“The Orthodox faith was the primary spiritual background of the 1821 Greek Revolution,” underlined Archbishop Makarios of Australia in his speech on the contribution of the Church and the Orthodox Clergy during the Ottoman rule. The Archbishop delivered the speech at an anniversary event organized on Thursday, May 13, by the Parish of St. Catherine in Mascot, Sydney.
The event was organized by the Choir of the Christian Youth Association of New South Wales, whose members performed patriotic songs dedicated to the Greek Revolution of 1821.
In the main part of his speech, the Archbishop presented aspects of the contribution of the Church and the clergy in maintaining the ideals of the Faith and the Nation during the dark period that the Greeks suffered under Turkish rule.
“The Orthodox Church was the one that fought, made sacrifices and shed its blood in order to keep the flame of faith alive and preserved the national conscience of the Greeks during the Turkish occupation,” he said.
Referring to the difficult and gloomy years that followed the fall of the Byzantine Empire, he first described the ethnarchic role played by the Ecumenical Patriarchate, noting, among other things, that many Patriarchs at the time had become the target of Ottoman’s wrath through deposition, exile, horrendous tortures and martyric end.
Similar were the sufferings of many hierarchs and lower clergy, who shed their blood for the faith and the homeland before the Revolution even began.
The Archbishop also made special reference to the self-sacrifice of Patriarch Gregory V, and then he presented at length the decisive contribution of the Church in preserving the identity of the Greeks through education.
He pointed out that in this struggle, which sometimes was overt and sometimes covert, the clergy and the monks were in the front line.
He even reminded that “the clergy was both the leader of the Nation and its support,” as the historian Dionysios Kokkinos had written, while he also mentioned the words of Theodoros Kolokotronis, who said that the clergy “preserved the letters and the language.”
In addition, the Archbishop referred to the monasteries that operated as spiritual centers and shelters for the people under persecution during the Ottoman rule, as well as to the new martyrs who by their sacrifice strengthened the courage and the faith of the Greeks. In his speech, he referred to Saint Cosmas of Aitolia, who was notable for his missionary work.
In closing, he underlined that “the coexistence of Orthodoxy and Greece over the centuries has now been part of people’s collective consciousness,” and urged the faithful to keep this consciousness unchanged and not to allow it to fade in the younger generations.
“Let us not allow our children and grandchildren to forget that in our veins flows the blood of martyrs who fought for the Faith and heroes for the Homeland.”