Feast day of the Holy Unmercenaries – Wednesday 1 July (Εορτη των Ἁγίων Ἀναργύρων Κοσμᾶ & Δαμνιανου)
(†) Bishop Augοustinos Kantiotes
But what is a saint? No one is born a saint. In all the world, only one
was holy from the beginning: our Lord Jesus Christ. All the rest of us
are born impure, carrying a heavy inheritance, a fault, from the time
that Adam sinned. We resemble an apple that externally looks good but
internally has a worm; or gold that comes out of the mine mixed with
dirt and base materials and must pass through fire to become pure.
So it is with man. He exits his mother’s womb crying, signifying that
human life is full of sorrows, sufferings and dramas. This burdensome
inheritance we carry is called original sin. And after the guilt of
original sin, each person adds his own personal sins.
What needs to be done? Just as gold is purified in a furnace, just as
petrol and gasoline is purified by passing through filters, we must also
be purified.
Create in me a clean heart, O God (Ps. 50/(51):12), says David. How is a person cleansed?•
First, he must believe. Believe what? That he is sinful; that our Lord
Jesus Christ is the true God; that out of infinite love for us, He
descended from heaven to earth, became Man, was crucified on dreadful
Golgotha, shed His precious blood; and that the blood of Jesus Christ,
the Son of God, cleanses us from all sin (1 Jn. 1:7). Yes, one drop of
Christ’s pure blood is worth more than all the riches of the world. This
becomes the bath in which all our sins are washed away.
• After believing and confessing these things, he must then be baptized
in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, the
Holy Trinity (Mt. 28:19), and receive a Christian name. The Mystery of
Baptism is very important. A person enters the font as black as a crow
and comes out white and radiant like the sun. So don’t weep when young
children die; they are like little angels and go to heaven. Woe to us
who live in this world and add new sins [to our pile] every day.
• After baptism, the Christian must struggle against the evil and sin that dwells in our sinful hearts.
Read the lives of the saints and you’ll see how they laboured to keep
God’s commandments. Like a soldier fights his enemies, the Christian
must fight to conquer the flesh, the world, and the devil. But is this
easy? A person can’t do this on his own. If he could, Christ would not
have come into the world. But now, with Christ’s help, the believer
conquers legions of demons — today’s Gospel says so. You will encounter
many obstacles. But even if the world is filled with demons, do not
fear. Even if you remain alone, do not fear. You who have Christ will
conquer. “I will give you great power,” Christ said, “so that you may
cast out demons” [see Mt. 10:1].
* *. *
Our faith is something grand, my brethren.
Believing in Christ, we can defeat all the demons that disturb humanity.
Today Europe and the whole world is ruled by Satan; the devil
dominates. It’s the age of the Antichrist. I’ll show you four demons and
bid you to fight them mercilessly and, with the power of the Holy
Spirit, to conquer them. Which ones? One, two, three, four.
The first is the demon of blasphemy. Man, the worm of the earth, opens
his filthy mouth and blasphemes everything holy — Christ, the Virgin
Mary, things sacred and divine. At that moment he is no longer a
Christian, no longer human, not even a savage, nor a beast, not even the
devil; for the devil may incite people to blaspheme, but he himself
does not blaspheme — he hears the name of God and
trembles.
Once in Greece, in Pontus, in Asia Minor, in Macedonia,1 a hundred years could pass without
- ( Fr. Augoustinos is referring to the Greek province of Macedonia.
Feast day of the Holy Unmercenaries, Wednesday 1 July 2026, Translation from the Greek Leaflet #2739, (†) Bishop Augοustinos Kantiotes)
hearing someone blaspheme. Now? Wherever you go, thousands of blasphemies are heard daily. In the
olden days, did people blaspheme? St. Cosmas the Aetolian said, “If you cut off my ear, gouge out my
eyes, pull out my teeth, cut off my legs, or mutilate me, I will forgive
you. If you curse my mother or father, I will forgive you. But if you
blaspheme my Christ and Panagia, I won’t condescend to look at you.”
Back then, couples separated over this issue. Now?
Nothing. If someone says something bad about the President of Democracy or the Prime Minister, the
penalty is a five months jail sentence. But if someone speaks badly of Christ? I’m not saying to curse the
rulers. But what are they before God? Huge nothings.
So, this demon must be uprooted. The second demon is the demon of fornication.
You got married, you were crowned in the church, you received the
blessing of God and your parents? One woman belongs to you, not anyone
else. And one man belongs to you, woman. Only the grave-digger’s shovel
should separate couples, nothing else. It is forbidden for a woman to
copulate with another man, or for a man to copulate with another woman.
Our Church doesn’t consent to fornication.
Once upon a time there wasn’t fornication and adultery. If on rare
occasions it was heard that someone performed this sin, the villagers
would ring the church-bell mournfully. It’s better for a woman to die
than to dishonour her husband; and better for a man to die than to
destroy his marriage. This is what
the Gospel says. Now? Haven’t you heard? Now divorces are produced like a factory produces bricks.
Men change their wives like they change their shirts, women change their
husbands like they change their robes. Recently they even passed a law
that adultery is no longer punishable. Mark my words: one night the
oil-lamps will shake and the bell-towers will fall; there’ll be a great
earthquake — God will shake the world for these sins.
The third powerful demon is the demon of gambling. Men gather at night
and play until morning, stealing from one another, because gambling is
theft.
Years ago in the region of Kozani, a Greek migrated to Germany and worked hard, saving up 300,000
drachmas, and then returned to Greece. Evil people learned that he had money and lured him into
gambling. There he lost everything and then committed suicide. Gambling
is a curse, a curse. Nobody should touch cards and no household should
allow gambling. Wherever cards are played for money, from that moment
the house is no longer a house of Christ, of Panagia, of the Church — it
becomes a
house of Satan.
One demon is the demon of blasphemy, another is the demon of fornication, the third demon is that of
gambling, and the fourth demon is the demon of atheism and disbelief. Some, who supposedly went
and studied, return to their villages and tell the elderly, “Do you still believe, old man? These are fairy tales.
There is no God, no Christ, no Paradise — only matter, nothing else.”
“Who said this, my child?” “Science!” What science? Lies! Lies! The
great scientists believe in God! What is considered science’s greatest
achievement? That man created the rocket and flew into space. Who
invented the rocket? A great German named Braun.2 He came to Greece and
went to Mykonos. On Sunday the church-
bell rang. The others, the Greeks, went to the beach, men and women
together. But Braun got up early and went to church with his wife. He
stood there from the beginning to the end, listening and listening. When
he came out, people asked him, “But you, a great scientist, believe?”
He replied, “I believe, like my mother and grandmother, and now I
believe a hundred times more.” Yet the unlearned and ignorant
[‘educated’] man comes along and says there is no God.
* *. *
This is what I had to tell you, my
brethren. Remain firm. Greece can’t live without religion, just as a
person can’t live without oxygen. I don’t know what happens in other
countries, I’m not speaking about
them. In our homeland, from ancient times, religion was united with the
nation like flesh to the bone; that’s how it was and that’s how it will
remain. Systems and theories pass away; our faith remains.
I bestow my blessings on you. And I beg you: mercilessly strike the
devil who is active in the world, the evil that corrupts humanity. Here,
let there be no blasphemer, no fornicator or adulterer, no gambler, no
disbeliever. May the young and old be united; believe in Christ, love
our blessed homeland, live with love, and may God, through the
intercessions of the Most Holy Theotokos and all the saints, always be
with you, my beloved brethren.
2 Wernher von Braun
(†) Bishop Augoustinos
2A transcribed sermon, given at the church of the Holy Unmercenaries in Amyntaio, Monday morning 1-11-1982
