IN THE YEAR 1866, on the twenty-ninth day of May, I took the national struggle of 1821 as a theme to use in teaching the people, in an effort to enlighten the entire Greek race and to teach it how it might best and soonest attain its end. Twenty speeches were delivered upon this subject in the Place of Concord [a square in Athens]. A multitudinous audience listened to them with delight and attention, because it was being enlightened and was learning the conditions under which the sway of our enemies might be terminated, and under which the liberation of the whole nation from the barbarian yoke might be realized. As a result of these speeches, many persons became subscribers to the newspaper Justice, in which these speeches were published; later they were collected and republished in the year 1886 in a separate book composed of fourteen printed pages and priced at one and a half drachmas. The conditions for the consummation of the struggle – the conditions for the termination of the sway of our enemies and for the restoration of the whole nation under a single autonomous and free political state – were formulated as follows:
The Greek of 1821 sang that he was struggling and fighting for the sake of two boons: the holy faith of Christ and the freedom of his country. But are not we, the heirs to the struggle, to continue striving for these same boons? None will deny it. But everyone that struggles should know well what he is struggling for, the enemies with whom he has to struggle, the power at his disposal in the struggle, and the art of contending against and overcoming opponents. This knowledge ensures victory, and if all Greeks should learn what he that struggles ought to know, the work of 1821 would be soon and well brought to its end. The first condition, then, for the completion of the national struggle and for the restoration of the whole nation is knowledge of Christ, and knowledge of our native country, the foundation and head of which is Christ. Knowledge of Christ strengthens faith in Christ; and knowledge of our native country strengthens our love for it and our patriotism. Faith energized by love instills courage into those fighting for faith and fireside, and makes them invincible heroes. But the false philosophy of universities falsely so called, and the sciences falsely so called, which only know how to lie and to deceive the foolish; traduce and slander knowledge of Christ and faith in Christ. Moreover, the false education in the schools inculcates upon the souls of foolish children the traducements and slanders of false philosophy and of sciences falsely so called. When faith is abolished from the souls of children, the native country is abolished along with it; and the struggle for the sake of faith and fireside departs and vanishes along with them. From the time that this small corner of, Greek soil was liberated by a bloody struggle of many years in the name of faith and fireside,
“For the sake of Christianity,
For our native country’s liberty,”
the Devil, the protector of the Turkish dominion, has been left free to speak into the ears of young pupils mockeries and ironies directed against the holy faith of Christ, and to corrupt the new generation, so as to render it incapable of being fired with enthusiasm and of struggling like their fathers,
“For the sake of Christianity,
For our native country’s liberty,”
though it can commit suicide, or fratricide, and for a mere mess of pottage betray its native country outright.
In the face, then, of such an insidious and deceitful enemy; who is undermining the faith of Christ and the struggle for its sake, for the purpose of maintaining the Turkish ascendancy in the Orient, what is to be done, or what principally ought that teacher to do who once undertook to enlighten the entire Greek race and teach it how the work of 1821 might best and soonest attain to its end? Every good patriot in the face of any enemy of his native country declares war, wages war, and ceases not to fight until he has vanquished the enemy, or has died fighting for the sake of his native country. We, too, have declared this war against false philosophy and vain deception, against sciences falsely so called, and against the false education that is corrupting the nation. We have been carrying on this war ever since that date of May 29, 1866; and we shall not cease waging this war until we have won a decisive victory and overcome the enemy, or have died in the course of the struggle, leaving it to others. But what have been our warlike efforts since that year, from that day up to this day? Let us mention them briefly, so far as possible.
Our first warlike effort was those twenty speeches delivered in the Place of Concord, in which the divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ is rationally and scientifically proved, together with the dogma of the Holy Trinity. And not only are the mouths of the enemies of our faith muzzled before logical and incontestable arguments, but those who have discarded their faith in Christ are shown to be deluded and unreasonable, thinking themselves wise and scientific on the ground that they have shed certain prejudices of the vulgar, as they claim, for scientific knowledge. Every Greek, however, who is thus deluded and sheds his belief in the divinity of Christ and in the dogma of the Holy Trinity, forfeits all interest in our native country, and becomes useless for the work of the struggle, if not an insidious enemy, joining hands with the Devil and the faithless Saracens, whose dominion has been founded on the false dogma of monotheism and on the false prophet Mohammed to attack the divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ and the dogma of the Holy Trinity. The essential constituent of the Greek people, of the Greek nation, of the Greek state and country, is the dogma of the divinity of Christ and the dogma of the Holy Trinity. The essential constituent of the Turkish state, on the other hand, is disbelief in these two dogmas of Christianity, which are connected together, and a concerted movement to supplant them with the false dogma of Monotheism and with belief in the false prophet Mohammed. The anti-Christian state of the Sultans is the implacable enemy and foe of the Greek people, of the Greek nation, of the Greek state and country; and every Greek who discards his faith in Christ and in the dogma of the Holy Trinity changes over to the camp of the enemy and becomes a Turk and a traitor to his own country. But all Greeks who have become Masons have discarded their faith in the divinity of Jesus and in the dogma of the Holy Trinity, and have become Turks in the dogma of monotheism and traitors to their own country, and deceitful and infernal enemies. For this reason we also declared war upon Masonry from the platform in the Place of Concord, as well as upon Turkishness; and we are inclined to regard Masonry as an ally of Turkishness that is dangerous to us, because, working in the midst of the nation, it deceitfully and hypocritically goes about the business of destroying the nation. Indeed, two of our writings, entitled Free Masonry and Masonry Recognized by the Masonic Diploma, reveal the nature of this infernal enemy. These writings make a second warlike effort of ours, in addition to the twenty speeches in the Place of Concord.
A third warlike effort of ours was the biweekly publication Justice, which was edited by us for a year and to which the people who attended the speeches in the Place of Concord subscribed in order that the Concord speeches might be printed in it, and in order that the war begun against the enemy might be continued.
A fourth warlike work of ours was the newspaper Logos, which was founded by a circular of the then Sacred Synod as an ecclesiastical periodical, and which commenced with the issue of March 2, 1868, and was kept up until March 20, 1871, when its publication was discontinued because of the severe disease in my left leg, which had to be amputated September 13, 1874, as incurable. During this first threeyear period of the Logos there were published:
- Seven articles drawing the distinction between the two opposite Schools – the School of Christ and the School of the Devil.
- Twelve articles about establishing a Christian university to replace the university now existing in Athens.
- Thirty articles concerning a trial between the philosophy of Greece and that of the schools of the West, wherein the two philosophies, the false and the true, were defined and brought to trial and the nature of each and the power of each over men and human affairs were proved; and it was shown that true philosophy enlightens and saves, whereas false philosophy darkens, misleads, and corrupts.
After the amputation and healing of my left leg efforts of a warlike tendency directed against the enemy of our faith and fatherland were the new educational system designed to expose the false system of education that is corrupting our children and nation and to replace it with a true system of education; and the new philosophical system designed to expose false philosophy and sciences falsely so called, and to replace them with true philosophy and true sciences. In the year 1876 the new philosophical and educational School of the Logos was founded here; and in that year was published. the first volume of our new philosophical system, containing our “Introduction to Philosophy,” and our “Psychology” and “Logic.” During the same year there was also published, together therewith, the first volume also of our educational system, Grammatomathy (or, “Letter-lore”-a kind of spelling book), bringing to light the new method of teaching reading and spelling to young and illiterate children, by which quite illiterate children can very quickly and easily become familiar with the rudiments of reading and writing and be able to write and to spell ordinary words; and by which they can afterwards learn composition and the construction of sentences and the whole Greek language from Homer to the present day.
In May, 1878, the second part of our educational system was issued, entitled Leximathy ( or, “Word-lore”), which teaches knowledge of words by a new method and advances children to knowledge of the Greek sentence and to acquisition of the nourishing and cultivating knowledge of childhood. The practice of the new educational system and its wonderful results on small children attracted many pupils to the School, and the false education attacked by it felt the danger it was incurring when true education co-operated with true Philosophy in cultivating the new generation, and in cultivating new teachers believing in Christianity and teaching it to the nation. The same danger was incurred also by the simony attacked as practiced among chief priests who traffic in things divine, and also by the thievish politics attacked as practiced by loan-shark politicians, and by the whole depraved system of today which sits upon the nation’s neck, to its corruption and downfall, arid against which we had declared systematic warfare, fighting in behalf of religion, polity, and philosophy grounded in Christ.
Becoming alarmed at the progress of the new philosophical and educational School of the Logos, the enemy attacked it with all the powers at its disposal, through the professors of the theological faculty of the university, as it is falsely entitled, through the simoniacal chief priests that composed the synod of the year 1878-9, and through the then ministers of state, who willingly ministered to preserve the depraved status quo endangered, false education and false philosophy, the simony and the thievish politics of taxes and loans. Their pretext for attacking and persecuting the School was our insistence upon the tricomposite nature of man and the consummation of our Lord Jesus Christ in the Jordan with respect to His human nature – doctrines and beliefs of the Orthodox Church which the folly of the false theologians characterized as heresies old and new-as heresies of Tatianos, Apolinarios, and Valentinian – renewed by us to overthrow the religion and polity of the nation. Moreover, the folly and ignorance of the then members of the synod confirmed the folly of the false theologians; and the malice of the prosecutor, a mason by the name of Bensee and the tool of the ministry that was persecuting us, brought us to trial. Having entrenched themselves behind such an execrable traducement and slander, the enemies of truth and righteousness dissolved the School on the eighteenth of December, 1878, by constables and gendarmes and soldiers, who abducted and dispersed the pupils, as though they had been waging war against some strong fort. After the illegal dissolution of the School, systematic persecution and imprisonment of its founder followed on fictitious and baseless pretexts, alleging insolence and resistance to authority, heresy, proselytism, and the like. The object of this persecution was the expulsion of the teacher and the extinction of his illuminative teaching. But God frustrated their design, and the most of our persecutors died in their sins; while we, by the grace of God, are still living today, and teaching and enlightening those who care to be enlightened.’
Since the time of the dissolution of the School and of our persecution, we have not ceased writing and completing our new philosophical and educational system. In the year 1882 we published Logomathy (or, “Sentence-lore”), the third part of our educational system. In the year 1883 the second volume of our philosophical system was published, containing philosophical Ethics, together with the historical knowledge of the divinely established society as a necessary means of achieving human destiny and the moral end of every man. In the year 1886 the third volume was published, containing Theology. Now the fourth and last is being published, containing Philosophy itself, the crown and culmination of our whole philosophical system, and the most brilliant and most glorious of our warlike efforts against the enemy of the holy faith of Christ, and against the tyrants and underminers of our beloved fatherland. Indeed, I call this new and bellicose Philosophy the most brilliant and most glorious of all my warlike works, on the ground that it is by means thereof that the enemy of the holy faith of Christ, upon which faith are founded and based the Greek nationality, the Greek state, and the Greek fatherland, can be overwhelmingly defeated; and the anti-Christian state of the false prophet Mohammed still subsisting can soonest and best be demolished, against which state the Greek people have an implacable war until it is competently destroyed. How the dominion of our enemies can soonest and best be demolished by means of this new and martial Philosophy is what we are now to explain and show by the voice and testimony of historical facts, and by the voice and testimony of the present affairs of Christian Europe.
The prophetic assertion of Christ, “Upon this rock I will build my Church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” – this prophetic assertion has become a historical fact, a historical truth. The Christian Church, society, state, and fatherland of those who believe in Christ was founded upon faith in the divinity of Christ upon truth as solid as a rock upon which a house can be founded. The first people of the Church of Christ and foremost in knowledge of the truths of Christian faith is admittedly the Greek people; and on this account the Greek nationality, the Greek state, and the Greek fatherland are identified with the Church of Christ built upon the rock. The Church of Christ by the divine power of its own founder subjected to itself the Roman Empire, which has recognized ever since Constantine the Great that its essential duty is to serve the Church and to safeguard it – externally from the invasion and the ferocity of barbarian peoples, and internally from heretics disturbing its peace, whom local and Ecumenical Synods (or Councils) of bishops, meeting in assembly, tried and convicted under the protection of pious and Christ-loving emperors. This was the state of affairs in the East from the time of Constantine the Great to the time of Constantine Palaiologos, with whom the dominion of the Emperors of Constantinople terminated.
Nevertheless, the Devil, too, the ruler of the gates of hell, and the natural enemy and foe of the Church of Christ, in accordance with divine prophecies, founded in Arabia a new dominion through the false prophet Mohammed, who made his appearance in the year A.D. 622 – a dominion founded on the false doctrine of monotheism for the purpose of combating the divinity of Christ and the doctrine of the Holy Trinity inseparably connected with it. The Arab state of Mohammed was not a racial and national civil state, like all other states that existed on earth before it, such as that of the Assyrians and Babylonians, that of the Medes and Persians, that of Alexander the Great and his successors, and that of the Romans. On the contrary, it was a religious and theocratic state aiming principally at combating the divinity of Christ and the confession of the Holy Trinity. The war of this state was waged in behalf of a chimerical God, and of a prophet whom this God sent forth to massacre, or dishonor and enslave all who did not believe in Mohammed and in the God who sent him forth. But no Christian believing in the divinity of Christ and in the Holy Trinity could believe, of course, in the prophet of Arabia who flourished after Christ; nor in the God of extortion, irrationality, and barbarity whom he preached. Therefore, the hatred and the war of the Mohammedan state was directed from the beginning against the fundamental truth of the Christian Church, and against that nation and people who believed in the divinity of Christ and could not believe in the extortioner of human consciousness and liberty, in the obviously false prophet and the Devil who sent him forth. Indeed, the prophecy of Christ, “And the gates of hell shall not prevail against it,” received historical verification through the testimony of facts and the voice of present affairs; for the anti-Christian dominion of Mohammed, after being increased and enlarged by the barbarian peoples and races of Asia and Africa, waged continual warfare upon the Byzantine Empire, and finally prevailed over it, and subverted it, and supplanted it in the East.
But it did not prevail against the faith of the Church, and against the people who believed in the divinity of Christ and confessed the Holy Trinity, against which the Devil opposed the chimera of monotheism and the barbarian nations of Africa and Asia, the violation of liberty, and the earthly pleasures and delights and enjoyments by which those who faithfully follow the Koran and struggle in behalf of the glory of the false prophet are rewarded. The Greek people under the captivity and tyranny of the barbarians for four centuries maintained the confession of the faith of Christ, and under the banner thereof it revolted; and after a struggle it gave the dominion of the false prophet a staggering blow and proved that it had not died, but that it was slumbering until the night should pass; that it was the heir claiming the patrimony which was unjustly held by the barbarian invaders. However, this first awakening from sleep was not sufficiently judicious and enlightened; it was the commencement of the struggle, and not its conclusion. It achieved the erection of a small kingdom whose destiny is to overthrow the anti-Christian dominion of the false prophet, and to supplant it.
But this small kingdom of Greece, this child of the revolution of 1821, has against it all the Christian states of Europe, whose governments are greatly interested in maintaining the status quo in the East, and in maintaining the Mohammedan conquest and tyranny. It has against it the anti-religious spirit and belief of the so-called universities and the so-called sciences, which banishes the idea of our Christian fatherland, and faith in the divinity of Christ, and makes the Greeks forgetful of the struggle of 1821, and foes and betrayers of their own fatherland. It has against it the internal political policy of taxes and loans and insincere preparations in behalf of the pretended “grand idea” of the nation; everything is done in behalf of a self-interested political party and the maintenance of its authority, and in behalf of its alliance and friendship with the Turks. It has against it a simoniacal and uneducated and religionless clergy, who extinguish and deaden the feeling of love of Christ and arm the mouths of those who disbelieve in the divinity of Christ, and who openly and fearlessly sap the foundation of the Greek state and fatherland. How, then, can this little state, which is surrounded by so many inimical and hostile powers, which has been prostrated and exhausted by so many taxes and loans, which is unorganized from a military and political point of view, and which is divided and hostile to itself – how shall it be able to attain to maturity and gain reinforcements for the purpose of overthrowing and supplanting the anti-Christian dominion of the barbarian Turks, who have trampled underfoot and wronged our nationality, our state, and our fatherland for so many ages? This problem can be solved clearly and very plainly by means of the light of this new and bellicose Philosophy. So let us now consider its really philosophical and scientific solution.
The anti-Christian dominion of the Turks is founded upon the fallacy of monotheism and the false prophet Mohammed, its founder. On the other hand, the fatherland of all Greeks is founded upon the truth of the divinity of Christ and the truth of the Holy Trinity. Just as white and black cannot be distinguished in the darkness of night, but with the rising of the Sun every eye can see and distinguish the white color from the black, so can the truth of the faith of Christ and the falsity of the Koran not be distinguished nor discerned so long as the materialistic and atheistic spirit of sciences falsely so called prevails; so long as the false doctrines and false ideas of false philosophy concerning God, the world, and the relations between them prevail; and so long as skepticism and doubt concerning every truth believed, and particularly concerning the truth of the Gospel, prevail. But the publication and circulation of this new and most luminous Philosophy is analogous to the rising of the sun on the horizon, which dissolves the prevailing darkness of the night and illumines every eye so as to enable it to discern what is white and what is black. Through the light of the Philosophy now rising into view, the prevailing darkness of false philosophy and of sciences falsely so called is dissolved, skepticism and doubt concerning the divine truths are disestablished, and the foundation of Greek culture can be distinguished from the opposite foundation of Turkish culture, just as the white color of snow can be distinguished from the blackness of coal in the light of the sun and of day. This distinction having been made and spread about by virtue of the philosophical light illumining the eyes of the intellect, the edifice of the false prophet that has been founded upon sand can be very quickly and effectively demolished, while the edifice of our fatherland is strengthened arid magnified, and supplants the demolished edifice of the false prophet. Greek culture has the whiteness of snow, whereas Turkish culture, or Mohammedanism, has the blackness of coal. But in the darkness of night the sophistical Devil can convince even the learned among the Greeks that Greek people are black, whereas Mohammedans are white and innocent and worthy of alliance and friendship and fraternization with Greek people! So long as the learned among the Greeks are laboring under such madness and insanity, seeing what is white as black and what is black as white, of course they are demolishing their own house and building a palace in Byzantium and upon the Bosporus for the abode of the oppressors of their fatherland.
But the light of this new philosophy inverts the terms of vision and separates what is white from what is black; the truth of the Gospel from the falsehood of the Koran; Christ, the Son of the living God, from the Arab false prophet, the son of perdition, whose dominion and authority over the Christians of the East is going to everlasting perdition in a short time hence. The light of this new Philosophy gathers and arrays all Greeks under the sacred banner of the struggle, fortifies them with the power of God, with the power of truth and of righteousness, and in the end annihilates the power of the enemy, which comes from a false and deluded conviction. The light of this new philosophy increases and multiplies the friends and allies of the Greek nationality, of the Greek state, and of the Greek fatherland; while, on the other hand, it denudes our enemies of all sympathy of the Christian peoples and nations of Europe, whose life and interests are connected with the Truth of the Gospel and not with the falsehood and delusion of the Koran or with barbarity and impiety. Therefore, through the illumination due to this new Philosophy and through its dissemination, our fatherland can be restored, the dominion of our enemy can be demolished, and the struggle and work of the revolution of 1821 can be very quickly and effectively brought to a conclusion. The gates of hell have not prevailed against the Church of Christ, which has passively withstood the brunt of their forces for so many ages. But the Truth of the Church shall prevail in the end against the gates of hell; and the power of darkness, the power of diabolic falsehood, will be made to disappear from the face of the earth. “As smoke vanisheth,” so let them vanish; “as wax melteth before the fire,” so let the wicked perish at the presence of our God. But let the righteous be glad, let them be delighted in gladness. “And let us be glad for the days that God humbled us, for the years that we saw evils, and the brightness of our Lord God shall be upon us,” and the power of His light shall bring the work of our hands to a speedy and excellent conclusion.
Since May 29 of the year 1866 up to this day we have been doing one and the same warlike work, the work of the national uprising of the year 1821, that it may soonest and best be brought to completion. But we are doing it in the name of the God-equal Logos and in the light of His words, and not as it is being attempted by the political policy of faithlessness, the political policy of taxes and loans that courts the friendship and alliance of the enemies of the faith and of the fatherland and aggravates the yoke of our brethren; and, moreover, corrupts and depraves the free Greeks and makes them base and illiberal. We truly, and not hypocritically, sing the song of the national struggle:
“For the sake of Christianity,
For our native country’s liberty;
For the sake of these two things I strive,
With them I desire to keep alive.
If indeed these boons I fail to gain,
Then for me to live it will be vain.”
But also all who are irradiated by the light of this new bellicose Philosophy will shine as true patriots, and will sing the same song in like manner with us, and will act in accordance therewith, by joining the banner of the struggle and wisely and scientifically overthrowing the dominion of the enemy in the quickest and most effective manner, and freeing our brethren who are still sighing under the yoke of the barbarians. Amen.
Written in Athens, at the new philosophical and educational School of the Logos, on the first of May, 1890.
A. Makrakis
Apostolos Makrakis 