Priest & Writer

“As long as I live and breathe, I will never cease to praise and adore Christ…"

"...Everyone felt the best choice would be Father Kyriakos: he was not of a particularly good family (he was even related to one or two of the villagers himself) and he didn’t look down on them. He was even said to have some Albanian blood in him. He certainly wasn’t stand-offish —in fact it was rumoured here and there that the priest had a habit of ‘finishing off the husband’s procreation duties’ with his female parishioners. But that was just the idle talk of mischiefmakers and grudge-bearers, and only fools paid any attention to it.

Like most of the true clergymen of the Greek Church (with one or two exceptions), the priest was by and large of blameless character. Though this is true, the fact remains that married priests are usually out of pocket and out of luck, and, being forever burdened by the need to feed their offspring, they can appear to be grasping individuals, who do not even trust their own colleagues fully. This was the case with Father Kyriakos, who was perfectly willing to go and celebrate Easter for the villagers, as he had a generous heart and would have liked them to enjoy Easter and the arrival of spring along with everyone else, but he had his suspicions about the other parish priest, and was reluctant to leave him in charge of the parish, especially on that day...

Everyone now lit their candles. The priest read the Resurrection Gospel, and after having glorified the Holy Trinity, he then began with thunderous voice to chant ‘Christ is risen from the dead’ antiphonally with his twelve-year-old son, who had come along on the outing to assist him. That was a beautiful and charming sight there in the impressive marble ruin, made all the more resplendent in the dancing light of fifty candles stirred by the breath of the nocturnal wind. It was a sight at once lambent and sombre, bright yet mysterious, amidst the giant oaks that proudly lifted up their mighty boughs to make tall crowns, their rustling leaves scintillating like flakes of gold in the torchlight gleam. And in the shadows and murky spaces amidst the branches, one might imagine unseen Dryads and slender Orestiads holding sway over the dense oak forests, and today metamorphosed into nocturnal spirits, afraid to emerge into the light of the paschal candles. For a time they had taken heart at the Christian God’s desertion of his fine marble sanctuary, but now with wonder they beheld the rekindling of the Easter torches and smelt the fragrance of the Christians’ incense, there in the depths of the oak wood…”

~ "Alexandros Papadiamantis (1851 –1911), was an influential Greek writer and poet. Papadiamantis was born in Greece, on the island of Skiathos. His father was a priest. He supported himself by writing throughout his adult life.

Papadiamantis did not care for money, and would often ask for lower fees if he thought they were unfairly high. He never married, and was known to be a recluse, whose only true cares were observing and writing about the life of the poor, and chanting at church: he was referred to as "a monk in the world". He regularly attending church services in which he acted as chanter. In 1887 he found the small church of the Prophet Elisha, set in the courtyard of a private house in the old part of the city, under the rock of the Acropolis. There Papa-Nicholaos Planas, a simple priest born in the same year as Papadiamandis, a man of prayer and of great spiritual gifts, would regularly hold vigil services. He died from a chest infection, most probably pneumonia."

~ "Papa-Nicholas (Planas) (1851-1932) was glorified as a saint by the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople in 1992. He was born on the island of Naxos in Greece. Papa Nicholas married at 17, but his wife died only a few years later, and so he spent the rest of his life in celibacy, his only aspiration being to serve the Church. He was ordained a priest at the Church of the Holy Prophet Elisha. His focus for over 50 years was to serve daily the Divine Liturgy, vigils, and other services. He never missed a Liturgy and spent most of his time in the very small church of Church of St. John the Hunter in Athens, Greece. The parish initially contained only eight families. He never refused to pray for anyone, and he carried in his pockets slips of paper containing thousands of names whom he would pray for. Numerous stories are told of his being lifted in prayer and of the acolytes seeing him raised off the ground in front of the altar during the Liturgy. He began Liturgy at eight in the morning, he would not finish until two or three in the afternoon. He was famously absent-minded and was also well known for giving to the poor anything that anyone might give him. He was not an educated man but was considered immensely enlightened, an example of great holiness and humility."