People of all classes and ages had overwhelmed the most sacred symbol of Smyrna, the Church of Agia Fotini, where the true shepherd and Bishop, as another "Angel of the Church in Smyrna", Metropolitan Chrysostomos conducts the last Divine Liturgy or rather the "exodus procession in the Holy Eucharist" of himself and his long-suffering and long-awaited flock, which, tearful and broken, partakes of the mystery of the "blood and body" of Jesus Christ, having literally fixed his gaze in recognition on his martyr and great martyr shepherd.
The eponymous Church of Agia Fotini during those "Great Hours" is like another Agia Sophia, before the fall of Constantinos Polios, at the last Divine Liturgy and mystagogy, the sighs of the pious and martyred Genus, of Ionian Hellenism, where the "Angel and Chief Hierarch of the Church of Smyrna" stands and presides over that heavenly mysticism, imitating Christ's martyrdom, as the willingly offered and sacrificed "worthy and God-promoted and people-promoted shepherd" in favor of his much-loved and cherished people, of his eponymous flock….
Of a flock betrayed and abandoned, violently uprooted from his centuries-old ancestral homes, alone and helpless in exandrapodism, the dishonor, the slaughter!
They did not have "inflatables" at their disposal to cross to the opposite islands…
No Great Power was interested in them….
Not even the "Mother Country", the overbearing and insane, according to Chrysostom of Smyrna, commissioner of which he secretly left Smyrna, leaving the Asia Minors, who "thronged" her beach to choose fire and the Turkish knife or drowning, under the dispassionate gaze of the crews of the French and English ships, that were chartered in the port of Smyrna!
Only one lives near them, he shares their pain and anguish, he listens to their sobs and "partakes" of their blood, the Bishop of Smyrna Chrysostomos, the fearless Hierarch, who loved Christ and the Country to death, who fought courageously to save Hellenism, where the Church ordered him, in the Drama against the Bulgarians,in Smyrna against the Young Turks…
"In case she wanted to fall, to fall as an eagle, and not to die idle in the henhouses of the East. I ask for a cross, big cross, on which I will taste the pleasure of being fixated and having nothing to give for the salvation of the mother adored country to give my blood. That's how I mean my life and my priesthood", he wrote to the Patriarch….
And his Cross, Supreme cross, he rose in Smyrna!
His dressing gown, as purpura and vessus, crimson from his torture, became the shroud with which the Hellenism of Asia Minor was wrapped and "buried"., the cradle of the Ancient Greek Spirit and the Christian Faith, whose chosen offspring adorned the pantheon of philosophy and adorned the sky of Orthodoxy!
The Holy Hieromartyr Metropolitan Chrysostomos of Smyrna, Kalafatis, it is the epitome of the priceless offering of the holy Priesthood to the Greek Nation, of the eternal spiritual Father and Leader, who lives near the wintering People, sympathizes with him and sacrifices with him!
He stays close to his People, even if he knows that "the Medes will live in the end", even if he is certain and "ready for some time" for the end, who is waiting for him, when all other politicians and military, by euphemism, leaders, they hurried to leave, like mice, who abandon ship, leaving millions of Greeks at the mercy of Turkish brutality.
Saint Chrysostom of Smyrna, 93 years after his martyrdom, it has now become an idea!
And ideas don't die either, nor are they ever defeated.
It is certain that, through the gloomy darkness, the confusion, the uncertainty and upheavals of modern reality, Chrysostomos will be the one who will give vision and direct the new generation's stride towards the beautiful, the big and the real ones!
It is enough not to kill faith in Christ in their souls, the hope and the dream….
† DOROTHEOS II OF SYRUS AND MYKONOS
("DEMOKRATIA" newspaper, Saturday, 5 September 2015)