Encomium to Monk Constantine (Cavarnos) (1918-2011)

Protopresbyter Asterios Gerostergios | March 9, 2011 | Belmont, MA

 

 

On the third of March, Constantine P. Cavarnos, our exceedingly revered and beloved mentor, a teacher of the Orthodox Church and of the Greek nation, departed from among us, in the fullness of days, having lived for almost a century. He passed away at the age of ninety-two and a half years at the Holy Monastery of St. Anthony in Arizona, where he was also buried. There, he spent the final three years of his life as a monk. The Fathers of this holy monastery, with the blessing of Elder Ephraim, tended to the needs of his old age with much love.

He was born in Boston on October 19, 1918, but when he was very young his immigrant parents, Panagiotes and Irene (née Maïstrou), returned to their native island of Lesbos, together with their children Frangoula, John, and Constantine, and settled in the village of Trigonas in the prefecture of Plomarion. Constantine attended elementary school there for six years, and the family subsequently returned to Boston.

Here, Constantine was instructed in the English language for six months in a special school for immigrants, at which he excelled. After rapid success in the required preparation, he was admitted to the English High School of Boston, the first public high school to be established in America, from which he graduated with honors.

Thereafter, having passed the entrance examinations, he was admitted to Harvard University. In those days, the admission requirements for this school were far more stringent than they are today.

During the course of his studies there, he distinguished himself and was repeatedly awarded prizes. An exemplary student, he was endowed with a powerful critical intellect and a prodigious memory. Aside from the English and Greek languages, in which he was fluent, he had an excellent command of French, Ancient Greek, and Latin.

His published works to date are many, numbering more than a hundred, though he wrote not a few works that remain unpublished. In 1941, he won the Francis Bowen Prize at Harvard for his essay “Plato and the Individual Life: An Interpretation of Plato’s Conception of the Individual Life with Special Reference to Christian Thought and Modern Philosophy.” In the same year, he wrote for his baccalaureate thesis a study entitled “The Philosophy of War and Peace,” for which he received the A.B. degree (magna cum laude). After this, he served as an instructor in the American Army in Barksdale, Louisiana, from October 7, 1942, through August 14, 1944.

Following his discharge from the Army, in 1945 he was again awarded the Francis Bowen Prize for his treatise “The Problem of the Destiny of Man in the Philosophy of Plato,” and in 1947 he won the Bowdoin Prize for an essay in epistemology and metaphysics entitled “A Dialogue Between Bergson, Aristotle, and Philologos.” This prize is conferred by the Philosophy Department at Harvard for philosophical and literary works of exceptional merit.

Harvard University, in recognition and honor of its “outstanding student of the year,” appointed Constantine a Sheldon Fellow, enabling him to travel to specific foreign countries, at the University’s expense, to study different philosophical systems and to become acquainted with a variety of prominent figures in academia. Thus it was that Constantine visited Greece, France, and England, where he came to know some of the leading academics in these countries.

In Greece, he met with Ioannes Kalitsounakes, the then President of the Academy of Athens,
Theophilos Boreas and Ioannes Theodorakopoulos, Professors of Philosophy at the University of Athens, and Charalambos Theodorides and Ioannes Imbriotes, Professors of Philosophy at the University of Thessalonike, with whom he discussed contemporary philosophical theories.

At the University of Paris, he became acquainted with Georgios Branouses, a Greek, maître de recherche en science at the Sorbonne, Polymnia Lascari, also from Greece, Professor of Ancient and Modern Greek Language and Philosophy at the same university, the French philosopher and professor Étienne Souriau, the Russian religious philosopher Nicholas Berdyaev, and other eminent persons.

From there he went to England, where he met and held conversations with the following philosophers: Bertrand Russell, A.C. Ewing, R.B. Braithwaite, J.O. Wisdom, C.D. Broad, and G.E. Moore. He also made the acquaintance, in Oxford, of the philosophers R.M. Hare, S. Radhakrishnan, and Gilbert Ryle, as well as the Greek scholars Basil Laourdas, who wrote a book on Plato’s Laws, Panteles Prebelakes, and Constantine Trypanis, Professor of Mod-
ern Greek Language and Literature at the University of Oxford.

After this, on returning to Boston, he submitted to Harvard his doctoral dissertation, “The Classical Theory of Relations,” a historical and critical study of the metaphysics of Plato, Aristotle, and Thomas Aquinas. At the oral presentation and defense of his dissertation, his professors congratulated him warmly and conferred on him the degree of Ph.D.

Indeed, Constantine proved to be a brilliant Greek-American scholar who honored his Greek lineage and preserved the Greek language and Greek culture deep within his soul.

During the first years of his education at Harvard, he studied biological sciences, such as botany, general zoology, comparative anatomy, physical anthropology, and biochemistry, with the intention of pursuing the science of medicine. However, in the middle of his program he decided to change direction and study philosophy. This change benefited him in a variety of ways in his future professional career. Thus, “a bright and joyous day dawned” for Orthodoxy and Hellenism. This we believe unshakably, that it was a work of Divine Providence that this man should be prepared as a “chosen vessel” who was destined to become a universal teacher of Orthodoxy and a spiritual benefactor in practice and in theory.

Our Good God breathed into his heart a spirit of love, truth, peace, patience, discretion, courage, humility, perseverance, integrity, industry, frugality, abstinence, temperance, sobriety, asceticism, tolerance, forbearance, conciliation, prayer, holiness, and many other Christian virtues in general.

He wrote and published a multitude of books, monographs, and articles. When one considers all of these works, he will discover that they did not proceed from the office of an academic, but that they are fruits of the activity of a teacher. They were almost always presented before audiences, comments were made by the listeners, and responses were given to them. For this reason, they are distinguished by a clarity and lucidity of language, sublimity of thoughts, and conciseness of expression. As a teacher, he believed that these are ancestral and classical virtues, and so he avoided verbosity and obscurity of ideas, in order that all might be able readily to understand what was said or written and receive spiritual and intellectual benefit. In writing he sought perfection. He would often weigh what he was writing to such a degree that not even a single phrase was superfluous or lacking. Likewise, he did not speak or write impromptu, but after much thought and reflection. Almost all of his lectures, after they had been delivered, were texts ready for publication. A professor of history at Harvard once asked his brother John, an equally distinguished philologist and a graduate of the same university, the following question: “Does your brother Constantine believe all that he writes?” And his response was: “Yes, down to the last comma.”

Constantine passionately loved everything classical and Hellenic. He found peace of soul and ineffable joy therein, and his spirit and his enthusiasm were roused when he read the classical authors of antiquity, and also authors from more recent times, such as St. Basil the Great, St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Gregory the Theologian, St. John Damascene, St. Photios the Great, Evgenios Boulgaris, and others. It is he who, some decades ago, studied, translated into English,
and finally published in two volumes an anthology of The Philokalia of the Holy Mystic Fathers.

As a result of this study, and also of his concern and love for students and all who were interested in learning the Greek language correctly, he compiled and published his well-known Philosophical Dictionary in Greek and English. His small work Orthodox Christian Terminology is governed by the same spirit, concern, and love for all who desire to draw and taste of Orthodoxy and Hellenism from the original sources.

The didactic character of the works and life of Constantine, our mentor, exudes the spiritual aroma of his profound Orthodox faith. There is no contemporary convert to Orthodoxy who has not read at least one of his works. At the Institute for Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies there are entire volumes of letters from readers of his works, replete with gratitude, excitement, and appreciation, coming from every continent of the world. We are absolutely certain that in the future academic dissertations will be written which will have as their subject the spiritual œuvre and personality of Monk Constantine (Cavarnos).

Constantine showed love and gratitude for his pious parents, and also for his siblings, in dedicating a large part of his life to caring for them personally during the difficult years of their senectitude and infirmities. For years, he looked after his venerable father, his wonderful mother, his beloved brother John, and his dear sister Frangoula. We can say that his tendance of them was often not only difficult, but also very exhausting. He could have said, in the words of the Apostle Paul: These hands have ministered unto you.

Constantine knew, and was a personal friend of, the important contemporary writer and iconographer, Photios Kontoglou, whom he held in great esteem. The ninety-two unpublished personal letters from Kontoglou to him attest to this friendship. Constantine admired Kontoglou’s work and ideas, and also his way of life, and for this reason he emulated him in many respects. Just as Kontoglou had the Athens daily newspaper Ἐλευθερία as a platform for disseminating his ideas, so also Constantine published an instructive article every week in the Hellenic Chronicle, a Greek-American newspaper produced in Boston. In fact, this newspaper was first conceived and planned in the Cavarnos’ house in Belmont by the brothers John and Constantine Cavarnos and the publisher Panagiotes Agriteles. These three young men were bound together in friendship and hailed from the island of Lesbos. What was striking about Constantine was that never during their decades of coöperation did he receive even a single dollar in return. He gave his all, gratis, for the enlightenment of the reading public.

He worked along the same lines with other newspapers and periodicals, such as Ἐθνικὸς Κῆρυξ, his beloved Ὀρθόδοξος Τύπος, and Ἐκκλησία and Ἐφημέριος, periodicals and official publications of the Church of Greece. The same applied to those of his works translated into different languages, such as Albanian, Arabic, Finnish, French, Japanese, Russian, Serbian, and Swedish. He never charged any fee for these translations. His joy was to behold his works circulating throughout the world. This compensation sufficed for him.

This venerable teacher coöperated with all men of good will who endeavored to work for the general good of the Orthodox Church and Hellenism. He was profoundly moved, whenever he was invited to contribute himself to whatever he could, without any ulterior motives or egotism. And if he did not agree with someone’s ideas or goals, then he withdrew without any gainsaying. He wrote thousands of pages, but never ad hominem. He respected the personhood of others, even as he contended for his own principles and credo, putting these forward in a positive spirit with great verve.

As a man, he was delighted to see and hear praise for his work. However, he never sought this. He was not one to please others. He abhorred sycophancy and lamented the downfall of modern Greece, as evinced by the vulgar bloviations of materialists and unbelievers and the pursuit of affluence, selfishness, and easy riches. He was deeply distressed by the degeneration of the Greek language. But in spite of this, he was an optimistic man and foresaw that in the future Greeks would come to their senses, esteem and cherish their glorious past, and labor assiduously for their spiritual amendment.

Constantine always urged his students to cherish classical studies, which cultivate a man inwardly and breed gentlemen. He saw that outstanding minds today turn to lucrative and practical disciplines and was aghast at this. He was himself unassuming in demeanor and captivated young people through his diction. He relished conversing with those most highly educated, without disdaining the simplest of people. To all he had something to offer, but from them he also found something to learn. He would frequently say: “In teaching I am ever being taught.”

His prodigious memory was proverbial. He remembered in detail not only those things that he read, but also what he had heard from his teachers decades before. The man whom he esteemed especially, as we said above, and emulated in many ways, was his friend and inspirer Photios Kontoglou. In his archives there are many works by Photios translated into English and ready for publication, as well as a detailed and brilliant biography of him. Constantine regarded him as a man of integrity, an unshakable and authentic scion of Hellenism. As for ourselves, we consider Constantine an heir to the legacy of Papadiamantes and Kontoglou: Papadiamantes—Kontoglou—Cavarnos. Constantine is the new saint of both Greek and English letters. And, just like them, so also the venerable teacher was a connoisseur of Byzantine music and wrote three works about it. Moreover, whatever he wrote at a theoretical level he applied in a practical way. For decades he used to chant at our Church very melodiously and compunctionally, and in the Athonite style, on Sundays and Great Feasts and at other Divine services.

Constantine was a man of prayer. Apart from public prayer and worship, he attended to private
prayer for the cultivation and sustenance of his soul. Without fail every morning, after rising from his bed, he was to be found at the adjacent Analogion with its Horologion. He would read the Synaxarion, the Apolytikion, the Kontakion, and the Megalynarion of the Saints celebrated that day. He did the same also in the evening. In other words, his study was turned into a house Church. On the walls of the room in his house there hung holy Icons that came from the hands of his mentor, Photios Kontoglou, and other iconographers. He made sure that a perpetual vigil lamp was always kept lit before the Icons of the Lord and the Theotokos. All who visited him for advice or for other matters sensed that here they savored the existence of another world, that here there breathed the fragrance of the Orthodox Church, and for this reason their discussions assumed a solemn and compunctionous tone. From his blessed lips one would often hear the prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.” Here one would find a Byzantine Christian home with Orthodox inhabitants. I frequently heard this characterization from many of his visitors. When they departed, aside from contrition and peace of soul, these visitors would take with them some of his books as gifts.

Concerning the manner of his fasting, what are we to say? In this matter he was astounding. He observed not only the fasts appointed by the Church in Her love for mankind, but also the stricter medical kind. As one who had originally prepared to study medicine, he was aware of all of those foods that were harmful and avoided them as much as possible. At any rate, he was very abstemious, following the regimen of our ancestral physicians, especially Hippocrates and Galen, who emphasized that “moderation in all is the best measure,” “nothing to excess,” and “attenuate the body”—that is, preventive medicine. Whenever he was going to write something important or give a lecture, he kept a strict fast in order to have a lucid mind. He worked night and day. When we urged him to stop working for a short while and take a little rest, he would say that he felt tired when he was not working, whereas through work he found refreshment and great spiritual euphoria and joy. In his work and in his needs, he was self-sufficient, not relying on the energies or aid of other people. During his long career, he knew and coöperated with numerous leading Churchmen here and in Greece. He had particular esteem for Fathers Gabriel of Dionysiou and Philotheos (Zervakos), to whom he confessed from time to time and about whom he wrote and published in the series Modern Orthodox Saints two volumes concerning their holy life and spiritual work in the Orthodox Church.

Many of his collaborators and friends exhorted Constantine to go and settle in Greece, but the opinion of those who urged him to stay in America prevailed. They besought him to continue laying firm foundations here through his writings on the Orthodox Church, which is in fact what he did. For this reason, wherever one looks today on the Internet, he sees with joy that many people utilize his works and ideas.

It was his policy and inclination to prepare and send his works to various libraries in America and Greece. Thus, he would print a certain number of hardbound copies of each book specially for libraries. Among the libraries that bought his books were the following, to which he would also send books for free: the Belmont Public Library, Harvard University Library, the library of the Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology, the library of the Greek Parliament, the American Marasleion of Athens, the libraries of the Metropolis and city of Mytilene, the Plomarion Library, the library of the Œcumenical Patriarchate in Constantinople, and those of many monasteries on the Holy Mountain and here.

Constantine the teacher lived a monastic life in the world even before he became a monk in the monastery of his repentance, St. Anthony’s in Arizona, where his body now rests. This is why many people called him a monk in the world.

We firmly believe that he was prepared by Divine Providence from an early age and given to the Orthodox Church so that he might shine in spiritual contest and become a new Saint, the first Greek-American Saint, a new St. Nicodemos the Hagiorite of our Orthodox Church in America.

Constantine, great in intellect and simple in life, enriched Orthodoxy and Hellenism through his writings. His absence from our midst will become noticeable, but at the same time, he will fill the hearts of all with joy, for he is truly in the arms of our Lord, in the land of the living, possessing boldness before Him and interceding for all. May the dust that covers his sanctified body be light and let him be assured that his sacred work as a teacher will be continued through his friends, students, and disciples and the countless readers of his books, and that it will be propagated in perpetuity. Eternal be your memory, venerable and beloved holy teacher.

 

Source: Encomium to Monk Constantine (Cavarnos) (1918-2011), Institute for Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, 2011.