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One of the
most important individuals to appear among the Greek people during the
period they were subject to the Ottoman Turks was a diminutive monk
named Kosmas. Because he was a native of the province of Aitolia in
western Greece, he is best known as Kosmas the Aitolian, although
among the people of his time he was known simply as Father Kosmas. His
love, concern and tireless labor among ordinary people, his honest and
forthright preaching, his unassuming character, his uncompromising
love for and dedication to Christ Jesus earned for him the titles:
"equal to the apostles, teacher of the Greek nation" and
"apostle to the poor."
Father Kosmas
was born in a mountain village named "Great Tree" in 1714 to
parents who hailed from Epiros but had moved to the province of
Aitolia seeking work as weavers. He lived and worked with his parents
until the age of 20, when he left home to pursue an education. Father
Kosmas studied Greek, theology and even medicine –- this later
proving very useful to him during his ministry among the poor and
often illiterate mountain people he was eventually to serve. He
entered the monastery of Philotheou on Mount Athos where he remained
for 17 years. There Father Kosmas was to be ordained deacon and then
priest. Convinced that he had been called to leave the monastery to
preach, he sought the blessing of the then Ecumenical Patriarch
Sophronios II, who appointed him "Preacher to the Nation."
For the next 19 years, beginning in 1760, Father Kosmas became an
itinerant preacher and teacher, spending most of his time among the
poorest and most unfortunate of his fellow Orthodox Christians in the
Ottoman Empire. Traveling on foot, by donkey and by ship, often
followed by hundreds and even thousands of people, Father Kosmas –
like the Apostle Paul – undertook three apostolic journeys
throughout the Ottoman-controlled Mediterranean world.
Father Kosmas
spoke out against social injustices, against the abuse of the poor and
uneducated and against the inequities that existed between men and
women. He was an ardent enemy of illiteracy and was instrumental in
establishing and maintaining over 200 schools in villages where none
had existed before. Village elders, landowners and merchants felt
their interests threatened when Father Kosmas called for just
taxation, fair prices and equitable rents.
Standing on a
low pulpit – a gift from one of the local Turkish officials – in
front of a large wooden cross in the center of each village he would
enter, Father Kosmas challenged people to love and to translate this
love into effective and meaningful assistance to those in need.
Agreeing that love was important was meaningless for Father Kosmas
unless one was willing to prove it with deeds. In sermons which were
sometimes written down by his followers, Father Kosmas would directly
challenge his listeners to prove their faith with works. In one such
sermon, he challenged one of his listeners: "How can I determine,
my son, whether or not you love your brethren as the Gospel commands?
Do you love that poor boy standing next to you? The reply was:
"Yes, I do." Father Kosmas then answered: "If you loved
him you would buy him a shirt because he is naked. Will you do
this?" The man's response: "Yes!" On August 24, 1779
Father Kosmas was arrested in the city of Berat, Albania by the local
Ottoman governor, Kurt Pasha. After a mock trial in secret – for
fear of his followers – Father Kosmas was taken to the nearby
village of Kalinkotasi, where he was hung. His body was thrown into a
nearby river from which it was retrieved by one Mark, the priest of
the village. Father Kosmas was buried out of the church of the village
in which he was hanged.
The people
whom Father Kosmas loved and served did not wait for any official
proclamation of his sanctity – this was proclaimed by the Ecumenical
Patriarchate in April, 1961 – but built their first church in his
honor in the city of Berat in 1814. Father Kosmas was to become over
the next two centuries one of the most popular saints among the Greek
and Albanian peoples.
The Names of God
“The
Most Gracious and merciful God, my brethren, has many and various
names. He is called light, life, and resurrection. But God’s chief
name is, and he is called love.”
God
Created Women Equal to Men
“When God
made man, he took a rib from him and made woman and he gave her to him
as a companion. God created her equal with man and not inferior.”
“There are many women who are better than men. If perhaps you men
wish to be better than women, you must do better works than they do.
If women do better works they go to paradise and we men who do evil
works go to hell. What does it profit us if we are men; it would be
better if we were not born.”
Perfect Love
“Perfect
love is to sell all your possessions and to give alms, and even to
sell yourself as a slave, and whatever you get to give in alms.”
“Whatever
you give to the poor for the love of God, you’ll receive one hundred
for every one from Christ. Alms, love and fasting sanctify a person,
they enrich him physically and spiritually, and he’ll have a good
end.”
On Confession
“If you have
one hundred sins and confess ninety-nine to the confessor and hide
one, all of your sins are unforgiven. It is when you commit a sin that
you should be ashamed, but when you confess you should feel no shame.”
The Holy
Scriptures
“Blessed Christians, a large number of churches neither preserve
nor strengthen our faith as much as they should if those who believe
in God aren’t enlightened by both the Old and New Testaments. Our
faith wasn’t established by ignorant saints, but by wise and
educated saints who interpreted the holy Scriptures accurately and who
enlightened us sufficiently by inspired teachings.”
– SAINT OF GOD, PRAY FOR US
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