"A greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends".

"A greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends".


Gospel of John 15:13

"His only sin was that he was a patriotic and eloquent Greek who believed in the expansion of his race and worked to that end. He was offered a refuge in the French Consulate and an escort by French Marines, but he refused, saying that it was his duty to remain with his flock. "He said to Me:

"I am a shepherd and must stay with my flock". He died a martyr and
deserves the highest honors in the bestowal of the Greek Church and
Government. He merits the respect of all men and women to whom
Courage in the face of horrible death makes an appeal".

 

Excerpts from the Blight of Asia by American Consul

George Horton

Remembering Smyrna and Chrysostom

by

Theodoros Georgiou Karakostas



BYZANTINE CULTURAL PROJECT





Metropolitan Chrysostom was the last Greek Bishop to preside over the ancient Church of Smyrna. Tragically, he shared the fate of the 100,000 Greek Men, Women, and Children of Smyrna who were systematically exterminated under the watchful eye of Turkish Nationalist leader Mustafa Kemal and his henchmen. The fate of the Greeks of Smyrna had been the same as that of all the Greek populations of Asia Minor. The horror that culminated in the orgy of mass murder and destruction came about in great part because of the pact of evil made by America, Great Britain, France, Italy, and Soviet Russia with the Turkish Kemalists.


The arming of Mustafa Kemal and subsequent economic and diplomatic agreements made by him and the above mentioned powers led to the final destruction of Hellenism and Christianity in Asia Minor. One might ponder that the West entered the post Christian world when it eagerly embraced the great butcher of Greek Orthodox and Armenian Christians. George Horton noted in his book that the real end of the Byzantine Empire occurred with the destruction of Smyrna. It is interesting to note that while the surviving Greek populations of Asia Minor were being ethnically cleansed and uprooted by the obscene Lausanne Treaty, the seed of totalitarian ideologies based on genocide and the mass extermination of human beings were steadily being planted in Europe.



Attesting to the evil of the Turkish Nationalists is the following analysis from writer
Paul Fregosi in his book, "Jihad".



"The last days of Greek Smyrna does not make for pleasant reading either. But it is necessary reading, in the same way that we are urged to remember the murder of six million Jews by the Christian Germans in the gas chambers of Auschwitz and the other Nazi concentration camps During World War II".



Edward Hale Bierstadt of the United States Emergency Committee included a graphic
description of Chrysostom's death in his book, "The Great Betrayal."



"The mob took possession of Chrysostom and carried him away. A little further on, in front of the shop of an Italian hairdresser, named Ismail, and an Italian protege, they stopped and the Metropolitan was slipped into a white hairdresser's overall. Then They began to beat him with their fists and sticks and to spit on his face. They Riddled him with stabs. They tore his beard off, they gouged his eyes out, they cut His nose and ears off".



Chrysostom had been handed over to the fanatical Muslim mob by a top General of Mustafa Kemal named Noureddin Pasha. This same Noureddin Pasha had ordered Turks to each kill "four or five Greeks." The example of Metropolitan Chrysostom is miraculous in light of the madness and the horror that engulfed the great Christian City of Smyrna. As attested to by George Horton, Metropolitan Chrysostom refused to leave his flock behind and gave his own life in order to share the fate of the flock that Christ had entrusted to him. His gesture of love is the witness and practice of true Christianity in a time and place where Christ had been absent not only from the beliefs of the Turks, but from the hearts and minds of the alleged "Christian" Powers.



Metropolitan Chrysostom of Smyrna was made a Saint by the Orthodox Church of Greece in 1992. George Horton emphasized in his book that Chrysostom, the last Bishop of Smyrna shared the martyrdom of Polycarp, who had been the first Bishop of Smyrna during the first Century. In the post 9/11 era, we have been reminded that the United States is at war against terrorist adversaries who are evil. Just as that absolute position is entirely correct with regard to Al Quada, it is also correct to assert that the Greek struggle against the Turkish dictatorship is also a struggle against evil. The Turks and their powerful protectors continue to profane the memories of the dead by denying the truth, and their is a very real danger that Cyprus will suffer the fate of Asia Minor.



Mustafa Kemal continues to be glorified by Statesmen, diplomats, academics, and journalists in America and Europe. Standing in contrast to the vile personality of the Turkish war criminal and dictator is Chrysostom of Smyrna. Chrysostom is unknown outside the Greek Orthodox world, but he has achieved a greatness that his persecutors and their allies will never know. His example should serve to strengthen the faith and commitment of Greeks to Christ and to the national cause. In concluding I refer to George Horton's reminder that Smyrna was one of the Seven Churches of Asia Minor that Saint John wrote to from Patmos when he wrote the Book of Revelation.



"It is the land of the Seven Cities of the Revelation, of the Seven Churches and the wonderful mystic poem of Saint John the Divine. Six of the candles went out into eternal darkness long ago, but that of Smyrna burned brightly until its destruction on the Thirteenth of September 1922, by the Turks of Mustafa Kemal and the death of the last of its great bishops whose martyrdom fitly ended its glorious Christian history".