Speech given by Fr. Augoustinos on 7/4/1963 i.e. before he became a bishop
on Holy Sunday evening
Holy Church of St. George in New Ionia, Greece

I have not translated all the introduction, but translated the “point” of the speech. Very prophetic.

The withered fig tree

… on the road to Bethany, the Bible says characteristically that the Lord was hungry. But isn’t that strange for the Bible to say that Christ hungered? Christ, who who made the plants, the trees that bend from the weight of the multitude of juicy fruits, hungered? Christ, who rained manna in the desert and fed hundreds of thousands of people, hungered? Christ, who opens his hands and bestows countless benefits to the world, hungered? Christ, who blessed the five loaves of bread and fed 5,000 men, not including women and children, hungered? Christ was hungry? Yes, my beloved, He hungered as a man, because He hungered —but in this situation, my beloved, Christ’s hunger— exactly like when He was on the Cross and thirsted, where He said “I thirst”… Today we hear “I hunger,” but in a few days, on Good Friday we will hear Him say “I thirst.” He who created the oceans and lakes and waters, says “I thirst?” He both hungers and thirsts? But beyond this hunger and thirst, my brethren, we must see another hunger and another thirst – because Christ truly hungers and truly thirsts. He hungers for our salvation, He thirsts for the salvation of all the world...
The Bible says Christ was hungry and He saw a fig tree planted by the side of the road. The Bible says the fig tree was full of leaves, and Christ approached it and spread His holy hands on the branches and into the wide leaves, the deep green leaves, and Christ’s hands felt and searched branch by branch, leaf by leaf, and He searched the whole tree, but on that tree not one fruit existed, and then from His holy lips, the lips that spread blessings, which never ever had a bitter word for the people, from those lips proceeded a curse and He said “Let no fruit grow on you ever again” (Matt. 21:19). And the fig tree immediately, says the Bible, those green leaves, those deep green leaves which were full of life, those leaves started to turn yellow, to fall one after the other for the wind to take, and in a little while that tree, so full of leaves, became bare, completely bare, and not only bare, but withered, the Bible says. And as another evangelist, Mark, says, “It dried up from the roots” (Mark 11:20). And the disciples marvelled that the fig tree withered immediately.
That, my beloved, is the miracle, a miracle of destruction. [In the beginning of the sermon Fr. Augoustinos talks about how Jesus performed many beneficial miracles but only 2 miracles of destruction, out of righteousness. And this was one of those two miracles]. And disbelievers use this miracle and say “But why did God take out His anger on a tree? What did the tree do wrong, for Christ to destroy a tree?”
But the tree that Christ destroyed is a symbol, a teaching, a reprimand for all of us. What was that reprimand that the Lord did today by destroying the fig tree? What is the meaning of the withered fig tree? My beloved, the fig tree withering immediately reminds all of us of a tragic event, the most tragic event that has occurred ever in the history of the world, the event that consists of the root of all mankind, and that event is what happened in Paradise when the Lord made Adam and Eve. It reminds us, my beloved, of our fore-bearers. The fig leaves remind us – because it says there in the Bible that after their sin, Adam and Eve realized their nakedness, felt their nakedness of the grace of God, and they felt the need to cover themselves with fig leaves. They cut fig leaves. And the Fathers and teachers of the Church say that the tree whose fruit our fore-bearers ate of and sinned and created the Original Sin, that tree was a fig tree.
So, the withered fig tree reminds us of the curse where the Lord in Paradise said: You will be cursed, and the ground will be cursed and bring forth thorns and thistles and “by the sweat of your brow you shall eat your bread.” (Gen 3:19). The fig tree, therefore, the curse, from the moment that Adam and Eve sinned, and the whole of mankind from that hour, above the head of mankind is a curse, a curse of sin, a curse of different sins of the human race, a fearful and terrible curse, and that curse was planted into mankind 5,000 years ago. Now, Christ says, the time has come, this curse which was like a tree in mankind, now Christ comes and with His Passion uproots it, and instead of a curse, instead of the cursed tree, plants another tree, plants a heavenly tree which has its roots in mankind and spreads its branches – and that heavenly tree, my beloved, instead of the cursed tree – there are two trees. One: I plead with you, distance yourself from the cursed tree and approach the tree of happiness. The cursed tree is that tree under which Adam and Eve sat, the whole of mankind sits, and the shade of that tree brings death, because there are trees which even their shade – in Asia there are trees whose shade brings death. A sweet sleep engulfs you, and you die under those trees. The cursed tree, therefore, is the tree of sin. Leave that cursed tree, my brethren, and be all of you under the blessed tree. A tree which brings shade, a tree which brings cool relief, a tree whose fruits are tasted by every person, and the blessed tree is the Holy Cross. As cursed as is the tree of which Adam and Eve ate, so much blessed is the tree of the Cross. The withered fig tree reminds us therefore of the curse which was immediately given, whose curse the Holy Cross abolished.
But, my brethren, that’s not the only interpretation, there is a more divine interpretation which most of the Fathers of the Church accept, and what is that interpretation, my beloved? That the fig tree is a symbol, as our Church chants, is the symbol of the Jewish race. The withered fig tree is the Hebrews’ synagogue, the withered fig tree is the Hebrew nation. Because, of all the nations, it was a fact that God loved and blessed the Jews. To no other nation did God bestow so many blessings as He did to the Jewish nation, and God’s benefaction to the Jewish nation is indescribable. It was the Jewish nation which was planted into God’s love, but that nation was the fig tree that didn’t provide fruit, and that’s why that nation suffered greatly from God’s punishment, that fearful punishment which shocks and saddens us Christians, because throughout the ages we see that punishment on that nation. And that which the Jews cried on Holy Friday: “His blood be on us and on our children” (Matt. 27:25), that curse continues until our days. The withered fig tree, therefore, is the Jewish nation.
But the withered fig tree is not only a symbol of the Jewish race. It’s also a symbol of every Christian nation which, if it doesn’t tread in the path which our Lord Jesus Christ carved – it’s a symbol of every nation which breaks the law of God. And one such nation, my beloved, is our nation.
Yes, it is a fact that God loved the Greek nation. It is a fact that He blessed it. It is a fact, as history witnesses, that God bestowed great blessings on our nation, and it is also a fact that this nation contributed much to the Church and to Christianity and to Mankind. From the Greek nation came forth martyrs and heroes, from the Greek nation came forth teachers and Fathers of the Church, from the Greek nation came forth missionaries who spread the Light. We Greeks are the ones who baptized all the Balkans, we are those who baptized the Russians and all the world, and Greece was truly a fruit-bearing tree. It was, but now these last years, the question arises as to whether we are a fruit-bearing nation, a tree which bears fruit. Unfortunately, I don’t have time to remember and narrate more and to develop on the fact that our nation is now a sinful and impious nation, and there is a great fear that we will undergo the same punishment as the Jewish nation, and we will become the withered fig tree that will never bear fruit again.
And I remind you that God has withered us. He withered us partly, not completely. Think, think – wasn’t Asia Minor [previously a part of Greece, now Turkey] a fig tree? Wasn’t Greece blessed? In Asia Minor weren’t there 30 metropolis’, 400,000 churches, 40 monasteries? Didn’t the bells ring from one end to the other when Asia Minor celebrated? The fig tree withered, that fig tree withered – there are no priests any more, no more monks, no more semantra. But there in Asia Minor, which was a blessed tree full of fruit, all of that tree, that renowned tree, all that Orthodoxy of Asia Minor was destroyed in one go [during the massacre in 1922] and people marvelled at how it withered immediately. And now there is not even one Christian there, where previously hundreds of millions of martyrs and saints lived. And we [here in Greece] remained, and we saw on those rocks – but I fear, my brethren, perhaps that curse which withered us in Asia Minor, perhaps that curse will spread to here, perhaps we will also hear “and let no fruit grow on you ever again.”
Lets plead to God to be reformed, to repent: leaders and followers, from the palaces to the small churches, all of us unexempted, left and right, all shades of colours,  we have a need for repentance so we don’t hear above our nation – it was heard once in Asia Minor [let no fruit grow on you ever again.] There are no longer Christians in Asia Minor, which was [unclear on cassette] ages Christianity. Lets correct ourselves, my brethren, in case over this nation where 8 million people are crowded, we hear again the wrath of God “Let no fruit grow on you ever again.”
But I’m not finished. The fig tree doesn’t only remind us of the sin which occurred in Paradise, it doesn’t remind us only of the Jewish nation. It doesn’t only consist of a threat against every nation which doesn’t bear fruit, but at the same time this fig tree, this withered fig tree, is our photograph, my beloved. It’s a photograph of us. We [individually] are the unfruitful fig tree.
But us?! Us?! Us?! We aren’t atheists, we aren’t disbelievers, we come here to church. Say it to the disbelievers, to the atheists! We come to church every Sunday. We come during Holy Week, Easter, we hold religious books in our hands, we say the “Our Father” and the Creed. Us? Us?!!
But my Christians, everything I said – the religious books which we read, our church attendance, and even dutifully partaking of Holy Communion, all of those are leaves, leaves, beautiful leaves which give some sort of beauty to the tree, but it doesn’t have fruit.
Where is our fruit, my brethren? We come to church, we commune, we confess – where are our fruits? Christ asks for fruit. Trees – the Church has filled with unfruitful trees. It’s a question today whether among 1,000 Christians you’ll find one fruitful tree. We are unfruitful trees, truly we are unfruitful trees.
An unfruitful tree – do you see him there? Do you see him? An unfruitful tree. He’s a tree going to hell, he’s an unfruitful tree because he abandoned his wife, abandoned his children, an unfruitful tree, because there’s no [repentance] – does Christ search for fruit from him? There’s no fruit on him, the fruit which is called purity of living. There’s not abstinance on him.
An unfruitful tree is the drunkard, an unfruitful tree is the person greedy for material goods, an unfruitful tree is the avaricious person. An unfruitful tree is the blasphemer, the angry person, the jealous person. A bitter tree, the most bitter and impious is the person who in his heart carries hatred and poison against someone else. Unfruitful trees, and the voice is heard, the Lord’s voice can be heard ready to say “Every tree” – can you hear it? It’s the law of life, the law of history, written everywhere, the Bible says it very simply. What did the Lord say? “Every tree that does not bear fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire” (Matt. 7:19). Every tree in the garden has its offering: the lemon tree offers lemons, the orange tree offers oranges, the cherry tree, cherries. What do we offer to God? “Every tree that does not bear fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.” It’s God’s law.
What do we offer? Where are our fruits? Where is our meekness? Where is our love? Where is our righteousness? Where is our forgiveness? Where is our caring for someone else? We are only Christians with leaves, a fig tree with beautiful leaves, huge leaves, but the fruit is missing. It’s missing – and the wrath of God is above us, and there is danger from moment to moment that He will say “Every tree that does not bear fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.” But Christ is holding the trees.
Or rather, Panagia’s prayers are holding us. The axe is ready to fall, God’s wrath is ready to fell us completely, but Panagia pleads for us, the saints intercede for us and request an extension of time. Give us an extension, a new extension, “continue Thy mercy,” [“παράτεινον τὸ ἔλεός σου” – from the Great Doxology in Matins] let them give us an extension, a new extension and lets try, all of us, beloved, who heard today the homily of the withered fig tree, lets all of us try to be fruit-bearing trees, trees with holy and virtuous fruit. Lets become those sorts of trees, so God will grant us worthy one day, to reach from this earth high to the heavens, close to Christ. Amen.