Arabic original here.
Don't Lock the Door
The word "Phanar" means "lighthouse" in Greek and in our time it is the name of the neighborhood where the Ecumenical Patriarchate is located. It is the neighborhood to which Greek families fled after the fall of Constantinople, before they left it for the diaspora after the tragedies of the past century. Everything in the neighborhood today reminds you of eclipse of Orthodoxy in the capital city whose cathedrals have become mosques and whose institutions are empty except for the janitors who have come from Hatay to work there. Only the headquarters of the Ecumenical Patriarchate is still a destination for the Orthodox who visit from Greece and other countries, arriving at the Cathedral of Saint George and venerating the relics of Saint Basil the Great and the relics of Saints John Chrysostom and Gregory the Theologian, who were persecuted and rejected by the city before they returned to it and became its eternal glory. At the patriarchate is a door that was once the main entrance, but it was locked at Pascha in 1821 after Patriarch Gregorios V was hanged on it after he was executed by the Ottomans as a punishment for the Greek nationalist sentiments that were raging at the time, despite his explicit condemnation of his countrymen's activities. Today, as international media are broadcasting images of the Metropolitan of France reading decisions that only serve to inflame nationalist and ethnic struggles like the one that killed Patriarch Gregory, I pondered that door behind him, hoping that the error of the synod of Patriarch Bartholomew and his bishops will not lead to locking the doors of the Ecumenical Patriarchate after the Phanar has fallen in the conscience of many and lost its role as a beacon in the Orthodox world.
Don't Lock the Door
The word "Phanar" means "lighthouse" in Greek and in our time it is the name of the neighborhood where the Ecumenical Patriarchate is located. It is the neighborhood to which Greek families fled after the fall of Constantinople, before they left it for the diaspora after the tragedies of the past century. Everything in the neighborhood today reminds you of eclipse of Orthodoxy in the capital city whose cathedrals have become mosques and whose institutions are empty except for the janitors who have come from Hatay to work there. Only the headquarters of the Ecumenical Patriarchate is still a destination for the Orthodox who visit from Greece and other countries, arriving at the Cathedral of Saint George and venerating the relics of Saint Basil the Great and the relics of Saints John Chrysostom and Gregory the Theologian, who were persecuted and rejected by the city before they returned to it and became its eternal glory. At the patriarchate is a door that was once the main entrance, but it was locked at Pascha in 1821 after Patriarch Gregorios V was hanged on it after he was executed by the Ottomans as a punishment for the Greek nationalist sentiments that were raging at the time, despite his explicit condemnation of his countrymen's activities. Today, as international media are broadcasting images of the Metropolitan of France reading decisions that only serve to inflame nationalist and ethnic struggles like the one that killed Patriarch Gregory, I pondered that door behind him, hoping that the error of the synod of Patriarch Bartholomew and his bishops will not lead to locking the doors of the Ecumenical Patriarchate after the Phanar has fallen in the conscience of many and lost its role as a beacon in the Orthodox world.
Lets focus here. The Greek war of
ReplyDeleteIndependence was a righteous cause
To break away from turkish slavery
And oppression after several centuries.
That being said it is time for the
Orthodox world to rally behind moscow.
Many Greeks like myself are appalled
By the phanars arrogance so Greeks in
General should not be lumped in
With the phanar.
As for Gregory v he was a holy man
But the Greek nation could not continue
Under brutal Turkish rule simply to
Accommodate the phanar.
Theodoros