Against Materialism

An Excerpt from Saints Raphael, Nicholas and Irene

by Constantine Cavarnos

[Kontoglou’s] account, although not very well organized, remains to this day the fullest, most detailed account that we have of the manifestations of Saints Raphael, Nicholas and Irene during the years 1959, 1960, 1961, and the first two months of 1962.

A Great Sign was published in 1962, and turned out to be Kontoglou’s best selling book, despite the fact that it is written in purist Greek, whereas nearly all the rest of his many books were written in the more popular demotic idiom. It has been reprinted many times, and has served as a rich source of information and inspiration to many thousands of persons in Greece and abroad.

The events described in A Great Sign and in my manuscript, both of which I will utilize in this book, taken together constitute something unique in the whole history of Christendom. I regard them as enormously important for contemporary man, who tends to dismiss the miraculous, the supernatural, and to base his life on some form of dogmatic materialism. It is to shatter this materialism, to strengthen Christian belief, and to promote the regeneration of contemporary man that the three Saints who are described by Kontoglou and in the present book are believed to have been sent to this world five centuries after their martyrdom. This is the effect they have had on those to whom they have manifested themselves in dreams and visions, by what they have said to them and by the miraculous cures which they have performed. And these persons have been innumerable, not only in Greece, but also in many other countries....

“When the refugees came in 1922, some families took up residence in that house*. It so happened that my mother and uncle Constantine Marangos went and lived there. They dwelt in the mansion—and I together with them—for about ten years. During this period, they often saw a priest censing, especially on Saturday night and on the eve of holy days. They called him ‘the apparition (phantasma) that causes no evil.’ They were not afraid.”

At this point, Mrs. Angeliki Marangos, the mother of Vasiliki Rallis, began to speak. She said:

“On holy days, at night, we used to hear footsteps on the stairs and on the floors, and smelled incense. Also, we used to see a priest censing.

“About thirty years ago, I saw the priest in a dream, and he told me: ‘I want you to do what you said.’ And I asked him: ‘What is it that you want me to do?’ ‘My akolouthia’ (church service). The fact is that one day I said to those who lived with us in that house—there were seven other families: ‘He must have been killed by the Turks and been buried without a funeral service, and that is why he appears and censes.’

“The story of that house is remembered by Father Sitaras, the priest of the Church of St. Symeon at Mytilene. In 1917, he was chief police officer at Thermi, and carried out an investigation about these events. He concluded that real supernatural phenomena had been taking place here.

“When the Turkish mansion fell to ruins—it did so of itself—Constantine Siahos took some of the materials of the ruined house to use in building his own home. Siahos was one of those who had lived with us in the mansion. He incorporated some of the carved church marbles in the new dwelling. At this house, from the time it was built until the present day, they have been seeing the priest appearing and censing.

“Before Siahos built his house, one of his neighbors, Mrs. Garyphallia Mourlou, saw in a dream an officer who said to her: ‘Tell Siahos not to use the marbles for his house, because the Turks had taken them from a church which they tore down.’ But she failed to tell this to Siahos, owing to her shyness.”

The significance of these events will become increasingly clear as the story proceeds. At this point, I will make just one comment which throws some light on them. There is obviously a connection between the appearance of the spirit of the priest holding a censer and censing, and the presence of church marbles first in the mansion and later in the house that was built by Siahos. The church marbles were treated by the spirit as things holy. I recall in this connection a relevant statement quoted by the Russian writer P.D. Ouspensky (1878-1947). He says that an Orthodox friend of his once remarked: “Positivism assures itself that a stone is a stone and nothing more; but any simple woman or child knows perfectly that a stone from the wall of a church and one from a prison all are different things.” [1] I also recall the following statement of Jesus that is quite relevant and tells us something about what it is that differentiates one such piece of matter from others: “The temple sanctifieth the gold” of the edifice. [2] Implicit here is the idea that a church, as a “house of prayer,” [3] as a “house of God,” [4] sanctifies the materials which constitute it, be they gold, wood, or stone. Finally, there comes to my mind this passage from a book by St. Symeon of Thessaloniki: “A church, even though it is made up of stones and timber and other materials, has supramundane Grace. It is consecrated by a bishop by means of mystical prayers and is anointed with Holy Myron, and the whole of it is rendered an abode of God.”... [5]

Every thoughtful person who has read about the manifestations of the Saints of Thermi at the place of their martyrdom and elsewhere, or has heard about them and of the events related to these manifestations—such as important finds and miraculous cures—has been prompted by them to do some serious reflection regarding their implications. Those who have read the present volume up to this point have undoubtedly come to some definite conclusions already. I shall set forth some of my own thoughts concerning these manifestations and related events.

Their first, most obvious implication is that contrary to materialistic philosophy, scientific materialism and much of recent psychology, there is such a thing as a psyche or soul—an entity distinct from the body, an enduring center of consciousness, of thinking, of feeling, of choosing or willing, of distinguishing between truth and falsehood, good and evil, the beautiful and the ugly. There is an entity, often spoken of as “the inner man,” which survives the death of the body, is immortal....

It was this thought, this conviction, that led Mother Evgenia Kleidara, Abbess of the Convent of St. Raphael, to write a book entitled You Have an Immortal Soul, which was published in 1986 at Athens. After discussing what various eminent figures of modern and earlier times have said in support of the doctrine of the immortality of the human soul, and citing also the testimony of Holy Scripture and of the Church Fathers, she calls the attention of the reader to the momentous significance of the appearances of the Saints of Thermi regarding that doctrine. Mother Evgenia writes:

“The compassion of God has provided us with events which show clearly that there is life after death. The appearances of the Newly Manifested Saints Raphael, Nicholas, and Irene in our days declare the immortality of the soul. For five hundred years their bodies were in tombs, and today their spirits are amongst us. Thus our Saints give the answer. The greatness of God sent to present-day distressed mankind the gigantic spiritual figure of Saint Raphael, to declare loudly by his presence that we have an immortal soul.

“Countless are the persons in all the countries who confess the appearances of the Newly Manifested Martyrs Raphael, Nicholas, and Irene. Without even knowing the Martyrs, the latter tell them who they are, cure them, and invite them to the Convent at Thermi of Lesvos.

“No other argument or testimony for the immortality of the soul is as powerful as the presence of the Newly Manifested Saints. There can be no proclamation that is greater, more powerful for today’s man to believe that he has an immortal soul.” [6]

Some philosophers, while admitting the existence of the soul as an entity distinct from the body, and the possibility and even probability of its surviving the death and disintegration of the body, have stated that this does not necessarily imply immortality the everlasting existence of the soul; for the soul, they say, might eventually perish after its separation from the body through a gradual diminution of its being. But the case of the Neomartyrs provides a strong negation of this view. For after more than five hundred years since their death there has been no diminution of their being. If anything, there has been an increase in it. They enter into our world of space and time, into the experience of a great many persons, with might and main. They manifest themselves with powerful will, clear intellect, and intact memory, testified by the fact that they relate numerous personal details that pertain to their life on earth.

Thus the sceptics’ view is refuted, and the teaching of the Eastern Church Fathers that in the life to come the saints shall increase their gifts is confirmed.

From Saints Raphael, Nicholas and Irene, Vol. 10 in the Modern Orthodox Saints series, by Constantine Cavarnos (Belmont, MA: Institute for Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, 1990), pp. 28-29, 40-42, 156-158. This is one of the most inspiring books about Saints available in English. These Saints were martyred during the pre-dawn hours of April 9, 1463 (Bright Tuesday), but only revealed to the world in 1959 through many miraculous dreams and visions. Their Feast, as ordered by Saint Raphael, is celebrated on Bright Tuesday (instead of their commemoration date—April 9th—as listed in the Synaxaria). Posted on April 29, 2008.