www.byzcath.org Forums News & Events Church News Greek Bishop Brands Turks "Barbarians"

'Referring to the Turks, he said barbarians could not come into what he called the family of Christians.'

Does the Archbishop REALLY consider the EU a family of Christians? What nonsense is this? Any look at some of the profoundly un-Christian actions of members of the EU makes this view farcical.

This 'family of Christians' will happily destroy Mt Athos - the spiritual treasure of the Orthodox world, but they are of course not Barbarians: they are 'family'.

Also, we only have to look at the recent persecution of Athonites and the systematic 'removal' of Slavic Orthodox monuments in Greek Macedonia to see how Barabarians behave!!!

People in glass houses... (?)

Spasi Khristos -
Mark, monk and sinner.

Fr. Gregory was right, that we must judge by actions, not just words.

And as we see, the Archbishop acted, moderating and clarifying his remarks.

May God bless him with many years of good health.

In Christ,
Andrew

Dearest brother Andrew, this is sound and true.

But I fail to see how the 'enlightened' EU, is - in a spiiritual sense - any less barbarian than the Turks.

The stones in glass houses comment is referring to the EU, not His Beatitude.

Spasi Khristos -
Mark, monk and sinner.

Dear Father Mark,

Bless!

Since you reside in Europe, will you please fill us in on your thoughts about the EU. I already know how much the Greeks in your school have religiously and spiritually disappointed you.

The only thing I know is that Europeans have sadly let go of their Christian patrimony on a very large scale. (Not that Americans are all that much better, but at the very least, in nationwide polls the vast majority still believe in God and pray to Him)

Your Sister in Christ,
Alice

Dearest sister in Christ, Alice - the All-Merciful Lord bless you.

My major fears about the EU are those regarding the restriction of personal freedom and the creation of a super-state dictating what is 'best' for its citizens.

What of the rights of those who disagree with EU policy?

What of the rights of Athonite's and their sovereignty?

How long will it be before religious signs and symbols cannot be displayed publicly, because the European Union seeks to prevent offence to members of different creeds?

How long will it be before the EU flexes its muscles regarding abortion law, in the name of women's rights?

We need only look to the Vatican's labelling of the EU charter on human rites as an un-godly and un-Christian document regarding homosexual unions and allowing homosexual couples to adopt children, for spiritual clarification.

How about this -

"Under dateline of April 24, 2002, the BBC's online news site reports that the EU could ban the Old Testament on grounds of racism and criminalize it under the EU's anti-racism laws, according to a British law expert." (America's Voices"

www.americasvoices.org/avarc2002/archives2002/SeeseD/SeeseD_042602.htm [americasvoices.org] )

In this vast super-organism, the individual becomes less and less significant. Stereotypes develop and those falling outside these stereotypes can ultimately fall foul of the super-state.

This leads us to a dangerous concept of normality. It takes little imagination to relate this to the Soviet experiment and is, I believe part of the unfolding of the last times. I don't want to fall into gloomy Old Believer apocalypticism, but the the subtelty of the super-sate and its powers are the ideal apparatus for the rule of evil in the world. This is not to say that the aims and objectives of eurocrats are malign, but they can become, in frightening reality, pawns in the conflict between Christ and the 'world'.

Spasi Khristos -
Mark, monk and sinner.

Dear Father Mark, +EVLOGITE! Thank you for sharing your knowledge of the situation in Europe with us here. We have the same fears about the EU and about life HERE in America too. The times are often depressing, but then right in the midst of all of this, we find great sanctity and holiness in humble 'little folk' and we are again inspired and motivated to continue our own struggle toward 'home' (Paradise)!

In Him Who calls us,
+Father Archimandrite Gregory, who asks for your holy prayers!

Dear Father Mark,

Thank you for what you have shared with us. All of this sounds VERY frightening, especially since all of Europe was Western Christendom for such a long time. One wonders, has the suffering of so many during WWI and WWII in Europe been forgotten? Has the earnest beseeching of God to deliver them from that suffering, been forgotten by the next generations? Has economic security and prosperity become the new god that replaces our true God?

Kyrie Eleison!

In Christ our Lord and Saviour,
Alice

Dear Fr. Mark,

I so wholeheartedly agree with your summary of the situation in Europe. I myself lived there from 1988-1990 and have visited more than a dozen times since then for extended stays due to work, study, vacation, missions, etc.

I have no doubt that the Archbishop sees European and Greek religious and cultural values as superior to those of the Turks. I would agree with him.

But even if he saw both Europeans and Turks as equally depraved, it doesn't mean that he needs to advocate it as wise or good for them to "live together."

It is bad enough to have one sick person in the home. Bringing in another does not help the first's chances of recovery.

Along these lines many of us think.

I can relay something that I remember quite distictly (even more than the plethora of testimony from my family's still-living members who actually endured and suffered under the Turks in the early part of the 20th century) that never causes me to cringe when I hear someone call the Turks (generalizing, of course) "barbarians."

As a Naval Officer we had two notable cases where a randy young seaman was pursuing a local girl and ran afoul of her family:

In Puglia, Southern Italy, after refusing to give up the chase and after numerous warnings, the girl's brothers shot him dead.

In Sinop, Turkey after bothering a girl persistently on just one bus ride, some men followed the seaman when he descended from the bus and finished him off with knives. They also removed his genitals.

I wouldn't publically call the the Turkish nation "barbarians," but I certainly know why others do.

With love in Christ,
Andrew

Alice,

the treatment subjected to the Greeks and other Christians by the Ottoman Empire, especially during the Greek war of Independence, was truly barbaric. And the Turkish government to this day continues to discriminate against it's Christian and other minorities.

This can EXPLAIN why some Greeks and people of Greek acenstry may FEEL negative about the Turks. But it does not EXUSE biggotry agaist the Turks as a people. And branding them as a people as barbarians is biggoted.

And the barabaric goals of some fundamentalist Muslims does not exuse branding Muslims in general as barbarians or terrorist.

Christian

An excellent and charitable point, Father Gregory.

When we catch ourselves saying hurtful words, we must remember to go and make peace with our brothers.

On a different topic, I did not know that there was a monastery in Milford, but then I haven't been in that area for several years. Is yours a large community and has the community been there long?

Ditto. Again, thanks to Father Gregory for saying what he said.

Even Archbishops mispeak or speak too quickly or say things that might seem differently than intended. They are human beings like the rest of us. We all do it. Most of us are just lucky that we don't get ours published in the newspaper.

My most dear friends,

First of all I want to ask your perdon becouse I could not read all your messages. In any case I would like to offer you my personal vission the personal vission of someone who lives in Greece about his beatitude Archbishop Christodoulos. Archbishop Christodoulos was pupil of the Catholic Leontios School of the Marist brothers in Athens, there he met some of nowday bishops of the Catholic Church in Greece. Besides his Catholic education and his personal friendship with Catholic bishops Archbishop Christodoulos has shown in many ways his "hate" to the Western Church and has used the antiwestern fealings of the Greek Orthodox people for his own personal interests. Archbishop christodoulos was secretary of the Holy Synod of the Church of Greece when Ieronymos was uncannonical Archbishop of Athens. Archbishop Ieronymos was an agent of the Dictatorial goverment of the militar Junta as was Christodoulos himself. When Archbishop Christodoulos was Metropolitan of Dimitrias he used to publish ultra nationalist articles in the fascisit paper "O stochos". Archbishop Christodoulos tryed in many ways to become "ethnarch" becoming the political oppossition to the government of "PASOK" party and trying to become the chief in the darkness of the conservative party "Nea Dimokratia". Fortunately both the government and the conservative party decided to stop Christodoulos influence in Greek policy. During the last 6 months he has driven the Church of Greece near to the Schism with the Church of Constantinople because he was to be uncannonical conmmemorated like Archbishop (just the title of the Metropolitan of Athens and president of the Synod of the Church of Greece)not only in the Metropolis of the Autocefalous Church of Greece but also in the Metropolitan Sees of the Ecumenical Patriarchate administrated by the Church of Greece (Patriarchal Praxis 1929)and to elect uncannonically two metropolitans of the Oecumenical Throne in Northern Greece without Constantinople blessings.
Archbishop Christodoulos hates Muslim Turkey as much as Roman Catholic and Protestant Europe. Why did he say that during the feast of Saint Barbara (she was not Turkish, was she?)? Just because he is desparated. The bishops of the Chuch of Greece ask him to go to Constantinople to solve his differences with the patriarch but he does not want to visit Istambul invoking security reasons (those bad Turkies want to kill me becouse I call them barbarians).
That is the truth (at least my truth) about Archbishp Christodoulos, the man who wanted to become Archbishop and when became Archbishop decided that he wanted to become "ethnarch" and patriarch. Please, do not try to find religious or evangelical basis in his declarations about barbarians...and please do not forget that "filetismos" is considered an heresy in the Orthodox Church.

Dear Irene SFO, There are only two of us here. We are attached to St. Barbara's Greek Orthodox Church in Orange. We are self-supporting. I work at an innercity agency in Bridgeport with single mothers who are HIV/AIDS infected and Fr. Michael works with the mentally ill in Stamford. We have been here for 18 years...living quietly in repentence. Pray for us!

In Him Who calls us,
+Father Archimandrite Gregory