The Greek Dostoyevsky

  • greek-mountain-church.jpgWhen I opined back here that I had been a lit­tle dis­ap­pointed with “The Broth­ers Kara­ma­zov,” Father Luke Har­tung com­mented that I might pre­fer the writ­ings of Alexan­dros Papa­dia­man­dis, who has been called “The Greek Dos­toyevsky.” Father Luke also vol­un­teered to send me a col­lec­tion of Papa­dia­man­dis’ short sto­ries called “The Bound­less Gar­den” if I wanted.

    Well, who could resist an offer like that? So I’ve just fin­ished “The Bound­less Gar­den,” and it was a ver­i­ta­ble delight. And if Ortho­dox are look­ing for more fic­tion that speaks to their heart, this might be one to add to your library (if you can get it. I believe it’s out of print, but you might have some luck at alib­ris)

    Con­sider the fol­low­ing quote, describ­ing the local sit­u­a­tion around Holy Week:

    We are in the lit­tle coun­try church of the vil­lage of T., where the incense drifts in blue fra­grant wreaths and forms a fleet­ing sur­round for the girls, in their embroi­dered aprons and white sleeve­less jack­ets, come bear­ing arm­fuls of roses and vio­lets and sheaves of rose­mary and pro­ceed to heap moun­tains of flow­ers on the hum­ble Epi­taphios, which needs no fur­ther embell­ish­ment. Into the church comes a whole squad of impromptu chanters, each of them hold­ing a leaflet with the text of the Good Fri­day bur­ial ser­vice, and who feel duty-bound to chant the Praises in ear-splitting dis­cord, man­ag­ing in the process to demol­ish, with their com­i­cal blun­ders, even the few words in the leaflets which are printed correctly.

    Who doesn’t know what he means? The litur­gi­cal wor­ship we have looks so seri­ous to our Protes­tant friends that they never guess how very human it can be — laugh­ter and tears and all the rest that are for­ever tinged in my mem­ory with the most sacred and eter­nal aspects of worship.

    That’s what “The Bound­less Gar­den” tells of. Writ­ing about life in the lit­tle vil­lages on the author’s Greek island home of Skiathos, he tells in a third per­son nar­ra­tive style very sim­i­lar to Dostoyevsky’s, so that you feel as if he’s a friend telling you about other friends. He tells about lit­tle tri­umphs with wagers or live­stock, their daily bat­tle against grind­ing poverty, their per­vad­ing super­sti­tions, their occa­sional hero­ism in rebuff­ing Turk­ish attack, the daily nego­ti­a­tions with the hos­tile envi­ron­ment, dif­fi­cult don­keys, rocky soil or even Church ser­vices in remote locations.

    greek-mountain-church-2.jpg

    Writ­ing dur­ing a period of tran­si­tion in Greece, when the Old Ways were on the wane, Papa­dia­man­dis writes:

    For my part, as long as I live and breathe and am of sound mind, I will never cease, espe­cially dur­ing these resplen­dent days, to praise and adore Christ, to depict nature lov­ingly, and to rep­re­sent with affec­tion those cus­toms which are authen­ti­cally Greek.

    Hon­estly, what’s not to love? I’ll include one last quote from a story about a ser­vice that a few vil­lagers requested .. I don’t really have any good rea­son to add it, other than that it was so lovely I wanted to share.

    The scene is the ruin of a cathe­dral where some of the vil­lagers decide they want to cel­e­brate Pascha. The struc­ture has no roof and in places is miss­ing walls, but the priest impro­vises and they start the Orthros ser­vice under a starry sky:

    Every­one now lit their can­dles. The priest read the Res­ur­rec­tion Gospel, and after hav­ing glo­ri­fied the Holy Trin­ity, he then began with thun­der­ous voice to chant ‘Christ is risen from the dead’ antiphonally with his twelve-year-old son, who had come along on the out­ing to assist him. That was a beau­ti­ful and charm­ing sight there in the impres­sive mar­ble ruin, made all the more resplen­dent in the danc­ing light of fifty can­dles stirred by the breath of the noc­tur­nal wind. It was a sight at once lam­bent and som­bre, bright yet mys­te­ri­ous, amidst the giant oaks that proudly lifted up their mighty boughs to make tall crowns, their rustling leaves scin­til­lat­ing like flakes of gold in the torch­light gleam. And in the shad­ows and murky spaces amidst the branches, one might imag­ine unseen Dryads and slen­der Ores­ti­ads hold­ing sway over the dense oak forests, and today meta­mor­phosed into noc­tur­nal spir­its, afraid to emerge into the light of the paschal can­dles. For a time they had taken heart at the Chris­t­ian God’s deser­tion of his fine mar­ble sanc­tu­ary, but now with won­der they beheld the rekin­dling of the Easter torches and smelt the fra­grance of the Chris­tians’ incense, there in the depths of the oak wood.


    Related posts:

    1. Other quotes
    2. The sash of the Theotokos
    3. Spir­i­tual Coun­sels by Fr. John of Kronstadt
    4. Inward peace
    5. Mar­tyrs of Russia

    March 11th, 2009 | Grace | 8 Comments |

8 Responses and Counting...

  • DebD 03.11.2009

    This does look a lot more acces­si­ble. Sadly, the only copies I found at Alib­ris were in the UK and Australia.

  • Christo­pher Orr

    My friend Her­man Middleton’s Pro­tect­ing Veil Press is soon to release “Greece’s Dos­to­evsky: The The­o­log­i­cal Vision of Alexan­dros Papa­dia­man­tis” by Pro­fes­sor Anestis Keselopou­los, Ph.D. It’s been many years in the trans­lat­ing and pub­lish­ing, but he told me the other week that it is going to press.

    You can read a lit­tle more on this book at:
    http://protectingveil.com/forthcoming.html

  • Grace

    Deb:
    My quick perusal came up with the same; I was hop­ing there were some bar­gains hid­ing out there. But behold Christopher’s note above. Help is on the way! :-)

  • Grace

    Christo­pher:
    MANY thanks to those who worked to put this together! I think there’s a real hunger for these spiritually-rich kinds of writings.

    Can’t wait.

  • Mimi

    Ooooh, I’ve heard about him, I look foward to the book that Christo­pher advised you of!

  • Tatyana

    I am a huge fan of Dos­to­evsky, but these quotes seemed excep­tional, as well. One day, I will get my hands on his work :)

  • Grace

    Tatyana:
    That sounds like a good thing — you’ll only be adding some­one else to be a fan of. :-)

    And just to be clear, I didn’t mean to over­state things with Dos­to­evsky. I had heard so much about “The Broth­ers Kara­ma­zov” that I had really high expec­ta­tions. I’m read­ing “The Idiot” right now, and I think I like this one bet­ter. I still don’t always know what to do with the really long con­ver­sa­tions, but at least I’m used to them now.

  • Nathaniel

    Christo­pher,

    Has the book been released yet? It’s been ages since I have seen it listed as being in preparation…

    Nathaniel in Malaysia

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