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| Sketch of St. Ephraim, by the hand of Photios Kontoglou |
By Photis Martinos,
Grandchild of Photios Kontoglou
Grandchild of Photios Kontoglou
Saint Ephraim is celebrated today and the memories that awaken from our childhood are many.
It is known that Kontoglou maintained a very close and deep relationship with the Monastery of Saint Paraskevi as we called it then, that is, the Monastery of the Annunciation of the Theotokos, better known today as the Monastery of Saint Ephraim, on Mount Amomon in Nea Makri, Attica, and with its abbess Markella (Makaria) from Falatado, Tinos, whom the nuns called - and still call her - "Mother".
Whenever he could, he attended church at the Monastery with the entire "entourage" and he has even written a relevant article in ELEFTHERIA.
Of course, the Monastery had no relation to what it is now. Neither as a building nor in relation to its popularity today. It was a small, almost unknown Monastery in a deserted place, since Nea Makri was also a small village and not the city it is today. Perhaps that is why, or rather why indeed, Kontoglou loved it so much.
The “trip” to the Monastery, whether for the Sunday morning service or, more commonly, for Vespers, was a whole story and an entire experience. Early in the afternoon, Alekos Papademetriou, Kontoglou's brotherly friend and publisher, would come to our house with his wife Maria, in two cars, one his personal and one the office jeep. In the first, the Kontoglou and Papademetriou couples would get in and in the second was the younger ones, their son Vangelis Papademetriou, our parents Despoula and Yiannis Martinos and us, the children, my brother Panos and I, who would put two stools for us and we would sit back to back. Although there were no mobile phones at that time, others slowly gathered “voluntarily” – Pantelis Paschos, Uncle Nikos, Grandma Maria’s brother and his wife Eleutheria, the Litsa and Thomas Jounta family with their children from Liopesi, Kornilios Diamandouros and others, who longed to live this experience with Kontoglou, and thus a small procession of cars was formed – “our escort” as he himself writes – which set off for Nea Makri.
When we arrived at the Monastery, Vespers had just begun, in the small chapel entering on the right – the current large church had not been built at that time – with the ancestral icon of Saint Paraskevi, which Kontoglou had brought with him from Aivali. That is why we called it the “Monastery of Saint Paraskevi”. It was absolutely quiet and the only thing that could be heard was the chirping of the birds that gathered in the cypress tree in the courtyard and the sweet voices of the nuns who were chanting. There was such peace, tranquility and devotion that you felt your body relax and become sweeter, as if accumulated toxins and poisons were leaving it – and for a twelve-year-old child to feel this, one can imagine what the older ones would feel.
Entering the church, it was half dark, only the candles in the mantel shed a little light. We children stood in front and the adults behind us. There was barely enough room for everyone. Uncle Nikos always stood behind me and when I made the sign of the cross, he would take my hand and show me how to do it correctly and not up and down, carelessly and hurriedly. In the background, the venerable figure of the Abbess, the Mother, could just be seen in the semi-darkness, sitting in her stasidi, hunched over, silent, immersed in her soul and her thoughts.
What can one say? These are feelings and memories that are difficult to describe, but which remain forever alive.
When Grandma Maria died in 1973, she was buried with special permission from the Archdiocese on the hill above the Monastery under a pine tree, next to a monk. In 1977, the bones of Photios Kontoglou were removed from the First Cemetery and transferred to the Monastery, where they are still today, together with the bones of his beloved Maria, in a small monument built in the courtyard, next to the terrace and under his favorite cypress tree, which he himself mentions in his article.
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
