A Kind of Witness
Attempting to answer “Hey man, it’s the 21st century. Why do you still . . .” etc. and so on.
I’m terribly sorry, but first we have to talk about the Nazis.
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He was only about ten at the time. I never got the real story out of him. Only a few tales of the days when the Nazis invaded his island village here and there. The older I got, at family gatherings and whatnot, I’d get another snippet, then another, then another. Most recently, while bringing his great-grandkids for a visit just a few months ago, I learned another story I’d never heard before.
Anyway, he was a boy of nine or ten, the oldest of five, the son of a priest currently in the American Midwest trying to establish some Greek Orthodox churches. His mother stayed behind with the children. And then the Germans came.
The Italians came first, of course. He told me that the Italian soldiers were nice. Friendly. They didn’t want to be there. They’d throw the starving Greek children some food and chat and flirt with the comely young Greek lasses and play their guitars and whatnot. The Greeks had fought bravely during Italian invasion of 1940, the Greek Prime Minister Ioannis Metaxas famously declining Benito Mussolini’s ultimatum of surrender with a single word: “Όχι” (“no”). Badass. This is a holiday for Greece and us diasporans, celebrated on October 28.
While I appreciate Metaxas’s laconic reply (though he was born on the island of Ithaca and not the region of Laconia), I prefer the Greek penchant for trash-talking embodied during the Greek war of Independence (1821-1832) by Greek general George Karaiskakis in a letter to the Ottoman Mahmut Pasha:
Pure poetry. In case you’re wondering, “fart on my cock”1 means “I’ll be balls-deep in your anus metaphorically screwing you so hard, you’ll be helpless to do anything but impotently pass gas on my massive, throbbing—”
Okay, you get it. And yes this letter is real.
And yes, insert “Greeks are gay” jokes, blah blah blah. But here is some interesting historical Ottoman art for you to check out in this footnote right here2 if you’re so inclined to check it out. You be the judge.
Anyway.
The point is, by the time he was ten, my grandfather’s childhood was over. There were idyllic tales from before, and stories of things like seeing some Cossacks there on behalf of the Nazis cut down a guy with swords in front of him. My grandmother told us the worst story, one I never heard from my grandfather himself, about how he had to steal food from the Germans to feed the family. One time a particularly nasty Nazi caught him and stabbed him in the back. She told us he still woke up in a cold sweat from nightmares of that incident.
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When I was seventeen and knew all there was to know about the world, I tried really hard to be an atheist. On the way to church for Good Friday that age I decided I’d be an edgy boy—it was the 90s, but I had neither fedora nor bowling shirt—and asked my family if they really believed a man rose from the dead. “Of course I believe Jesus existed,” I said, “but the resurrection? Come on.” My parents and siblings didn’t know what to say other than “Yeah, he did.”
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Two other stories from my grandfather:
The Germans wanted some herbs the locals used to cook with.3 Some older guy pointed the Nazis toward a particular bush which was some herb that messed with their digestive systems. My grandfather vividly remembered a line of Hitler’s Finest dropping their trousers and emptying their bowels in agony by the side of the road. I don’t think that older guy lived the nights. Some people have no sense of humor.
There were still Italians there. One night, my grandfather remembered an Italian soldier playing his guitar from the balcony on one house. A German soldier took out a small accordion and began to play in counterpoint. Somehow, inexplicably, a Greek woman began to sing. There, listening to that in the moonlight, my grandfather said he felt that everything was going to be okay, and that’s how he wanted to remember the Germans and the Italians.
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So for the Good Friday liturgy, part of the Orthodox Church service consists of a hauntingly beautiful funereal hymn called The Lamentations.
The congregation is invited to sing these with the priest and chanter and choir. The words are from the perspective of one standing around Christ’s sepulcher, who had witnessed the events of the crucifixion, of Joseph of Arimathea asking for the body, of the annointment and preparation of Christ for burial, and the sadness of those witnessing their Lord be laid to rest. However, there is no despair, for even the Lamentations contain a kernel of hope:
Grant that we who serve you
may see the Resurrection
of your Son, O blessed Virgin.
Something about that hymn, that night, that year, moved me to tears. Literal, actual tears. Seventeen-year-old atheist wannabe me wasn’t an atheist after that service. Yes, I had an actual religious experience. It was the first I’d ever had in my life. I felt it. I got it. I don’t know why it was then and there, but it was.
Oh, did I mention that the priest was my grandfather?
big ol’ smash cut
My grandfather told me he never wanted to be a priest at first.
There were other stories, of course. Stories of survival. Stories of hiding out after the Second World War but during the Greek civil war, when communists were after village boys who’d helped the British with their anti-Nazi subterfuge, stories of holing up in a convent and in a submarine while communist pursued him. Remember: the communists were just as evil and bloodthirsty as the Nazis. The only good communist, like the only good Nazi, is a dead communist. This is why my political philosophy is “Orthodox Christian.”
Stories of studying in a monastery for university exams. Stories of arriving in England as a teenager with literally nothing but the clothes on his back, not even a jacket, of meeting a priest in London who took pity on him until he could get to Canada. Of arriving in Toronto and attending university for chemistry as a part of Canada’s displaced persons program.4 Of making his way to Boston University and getting a Ph.D. in philosophy. Of an encounter with a Greek Orthodox priest that convinced him to attend the seminary5 in nearby Brookline, Massachusetts, and becoming an ordained priest. Of meeting my grandmother, a classy New Yorker, and . . . well, he didn’t become a bishop but he did serve a community for forty years, and another community for some 15 after that.
And he started a family.
Imagine having your childhood ripped away from you by war and privation and violence. Millions in Europe during those years had it worse than my grandfather—Europe’s Jews, obviously, and I’m not trying to compare traumas here—but he still had a rough go of things.6 And yet, to this day, he is a kind, gentle, humorous, optimistic, smart, soft-spoken fountain of wisdom. You just feel calm when you’re near him. I’ve heard him raise his voice once in my life, when my younger cousin was about four or five and somehow got out of our beach house porch and near the street. Otherwise, the decibel level is the man’s voice remains very low—amazing in a family of Greek loudmouths like the rest of us.
What about his anger? His resentment? His trauma? Oh, I’m sure they’re there. But obviously my grandfather never let these things define him or control his life. He let them go. He has another source of strength, of life. He’s still as firm a believer now as he was then. Maybe more.
If this war survivor, this victim of severe childhood trauma, this scientist and philosopher who had read all of the Aristotle and Plato and Kant and Nietzsche to last a lifetime, who had read other religious texts like the Koran, who also taught college-level Greek and Ancient Greek, remained a committed Christian his entire life, maybe there was something to it.
Maybe a man was the Son of God and rose from the dead. Why not? The world is a far stranger place than any of us know. People far smarter than us knew this. We as a species still haven’t figured everything out yet. Case in point: why are we here, and what happens when we die?
[Disclaimer: the following is my personal take. Reader discretion is advised.]
Religions, the serious ones, have to be a little coy about these things. Imagine if the actual meaning of life was revealed to us wholesale now, or what happened when you died. It would blow our minds, but in a destructive way. We get glimpses, hints, but never the full reveal. It isn’t time yet. We’ll get it in the fullness of time. Be patient. Death is sleep, rest. When the Resurrection comes, we’ll all be back to see the real end, which is also a beginning. The word αποκάλυψης (apocalypse) means “lifting” or “uncovering.” All will be revealed.
Think of human babies. Imagine if we were born with fully formed minds. All of existence, all of self-knowledge, all at once, would probably drive us mad.
Back to the afterlife. Imagine if you knew with 100 percent certainty where you’d end up. Maybe you’d just kill yourself to get there. Or suddenly be good to get right with God to get there. But is this due to your free will, or due to God basically playing puppet master with you? There is a reason God doesn’t just control existence—humanity disobeyed Him in the first days, and here’s the kicker: we’re not being punished out of sadism, but because we’re not ready for eternal life yet, which is what we were meant for. Imagine if, after eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, Adam and Eve ate fruit from the tree of eternal life?7 So we go through life with the faith that everything will be all right if we trust the Lord.
I know to some reading this, it all sounds like crazy talk. But to others you get it even if you don’t believe it. And others might believe it. Please forgive me if I got any theology wrong. The point is, Christ has provided and does provide a sense of peace and purpose to billions of souls. This, I think, is what has allowed my grandfather to overcome his tough past and create a positive, lasting legacy.
Yes, I am a cradle Christian. But I think I still believe because of my grandfather.
The big questions are also satisfactorily answered for me by the faith. Your mileage may vary. That’s great. We’re all on our own journey, and God’s love and mercy is boundless.
This faith not only carried my ancestors though a brutal occupation and a civil war, but through four centuries of Ottoman oppression. “Fart on my balls” could also be yelled at the actual Devil as well as a foreign one. Who am I to discard what’s worked in times far worse than mine? What are my problems? Too many bills? Come on.
In this modern techno-hell we find ourselves in, beset by leaders who actively hate us and work for our immiseration, and who do things to deliberately separate us from our belief, there is absolutely, 100 percent still a need for faith. Maybe more of a need. Our split with nature is getting terminal. I reject it. I’m sticking with belief. That’s not the only reason, but it is a reason. Generally, not always but generally, If the powers that be are against it, it’s probably a good thing. They can all fart on my balls.8
And if something is believed by great men who have survived nearly a century, then that’s also pretty good evidence that sometime is good. Or Good, I should say.
- Alexander
Thank you for reading a long and kind of sprawling post. It was a serious one so thanks for sticking with me until the end. Whether or not you agree with me, I hope you did get something out of it.
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Also sometimes “fart on my balls.”
Can’t blame them. Greek food is the best.
Of getting into fights with Canadians who called people like my grandfather “DPs” (displaced persons) as a racial slur. Yes, racial. Greeks were European but were “foreign” European. Plus, my grandfather is very dark. Still, God bless Canada for taking him in and providing for him, something it didn’t have to do. Pray for our Canuck friends, people: they don’t deserve what’s being done to them.
That’s still there and still training Orthodox priests.
Greece was devastated by World War II.
Whether you take these as literal trees and fruit, or metaphors, is fine by me. I’m not going to argue.
This, actually, is my political philosophy: “They can all fart on my balls.” No, I won’t stop saying this.
Great essay! It’s very difficult to describe what happens internally when you truly “get it”.
While the setting was much different, I know very well how overwhelming and humbling that moment is. It isn’t something you can draw a diagram of or dissect in a lab, but it’s more real than anything I’ve ever experienced.
Love hearing your grandpa's story, Alex! What a life... to continue to be filled with such kindness and compassion after witnessing all those atrocities. An amazing example of Christ.