Watch the speech of the Mayor of Kythera Mr. Efstratios Ath. Harchalakis at the Ceremony of the 200th anniversary of the beginning of the Greek Revolution. Video and Editing by PhotoCerigo.
Ceremonial Speech of the Mayor of Kythera Mr. Efstratios Ath. Harchalakis at the 200th anniversary of the beginning of the Greek Revolution
Holy Pilgrimage of Panagia Myrtidiotissa of Kythera,
26 September 2021
In very special circumstances we are celebrating this year the 200th anniversary of the outbreak of the Greek Revolution of 1821, an event unique not only for Greece but for Europe as a whole. For 1821 was not a mere rebellion or a spur-of-the-moment outbreak, but a universal and universal decision to reclaim the greatest good of freedom without asterisks, without footnotes, without «yes buts». A people with one voice stood up with one voice in the face of a more numerous and much more organised enemy, the Ottoman Empire, arousing the awe and admiration of the whole world. Even in the distant and poor country of Haiti, which was the first to officially recognize the Greek Revolution, admiration for the Greeks was aroused, resulting in 100 Haitian soldiers setting out on the then primitive means of coasting to Greece to volunteer to fight alongside the Greeks, but they were unable to do so as they drowned on board. Their memory is eternal!
The reference to the historical events of 1821 is rather superfluous, as they have been thoroughly analysed in hundreds of studies and researches by reputable historians and are repeated every year, unfortunately in a rather flat manner. However, it would be of particular importance to remember certain moments of great heroes of 1821 in order to inspire us today with a view to tomorrow.
In the speech of 25 March at the Metropolitan Church of the Crucifixion we analysed in detail the inseparable relationship between the Revolution and the Holy Clergy and the Church, a relationship that over time the ethno-denominationalists and clericalists have been trying to eat away at and degrade, apparently without result. And if the blood tax paid by the Holy Clergy is well known, with Patriarch Gregory V, the Metropolitans of Crete, Cyprus and many regions of Greece being the first, the very texts of the time clearly prove the solidarity of the rebellious Greeks with the Church. I will therefore repeat a few lines from the Panegyric of 25 March, taking recourse to the sources.
Spiliades, who lived through the Revolution from the inside, states that the Society of Friends «already included patriarchs, high priests, provincial politicians and war chiefs». Even the Marxist historian John Cordatos states: «The Philistines sought to give a nationwide character to the organized revolution and for this purpose they also converted some of the Phanariots and senior clerics’.
Korais himself writes: «Only the teaching of the Gospel can save the autonomy of the Nation. The Greeks fought not only for their country, but also for their faith.
The Proclamation of the Revolution, this leading text of Alexander Ypsilantis published on February 24, 1821, has as its front page «Battle for Faith and Country» and proclaims: «It is time to shake off this unbearable yoke, to free the Fatherland, to shake the crescent from the clouds, to raise the sign, by which we always win! I say the Cross, and thus avenge the Fatherland, and our Orthodox Faith from the wicked contempt of the wicked. By Union, O Compatriots, by Union, by Respect for the holy Religion, by submission to the Laws and Generals, by Fortitude and firmness, our victory is certain and inevitable.’.
Says Fotakos, direct witness of all the events of 21 and adjutant of Kolokotronis: «Happy was the day of the revolution of the Greek race, because even then and from years ago the nation had the glorious and venerable heir as its guide. These ministers of the true God provided and prepared the nation to rebel, and to change the abuser of its religion and its sacred. The clergyman raised the banner of the cross and the nation».
And Makriyannis reproaches those who accuse the clergy and the Church: «...and they curse those who are sold to foreigners, and our priests, where they weigh them anandrus and apolemos. We have had our priests with us in every weather, in every pain and suffering. Not only to call the arms of the holy, but also with rifle and yatagan, fighting like lions. Shame on you Greeks.
And Petrobeis Mavromichalis writes in a letter to Kolokotronis after the triumph at Dervenakia: «Your generosity, General... God is pleased with us as he has conquered many nations and has sent away kings of mighty kings; God Almighty does not leave us to the distinction of the enemy. No, of course not, but he is our ally in all things, as we have said in practice many times, and once in a while by the power of the holy and life-giving cross and your energy and bravery to destroy the enemy entirely. God forbid, God forbid...».
Here is a miraculous fact: at the beginning of the Revolution when the rebels entered Valtetzi, they found it deserted by the inhabitants and only a few dead men lying there. And Fotakos recounts: «Unaccustomed as they were to the evils of war, they turned yellow with fear and did not go slowly to the dead. But Kolokotronis, however, set and gathered their pieces and kept them and said: ‘These are Saints, they will go to Heaven as martyrs!’ Then the soldiers shrunk and buried them.».
One of the myths that some people deliberately cultivate about 1821 is therefore refuted by the historical sources themselves. It is a myth that is convenient for those who systematically and professionally attempt to de-religionize society and completely break the relationship between Greece and Orthodoxy.
The tendency towards levelling and ethnonationalism, the promotion of the idea of the «universal homeland» which has no history, boundaries, borders and limitations, the view that national symbols are no longer meaningful and constitute anachronism, is the most dangerous and damaging for the future of the country. And we have seen this recently, with the desecration of the Greek flag here in Kythera, in the rock painting in Diakofti. It is extremely sad and at the same time infuriating that a section of our fellow citizens have attempted to justify this act and surround it with any ideological or rather ideological cloak. We see this at national level too. They are the so-called «right-wing». They consider any kind of deviation as a «right» with a democratic even legitimacy and basis. They ignore, of course, that democracy does not mean promiscuity, but obedience to rules and laws, observance of conditions and limits. The fighters of the 21st century did not give their lives so that we today can turn the country into an open vineyard, but so that we can live harmoniously in an organised state where the laws are applied by everyone without asterisks. Wrapping such attitudes in any ideological cloak is detrimental to the very foundations of society and should find us all up against it.
200 years after 1821, we ought not only to dwell on the historical events of that era, but to seriously discuss the situation of today's Greece and to reflect on specific issues of a national nature.
One of the most serious issues that we must address today, 200 years after 21, is that of education. From the abolition of polytonism to the present day, education has experienced a steady decline in quality, despite the diligent efforts of our remarkable teachers. The abolition of polytonics was criminal. Here is what Christos Giannaras writes: «the imposition of the monotonic is in the history of the Greeks a catastrophe, incomparably more devastating than the Asia Minor. In the Asia Minor Catastrophe, ancient cradles of Hellenism were lost, its cosmopolitan nobility was lost, the consciousness that Hellenism is a civilization, i.e. a «way» of life, not a citizenship of Balkan provincialism. But the continuity of its language, which is also the practical continuity of its historical consciousness, the continuity of the Greek «way» embodied in the written word, was not lost. The monotonic abolished the notation that linked the ancient Greek phonetic «prosody» with its written expression and made the Greek language unified from Homer to the present day».
On the importance of Education, Tercetis mentions the following incident with Kolokotronis: «Kolokotronis one day in his house in Athens, was playing in the chamber while his child Kolinos was writing. He stopped at once and asked him: ‘Kulinis, which do you think is the national house of Greece?’ Kolinos answered him at once: ‘The King's palace’. ‘The King's palace? ’No!» he said. 'The University!'".
The same supposed rightism that justifies for some the desecration and burning of the flag, justifies for others the tragic picture that many of our Universities present today. Destruction, partisan youths, and agoraphobic behaviour towards professors on the part of certain social groups are a cancer on the education system, and any effort aimed at abolishing these practices is certainly worthy of praise. Because when a student needs twice as much time to complete his/her studies than the stipulated time due to the occupations, then this is only an honour for our country.
Another serious issue is that of under-generation, the true dimensions of which we have probably not yet realised. When our neighbouring country's population is growing rapidly and ours in this year's census will record a population decline for the first time in modern history, then we should certainly be concerned.
And also, the implementation of the erga omnes laws is something that we should be concerned about. As Professor Veremis says of the ills of our race: «One of them concerns the relationship between the citizen and the state. One of one of these relations is that of the citizen. We are still playing a game of thieves with the state. Always in our consciousness the state remains a potential enemy. When it gives out money, it can also become a friend. The English understand their relationship with the state differently. The tradition of the thieves» torpedoes still works. Inside us we have a thief-torturer who wants to go out and manifest himself.« And when the Professor is asked »finally, should we celebrate 200 years with our heads held high?« he replies: »Of course we celebrate. But also to learn. If we don't fight our ills we will not move forward. Celebrating 200 years with a lot of brains".
Therefore, as in a few years, in 2030, we will celebrate the 200th anniversary of the official declaration of our National Independence made by the London Protocol of 3 February 1830, we should have found our way as a Nation and as a State on these important issues: on Education, on the dangerous under-birth rate and on changing our way of life and our attitude towards the Laws that we, through our representatives, enact but seldom abide by. If we lay the right foundations on these three issues, then ethnonationalism, flattening, devaluation of sacred symbols and concepts will no longer have a place in our society. And this would be the greatest honour for us, the modern Greeks, to the memory and sacrifice of the heroes of 1821, both prominent and obscure, who «have wrought and in their toil we have entered and have given us a land of liberty, since we have not wrought upon it», paraphrasing the Gospel. In memory of those who, as other «sons of thunder» - to borrow a phrase from the hymnology of the Apostle and Evangelist John the Theologian, which we celebrate today - gave us with their blood and their lives the all-important good of freedom and national independence and dignity.
I DEMAND THE NATION!
CHEERED THE HEROES OF 1821!
