The Unenslaved Spirit of Romiosini
By Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos and Agiou Vlasiou
By Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos and Agiou Vlasiou
(Delivered at the event organized by the “Philippoi of Nafpaktos” Society for the anniversary of the Fall of the City, in Nafpaktos on May 29, 2012.)
The month of May is dedicated to Romiosini, because in this month took place the inauguration of Constantinople (May 11), the memory of the first Christian emperor is celebrated (May 21), and we commemorate the Fall of the City (May 29). Reference to these subjects is always important and timely, especially in our own age.
A general observation is that the fall of the City is not a matter for mourning and lamentation, but for intense reflection and a starting point for reorientation. The points that will be emphasized below will define the importance of this subject for our own time and will express the free and unenslaved spirit of Romiosini, despite the fall of the City.
1. The Fall of Constantinople
Constantinople, as the capital of the Roman State, was the most beautiful city of the world at that time. Saint Constantine the Great adorned it with the finest artistic works, with churches, marketplaces, cultural buildings, and many other things which attracted the attention and admiration of all the peoples surrounding it. Characteristic is the reference made by Saint Gregory the Theologian, who praised New Rome with beautiful words.
In one of his poems he describes Constantinople–New Rome as a star-filled heaven brighter than the earth. He writes:
"Glorious seat of Constantine the Great,
newer Rome, surpassing cities so greatly
as the star-adorned heaven surpasses the earth."
Elsewhere, referring to New Rome, he calls it the second eye of the inhabited world (ecumene). He writes:
"The glorious eye of the inhabited world, O men,
the second eye, as I see, in which you dwell,
clothed with earthly ornaments and treasures of the sea,
new Rome, homeland of noble new men,
city of Constantine, support of the Empire."
And elsewhere, speaking of the two Romes, the Old and the New Rome, he describes them as the two suns of the inhabited world. He writes:
"Nature has not given us two suns,
but two Romes which enlighten all the inhabited world,
the old and the new imperial city;
and they differ from one another so greatly,
as one rises in the East and the other in the West,
and the beauty of one balances the beauty of the other."
History records that throughout the centuries many peoples admired, coveted, and besieged the City, and some managed to capture it for shorter or longer periods of time. Let the Avars, the Rus, the Goths, the Arabs, the Franks, and the Ottomans be mentioned, all of whom coveted the beauty, splendor, and glory of the City.
Its final fall in 1453 was the result of the defeat of Romanos IV Diogenes in the battle of Manzikert in Armenia (1071), and of the invasion of the crusaders who participated in the Fourth Crusade (1204), who captured and plundered the City and carried all its great treasures to the West, as one may see today in the Basilica of Saint Mark in Venice. Various later enemies continued the plundering not only of Constantinople, but of all Romiosini as well.
Father John Romanides, who has justly been called "the Prophet of Romiosini," writes very characteristically that the "scientific death" of Romiosini was engineered by: the Franks from the ninth century onward; the Russians after the Fall; the Graecoi before the Fall; and the Neo-Graecoi of the little Greece enslaved to the Europeans and Russians in the nineteenth century, who transformed the Romaic Revolution of 1821 into a defeat of Romiosini and a triumph of the Graecism of Charlemagne and the Neo-Graecism of the "Philhellenes" of the Great Powers.
2. The Captivity of Romiosini
The Roumelioti writer Kostas Sardelis, in his book titled The Death of the Empire, refers extensively to the decisive role of the Franks in the dissolution of the Empire during the period after the Fall and, of course, to the tragedy of enslaved Romiosini.
Referring to the captivity of Romiosini, he presents many pieces of evidence showing that with the fall of Constantinople in 1453 the Empire did not die, but rather was taken captive. That is to say, after the fall of the capital to the Ottomans, the spirit and structure of Romiosini still remained, though indeed held captive. All the regions of the Roman Empire, including Asia Minor, united Thrace, the Balkans, the Aegean, and Palestine, were under Ottoman rule, yet they possessed a unified cultural tradition and preserved the entire spirit of Romiosini.
In other words, its body was captive, but its spirit was free — a spirit that continued to produce saints and express its civilization. Characteristic are the words of Theodoros Kolokotronis when referring to Constantine Palaiologos: “Our emperor was slain; he made no treaty. His guard remained in perpetual war against the Turks.” And he continues: “The guard of our Emperor are the so-called klephts; the fortresses, Mani and Souli and the mountains.”
One must also mention the great contribution of the Church, which became the Ethnarchy, headed by the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, serving as the national leadership of the Genos. It is well known that the Romanian historian Iorga, in his work Byzantium After Byzantium, presents the great contribution of the Church through its entire tradition, which continued to preserve the spirit of Romiosini amid pain, persecutions, and every kind of hardship.
The Phanariots, who formed the cultural aristocracy of the Genos; the local communities with their councils of elders, organized wherever possible and feasible, often with excellent results; the education that was offered, sometimes openly and sometimes secretly; the folk traditions permeated with the spirit of Romiosini; the gatherings in the holy churches for the celebration of the Mysteries and various ceremonies; Byzantine-Romaic music; the songs passed from mouth to mouth; the dances with their noble and heroic expression — all these demonstrated that the spirit of Romiosini was alive, that the Empire had not died but was simply in captivity, and that the Romioi/Romans breathed this glorious atmosphere and hoped for the restoration of their Empire.
Father George Metallinos, in his book titled Tourkokratia, with the subtitle "The Greeks in the Ottoman Empire", analyzes this issue extensively.
This spirit of Romiosini created the resistance of the Genos and the hope of uprising. This spirit, cultivated by the Church, produced the teachers of the Genos who held in their hands its history and tradition. But this same spirit also produced the New Martyrs, who taught the people through word and prayer, and especially through their martyrdom, with Saint Kosmas the Aitolos as their great forerunner.
When one reads the New Martyrology of Saint Nikodemos the Hagiorite, one is astonished and moved by the vibrant spirit of Romiosini revealed in the martyrdoms of the New Martyrs, but also in the prologue written by Saint Nikodemos the Hagiorite himself.
Of course, this captivity was martyrdom itself. Essentially it was the journey of the Genos through continual persecution, a transhistorical life within catacombs of blood and martyrdom. This is why Photios Kontoglou spoke of “Suffering Romiosini.”
Beyond the New Martyrs, the bishops also endured martyrdom, for they bore the whole burden of the slavery, the groaning, and the pain of the Genos. There are books that enlighten us about the daily life of bishops during the period of Ottoman rule. The bishops had undertaken their national role as presidents of the local councils, struggling to preserve Tradition and the unity of the Genos, participating in the weeping and tears of the people, in the martyrdoms and apostasies.
Above all, the Ecumenical Patriarch himself was the chief target of the conqueror, despite the privileges he possessed. The taxation they had to pay every year to the conqueror — the haratsi, the peshkesh, and so forth — together with the obligations required for maintaining the center of the Orthodox Church so as to carry out its immense work, subjected them to unimaginable suffering. There are testimonies that many bishops resigned from their thrones and fell into melancholy because they could not meet the heavy taxation imposed upon them by the State.
Nevertheless, throughout the entire period of Ottoman rule, although the capital of the Empire, Constantinople, had fallen and all its lands were captive, this living spirit of Romiosini continued to exist — as tradition and civilization, as a path toward sanctification and deification, as an expression of dignity and Romaic consciousness.
This is expressed in the figure of Karagiozis, who possessed great confidence in his Romiosini despite his illiteracy, poverty, and ugliness, so that neither the wealth nor the beauty of the Turks or the Franks could tempt him. Karagiozis was enslaved in body, but free in spirit; through his cleverness and humor he preserved the nobility of his soul.
3. The Death of the Empire
If during the four hundred years of slavery the Romans, wherever they lived — in the Balkans, Asia Minor, the Middle East, and elsewhere — kept the lamp of the Romaic tradition burning despite persecutions and hardships, nevertheless the death of the Empire came much later, so that today people speak about the loss of hope for the restoration of the old Christian Roman Empire.
Again, the writer Kostas Sardelis, in the book previously mentioned, speaks about this serious issue. Using many arguments, historical events, and scholarly testimonies, he reaches the conclusion that the death of the Empire — the Empire created by Constantine the Great and sustained by later emperors, patriarchs, clergy and monks, laymen, scholars, and the common people — did not occur with the Fall of the City in 1453, but with the Greek Revolution of 1821.
Among other things, he refers to an interesting view of the Romanian historian Iorga, whom we mentioned earlier: “The catastrophe of Constantinople and the martyrdom of the Patriarch coincided chronologically with the popular uprising in the Morea and with the categorical refusal of the Romanians to support the Byzantine venture, which did not at all move the Slavs of the Balkans. At that precise moment post-Byzantine Byzantium died.”
It is not at all strange, therefore, that Rigas Feraios in his Thourios called upon all the peoples of the Balkans to rise up, nor that the Revolution began in Iași in Romania, and that the symbol of the phoenix adopted by Alexander Ypsilantis symbolized the idea of the revival of the Roman Empire.
Kostas Sardelis writes: “The Greek Revolution, therefore, began as a universal movement for all the Orthodox slaves, and this was the original plan of the Friendly Society (Philikí Etaireía), because Ypsilantis certainly was not acting on his own initiative, but was implementing the plan of the supreme leadership of the Society — regardless of whether nationalist and other factors overturned it, resulting in the ‘Hellenization’ of the Revolution and its restriction, initially, to the Morea.”
It is also characteristic that the great English historian Toynbee writes that the Greeks committed a reckless act and lost the entire Empire, and that in reality the imperial idea was transformed into a national idea.
Of course, no one denies the struggles and bloodshed of the heroes of the Revolution of 1821 — clergy and laity alike — who gave everything for the resurrection of the Genos. But we must not forget that behind the backs of these fighters various plans of the Western Powers were being woven in order to eliminate the possibility of restoring the Roman Empire/Byzantium with Constantinople as its capital, and instead create small nationalistic states in the Balkans which would be assimilated into the spirit of the West and alienated from their own cultural tradition.
Characteristic are the words of Kolokotronis: “In the first year of the Revolution we had great unity... And if this unity had lasted two more years, we would have conquered Thessaly and Macedonia and perhaps even reached Constantinople...” This was the goal of the fighters, and not the creation of a small statelet, essentially a protectorate. It is in this spirit that we must understand the effort to define the ideology of the Greek state through autocephaly — that is, separation from the Ecumenical Patriarchate — the turn toward ancient Greece, and orientation toward the West.
Thus, “the poison of nationalism naturally acted in a destructive way. In the end there emerged a ‘prefabricated’ state, a statelet without foundations, suspended in the air, a plaything in the hands of its protectors — and creators, I would say. The idea of the Roman Empire had died in the fire of the Revolution, and the tragedy of Romiosini had been completed. Romania had been lost... The only outlet and consolation for the people now was the ‘Great Idea.’”
This death of the Empire was completed with the Asia Minor Catastrophe, which resulted from the conflict of political forces within Greece, some aligned with German policy and others with English policy. Thus an attempt to restore Romiosini was drowned in the blood of peoples and in the execution of several politicians at Goudi.
So today we remain enslaved to the rivalry between the Franco-German and the Anglo-Saxon axes, as this rivalry is expressed within the European sphere, together with our own inherent weaknesses and the passions of comfort-loving and petty Hellenism.
Characteristic is a thought I read these past days: “The West is troubled by Romiosini. The East is troubled by Romiosini. And the peoples of the Balkans, who are prevented by our presence from appropriating our own life and our own ancestors so as to find a place themselves in the mosaic of the peoples of the world — they too are troubled by Romiosini” (Ninetta Voloudaki). For everyone, the Romaic philotimo that still exists in the life and soul of the people remains a problem.
4. The Romaic Philotimo
Although the Empire died and, as it appears, it is impossible for it to be restored, the Romaic spirit nevertheless continues to exist and live on — with its universal perspective, its love of God and love of mankind. This spirit is cultivated by ecclesiastical life, the Mysteries, and the ascetic tradition, but also by the cultural tradition expressed through songs and dances, distinguished by optimism and above all by the Romaic philotimo.
The Romios is not a puppet of foreigners; he is not a “Graeculus,” that is, servile and slavish. Rather, he clearly understands reality, possesses a tradition superior to the Western tradition, knows how to face situations courageously, how to sacrifice personal interest for the common good, how to live in freedom even amid difficult social conditions, and how to remain inwardly and outwardly free from dependence.
Characteristic are the things Father John Romanides writes, which are relevant to contemporary reality:
“For the good and for the security of national matters, the Graeculus must once again become a Romios and see what Europeans and Americans truly are in reality. They do not possess the Romaic philotimo. Therefore we must not behave toward them according to our own philotimo, as though they too possess philotimo. In international relations we must set philotimo aside.
The Graeculus must consciously cast off his naïveté and stop imagining that because he himself is willing to sacrifice for Western civilization, this means that his ‘philotimo-filled’ allies will sacrifice themselves for the ‘glorious’ little Greece of today’s ‘ancient Greeks.’ Very naïve is the Graeculus who thinks in this way, because the allies are not a Romaic family in which one sacrifices himself for another.
An alliance is political, economic, and military cooperation through which each state protects its own interests and the interests of its allies insofar as those interests coincide with its own. An alliance is based upon agreed terms and nothing beyond the agreed terms, exactly as in commerce. If something occurs beyond the agreed terms, it is foolish for the Graeculus to expect the allies to act out of philotimo, since they do not possess philotimo.
For this reason, beforehand he must secure the necessary sanctions for any possible violation of the agreements, otherwise he will receive only moral satisfaction from the allies — that is, a mere ‘well done, devoted and humble servant’ — and nothing more, exactly as has happened with the Cyprus issue.”
We live in a difficult age. The emphasis has fallen upon economics, whereas it should rest upon spiritual foundations — that is, upon the Romaic philotimo, upon the spirit of Romiosini — and we should confront circumstances with a spirit of freedom. I will conclude my thoughts with an important appeal:
“Roman brethren, so long as the legends live and the Turks fear lest they lose it, our City has fallen, but it has not been lost! So long as the Romaic DNA continues from father to son and from mother to daughter, and the face of the Marble Emperor haunts our dreams, the closed Gate of the Hagia Sophia of God awaits the hour when it will open.
No powerful ruler, no numerous people, no ‘master of the world’ can annihilate Romiosini. Romiosini will disappear only when the last Roman departs from this world, and together with him faith, hope, and dreams are extinguished!” (Ninetta Voloudaki).
To the well-known phrase, “The City has fallen,” we must oppose the words of Nikephoros Vrettakos: “The root has not fallen! The light has not fallen!”
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
