OPINION; The Greek Churches Must Speak
May 4, 2023
by Theodore Karakostas
In the year 988 AD, Emperor Basil II of Constantinople of the reigning Macedonian Dynasty performed a deed that can be considered splendid not only in the earthly realms of politics and diplomacy, but in the spiritual and heavenly realms as well. Emperor Basil had once intended to become a monk, but accepted his destiny to become the Emperor of Christendom in the God protected City of Constantinople and arranged for the baptism of holy Rus whose culture and civilization began in Kiev. It it a fact that what Constantinople is for the Greeks, Kiev is for both Russia and Ukraine.
Those of us of Hellenic ancestry have felt the enormous pain of losing Hagia Sophia three times. First in 1453, after the fall of Constantinople, then in 1922 when Greece was denied Constantinople by the Western powers, and in 2020 when the world sat silently as the Turkish government made Saint Justinian’s Church a Mosque. The Kiev Caves Lavra are in Kiev what Hagia Sophia is to Constantinople. The Kiev Caves Lavra is more than just a Monastery. Within its sacred walls reside two hundred monks and three hundred seminarians.
A wave of repression has been undertaken by the Kiev government against the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC). There is a rival “Orthodox Church of Ukraine” (OCU). The situation is not unlike Greece in which the “Orthodox Church of Greece” peacefully coexists with the various Old Calendar-traditionalist Churches. Democracy and the right to religious freedom and freedom of conscience dictate that individuals should be free to worship where they like. The Ukrainian government has for several years forcibly seized Churches belonging to the UOC and given them to the OCU. It has also attempted to force the UOC to rename itself and pressure has effectively been imposed to subsequently ban the UOC outright.
Orthodox Churches throughout the world have raised their voices in protest against the persecution of the Kiev Caves Lavra. Only a few bishops in Greece and Cyprus have raised their voices. This is particularly disturbing considering that Kiev carries on the great spiritual heritage of Constantinople. It is important to recall that until 2018, the Ecumenical Patriarchate and the Greek Churches had refused to recognize schismatic entities in Ukraine that later became the OCU. They had recognized only the UOC which is the inheritor of the Church that was established by Prince Vladimir of Kiev when he accepted the Christian faith from Emperor Basil II of Constantinople.
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For moral and spiritual reasons, as well as historic reasons the Greek Churches must raise their voices to protest the injustices against not just the monks of the Kiev Caves Lavra, but against the Ukrainian Orthodox Church as a whole. Another prominent reason why my conscience dictates that I must write about the present horrors inflicted on Orthodox Christians in Ukraine is because of the past silence of the world to the injustices of Greek Orthodoxy in Asia Minor and Constantinople. It should be remembered that the world was indifferent to the Greek Orthodox in 1922 when the Turks burned the City of Smyrna and slaughtered the Greek and Armenian Christians.
After the 1955 pogroms in Constantinople and the subsequent ethnic cleansing of Greeks from the heavenly city, the Western world was not only indifferent but bullied Greece into appeasing the Turkish aggressors. It is in memory of the destroyed Greek Churches of Constantinople and Turkish-occupied Cyprus (where the Turks have destroyed or Islamicized over five hundred Churches and Monasteries) that I lament the seizure and destruction of Churches and holy sites belonging to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
Since when do holy and pious Greek bishops remain silent on issues pertaining to our Orthodox faith? Patriarch (Saint) Gregory V gave his life by refusing to expose to the Sultan the plans for the liberation of Greece. Metropolitan (Saint) Chrysostom of Smyrna defied death and the Turks by announcing he would never leave Smyrna and his flock. He was butchered but gained martyrdom and eternal glory in the kingdom of God. Archbishop Chrysanthos of Athens refused to cooperate with the Germans in 1941 and openly defied them. Archbishop Damaskinos of Athens risked his life under Nazi occupation
to rescue thousands of Greek Jews.
In September 1955, Archbishop Spyridon of Athens resisted government pressure not to offend the Americans when denounced the anti-Greek pogroms in Constantinople and the silence of America and NATO. In our own lifetime, Archbishop Christodoulos of blessed memory condemned the bombing of Orthodox Serbia and called the faithful to the streets of Athens and Thessaloniki to protest plans to diminish the influence of Orthodoxy in Greece. When any religious group is oppressed (Jews, Roman Catholics, Muslims) we would be called upon by the gospel to raise our voices.
How then can it be that Church leaders in Constantinople, Athens, and Nicosia have remained silent when our own brothers in the Orthodox faith suffer and are being oppressed. The tradition of Greek Orthodoxy demands that the Patriarch and the bishops raise their voices. This too is part of the spiritual inheritance of Constantinople as can be seen by the examples of Saint John Chrysostom and other Patriarchs. The Greek Churches must speak!