«Winning battles isn’t the only thing; winning the war is the only thing.»

«Revenge is so sweet, God has reserved it for Himself» (Stanley Michael Sarantis)

STUDENT LIGHTNING

OCT-NOV. 1999, no. 118

“Emit a flash of lightning, and You will scatter them; shoot out Your arrows, and You will convulse them.” (Psalm 143:6)

Panhellenic Militant Bulwark of Christian Students

The One Shall Conquer

By the Metropolitan of Florina, Fr. Augustinos

Our beloved children,

As I direct my word to you, I feel very moved. Three feelings dominate in my soul. The one is joy, the second is sorrow, and the third is worry.

I rejoice, because it is no small thing in the contemporary world, in this epoch of atheism and unbelief, to see hundreds of children, boy and girl students of junior high and high school, like thirsty dear running to the well, to the teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ, in the catechetical schools. This consoles us and enthuses us a great deal. That’s why I feel joy and glorify God.

However, I also feel sorrow, because as bishop I ought to have been your catechist (religious instructor), the catechist of all the children of my diocese and even of little children too, because that is the most important work of the bishop. So I ought to have taken on the job of teaching of children, of teaching in all the classes of religious instruction in the schools of the Metropolis.

I remember the unforgettable years, when as a preacher I went to different cities of Hellas and didn’t have the heavy weights of the episcopal office; I had many classes of religious instruction and my joy and gladness was to shepherd the lambs of Christ. Unfortunately now I must confess, that I am found far from the youth of the fatherland. And this, because in my old age I have taken on a heavy cross, the burden of my Episcopal duties.

But on fact minimizes this sorrow of mine: that I have entrusted the catechism of children not to professionals, but to noteworthy missionary persons, clergy and laity, men and women and even girls, who work unselfishly in the Lord’s farm. These people were at other times students of the catechetical school and they know very well the incalculable value that catechism or religious instruction has, in the formation of the Christian character.

So they speak from experience and from their sense of duty. To these persons, who worked with zeal, our Church expresses her pleasant satisfaction. The catechetical school is the only school that doesn’t pay. The religious instructor doesn’t receive even a penny. And yet, it is the only school the world hates mortally.

Here beside us in Albania, no Sunday school was allowed to function. The priest was not allowed to approach and catechize the children.

***

So the one feeling I sense is joy, the other sorrow, and the third worry.

I, the old bishop, worry a lot. I heard you with joy and gladness, children, singing and chanting. You seemed to be nightingales that sing in the forest. But the question arises: After three years, after five years, ten years, when you grow up, when you go to university and receive your diplomas, when join the army, when…, when…you get married, will you continue to have this fervent feeling, which you have at this moment?

I doubt it and worry. Because I know that this shameful society of the 20^th century – not only in Hellas but everywhere – , which unfortunately has the name that it is Christian; 95% of it is antichristian. Within this society that children live, they meet many obstacles, which don’t allow them to form a stable Christian character. Everything pushes them to atheism; the radio, the television, books, teaching, the whole climate of society is contrary to the Christian faith and morality. And it is heroism in these years of ours for a young man to believe in Christ. For this reason those who believe are few, a minority in this world. But as few as they are, in our days the saying is realized: “Out of the mouths of infants and sucklings I shall create praise” (Psalm 8:3; Matt. 21:16).

These children are few. But as few as they might be, they have within them an indefatigable militancy for the supporting of the Orthodox faith. To these heroic children, the children in whose veins flows the blood of heroes and martyrs, we must remind the saying: “Resist the devil, and he shall flee from you” (James 4:7). Resist the devil and he will distance himself from you.

Few are these children in relation to the majority of youth, in relation to the world of atheism and unbelief. To these children, who with so much yearning go to catechetical school (religious instruction), I would like to say the following.

My children, as few as might be, have no fear. Only be careful not to be led astray by the current of evil. For this reason I will remind you of the following myth of Aesop.

At one time a fox was captured in a trap and her tail was cut off. She remained crippled. How can she now return without a tail with the other foxes? She couldn’t; she didn’t feel well. Then she thought to make the other foxes cut off their tails. So she went and called all the foxes from the forest and made a speech, being careful all along, however, for them not to see that she didn’t have a tail.

My beloved sisters, she says! God did many good things for us. They made us the smartest animals in the world. We live well. We have brains, intelligence and cunningness. We go to the chicken pens, grab the chickens, eat them, and we get along wonderfully. We have everything. But we have one fault. God gave us something that we don’t need.

–         What? said the other foxes.

–         Why here, he gave us a tail. And it gets all caught up, and it doesn’t allow us to move comfortably. For this reason I propose here at our convention, to cut our tails, so we can become more mobile, more free, but also more beautiful.

–         You speak correctly, said the foxes. Let’s cut our tails.

Then an old female fox gets up and says:

–         Let’s see, does she have a tail?

When they saw her ugliness, they all disapproved her. Because she didn’t have a tail, she would recommend to the others, too, to cut off their tails. In this way they comprehended her cunningness and didn’t cut off their tails.

The myth indicates. If a girl loses her honor, she immediately calls her friends and tries to lead them astray, to make them like her. For them to lose their honor. Because she was corrupted, she wants all the girls to be corrupted. This is a mania, a form of envy, of evil, and a catastrophe.

Thus also does the person with tuberculosis; he who suffers from tuberculosis. In earlier times, those who had tuberculosis would spit in oranges, in order to transmit their illness to others, too. Because they had tuberculosis, they wanted to make others have tuberculosis. That’s what girls that have been corrupted do; they want to transmit their corruption to as many other girls as possible. So stand as far away from such corrupted girls and boys. They’re foxes without tails.

And let the boys and girls steer clear from children who smoke. A boy of 12 years old, who began to smoke, tries to make all his other friends smoke.

So, far from such persons. The children of Hellas, the Christian children, must offer resistance, must resist against evil, which is found around them.

***

I said at another time too, and I repeat it here now, and I won’t stop repeating it. When I was a preacher, up on the high mountains of Grevena, there where the wells of Aliacmona are, I saw one thing: I saw the waters of the river, that as many fish that were dead, the water took them, and went down to Thessalonica. As many fish that were alive, these would go against the current.

My children! Be live fish of the great fisherman, of our Lord Jesus Christ. Go against the faithless and corrupt society. Against your father and mother, when they are faithless and push you towards atheism. Go against the teachers and professors, if they deviate from their destiny and preach unbelief and atheism to you. Go against faithless and perverse society. Go against that global current of corruption. Against all the demons. We shall resist as Hellenes, as Christians. And you can be sure, that as few as you might happen to be, the atheists and faithless shall not conquer; the faithful shall conquer. Because really Christ did not die, but lives and reigns unto the ages of ages.

Now an old bishop, who am found at the end of my earthly life, after living a life of hardships and difficult adventures of so many decades in the fatherland, I recommend to you the following:

If, children, a time comes, not in a theater but in reality we too hear “Persection!”, and priests and bishops grow faint-hearted and the churches are led astray so that they dissolve the Gospel, offer resistance. Whatever happens in Albania and whatever in other far off countries, will happen in Hellas too; I prophecy. But know one thing very well; the atheists won’t be victorious, the faithful will conquer. You, my children, as few of you as might remain with Christ, have no fear; you shall conquer. And even if, my children, child of the catechetical, religious school, a child of Hellas, of Macedonia, of Asia Minor, and of Pontus, and even if your mother and your father denies you and you remain alone in your city or your town, and if all society kneels before the devil, you don’t kneel. Fight him. And you the one shall conquer.

I said it before and I stress it again. Other lands may bow down. But Hellas, which is painted with the blood of saints, shall not kneel down. In your veins, of the small and great, flows the blood of martyrs. Our land shall remain a fortress of Christ. We shall prove yet another time, to the utter dismay of demons, that Christ didn’t die, but lives unto the ages of ages.

Your spiritual father

(This was a homily delivered to boy and girl students of catechetical, religious schools during a celebrative function in the city of Ptolemaida, in 1978).

_______________________

Revelation: “Let he who has ‘mind’ and «wisdom» decipher the number of the antichrist, the beast; it is the number of a man, and his number is 666. The numerical value of the Greek letters for 666: B-e-n-e-d-i-c-t-o-s. Certain of our Protestant friends, like St. Cosmas and other saints, have identified the beast arising from the land (signifying semi-civility) of the West to be the Pope; while the beast arising out of the sea (signifying the chaos of barbarity) the East is identified as Mohammedasim

***

(Taken From the Pamphlet “The Disdainers”)

Let our dear readers allow us to begin the present pamphlet with an icon taken from the collection of the Aesopian myths. For, even in these famous myths of antiquity there exist certain hidden practical truths that the careful listener or reader is able to see by cutting the skin under which is hidden the essence of the mythical, the allegorical narrative. At all events, no comparison can be made between the myths of Aesop and the parables of the Lord, which from every perspective comprise unsurpassable monuments of speech through icons taken from the physical life that teach the highest truths concerning the kingdom of the heavens. But let us see the Aesopian icon.

A certain rooster in the courtyard of a hen was scratching around in the dirt. It was poking around in the dirt so that it might find something for food, a seed or a worm. But there where it was hoeing, here now there appears a precious stone, a diamond, which was covered with dirt. To the rooster this superb finding made no sensation whatsoever. The bird only wanted to find pits and worms. Diamonds? What would it do with them? He is not a diamond jeweler. One grain of wheat, one worm for the rooster was the only thing of value. For this reason, also, with his foot he gave it a light kick and threw away the diamond and continued the digging of the dirt.

***

So that the fruit of impiety is the disdaining of God and the things of God. A pridefulness and a haughtiness to the highest degree dominates in the heart of such kind of people. God? For them He does not exist or rather He exists. He is their own self. He is their knowledge. He is their science. He is especially material power, which they have amassed. He is the iron sword which they hold and brandish above the rest of humanity. Concerning the ancient Scythians it is said that as an idol to which they offered their bloody sacrifices they had … a huge iron sword. That was their god. But do you think that perhaps today too he is not the god of the big nations, whose rulers have confidence in only their material powers and threaten the world and ridicule those who in the 20^th century of atomic energy continue to express themselves piously concerning the Supreme power of all, the power of God?

The prophet Habakkuk, in describing such a man, who has obtained material power and threatens others, says that he is like a monster, like Hades, who opens his jaws and seeks to devour all people and all things; but he also prophesies the miserable end of this man. Be, says the prophet, be sure, that a superior power, the power of God, in a moment that no one expects, will overthrow the human-form beast, the antichrist system, and the pious people will see, will marvel, will glorify God upon the destruction of the tyrant, who disdained every spiritual value and believed himself to be God and called nations and peoples to worship his own self. Let us hear the same: “Look among the nations and watch – be utterly astounded! For I will work a work in your days which you would not believe, though it were told you.” (Habakkuk 1:5)