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Father Andrew's church
by Thanos Kalamidas
2010-03-20 08:38:49 |
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 I’m not a religious person, on the contrary – and I have mention it often before – I’m an atheist but with great respect to the believes of the others. I grew up in a country where religion is a big issue, from birth we are all orthodox Christians baptised when we are still infants and I grew up in an time era when schooldays were six instead of five and Saturday meant church – you had to go - before the lessons and Sunday school was a must.
I grew up in a family that had a very strong personality grandmother – typical Greek all the way – with strong religious believes that included our family priest; father Andrew who I often had the sense that he was member of the family since he was there in all the important events. A unique figure that I still remember fondly wit his long white beard and his orthodox cleric long black dress and I have a lot of anecdotes about the man.
He was always there when a big dinner was served – that was before the time priests started going around with huge Mercedes Benz – and he never said no to another glass of the house red wine. He used to put everything in the same plate, starter, main course and desert saying that they all go to the same stomach anyway. And he was a very patient man. He had to deal with me and my cousins in our revolutionary pubertal era and that back in 60s when dissenter was a must.
The man was poor and he was not the exception, he was the rule. The very little he was getting from the state despite the fact that he had a family that included two kids was going to the poor. The man was going from door to door literally begging for help for his orphans, for the poor of his parish and whenever you would visit him in his house there were a number of people eating, sleeping or just been there. People he settler, fed and gave love.
He was a simple man, not complicate, not an intellectual; perhaps that was his way to communicate and he was one of the first people to accept my atheism without trying to pressure me despite his connections with my family. On the contrary in some …disagreements I had with my grandmother he took my side excusing my acts. And he did talk with me, not as a priest but as a family friend or better as an elder friend who had strong opinions and we were both aware of them. And he was political, he could understand the pains of the poor and he could sense the wants of the youth. He was getting angry with the government and the corrupted politicians and he was upset with a public that was suffering under a dictatorship and he did so without hiding, loud aware that he was risking evens his freedom.
He was the first to explained to me what agnostic means and he was surprisingly the first to identify my ideas, not the ones I quoted but the ones I actually had in mind as part of a “gifted atheist” as he used to say. I saw him for last time sometime in late 70s and then again even though living abroad I returned to Greece just to be in his funeral and say a last goodbye believing that in that way I was honouring the man who honoured me with his friendship for so long.
 Remember that the man, the priest I’m talking about was a very simple Greek priest, like the ones you too often see in touristic photographic albums from Greece or you might have seen on one of the Greek islands you visited. A man, I’m not sure if he had finished the secondary school who spoke mainly with his heart and his actions. I remember one day in his very simplistic way he told me that he accepts my atheism but I should never become what I blame, before saying that I’m an atheist I should understand Christianity – for him Christianity was the main issue – and it was a beginning for me to read and try to understand not only Christianity, Judaism, Islam or Buddhism but it was a beginning to try to read and understand every philosophy and I confess despite all these years of studding I’m still in the very beginning of reading, understanding is another case.
Perhaps father Andrew put a very romantic idea about the clerics in my mind but I like to believe that that’s how they are or better that’s how they should be. I used this personal story – and I think I said more than I was planning – to explain what the figure of a priest represent in the hearts and the minds of the people doesn’t matter if you believe or not. And these people when they sensed or felt their calling they knew very well what they were doing and what they were up to. Nobody forced them and I’m sure none of them decided to become a priest for the career. As I understand it this man put himself in the service of the people ignoring his dreams, wishes and wants and this is very honourable.
And then browsing the news the last couple of month all too often I read about scandals in the church. Scandals in Rome and Ireland, scandals in Germany and USA; financial scandals, sex scandals, crime scandals. And I’m speechless and angry. Angry because every time I read something like that I feel that they dishonour the memory of a man who was what a church man should be doesn’t matter the faith. And I’m getting angry because in the conscious of the people is not his bowed figure that will stay but the arrogant figure of a priest in a court room that tries to hide his face!
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