Dorotheos II: Hierarchy and Efficiency

Periods are often found in the lives of individuals and peoples, which suddenly and violently overturn what were considered permanent and secure facts and lead them to a state of revision of their views on life, their relationships with people, even with themselves…

   They are the unexpected ones
situations, which give us the feeling that everything is falling apart,
they cause us the bitter realization that "we got our lives wrong" , is
those moments, that we are called to say the "big yes and the
big no", we are challenged to "change life"… It's the situations,
which we usually call them "crisis" for short.

    We consider, Nevertheless, the crises,
individual or collective, as something by definition negative for that too
inevitable and terrifying, which leaves behind all sorts of losses,
ruins and debris…

   And we ignore that every crisis does not
it is something otherworldly and magical, but it is a social phenomenon, with
social causes, which pervade all members of society, They are on a three-month holiday from tomorrow
each time pathogens and deficiencies of which gave birth to it, the
they nurtured and nurtured her, without the disappearance of which each
effort, however honorable it may be, will remain ineffective and
ineffective.

     And it will remain, as much as we can
not to discover the causes but to make amends for the sins… Them
sins in the true sense of the word, understood as failures.
Option failures, practice failures, failures of ideologies, failures
lifestyle…

    In this sense, every crisis
can be beneficial, as they are beneficial for nature
storms and in general what we usually call omens, They are on a three-month holiday from tomorrow
which, of course, not the result of a divine "month" (anger), but
necessary regulatory factors of the physical and ecological
balance.

     But every crisis, as well as any
storm, drags everything in its path, or it seems that the
drags along, causing us to feel lost, from standards and
new suggestions of life completely deprived.

    Three years now, the Greeks without
we always discuss the same result,  without visible effect, as
all, more or less, we know the causes that led us to the impasse
and destruction, few, Nevertheless, they choose to make it big in life
them and society, by extension, change.

   To get out of this difficult situation
dot, organization is needed, cooperation, effectiveness and
social cohesion, the subordination of the ego to the we is imposed, is assumed
social responsibility and individual interest in the common interest
submission.

    Words, concepts and
practices not utopian landless, but fully tested and
realistic, which for centuries now have been implemented in the context of Orthodoxy
communal monasticism, who offers us an alternative proposal
of life, genuinely social, self-sufficient and efficient.

    They are scattered throughout Greece
our monasteries, with the centuries-old monasteries of Agiorites prominent
habitats, they call us to transfer the monastic model to the cities
and life experience.

    And first of all, they recommend us
a way of social organization, rigidly structured and hierarchical
composed, in which, without negating personal autonomy will
the hierarchy is respected and not all will be leveled by prevailing
in recent years "equality" and parity.

   An "equality", that disappeared
any kind of respect, which he equated, for example, the teachers with them
students, subordinates and superiors, the "hoplites" with
the "officers"….

     In the monastic community,
on the contrary, dominated by the much misunderstood word "obedience", not in the sense
of slavish submission, but in the sense of respect to
hierarchically superior, of the voluntary abandonment of selfishness and self-interest.

    A natural consequence of respect for
the hierarchy is efficiency, through the partition
responsibilities-services- and the overlapping of obligations and
rights, where everyone performs the work, assigned to him, as much as
responsible can.

   Human passions, deficiencies and
weaknesses are covered by mutual love and tolerance and overcome
through their personal exercise and prayer.

    The struggle of the monks focuses on
transcendence of the ego, the denial of selfishness and self-centeredness, where
they prevent us from uniting and working together for the common cause,
the salvation of our Motherland.

      That's why our efforts
to get out of the crisis "with those of the congested Trojans is…
Part we succeed; part we take on ourselves; and we begin to dance
courage and good hopes. But something always comes out and stops us….”

      And that something is selfishness,
which prevents us from cooperating and competing, who wants us
let's all be self-sufficient, autonomous and leaders.

    But just as there cannot be a Monastery
without hierarchy and obedience, so it can't go ahead either
society, in which everyone wants to be at the wheel and no one
on the paddle!

† SYROUS – MYKONOU DOROTHEOS II