By Protopresbyter Fr. George Metallinos
Father Kosmas¹ is one of the best-known ecclesiastical figures of the pre-revolutionary period, even within the sphere of scholarly research,² although his activity and contribution do not primarily belong to the field of scholarship. This has been emphatically underscored by Professor Gerhard Podskalsky, who included Father Kosmas in one of his strictly scholarly works as the sole exception.
Sufficient evidence of his significance for the enslaved Nation is found in the laudatory words spoken about him by the German researcher himself: "An exceptionally popular missionary and teacher of the Nation." He was a characteristic example of a popular preacher who "possessed a religious piety foreign to academic theology" — "His sermons deeply moved the People both from a national and from a religious perspective" — and for this reason they were regarded as "subversive from a sociopolitical perspective."³ Indeed, it is a fact that, in the mouths of the People and in their Songs, the echo of the sermons of this great teacher of the Nation has been preserved.
Comparisons Between the Two Periods
1. The period in which we live has a transitional character, because it introduced us into the so-called NEW ERA, which is defined in military and political terms by the NEW WORLD ORDER. The era of Father Kosmas likewise had a similar character, as the world was experiencing upheavals, both spiritual and political-social, which ultimately led to the outbreak of the Great French Revolution of 1789, or, for us, the Great Greek Revolution of 1821. Both then and now, a genuine or artificial crisis of identity can be observed. This, however, was — and is — not occurring among the broad popular masses, but primarily within the spheres of politics and the intelligentsia.
The Enlightenment then, and postmodernity today, are connected with a movement of cultural transference, meaning the one-way transfer, as a rule, of intact structures from Western societies to "the East as we understand it," accompanied by a corresponding devaluation of our national identity and its constituent elements.
At that time, particular emphasis was placed on Greek identity as a turn toward antiquity, as it was understood by the antiquity enthusiasts of that era, accompanied by a corresponding devaluation or even contempt for Orthodoxy and Byzantium.
Today, however, as was demonstrated by the "identity problem," even this Greek identity is being devalued in favor of a planned transition to another ("new") identity, imposed by our integration into the European Union and our entry into the New Era.
Then, our Europeanization was pursued through the marginalization of the Orthodoxy of our Saints; today, the same objective is connected with our detachment from our national identity as well.
In both cases, the language is one of modernization and renewal, which conceal the illegitimate dependencies of our national politics.
The Resurrection of the Nation
2. Saint Kosmas was consumed by a sacred longing, but also by the charismatic certainty of the resurrection of the Nation, a resurrection connected not with a small homeland understood in nationalistic, that is, ethnic—terms, but with the Roman-Greek Orthodox Oikoumene in its former glory. He would speak with the People about “when the Desired will come,” speaking - as did the Kollyvades, Rigas, and the Phanariots — of the Roman: “One day this will become Roman,” he would repeat. And all this took place during a period when conversions to Islam had intensified.
The resurrection of the Nation was oriented toward Constantinople and the empire of New Rome, the City of the dreams of Hellenism. He also anticipated the restoration of the Nation in his Prophecies, seeking to mobilize the longing for national rebirth and to rekindle “the hope that had grown cold.” And the People vindicated his preaching by incorporating it into their songs:
«Βοήθα μας Ἅη-Γιώργη /
καί σύ Ἅγιε Κοσμᾶ /
νά πάρουμε τήν Πόλη /
καί τήν ἁγιά-Σοφιά»
“Help us, Saint George,
and you, Saint Kosma,
that we may take the City
and Hagia Sophia.”
Not Athens alone!
The resurrection of Greek Orthodox Romania (Byzantium) was then the prevailing ideology among the broader strata of the People. There existed hidden longings within the Nation. Popular poetry, already after the Fall, promised the Theotokos: “Again, in years and in due time, they shall be Yours again.” (When they belong to the Theotokos, they are also ours, whereas, as in our own age, the reverse is not certain...) Expressions such as “When will it become Roman?” and “When Romania comes into being” (Pontic) were common throughout the entire period of bondage.
Father Kosmas, together with the New Martyrs — himself also a hieromartyr — renewed the self-confidence and self-awareness of the Rayahs, strengthening through his preaching concerning “the Roman” their national consciousness as well. And he regarded perseverance in the faith as the sole means of strengthening this collective consciousness:
“Let them burn your bodies; let them fry them; let them take your possessions — do not worry about it. Give them away. They are not yours. What you need is your soul and Christ. If the whole world were to fall upon you, it cannot take these two things from you unless you surrender them willingly. Guard these two things, so that you do not lose them.”
“Let Them Not Run to the Courts”
3. This “slender and short man, wrapped in his cassock,”⁴ this popular preacher, captivated his listeners because he was a genuine expression of Orthodoxy. Father Kosmas followed the path of our Saints, entering into the journey of “purification, illumination, and deification.” He became a seasoned Athonite ascetic: “I went to the Holy Mountain and wept over my sins,” he notes. Thus he laid the foundations of his missionary activity.
Missionary work without spiritual and ascetic foundations cannot exist in Orthodoxy. When missionary activity is founded merely upon individual morality and academic knowledge, Western activism is introduced into our practice. Father Kosmas belonged to the party of the Kollyvades, and there is evidence for this. His hesychastic experience, moreover, was the prerequisite of his theology. He is thoroughly patristic in every respect, and this derives from his experiences, shared with those of the Fathers.
His prophetic gift and his martyrdom, together with all the miraculous elements associated with them, constitute confirmation that the Grace of the Holy Trinity dwelt within him, qualifying him as a prophet of his People. His sacrificial love for the Nation and his choice of missionary activity were fruits of his Orthodox phronema. And this is what he also recommended to those who, because of their studies, possessed the appropriate qualifications:
“Those who study have a duty not to run to the mansions and courts of the great (that is, not to become courtiers) and squander their studies in order to acquire wealth and office, but rather to teach the common People, among whom there is much ignorance and barbarism...”⁵
“The Faiths of the Devil”
4. The longing of Father Kosmas for the common resurrection of the Nation was connected with the choice of the appropriate means for achieving this goal. And these were: the rekindling, within the Nation whose consciousness had been weakened because of slavery, of the true Faith, Orthodoxy: “I learned,” he says, “that by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and God, you are not Greeks [that is, idolaters], you are not impious heretics, atheists, but you are pious Orthodox Christians... sons and daughters of our Christ...”⁶ This means: He does not lead people to God in some vague sense — for Freemasons also speak about God — but to the one true God, the historical Jesus Christ, the sole revelation of the Triune God in the world (cf. John 17:6). He calls for the Nation to be separated from every trace of idolatry (neo-paganism) and heresy, which are expressions of impiety and blasphemy against God. “All faiths” — that is, religious teachings — “are,” he says, “false, counterfeit, all of them of the devil.” This means both the alienated Frankish Christianity and all the “religions” brought into our country from the atheistic and heretical West. “Only the faith of the pious and Orthodox Christians — that is, of the Saints — is good and holy.” For him, a Greek outside Orthodoxy cannot be conceived. “We, the pious and Orthodox Christians, believe in, glorify, and worship the Holy Trinity alone. This is the true God, and outside the Holy Trinity, all those who are called gods are demons...”⁷ This is the meaning of his words.
His preaching is Trinitarian-centered, but also Christ-centered. For Father Kosmas, Christ is God, but also “the sweetest sovereign and master.” We can understand the significance of this language for a people who, during their prolonged enslavement, had already come to call the tyrant Sultan “sovereign” and their bishop “master.” And this continues in our prolonged enslavement to this day. His preaching, however, was not a colorless moralism, but Theology, presented as the ontological foundation of Orthodox ethos. For from the Orthodox faith, transformed into a way of thinking and disposition, springs the Orthodox ethos, the Orthodox mode of existence. Either we unite or we perish.
The Resurrection of Roman Society
5. The regenerative work of our Saint also aimed at the resurrection of Roman society, especially since he had realized that “we have become worse than beasts.” As a genuine Athonite, he was imbued with the communal ideal of the patristic tradition, whose principal bearer and representative was Basil the Great. The Holy Father desired the parish to exist as a brotherhood, with a coenobitic-communal organization and collective life. He knew, moreover, that it was within the community-parish that the enslaved Nation was preserved. According to a testimony of the Venetian Provveditore of Lefkada, the Elder urged the inhabitants of Preveza not to attend those parishes that had not been incorporated into a brotherhood. The message of his action was: either we unite or we perish. And this is valid today as well! He even prescribed the election of those responsible on an Orthodox basis (“with the agreement of all the Christians”). For the proper functioning, however, of the society he proposed, he preached the equality in Christ of the rights of men and women, the education of women, and the sacredness of marriage, based on the liturgical distinctiveness of the sexes and their place within the social body, the Church. He wanted the man in the family “as a king” and the woman “as a vizier”⁸ (that is, prime minister), as well as the administration of justice toward everyone, including the Jews (“...all of you who have wronged Christians or Jews”). Thus he demonstrates that our Greek Orthodox tradition, when it is functioning properly, has no need for anti-racist laws. Racism, which they are attempting to remedy today, was never a matter of the patristic tradition, but of Europe, to which we became enslaved.
In the society he advocated, he called for mutual respect between rulers and subjects, respect for priests above kings and angels, but also respect for the notables and elders. The Roman, Greek Orthodox roots of his social proposal are revealed by his position concerning the notables — the kotsampasides (or kodjabashis). “Whenever the country has some need, they seek out the notables, while you sleep carefree.”⁹ You see, the Turks did not have the familiar Nazi-style reprisals of the occupation. One act of “sabotage” cost all of Kalavryta their lives! The Ottomans decapitated the Nation by hanging the Patriarch and the leading figures of the Nation, all the way down to the notables. Following the Apostle Paul (Rom. 13:1 ff.), he counseled the people to observe loyalty to the authorities, but not servility. “Let them obey the royal commands that are according to God” (cf. Acts 5:29), that is, insofar as they “do not resist the Gospel.” As Basil the Great likewise says in this regard: “wherein the commandment of God is not hindered” (PG 35, 972–973).
Of enduring significance, however, is also the distinction he makes between the two beasts, the eastern and the western, which continually constitute the deadly threats to our Nation: “And why did God not bring another king,” he says, “when there were so many kingdoms here nearby [the western kingdoms], and give them [our kingdom] to him, but instead He brought the Turk from within the Red Apple Tree (Kokkini Milia) and gave it to him?” (A frightening statement, but this happened because “God knew that the other kingdoms would harm us in our faith, whereas the Turk does not. Give him money and mount him by the head...”¹⁰). He was not merely responding to the unionists who sought to Europeanize us in every age, but also to our post-patristic Ecumenists, who persist in failing to recognize, in their egopathological blindness, that the true danger comes from the distortion of the faith and less from atheism of whatever kind. For this reason, he does not hesitate to call the pope (the papal institution) the Antichrist (1 John 2:18) and to say, “curse the pope,” prophetically anticipating the pope’s position in today’s global system of power as “Planetary Ruler Number Two”...
Father Kosmas, furthermore, places the Fatherland in a hierarchy beneath Orthodoxy, saying: “My false, earthly, and vain homeland is from the province of Arta, from Apokouros...” “We Christians, my children, do not have a homeland here”¹¹ (cf. Heb. 13:14). Priority is always given to the Faith, Orthodoxy, to which Father Kosmas subordinates everything. He foresaw that the disease of our age would be the manifold use of Orthodoxy simply to support an absolutized “Greekness.” Father Kosmas — I will say it once again here — was first Orthodox and then Greek. His undeniable love of country was ordered within his Orthodoxy, without which Greece, the Greece handed down to us by our Fathers, dies.
Education and Language
In the society he advocated, he called for mutual respect between rulers and subjects, respect for priests above kings and angels, but also respect for the notables and elders. The Roman, Greek Orthodox roots of his social proposal are revealed by his position concerning the notables — the kotsampasides (or kodjabashis). “Whenever the country has some need, they seek out the notables, while you sleep carefree.”⁹ You see, the Turks did not have the familiar Nazi-style reprisals of the occupation. One act of “sabotage” cost all of Kalavryta their lives! The Ottomans decapitated the Nation by hanging the Patriarch and the leading figures of the Nation, all the way down to the notables. Following the Apostle Paul (Rom. 13:1 ff.), he counseled the people to observe loyalty to the authorities, but not servility. “Let them obey the royal commands that are according to God” (cf. Acts 5:29), that is, insofar as they “do not resist the Gospel.” As Basil the Great likewise says in this regard: “wherein the commandment of God is not hindered” (PG 35, 972–973).
Of enduring significance, however, is also the distinction he makes between the two beasts, the eastern and the western, which continually constitute the deadly threats to our Nation: “And why did God not bring another king,” he says, “when there were so many kingdoms here nearby [the western kingdoms], and give them [our kingdom] to him, but instead He brought the Turk from within the Red Apple Tree (Kokkini Milia) and gave it to him?” (A frightening statement, but this happened because “God knew that the other kingdoms would harm us in our faith, whereas the Turk does not. Give him money and mount him by the head...”¹⁰). He was not merely responding to the unionists who sought to Europeanize us in every age, but also to our post-patristic Ecumenists, who persist in failing to recognize, in their egopathological blindness, that the true danger comes from the distortion of the faith and less from atheism of whatever kind. For this reason, he does not hesitate to call the pope (the papal institution) the Antichrist (1 John 2:18) and to say, “curse the pope,” prophetically anticipating the pope’s position in today’s global system of power as “Planetary Ruler Number Two”...
Father Kosmas, furthermore, places the Fatherland in a hierarchy beneath Orthodoxy, saying: “My false, earthly, and vain homeland is from the province of Arta, from Apokouros...” “We Christians, my children, do not have a homeland here”¹¹ (cf. Heb. 13:14). Priority is always given to the Faith, Orthodoxy, to which Father Kosmas subordinates everything. He foresaw that the disease of our age would be the manifold use of Orthodoxy simply to support an absolutized “Greekness.” Father Kosmas — I will say it once again here — was first Orthodox and then Greek. His undeniable love of country was ordered within his Orthodoxy, without which Greece, the Greece handed down to us by our Fathers, dies.
Education and Language
6. He foresaw, however, that the anticipated resurrection and liberation of the Nation had to be founded upon the development of education.¹² Thus, he considered it a “sin” for “children to remain illiterate and blind”; “It is better for them to remain poor and educated than rich and illiterate.” He called illiterate children “little piglets,” thereby rebuking the indifference of parents toward their education. His teaching is genuinely patristic and far removed from obscurantism: “Our faith was not established by ignorant Saints, but by wise and educated men...” Here we hear an echo of the declaration of Saint Gregory the Theologian: “Therefore, education must not be dishonored, as some think” (Funeral Oration for Basil the Great, XI). Yet he understood education patristically as illumination by the Holy Spirit, and not as a Europeanizing intellectual enlightenment that leaves the human heart untouched and impure. For Father Kosmas, the school was an extension of the Church, a temple of God-centered education. That is why he said that numerous churches do not benefit the faith without the cultivation of the human person. Is it not true, then, that we too, in our now-European slavery, rather than erecting many lavish churches or fortress-like monasteries, ought to direct our care and concern also toward establishing and equipping schools rooted in our Greek Orthodox tradition? The educational vision that our Saint bequeathed to us is not that of homo oeconomicus, homo capitalisticus, or homo marxisticus, but that of the human person of Christ and Orthodoxy.
Inseparably connected with his vision of education is also his self-emptying in the matter of language. His linguistic and stylistic simplicity was certainly not due to any deficiency on his part. He himself possessed a high level of education; nevertheless, he adopted the linguistic idiom of his age and harmonized it with the language of the Gospel and of Worship, simplifying its forms while preserving the linguistic wealth of our tradition. The “demoticism” of Father Kosmas, however, was not the product of ideological or partisan obsessions, but was natural and unforced. He was neither a demoticist nor a purist, as we insist on being. Forms are always simplified over the centuries-long course of the Nation, but its linguistic wealth remains whole and alive within our worship. Father Kosmas did not force the language, neither in the manner of Korais nor of Psycharis. He avoided every extreme, because his purpose was the benefit of his listeners. His “demoticism” was national. For this reason, alongside popular expressions, he quotes passages from Scripture and Worship verbatim. Whatever the People accept and understand — that is what he seeks, when he struggles for the predominance of the Greek language in the sphere of education as well. This is not nationalism or racialism, but giving priority to the language in which our entire Greek Orthodox civilization has been preserved.
Between Orthodoxy and Greek Identity
Inseparably connected with his vision of education is also his self-emptying in the matter of language. His linguistic and stylistic simplicity was certainly not due to any deficiency on his part. He himself possessed a high level of education; nevertheless, he adopted the linguistic idiom of his age and harmonized it with the language of the Gospel and of Worship, simplifying its forms while preserving the linguistic wealth of our tradition. The “demoticism” of Father Kosmas, however, was not the product of ideological or partisan obsessions, but was natural and unforced. He was neither a demoticist nor a purist, as we insist on being. Forms are always simplified over the centuries-long course of the Nation, but its linguistic wealth remains whole and alive within our worship. Father Kosmas did not force the language, neither in the manner of Korais nor of Psycharis. He avoided every extreme, because his purpose was the benefit of his listeners. His “demoticism” was national. For this reason, alongside popular expressions, he quotes passages from Scripture and Worship verbatim. Whatever the People accept and understand — that is what he seeks, when he struggles for the predominance of the Greek language in the sphere of education as well. This is not nationalism or racialism, but giving priority to the language in which our entire Greek Orthodox civilization has been preserved.
Between Orthodoxy and Greek Identity
7. This was Saint Kosmas's vision for the reborn Nation. It was a vision founded upon the spiritual prerequisites of the Holy Fathers. Through his catechesis and exhortation, he redefined the identity of Orthodox Hellenism in an Orthodox manner, which was once again called to continue its leading mission within the Orthodox Family. He envisioned a Roman society as a “dwelling place of God, a dwelling place of the angels,” just as Saint John Chrysostom did when he said: “Let us make the earth heaven; let us make the earth into heaven!” A classless fraternity within the bounds of an actualized Christianity, as occurs in monastic brotherhood and in its extension into the world, the parish structured according to Orthodox patristic principles. His public ministry and activity moved between Orthodoxy and Greek identity. He was conscious that the world was evolving and that the new world being introduced by an alienated West was relentlessly threatening the world of our Orthodox tradition. For this reason, his words remain ever relevant, particularly in our contemporary Greek reality, which since 1830 has been a permanently sorrowful protectorate of Europe. And the question is: What remains today of Saint Kosmas's vision?
His Prophecies
His Prophecies
8. Saint Kosmas fulfilled his patristic duty toward us. He described to us fully what Orthodoxy is and how its historical realization is achieved. Yet, looking at our tragic condition today, we see that modern Greeks have literally disappointed Saint Kosmas's expectations. But he also perceived this charismatically in his “prophecies.” He wanted us to be guardians and confessors of our blameless Faith, advising us to “have a cross on our forehead, so that they may know that we are Christians,”¹³ while we have become, instead, Freemasons, Marxists, atheists, subservient to the papacy, blasphemers, and neo-pagan worshipers of demons. He wanted our clergy to be leaders of the Nation through Orthodox witness and confession. Yet he foresaw that the clergy would become “the worst and most impious of all.”¹⁴ And something even more frightening: he said that “the priests will corrupt the religion”! It is enough to bring to mind our enslavement to blasphemous Ecumenism and the antichristian movement toward a universal religion. Foreseeing the distorted course of our education, he would say: “The evil will come from the educated,”¹⁶ surely referring to our Enlightenment thinkers and postmodern intellectuals. Did he not describe our own age when he said: “Things will emerge from the schools that your mind cannot imagine”?¹⁷ And he prophetically describes our social life with equal accuracy when he said that our political leaders “will impose a tax on chickens and on windows”!¹⁸ No more apt description of our fiscal organization could be devised today than his prophecy: “The robbers will leave the mountains and come down into the cities, and they will wear shoes.”¹⁹ Something reminiscent of “the murderer in a dinner jacket”! And with regard to the legislation that regulates — or, rather, deregulates — our moral and social life, his prediction has likewise been fulfilled: “We will see and experience the things of Sodom and Gomorrah”!²⁰ Foreseeing as well the current tide of forced migration, he would say: “You will go and live elsewhere, and others will come to live among you,”²¹ foreseeing the abandonment of the Country by Greeks and the invasion of foreigners (illegal immigrants).
When reading his “prophecies,” one might think that they were written for our own age, insofar as they concern our apostasy and spiritual deadness. Inspired by the illumination of Saint Kosmas, the equally hesychast Makriyannis would likewise express his opposition to our national course:
“If someone had told us about this freedom that we are enjoying, we would have begged God to leave us under the Turks for as many more years as necessary for people to learn what homeland means, what religion means, what honor means, what virtue means, and what honesty means.”
Living amid the national failure which Saint Kosmas and Makriyannis each perceived in his own way, nothing remains for us but the humble supplication:
"Christ and my Panagia, and you also, Saint Kosmas,
Help Greece to rise again!"
Notes
1. The late Kostas Sardelis had already recorded hundreds of scholarly studies on Saint Kosmas in 1974 (!) (Kon. Sardelis, Kosmas the Aitolos: An Analytical Bibliography, 1974²), and since then scholarly research has continued to engage with his life and work. See the dissertation of Artemis Xanthopoulou-Kyriakou, Kosmas the Aitolos and the Venetians (1777–1779): The Final Years of His Activity and the Problem of the Didaches, Thessaloniki, 1984; Augustinos N. Kantiotis, Kosmas the Aitolos (1714–1779), Athens, 1977; Ioannis B. Menounos, The Teachings of Kosmas the Aitolos: A Philological Study—Texts, Athens, 1979; Fr. Georgios D. Metallinos, “Saint Kosmas the Aitolos—Apostle of the Unity of the Nation,” in Tradition and Alienation, Athens, 1986, pp. 85–110; by the same author, “The Dialectic of the Identities of Saint Kosmas and Ion Dragoumis,” in Testimonies on Spiritual and Social Issues, Thessaloniki, 2010, pp. 97–110. Articles include those in ThHE, vol. 7 (1965), cols. 894–899 (Nik. Sotiropoulos), and in the Universal Biographical Dictionary of Ekdotiki Athinon, vol. 5 (1991), pp. 42–43 (Artemis Xanthopoulou-Kyriakou), among others.
2. Although, apart from his correspondence, he did not write any scholarly study.
3. Gerhard Podskalsky (trans. Fr. Georgios D. Metallinos), Greek Theology under Turkish Rule (1453–1821), Athens, 2005, pp. 427–428.
4. Euphemia the Nun (Ioulia Gkeltē), The Prophecies of Saint Kosmas the Aitolos in History, Athens, 2004, p. 525.
5. See also his letters in: Augustinos N. Kantiotis, op. cit., p. 317 ff.
6. Ioannis Menounos, op. cit., pp. 115–116.
7. Ioannis Menounos, op. cit., pp. 142 ff., 119–120.
8. Ioannis Menounos, pp. 134, 184 ff.; Augustinos Kantiotis, p. 197.
9. Ioannis Menounos, pp. 281–282, 144.
10. Augustinos Kantiotis, p. 154; Ioannis Menounos, p. 270.
11. Ibid., pp. 116, 143–144, 149–150.
12. G. Podskalsky, op. cit., p. 349.
13. Augustinos Kantiotis, op. cit., p. 349.
14. Ibid., p. 342.
15. M. Tritou, Kosmas the Aitolos, the Illuminator of the Nation, the Prophet, Thessaloniki, 2000, p. 361.
16. Augustinos Kantiotis, op. cit., p. 342.
17. Euphemia the Nun, The Prophecies..., p. 421.
18. Augustinos Kantiotis, op. cit., p. 343.
19. Euphemia the Nun, op. cit., p. 432.
20. Euphemia the Nun, op. cit., pp. 434 ff.
Note: The source text ends at note 20, although the main text contains a superscript 21 (“Ἐσεῖς θά πᾶτε νά κατοικήσετε ἀλλοῦ…”). So the supplied notes appear to be missing a note 21. I have not invented a citation for it.
Source: Address Delivered at the Event of the Panhellenic Federation of Orthodox Christians (POE) and Orthodoxos Typos for Saint Kosmas the Aitolos (12 October 2014). Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
When reading his “prophecies,” one might think that they were written for our own age, insofar as they concern our apostasy and spiritual deadness. Inspired by the illumination of Saint Kosmas, the equally hesychast Makriyannis would likewise express his opposition to our national course:
“If someone had told us about this freedom that we are enjoying, we would have begged God to leave us under the Turks for as many more years as necessary for people to learn what homeland means, what religion means, what honor means, what virtue means, and what honesty means.”
Living amid the national failure which Saint Kosmas and Makriyannis each perceived in his own way, nothing remains for us but the humble supplication:
"Christ and my Panagia, and you also, Saint Kosmas,
Help Greece to rise again!"
Notes
1. The late Kostas Sardelis had already recorded hundreds of scholarly studies on Saint Kosmas in 1974 (!) (Kon. Sardelis, Kosmas the Aitolos: An Analytical Bibliography, 1974²), and since then scholarly research has continued to engage with his life and work. See the dissertation of Artemis Xanthopoulou-Kyriakou, Kosmas the Aitolos and the Venetians (1777–1779): The Final Years of His Activity and the Problem of the Didaches, Thessaloniki, 1984; Augustinos N. Kantiotis, Kosmas the Aitolos (1714–1779), Athens, 1977; Ioannis B. Menounos, The Teachings of Kosmas the Aitolos: A Philological Study—Texts, Athens, 1979; Fr. Georgios D. Metallinos, “Saint Kosmas the Aitolos—Apostle of the Unity of the Nation,” in Tradition and Alienation, Athens, 1986, pp. 85–110; by the same author, “The Dialectic of the Identities of Saint Kosmas and Ion Dragoumis,” in Testimonies on Spiritual and Social Issues, Thessaloniki, 2010, pp. 97–110. Articles include those in ThHE, vol. 7 (1965), cols. 894–899 (Nik. Sotiropoulos), and in the Universal Biographical Dictionary of Ekdotiki Athinon, vol. 5 (1991), pp. 42–43 (Artemis Xanthopoulou-Kyriakou), among others.
2. Although, apart from his correspondence, he did not write any scholarly study.
3. Gerhard Podskalsky (trans. Fr. Georgios D. Metallinos), Greek Theology under Turkish Rule (1453–1821), Athens, 2005, pp. 427–428.
4. Euphemia the Nun (Ioulia Gkeltē), The Prophecies of Saint Kosmas the Aitolos in History, Athens, 2004, p. 525.
5. See also his letters in: Augustinos N. Kantiotis, op. cit., p. 317 ff.
6. Ioannis Menounos, op. cit., pp. 115–116.
7. Ioannis Menounos, op. cit., pp. 142 ff., 119–120.
8. Ioannis Menounos, pp. 134, 184 ff.; Augustinos Kantiotis, p. 197.
9. Ioannis Menounos, pp. 281–282, 144.
10. Augustinos Kantiotis, p. 154; Ioannis Menounos, p. 270.
11. Ibid., pp. 116, 143–144, 149–150.
12. G. Podskalsky, op. cit., p. 349.
13. Augustinos Kantiotis, op. cit., p. 349.
14. Ibid., p. 342.
15. M. Tritou, Kosmas the Aitolos, the Illuminator of the Nation, the Prophet, Thessaloniki, 2000, p. 361.
16. Augustinos Kantiotis, op. cit., p. 342.
17. Euphemia the Nun, The Prophecies..., p. 421.
18. Augustinos Kantiotis, op. cit., p. 343.
19. Euphemia the Nun, op. cit., p. 432.
20. Euphemia the Nun, op. cit., pp. 434 ff.
Note: The source text ends at note 20, although the main text contains a superscript 21 (“Ἐσεῖς θά πᾶτε νά κατοικήσετε ἀλλοῦ…”). So the supplied notes appear to be missing a note 21. I have not invented a citation for it.
Source: Address Delivered at the Event of the Panhellenic Federation of Orthodox Christians (POE) and Orthodoxos Typos for Saint Kosmas the Aitolos (12 October 2014). Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
