Chrysostomos Kalafatis was born in 1867 in Bithynia, Asia Minor.
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his father was a lawmaker and democrat of the area and so the boy grew up with financial comfort
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from very early on he showed a vocation to the church and so his family sent him to the Theological School of Halki
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the young man had a special vocation in ecclesiastics and finished the school with honors
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He was ordained deacon and passed through the dioceses,
Mytilene and Ephesus
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He was very active and capable and soon became a great Protosynagogue of the Ecumenical Patriarchate.
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from this position he spoke with Englishmen and Catholics about the possibility of the union of the churches
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Chrysostom had a special talent for speaking and speaking from the chest (i.e. without manuscripts) and speaking well,
very well
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Thus at the beginning of the 20th century he was anointed Bishop of Drama.
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and it starts there, a huge, a colossal project
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We're talking about an area that at that time was Ottoman territory
and
ne though the Ottomans allowed other religions, but always to be under Islam
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and you have the Bulgarians trying to spread into Macedonia with the comitazis
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It is the period of the beginning of the Macedonian struggle (both for the Greeks and the Bulgarians and all this in Ottoman territory)
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and yet Chrysostomos managed to build countless Greek schools in the region of Drama
and
to foment the Greek element
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That period in those areas was the most difficult for Hellenism.
and they were great fighters and great patriots who fought back then
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More for the Bulgarians and the Bulgarian Exarchate, and less for the Ottomans
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but Chrysostomos was so active that he forced the Ottomans to appeal to Constantinople and the Patriarchate managed to remove him from there (temporarily)
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After a year he returned (on the fury of the Macedonian struggle)
and
the violent clashes of the Greeks with the Bulgarian komitajis
was viewed
that they were starting from him and so again the Ottomans removed him
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so,
in 1910 he was transferred to the bishopric of Smyrna.
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We are talking about the most advanced, rich and modern Greek society of the time.
Worthy of European capitals...
In front of the society of Smyrna, the society of Athens seemed backward and second-rate.
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Chrysostomos took up patriotic matters again, organizing rallies and fiery national-patriotic gatherings and speeches
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At the same time he built the stadium of the Panionios Gymnastics Club of Smyrna in Smyrna, a great project for the time.
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and then the Balkan wars broke out, the rival of the Ottoman Empire being Greece
Now we're tied up....
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the Turks start the persecutions and the amele tamburu
and
the metropolitan becomes a mediator with the Turks to spare anyone he can
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and then along came the first world war
and the refugees began
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and
Greek refugees who had been chased from Turkish villages
and
Turkish refugees who had been expelled from Greece
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after other things, too many that I need an encyclopedia to write them down,
we arrived at the landing of the Greek army in Smyrna in May 1919
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what joy and celebration was set up on the Smyrna waterfront cannot be described,
but that was followed by hard fighting with the Ottomans and
blood on both sides
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Somewhere around then Aristides Stergiadis, (Venizelos' choice), took over as High Commissioner of Smyrna and the city found its governor.
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Only that Chrysostom had learned, had gotten used to being a religious man.
and political leader of the city, and now he's not well
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But Steriadis did not like it either, to be constantly involved in politics, the metropolitan
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this is not going to work out...........
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It got to the point where he'd take off after praise,
solemn speech by the Metropolitan in Agia Fotini and being interrupted in front of the crowded church by Stergiadis
and
strictly recommending him to confine himself to religious matters
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Meanwhile
the metropolitan couldn't help himself.
to imagine that, unbeknownst to Stergiadis, he had succeeded with the subordination of Captain Mavroudis (captain of the destroyer «Leon»)
to remove from the prefecture of Aydin, a cruel Turk, Nuredin Pasha.
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when the front was broken
the heads of Smyrna got into the ships and left for Greece,
everyone
and Stergiadis
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the only one who didn't leave was Chrysostom
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as today,
Saturday afternoon, August 27, 1922 (September 9 on the new calendar)
The Turkish general Nuredin Pasha, the butcher of Smyrna as he is remembered in history, enters Smyrna,
Chief
Regiment of Turkish Regular Infantry
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goes straight to Stergiadis' headquarters and sets up his headquarters there
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His first job was to settle his old differences
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that way
sent for the Bishop,
while he orders the Turkish mob to assemble outside the command post
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and indeed the mob gathered, fanatical
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the Bishop has arrived.
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Nuredin received him in his office.
Behind him, on the wall, there was a picture of King Constantine holding the stratagem staff,
while
on the opposite wall, the Turks had found an oil painting of Venizelos in a basement and had erected it too.
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On purpose, so that the Metropolitan could see them
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Nuredin, began a strong accusation against the metropolitan, holding a large envelope of the metropolitan's speeches, so many years
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in the end he saw him off with the phrase
«everything will be fixed now»
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an officer took him down, while Nuredin went out the window.
the mob was quiet and Nuredin
said,
«if it did you any good to pay him back,
if he has done you harm to give it back to him.»
and closed the window
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the mob was furious
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the Bishop walked out the door of the command post and lost it,
He turned and looked at the guard at the door.
he,
with a slight smile he shrugged his shoulders and then with a sharp push threw him into the crowd
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what followed is not described
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Normal lynching.
they beat him, they curse him, they tear out his generation, his hair,
spit on him,
they pierce him with knives,
they gouge his eyes out
and then they cut him up into pieces and scatter them on the ground for the dogs to eat
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the Turkish-Cretan butchers who are leading the way, smearing with their hands,
their face and their body with the blood of the Lord
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creepy
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this crime, like the crimes against more than a million of Asia Minor, will go unpunished.
