in all his writings: sudden light, tears, and the impossibility of describing the indescribable ... Apart from the tears of compunction - which Patriarch Kallistos Xanthopoulos calls a sign of the spirit's participation in noetic prayer and a desire, in the humility of poverty, for ceaselessly flowing tears (On Prayer 31) - and the acknowledged impossibility of setting down what he attempts to describe - "and I cannot represent how the light troubled me and the terror and the tears of my eyes" (258); "how can I, my dear readers, describe this beauty and great light?" (251) - there are indications which enable us, I believe, to be almost certain (naturally, as far as possible) that Makriyannis in the last years of his life not only followed the difficult path of noetic prayer, the "pray without ceasing" - "Today, Friday, I struggled for many hours with sinful tears; on the other days I spend four hours, morning and evening, in prayer, when I go out of the house, and when I return, and when I am about to eat" (252) - but was also granted, it seems, the union which is "the summit of desire" where the eternal light, "if it gazes at itself, it sees light, or if it gazes at that which gives the vision, it sees light there too; and such is the union, where all things are one, so that the one who sees cannot distinguish either the means or the goal or the essence, but only that it is light and that he sees light which resembles nothing created."

Makriyannis's theology in his Memoirs or more especially in The Notebook did not interest progressive Greek intellectuals. When John Vlachoyannis showed the recently discovered manuscript to George Theotokas in 1941, he responded: "This is the work of a madman." And Linos Polites in his preface to The Notebook says: "The religious mania of the aged Makriyannis is offensive to us today." Most reactions were in the same vein. Even psychiatrists were sought to support the view that head wounds that Makriyannis had suffered had brought about a form of paranoia.

Makriyannis's marginalized witness brings hope that the Church's Gospel and its universal Greek embodiment survive and function invisibly like the buried "mustard seed." As Makriyannis said: "It is our fate as Greeks always to be few. From beginning to end, from antiquity to this day, all the beasts fight to devour us but they cannot. They consume us but the leaven remains."

(From Orthodoxy and the West)

Yannaras: Christianity & Culture

Lecture of Christos Yannaras, introduced by Bishop Maxim

(Introduction begins at 2:00 and the lecture begins at 8:00)

http://westsrbdio.org/podcastgen1.2/?p=episode&name=2010-09-22_podcast_september_21_2010.mp3