My name is Basil Sakkas. I am 75 years old, married with three children. Primarily a resident of Athens, but due to my family obligations I travel frequently. I lived in Geneva, Switzerland from 1961 to 1991. I am a retiree of the “European Organization for Nuclear Research” (C.E.R.N.) where I worked for 28 years as an assistant librarian. Also, simultaneously from 1968 to 1976 I served as a married clergyman of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad and was canonically under the Archbishop of Geneva and Western Europe, the ever-memorable Kyros Anthony.
From childhood, I was always
interested in religious and ecclesiastical matters. I read many religious and
theological books in various languages. I participated in many seminars of
theological content. I attended many studies and lectures. I myself engaged
many times in the writing of religious books and studies. I occupied myself
with the catechism of both youth and adults. Thus, I can, with the help of God
and without arrogance, say that I have a sufficient knowledge and experience of
religious matters. (...)
The ever-memorable [Matthewite
Metropolitan] Epiphanios was a born leader. He had the temperament of those
people who consider every adversity in their life as a motive to surpass
themselves. He lived on earth as if there were nothing else in the world except
God and his conscience. He governed the Church with an iron hand wearing a
velvet glove. He was strict and gentle at the same time. Demanding toward the
powerful and condescending toward the weak. The people loved him and his
opponents respected him. (...)
I had the fortune in my life to
meet the ever-memorable Epiphanios and to become spiritually connected with him
as follows. Around the end of 1971, Archbishop Anthony asked me to go to the
Archdiocese in order to serve as an interpreter because the Metropolitan of
Kition and All Cyprus and Exarch of the [Matthewite] G.O.C., Kyros
Epiphanios, had visited him to discuss certain ecclesiastical matters. The
interpretation was conducted in the Greek and French languages.
During the conversation, I formed
the impression that the ever-memorable Epiphanios was distinguished
particularly for his reliability, honesty, dignity, and integrity, and this
created an attraction in me toward his person. On his part as well, I perceived
that I also inspired trust in him, and thus he too had shown some interest in
me.
After the end of the meeting, the
ever-memorable Epiphanios told me that he would need to come to Geneva a few
more times in order to continue his conversations with Archbishop Anthony.
Since he neither knew the language nor how to move about in an unfamiliar city,
he asked me if it would be possible for my wife and me to host him during those
visits of his. This we gladly accepted.
Thus began to be formed and
developed a relationship of spiritual friendship and mutual trust which, with
the help of God, was sincere, unbroken, and cloudless until the repose of the
ever-memorable Epiphanios.
During his visits to Geneva,
where he stayed at my home for several days each time, we had the opportunity
to discuss at length a multitude of ecclesiastical matters that concerned us.
He also had the time to recount to me in great detail his experiences at the
Holy Monastery of Stavrovouni and [Panagia] Trooditissa, as well
as the superhuman hardships he faced when in 1940 he began to live as an
ascetic in Fourní under a pomegranate tree.
As our acquaintance progressed,
he also recounted to me at length and in great detail how he created and
gradually built the Holy Monastery of the Transfiguration. We often discussed
the various difficulties and problems he encountered daily. At that time, he
had not yet built the main Monastery, which, together with the Katholikon,
that is, the main church, would be completed in 1984.
During his visits, he also met
many of my friends and acquaintances there. Two young men from France asked him
for permission to stay near him for a period of time in Cyprus, which indeed
took place. In 1972, he asked my colleague at C.E.R.N., Mr. François Magnien,
an architect, if he could draw up the plans for the future main Monastery of
the Transfiguration that he intended to build on a property located in
Avdellero, Larnaca. Mr. Magnien replied that he was willing to prepare the
plans for him, and even free of charge, but due to the language and his
professional obligations, it was not possible for him to travel to Cyprus to
oversee the progress of the works. As the ever-memorable Epiphanios later
informed us, due to these difficulties he eventually preferred to assign the entire
work to another architect from Cyprus, and the contract was given to Mr.
Stylianos Kounas from Aradippou.
In the discussions I had with
him, however, certain reservations arose in me concerning the canonicity of my
ordination to the priesthood within the framework of the Russian Orthodox Church,
and I asked him if it would be possible to discuss them with him. Indeed, he
agreed, and after listening to me attentively, he said to me:
— I was very saddened by what
you told me, because I had intended to ask Archbishop Anthony to give you a
letter of release so that you could then join the Church of Cyprus. However,
according to what you are telling me, I think that the most correct, honest,
and consistent thing is for you to resign from the priesthood and to serve God
in another way. If you do not do this, no matter how many good works you may
perform, your conscience will always reproach you, that all these good works
you are doing in order to cover, to conceal, and to justify an irregularity,
and this is not pleasing before God.
In turn, I too was greatly
saddened after what he told me, but on the other hand, I recognized that he was
right and I appreciated once again his ethos and integrity. He gave me the
proof that, as an honest Levite, he does not govern the Church with utilitarianism
and expediency but with the fear of God. I understood that he is a Bishop in
whom one can unreservedly entrust the salvation of his soul.
I told him that I agreed with
what he pointed out to me, but I asked him for a grace period because such
decisions are not made within 24 hours, and that I had to arrange this matter
within the framework of the Hierarchy to which I canonically belonged. He
replied that he understood and that he was convinced God would help me to do
the right thing at the appropriate time.
I understood that the
ever-memorable Epiphanios loved people spiritually and without sentimentality.
He saw everyone as souls that had to be saved. He measured everyone in general
by the measure of the Church and made no concessions to anyone, whether friend
or relative. (...)
Since, as I previously mentioned,
the ever-memorable Epiphanios recounted to me his history and the history of
the founding and building of the Holy Monastery of the Transfiguration in great
detail, I must clarify the following. It is not easy for someone to understand
the ever-memorable Epiphanios, his philosophy and his actions, if he does not
have some basic knowledge of the Ascetical Theology of the Orthodox Church.
However, since it happened that I studied, even theoretically and
encyclopedically, the Evergetinos, the so-called Gerontikon, the Leimonarion,
etc., I particularly understood what he was telling me. It was as if we had
attended, at least theoretically, the same school. In our conversations we
spoke the same language, even if at times we did not use the correct and
commonly accepted words for something. (...)
Thus, as we all know, he settled
under the pomegranate tree, utterly alone, having a Holy Scripture and the Evergetinos,
which he hid inside a tin can so that the mice would not eat them. And there he
began from nothing “with a borrowed mattock,” because his own mattock he had to
acquire himself, the work which we all see and admire today.
The only help he ever wished to
accept, as he told me, was a loaf of bread from his godmother, and this for
symbolic reasons because she was his spiritual mother. He recounted to me that
for years the labor was harsh and superhuman. As he told me, “He would draw a
hundred buckets of water and then sit to read one page from the Evergetinos.
Then he would draw another hundred buckets and read yet another page,” and this
continued for years “from the morning watch until night,” from dawn until
night. Thus, the first money was gathered in order to purchase the first steps
for the gradual construction of the monastic complex.
The ever-memorable Epiphanios
came several times to Geneva. Eventually, however, his negotiations with
Archbishop Anthony and the hierarchy of the Russian Church did not bear fruit,
and thus he ceased coming. We had, however, remained in constant contact
through correspondence, more rarely by telephone. As for my personal affairs,
until I made a final decision, I had ceased to liturgize.
I also met the ever-memorable
Epiphanios often in Athens when I went for my holidays and he happened to be
there as well for matters with the Holy Synod. (...)
In 1976 I made my final decision
and resigned definitively from the priesthood. When I mentioned it to the
ever-memorable Epiphanios, he replied that I had done the right thing and that
God had a thousand other ways to bless my services within the Church, and he
asked me to visit him in Cyprus. However, I hesitated and was ashamed to appear
before him now wearing trousers, and I found excuses to avoid it. But he
insisted, and so one day, many years later, I decided to come to Cyprus for the
first time.
As far as I remember, I must have
come to Cyprus for the first time around December of 1988. (...)
The first thing I asked of him
was to take me to the pomegranate tree where he had lived as an ascetic. So one
morning he put me on the tractor and took me to Fourní. There he showed me what
was left of the tree, and the ruins of his first structures: a small chapel,
his cell, and a cistern, if I remember correctly.
On the way back, we passed
through the various properties of the Holy Monastery. Every so often he would
get down from the tractor and at a certain spot place stones. Sometimes two,
sometimes three or four, sometimes in one way and sometimes in another. I asked
him what this meant. He told me that it was a kind of coded language for the
sisters who would come afterward, and by seeing these stones, they knew what
work had to be done in that field—watering, weeding, or anything else. “Well,”
I asked him, “don’t they know on their own what they should do?” He smiled and
said to me, “If they knew, Basil, do you think I wouldn’t have other matters of
the Church to concern myself with? But the one responsible for the Monastery is
obliged to keep watch, day and night, over every detail—both spiritual and
material. With the stones I tell them not only to water it, but also how and
how much to water it.” (...)
In the meantime, following his
instruction, I came to Cyprus several times when my holidays permitted it,
until 1991, when due to health reasons I took early retirement. The
ever-memorable Epiphanios asked me to assist him in the writing work of the
Church and to organize certain seminars on religious Catechism for our youth,
librarianship, and grammar according to the polytonic system. Thus, we wrote
together certain books and pamphlets of an apologetic nature, mainly concerning
the theological significance of the ecclesiastical calendar.
He asked me to find for him from
Athens three or four old typewriters with the polytonic system. The new ones
that were then available on the market were monotonic, and he did not wish to
adopt the monotonic system either in his writings or in the administration of
the Church, which I indeed did.
I always tried to do whatever he
told me and in the manner that he wanted it done. My only compensation was my
travel tickets, and while I was in Cyprus, he provided me with food and
lodging. Nothing more. Each time I stayed in Cyprus usually for a month, and
once I stayed for three and a half months. At times I stayed either in the
Guesthouse of the Holy Monastery, as I mentioned above, or in the Holy Hesychasterion
when it was built around 1991, and during the first years no nun stayed there
overnight. Later, when nuns began to stay overnight, he built me a small room
near the Holy Hesychasterion. Afterwards, I stayed at the Missionary
Foundation of Saint Epiphanios, which was established later.
Many times, whenever he wished,
we would discuss various ecclesiastical matters and problems. Nevertheless, I
neither acquired nor sought to acquire what is commonly referred to as parrhesia,
that is, a wrongly understood familiarity. Our relationship was based on a Code
of conduct according to the examples of the Holy Fathers. He always spoke to me
in the singular, and I always replied to him in the plural. I never knocked on
his door or crossed the threshold of his cell without him having invited me.
Whenever he needed me, he would send someone to call me. I never expressed my
opinion about anything unless he himself asked me for it.
He never said “thank you” to me
for the services I offered to the best of my ability. We both knew that such
things are not prescribed by the Gospel. And that when we performed our duties
toward the Church, according to the words of Christ, we were simply
“unprofitable servants.” His “thank you” was the satisfaction I felt when, upon
reviewing a piece of my work, he approved it as being in accordance with the
teaching, order, and tradition of the Church and accepted it.
The ever-memorable Epiphanios was
not one of those people who could be manipulated, directed, or yield to
pressure. Although by temperament he possessed a very strong personality, he
nonetheless had the humility to listen even to the opinion of a small child. In
the end, however, he himself would decide what he would do, according to what
his episcopal conscience dictated to him. One day, in jest, I said to him:
“But, Despota, at least leave one acute accent incorrect once in a
while!” Then he replied to me seriously: “Basil, everything I sign must
represent me, even if it is just an acute accent.”
One day he asked me to follow
him, and he took me up to the small hill where the Holy Hesychasterion
was later built. He pointed out to me another hill opposite, and between them
is the Monastery of the Transfiguration. “You see,” he said to me, “Basil, the
Monastery in the middle is the Lord, and these two hills are Moses and the
Prophet Elias who appeared together with Christ on Mount Tabor. I have decided
to build my Hesychasterion on this hill here. It will also serve me as
an episcopal residence so that whoever comes to see me will not needlessly
disturb the sisters, and at the same time, I will be able to oversee the
Monastery and direct the sisters and the affairs of the Monastery. This, after
all, is what the ever-memorable Matthaios [Karpathakis] also did with the Holy
Monastery of Keratea. And since beneath this hill, while praying to the
Theotokos, I found water, I will dedicate this Hesychasterion to the
Life-Giving Spring.”
Indeed, I often remember him
going out onto the balcony to observe the orchards and then sending them
messages about the work that needed to be done. I remember once when he was
sick in bed and received a message. I saw him get up and disappear. Later, when
he returned and could no longer stand on his feet, he told me that something
had happened with the monastery’s water and he had to run to shut it off. (...)
Although I do not remember
exactly how many times I went to Cyprus, I do remember that I went many times.
Specifically, I mention the visit and stay of over three months during the
summer of 1996 for the classification of the [Matthewite] Archive of the Church
of the G.O.C. and of the Holy Monastery of the Transfiguration, (...)
I also had continuous contact
with the current Metropolitan of Kition, then Father Sebastianos, especially
after his ordination as a hieromonk, when the ever-memorable Epiphanios had
assigned him, whenever he celebrated the Divine Liturgy, to take me along with
him so that I too could receive Holy Communion. Thus, whenever I was in Cyprus,
I went with him wherever he served, and certainly also to the Holy Monastery of
the Transfiguration, either in the Katholikon or in the chapel of Saint
Kosmas, especially after 1996 when the iconography of the Katholikon
began. Thus, I am in a position to know that from the very beginning of his
ordination to the priesthood in 1996, Father Sebastianos was appointed by the
ever-memorable Epiphanios as the canonical and designated celebrant of the Holy
Monastery of the Transfiguration.
In 1996 also, the ever-memorable
Epiphanios asked me to help him create an "Enchiridion of Monastic
Conduct" with the Canons, counsels, and Penances of the Fathers, so that
the Nuns would know their duties as precisely as possible. This enchiridion
would simultaneously constitute the Rule of the Monastery, replacing any other
preexisting Rule. Since it mainly concerned a collection of Canons of the
Fathers of the Church and other preexisting regulations, as well as his own
Canons as Founder of the Holy Monastery, after providing me with the necessary
texts, he told me that I could prepare it in Athens on my computer. (...)
In the winter of 2002, I was once
again in Cyprus. I remember it because that day I mention was December 12th
according to the ecclesiastical calendar, while for the rest of Cyprus it was
Christmas and a public holiday. The ever-memorable Epiphanios sent for me, and
they brought me from the Spiritual Foundation where I was staying to the Holy Hesychasterion,
and he told me that he wanted me to type his will and certain appointments he
had decided to make (...) After I took paper and pencil, I noted down what he
dictated to me and then typed the documents. When I gave them to him, he read
them, corrected certain things, and told me to make the corrections in the
final texts. Thus, I finally delivered to him the texts he wanted, and he
signed them in the presence of Christakis Siikkis and Andreas Stavridis, who
also co-signed as witnesses to his will. (...)
I asked him, however, what he
intended with these appointments and his will.
He told me approximately the
following: “Basil, the Apostle Paul warned that after his departure grievous
wolves would enter in, not sparing the flock. Likewise, after my own departure,
I know that grievous wolves will enter, who will try to exploit the monastery,
each according to his aims and interests. Therefore, I want the Holy Synod to
know officially and based on evidence what is my last will and my final
official actions as Founder and Abbot of the Holy Monastery, but also as
Metropolitan of the Church of the G.O.C. of Cyprus. After my death, the
responsibility lies with the Holy Synod, so let them do as God enlightens
them.”
The ever-memorable Epiphanios,
however, as I mentioned earlier, was not an ordinary personality. A man who
with his own hands had dug a hundred wells to find water needed more than that
to be thrown into panic, especially when he was upright and had justice on his
side.
His reputation had long since
surpassed the borders of the Great Island and he was known in many countries. I
had read publications concerning both him and the Holy Monastery of the
Transfiguration in French and English, and even in Russia he was not unknown.
(...)
God granted him his clarity and
sharpness of mind until the end of his life, on Great Saturday, April 17, 2005,
according to the Old Calendar. I saw him for the last time three months before
his venerable repose. In a room of the hesychasterion, in front of the
stove. He was very saddened by the situation (...) and at one moment he said to
me:
— What can I do, Basil, what
can I do?
— Forgive me, Despota, I
replied, but what can I, a poor man, know?
— You see, Basil, in the
Church we find absolute holiness side by side with absolute wickedness. Just as
we find manure at the root of the rose bush, upon which we find the most
beautiful and fragrant roses.
Those were the last words we
exchanged. (...)
I wish to say to the honorable
court that I am 75 years old and that this is the first time I am called as a
witness before an honorable court. I also wish, with the help of God, that it
be the last. Christians are people “wearing flesh and dwelling in the world.”
It is therefore to be expected that problems arise among them. Holy Scripture
tells us that even among the Holy Apostles at times there arose a “contention”
(Acts 15:39).
Nevertheless, the Apostle Paul
says that it is entirely improper and a “shame” for Christians to be dragged
into courts at the very moment they have been called by the Savior Christ to
judge the entire “world,” and even the “angels” (1 Corinthians 6:2–4). No
problem is unsolvable for the Church of Christ, if we are willing to submit
with humility to our Orthodox Tradition and to the Order of the Church. (...)
Basil M. Sakkas
July 3, 2009
Greek source: https://epistrofi-sotiria.blogspot.com/2015/08/normal-0-false-false-false-el-x-none-x.html
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