Quack Healers

  

By Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos and Agiou Vlasiou 

 

In recent days, following the death of singer Giorgos Mazonakis, we have repeatedly heard that the doctors he had visited did not have the medical specialty required to perform the particular plasmapheresis treatments in question, and for this reason they were described as fake doctors and kompogiannites (quack healers). Of course, a physician practices the science of medicine after learning from qualified physicians, receiving training and specializing in a particular field. The physician seeks to treat people on the basis of scientific knowledge and evidence.

By contrast, a fake doctor may have graduated from medical school, but when he undertakes procedures outside his specialty, particularly when he employs shamanistic methods (shamans being healers in antiquity), he falls under this designation. A fake doctor may also be someone who has not graduated from medical school but recommends herbs and fraudulent treatments, thereby exploiting people—not only failing to cure them but also leading them to their deaths. These fake doctors are also called quacks. We say of someone, “He is a quack.” But what does this term mean?

Adamantios Korais explained the word kompogiannitis as deriving from the word kompo, meaning to boast or be arrogant, and the word Ioannitis, because at that time some people from Zagori in Ioannina, Epirus, particularly the Vikos area, practiced as folk physicians. Others explained the word as deriving from the verb kompaino, meaning to bind with spells or to deceive, and the verb giaino, meaning to heal. Still others maintain that the word kompogiannitis comes from the “knots” (kompoi) of the large handkerchiefs in which these healers tied their herbs, together with the verb giano. This explanation means that they claimed to heal people with the herbs and practices they employed. Others say that these healers claimed to cure people with medicines derived from knots (mantzouni or mastic) that form on certain trees in the spring.

Thus, kompogiannites are fake doctors who employ practical remedies and unscientific methods without themselves being qualified medical professionals and without making use of the fruits of scientific research.

Father John Romanides also used the word quacks (kompogiannites) in an ecclesiastical sense. According to the entire ecclesiastical tradition, the Church is regarded as a therapeutic center—a hospital—and the Clerical Fathers as spiritual physicians who heal people's spiritual illnesses, such as the passions and self-love. Since spiritual healing has its own particular method, clergy who have not studied this specific method of healing, or who do not know that this is their task and instead devote themselves to simple liturgical gatherings and social pursuits, or employ other humanistic methods of healing, are kompogiannites, or quacks

The problem, however, is deeper and more shocking. The quacks who advertise themselves as healers of bodily ailments lead people into more serious illnesses or even physical death. By contrast, spiritual quacks, who do not employ the method of spiritual healing but are entirely ignorant of it, lead people to eternal spiritual death. And yet, in our own day, “ecclesiastical” quackery is promoted by “fake doctors,” who even criticize the method of healing practiced by the spiritual physicians: purification, illumination, and deification, through the combination of ascetic practice with the sacramental life of the Church.

This is quackery in its fullest form!

Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.