What we have experienced and are experiencing affects a key quality, a characteristic of the Greek, which cannot be translated into a foreign language, his honor!
As a people, we were used to it, not unreasonably, to take it for granted that our centuries-long historical and cultural past had irrevocably sealed our place in the society of peoples and because of this we were given their respect, we took our national dignity for granted.
Nevertheless, dignity is not something bestowed, but something that is hard earned, matches, sacrifices, sometimes even with blood!
If for example we won global respect, seventy-five years ago, it was not because as a people we simply said no to fascism, but mainly because we transformed this NO into action, in a pan-national and Palladian gathering, in a stubborn and largely hopeless struggle by those who sought our national freedom and dignity!
We must not forget, Nevertheless, and this! That dignity is a daily struggle, individual and collective, since the consideration of human rights is based on this concept, which can only be realized within the framework of Christianity and the Church, without discounts and asterisks.
According to biblical revelation, human nature was not only created by God but also endowed with his attributes in His image and likeness.
For the Church, Consequently, the innate ontological dignity of every human person is referred to in the image, while the human life that befits this dignity is related to the similitude, which by the grace of God is achieved through the overcoming of sin.
Accordingly, the concept of dignity has primarily a moral dimension, while what is worthy and what is unworthy is determined by the moral quality of a person's actions and choices.
Only on this basis can one claim that human nature has inherent dignity.
With the incarnation of God the Word was established the fact that even after the fall human nature did not lose its dignity, because the image remained indestructible and therefore the possibility of restoring human life to its full original perfection remained.
This is also stated in the liturgical texts of the Orthodox Church: "I am here, of your ineffable glory, even if I carry blemishes...
Under the influence of sin man behaves selfishly, in his relations with other people, asking to satisfy his needs at the expense of his neighbors.
Such a life is dangerous for the human person, society and the environment, because it disturbs the harmony of existence and is accompanied by mental and physical sufferings and diseases and makes man vulnerable and vulnerable to the consequences of environmental disasters. An immoral life not only ontologically destroys God-given dignity, but tarnishes it to the point where it becomes indiscernible.
Hence, man's preservation of dignity is determined by a life according to moral rules, because they express the primary, the true nature of man untainted by sin.
To be restored, accordingly, our individual and collective dignity, repentance is needed, based on the consciousness of sins, of our mistakes and failures and our desire to change life.
Five years, and at the same time we admire his strong resistance to the itamon invader, it is a common and widely acknowledged finding that the bankruptcy of our country is primarily moral, social and spiritual and consequently also economic!
Nationwide request to regain our dignity and its recognition by our "partners", inside or outside the European Union.
But the second is a consequence of the first!
And, anyway, dignity is not asking for loans with better terms, but to fight as individuals and as a people, all, equally, so that we "repent" and cease to be, according to Makrigiannis "the old quest of the nations", with unanimity, cooperation, solidarity and above all with patriotism, pure and guileless patriotism, which subordinates the ego to the we…
"No society can survive without the idea of participating in a common effort".
Wise words of Albert Camus, which in today's situation are translated as an effort of solidarity towards the weakest, as an effort of selfless giving now by all,87 those who believe that the dignity of the Greek is not enslaved.
Why, as it has been aptly said "it only takes a moment to become a hero, but it takes a whole life to become a decent person!”
† Dorotheos II of Syros and Mykonos
(Magazine "POLITICAL ISSUES", τ. 76, February 2015)
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