Greece in Debt: Scapegoat of a Cruel and Greedy World
Take out the daily financial verbiage of modern economics - government bonds, sovereign debt, currency fluctuations, austerity measures - and what do you really have in the case of a country like Greece? It is ironic that the modern heir to the Byzantine Empire and the cradle of democracy should in this modern age be treated as a whipping boy for the foolish and unscrupulous actions of a handful of western investors and politicians who have a weak grasp of concepts like faith and democracy.
As a Greek, I understand fully now outdated ideals of religious faith, family values and caring for the sick and elderly, yet what place have these outdated values today? Religious faith has been relegated to at best something that is tolerated in others as quirky superstition.
Family values are becoming non-existent as the very definition of family is threatened by modern liberalism.
And the concept of looking after the sick and elderly is nothing more than a political football at the mercy of interest groups who see in these activities the chance of making some easy money.
It is a sick world who will only help others if there is a fast buck to be made.
When Constantine I established the Byzantine Empire in 324 AD he instigated the first and last system of living based entirely on Christian values.
In 325 AD, a year later, the First Ecumenical Council met at Nicaea to agree the religious principles on which the majority of Christians base their faith even today.
Imagine living at a time when Christian values were not just part of the very fibre of being, unquestioned wisdom, but also the basis on which emperors and politicians made daily decisions.
No wonder that Byazintium grew to be a "vast empire and a brilliant cultural entity" (Philip Sherrard, Time Life Books).
Many of the peasant values learned during those years, of religious devotion, hard work and caring for family are still around today in many of the isolated mountain villages of the Aegean.
It is a dying culture now, but in the faces of some of the elderly, confused by the changing times, it is still possible to see the steadfastness of a life spent at the foot of the cross.
Their grandchildren may be losing their jobs and their homes as a result of economic madness, but this last generation of pious peasant continues to pray, fast and look forward to paradise, just as they have always been taught to do.
But the outside world, so wrapped up in its plutocratic culture, serving Mammon and no one else, sees none of this.
The special qualities of a sacred life, and the sweet pleasures that it gives rise to, are invisible to those who seek only a return on their investment.
But there is always a bright side in the life of a loyal servant of Christ, and for the Greek it may be that when the world sends him back to an isolated economic existence, a remembrance of that Byzantine inheritance will occur and a renewed joy will arise knowing that there are more things in life than financial profit and loss.
As a Greek, I understand fully now outdated ideals of religious faith, family values and caring for the sick and elderly, yet what place have these outdated values today? Religious faith has been relegated to at best something that is tolerated in others as quirky superstition.
Family values are becoming non-existent as the very definition of family is threatened by modern liberalism.
And the concept of looking after the sick and elderly is nothing more than a political football at the mercy of interest groups who see in these activities the chance of making some easy money.
It is a sick world who will only help others if there is a fast buck to be made.
When Constantine I established the Byzantine Empire in 324 AD he instigated the first and last system of living based entirely on Christian values.
In 325 AD, a year later, the First Ecumenical Council met at Nicaea to agree the religious principles on which the majority of Christians base their faith even today.
Imagine living at a time when Christian values were not just part of the very fibre of being, unquestioned wisdom, but also the basis on which emperors and politicians made daily decisions.
No wonder that Byazintium grew to be a "vast empire and a brilliant cultural entity" (Philip Sherrard, Time Life Books).
Many of the peasant values learned during those years, of religious devotion, hard work and caring for family are still around today in many of the isolated mountain villages of the Aegean.
It is a dying culture now, but in the faces of some of the elderly, confused by the changing times, it is still possible to see the steadfastness of a life spent at the foot of the cross.
Their grandchildren may be losing their jobs and their homes as a result of economic madness, but this last generation of pious peasant continues to pray, fast and look forward to paradise, just as they have always been taught to do.
But the outside world, so wrapped up in its plutocratic culture, serving Mammon and no one else, sees none of this.
The special qualities of a sacred life, and the sweet pleasures that it gives rise to, are invisible to those who seek only a return on their investment.
But there is always a bright side in the life of a loyal servant of Christ, and for the Greek it may be that when the world sends him back to an isolated economic existence, a remembrance of that Byzantine inheritance will occur and a renewed joy will arise knowing that there are more things in life than financial profit and loss.
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