MARGINAL COMMENT
By HAROLD NICOLSON
-F 4 VER since April 2nd, 1821, when Archbishop Germanos first raised the standard of revolt at Kalavryta, Greek ecclesiastics have played a lively part in the wars and politics of their country. It is with affection and respect that I examine the oleo- graphs which decorate Greek taverns, and in which these mitred warriors are depicted, with their skirts girt around them, leading insurgents into battle and holding the white cross high above the smoke of guns. I am prepared to believe that the Greek bishops have not on every occasion adopted a neutral attitude in party politics. There was the occasion, for instance, when an archbishop of Athens was induced to conduct a solemn anathema or cursing of Venizelos: arrayed in full canonicals and surrounded by his acolytes, he pronounced minatory exhortations and incantations, after which the multitude threw stones at an effigy of the great liberal states- man. It would, indeed, be strange if the members of the Greek religious hierarchy were alone to be immune to that virus of political dissension which has for two thousand years and more proved the bane of their gifted and courageous countrymen. Why should bishops or even archimandrites be exempt from that ancient malady which has sapped the energies and the unity of the Greek people ever since the days of Marathon and Salamis ? Yet it could be said that Archbishop Damaskinos, who died in his home near Athens on May loth, did indeed strive throughout his life to put country before party and to represent in his own person the essential unity and patriotism of the Greek people. Mr. Churchill has recorded how, when he first met the Archbishop by the light of hurricane lanterns in a cellar of beleaguered Athens, he seemed to him a remarkable man " towering up morally as well as physically above the chaotic scene." Surely among the many dramatic incidents of recent years no single episode is more fantastic than that hurried and anxious reunion in a hotel basement, while the machine guns rattled in the street outside and the lanterns threw gigantic shadows upon the cellar roof.
My own meeting with Archbishop Damaskinos took place in less stringent and disquieting circumstances. The Varkitsa agreement had been signed ; a Government of the central parties was in power ; the forces of E.L.A.S. had retired to the mountains ; and it seemed that with patience and conciliation it might still be possible t.. avert the ghastly civil war with which Greece has for so many years been afflicted. The Archbishop by then had become the Regent of Greece ; the hall of his house and the adjoining ground-floor rooms were packed with journalists and politicians chattering in groups ; staff officers and aides-de-camp would from time to time dash down the staircase and either leap into their waiting cars or take some politician rapidly aside, gesticulating vigorously. The Regent received me in an upper room seated at a table on which, in place of papers or writing material, there was a large bowl of fruit and a jug of lemonade. The contrast between the hubbub below and the silence of this cool upper chamber was reflected in his own quiet voice, in his own slow and courteous movements. He was a very tall man, and the majesty of his presence was enhanced by the high black head-dress which he wore, by his long black robes against which a topaz cross glittered, and by the impression of muscular and at the same time genial authority which his whole bearing conveyed. I did not find that the Regent shared in any way the optimism which I had found to prevail in political and even diplomatic circles. He told me that the Varkitsa agreement had been but a momentary pause in the struggle and that a further prolonged ordeal stretched before him. He sighed deeply as he said these words, and his powerful fingers toyed with the cross upon his breast.
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It was said at the time that the Regent was so anxious not to involve the Church in the bitter polemics of party rivalries that his attitude was all too neutral and aloof. There were those who blamed him for not insisting upon the formation of a stronger Government of younger men ; there were those even who suspected him of undue sympathies with the extreme left ; there were those again who con- tended that he should use his great personal influence to secure a general amnesty and a reconciliation between the politicians of Athens and the wild, brave men who had taken to the hills. He himself regarded his Regency as a purely temporary expedient ; his task was to create conditions in which the majority of the Greek people could freely express their wishes regarding the restoration of the Monarchy ; once this task had been accomplished, he looked forward to his own retirement and to healing by spiritual ministra- tions the great wounds which had gashed the living flesh of Greece. Honourably he fulfilled these functions ; when the decision had been taken, the vote recorded and the King restored, Archbishop Damas- kinos retired with dignity ; and the criticisms which had once been made against him in the fevered impatience of the interval were hushed to a general murmur of approval and respect. He laid down his high office ; the staff officers and the aides-de-camp no longer crowded his ante-rooms ; no longer was he obliged to listen to the shrill complaints of the politicians, to the measured counsels of the diplomatists ; he retired to his farm like Cincinnatus, handing on to others the perplexities with which, with calm and gentleness, he had striven to cope.
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It may be that the impression that I derived from that calm hour which I spent with the Regent in an upper room, from the contrast between his sad but imperturbable pessimism and the vociferous excitement on the floor below, gave me an exaggerated sense of his detachment from the chaos by which, even then, he was surrounded. Archbishop Damaskinos throughout his life had been something of a turbulent prelate. As a young man he had been sent to reform conditions in the monasteries of Pentilli and Mount Athos and had swept those stables with a violent broom. When Bishop of Corinth at the time of the great earthquake of 1928, he had brushed aside the frightened civil authorities and assumed complete charge himself. He had toured the United States to collect funds for the rebuilding of his shattered diocese and had taken the occasion to heal a schism which had developed in the Orthodox Church of America. He had defied Metaxas and been chosen, against the dictator's wishes, as Archbishop of Athens. This election had forced Metaxas, who was in principle a mild dictator, to change the electoral law and to nominate the puppet Chrisantos in his place. Then came the war and the German and Italian occupation. It was at this stage that Damaskinos displayed the turbulence that underlay the seeming calm of his character. He defied the occupation authorities ; ha protested openly against the execution of hostages ; and at great personal risk he received into his own home those Allied soldiers and officers who, at the time of the evacuation, had gone underground. There were many Englishmen who owed their freedom entirely to the courage which Damaskinos displayed. The death of this brave prelate, the memory of the example which he set, should for a while still the bitterness of Hellenic feuds.
* * The present moment, the moment of the death of Damaskinos, is not inauspicious. The opening sessions of the Council of Foreign Ministers in the pink palace seem to have been illumined by an almost genial glow of optimism. It may be that the agenda already agreed to will be extended to include some mention of Greece. Meanwhile, in their curious, tentative way the Russians have allowed us to see the tip of the tail-feathers of the dove of peace. Mr. Gromyko, at a dinner party given by Mr. Trygve Lie, hinted to Mr. Dean Rusk of the State Department that the Soviet Govern- ment might now be ready to discuss three-Power mediation in Greek affairs. Obviously in such a situation it would be difficult for us to go behind the back of the Greek Government or to short- circuit the United Nations. Yet we know that the civil war will never be brought to a rapid end so long as the forces of E.L.A.S. can escape across the frontier ; that frontier can only be closed to them with Soviet assent.
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