Conversion of a High Priest into a Christian WorkerGolden, M. (Meletios)
Religion
Conversion of a High Priest into a Christian Worker
Golden, M. (Meletios)
Golden, M. (Meletios)
Great nations have failed, and in every case it was the government's
corruption and neglect of duty that caused the sufferings and failures,
of which the political history is too abounding and too accessible to be
quoted. We only mention the Greek nation, perhaps the greatest and most
illustrious of all nations that ever failed in their political career,
because we are well informed and personally acquainted with the details
that brought this formerly world-wide respected and valued gem of
civilization into insignificance in the eye of the scornful, and a
plaything in the hands of the so-called great powers of Europe.
In the year of 1902, while I was a High Priest, Archimandrites, grand
representative of the Saint Mary's Monastery, Salamis; Orator and Grand
Chaplain of the Supreme Council of Greece; and confessor in the most
exclusive societies of Athens, hearing confessions and granting
absolutions; the following incident, which is published for the first
time, and only in parts that are printable, brought me to a final
decision, that I should leave my home, my loved ones, and all the
flourishing prospects to be a Bishop, with all the comforts and luxuries
attached to a Bishopric, just because I had witnessed a few scenes of
the manifold political plots that caused the downfall of my own nation,
and my own people scattered to the four corners of the world, wandering,
struggling for their existence, while Greece, the land of the Gods, and
the home of art and beauty, was left in the hands of a few parasites,
strangers and unsympathetic feudals who have shown no mercy in straining
every material and spiritual bit from the people that still honors them
as their kings and sovereigns.
At the time spoken of, there was an open secret to every well informed
Greek that the Queen of Greece, Olga, had been the tool of the Russian
bureaucracy, trying by means of religious influences to keep the Greeks
under the Russian political control; that the Queen Olga paid the
expenses for the education of a monk, who, on his return from Russia,
where he was graduated from the theological academies of Kiev and
Moskow, became the Queen's personal confessor, and afterwards by the
Queen's very earnest and almost scandalous activities that monk was
raised to the Metropolitan Throne of Athens, which position placed him
at the head of the Greek Church, and made him the President of the Holy
Synod of Greece.
The Metropolitan Throne of Athens is the highest and most exalted
position that a mortal Greek could approach, and it is, in fact, the
next to the King's Throne, most influential occupation, and more
powerful, even than the Royal Throne, because, the Metropolite of Athens
is the spiritual leader of all Greeks.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account