By Monk Moses the Athonite
March 4, 2012
The Church has power to unite, to inspire, to comfort, to give hope.
However often the dense strike against it and want to discredit it.
The Church is certainly not at all afraid of war. If we are warred against, we conquer, according to St. John Chrysostom. It is the Church of martyrs, of confessors, of the righteous, of the fighters.
The war has always existed, but today it has intensified. The Church is light and truth. It is not affected by the darkness and lies.
The Church, Mount Athos, clerics, monks and believers should not ever have a defensive position, a fear, a defeatism. The Church everywhere must confess the truth, to preach Christ crucified and risen to offer courage, hope and optimism.
Our words must have life experience. A life of purity and without hypocrisy in order to influence. To war we do not respond with war, nor to evil with evil.
Our struggles test us, we mature, it cultivates us, beautifies us. Never will the Church use worldly means to impose. Sometimes It teaches by example, discreet silence, calm reason, and actions and works, rather than thick and sonorous words.
Our pained country, the heroic Greece, has great need of substantial social and spiritual changes. Only this can prevent each failure that is so troubling.
The situation has reached tragic levels. People overtalk, have lost their sleep, children faint from hunger, youth commit suicide. It is not enough for the Church to share thousands of food dishes.
Unfortunately there is a serious lack of education from supposedly responsible people, who move without high goals and visions.
People in key positions are without inspiration, pride and passion; all those who could have stopped the impoverishment of our country and its beleaguered people.
As one contemporary Athonite Abbot aptly put it, "On the level of national and social cohesion, of sacrifice and giving, the Church would play a significant role if the state were not so shortsighted and hardhearted regarding the potential of the Church."
Indeed this caution of the state against the Church is very sad.
The crisis is primarily spiritual. So it will require the contribution of the Church.
Unfortunately, the reckless rejection of traditional moral values has had serious consequences. Fascination with the foreign, mimicry of the alien, turning to the turbid, do not bring good.
We have been hurt by the unholy, the modern, the foreign. Traditional values are strong bases, strong fundamentals, strong energy. The prevalence of happiness-seeking, the anesthesia of living well, the influence of secularism, the sharpening of new success, the rise of entertainment, the inflammation of wild pleasures have torpedoed the health of society. They placed it on a bed of pain and suffering.
The modern Greeks wanted to live without God. They thought they could live without a heart. Without God life is unpleasant, cloudy, dark, black. God generously gives peace, joy, blessing, balance, simplicity, temperance, humility and patience.
Only a true Christian can be happy in the little, the simple, the essential. It rejoices to respect, to honor, to help, to converse politely. The Church has a tradition of philanthropy, brotherly love and a love for children.
It respects and honors each person as unique, sacred and irreplaceable. Individualism, self interest, pride, selfishness and hypocrisy is impossible to belong to a faithful child of the Church.
Solidarity, collegiality, and unity is the sweet wine that offers "sober drunkenness" to the faithful.
The bitter tasting drink by far, the results of their arbitrary choices.
It is time for the state to see unreservedly the Church. Today, great is the need of mutual aid and cohesion to maintain core values.
Genuine trust, honesty and unity is necessary to both sides.
Little Greece can again thrive with reconciliation. The Church calls everyone to unity.
Let not the Church become parties with strange contradictions.
Church and state, especially today, can and should immediately work together, converge together and to agree.
Culture, faith and love will create a strong wall for growth and real progress.
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos