Our Weekend, Part I

Friday, May 1, 2009

On the First of May; most of the shops are closed. May First marks the coming of the good weather one expects in Greece, warm and sunny, with incomparable blue skies. In fact, although it is not yet summer, the very word for summer, in Greek, means “Good Weather”: Kalokairi.

Christos decided to throw a party at his house in Katerini, to celebrate. He invited us and another Greek-American couple we’ve met before, Chara and Pavlos, and somebody else we hadn’t yet met. We would go to his favorite hotel and sit out on its back patio, by the sea, and enjoy conversation and a treat of coffee and sweets.

Unfortunately, the party had to be cancelled due to, er, bad weather. So I didn’t get the chance to say “Yia chara, Chara!” which means, “Joy to you, Joy!”



Saturday, May 2, 2009

Today was a glorious day; too bad Christos didn’t plan his party for this day instead of yesterday.

Our friend Ioannis, the theologian, picked us up to take us to his house, outside the village of St. Anthony, for the midday meal. First, we stopped at the women’s monastery at Souroti, the one that used to be shepherded by the much-beloved and renowned Fr. Paisios. (Pronounce it “Pye-EE-see-os”.) He hasn’t yet officially been declared a saint, but he no doubt will be eventually, and already you have to stand in line to kiss his gravestone.

The monastery is atop a little mountain, where the air is fresh and breezy and you feel close to the sky. (And you get a nice view of Thessaloniki in the distance, too.) The monastery has several buildings, including housing for the nuns (70 of them), workshops for iconography and I don’t know what else, a guest house, and four churches.

The main church was designed by Fr. Paisios and is named for his spiritual father, St. Arsenios. Like most modern Greek churches (and quite a few ancient ones), it is built of stone and brick in alternating courses. This church sits in the middle of a huge stone patio, surrounded by a low stone wall with built-in stone benches, and some wooden ones as well.

Inside the church are some relics of St. Arsenios; again, you have to stand in line to kiss the little glass-topped box displaying a bone.

The other churches on the property are closed, at least to visitors.

On the monastery grounds are lovely symmetrical flower gardens laid out in geometrical patterns, with mostly pansies right now, and roses, some fuchsia, and several species I didn’t recognize.

There is also an olive orchard, with about 200 trees, I’m guessing, and a pistachio orchard. We didn’t get close enough to it for me to estimate the number of trees it has.

We sat for a while in a guest room, where one of the nuns brought us water, coffee, and sweets, and Demetrios and Ioannis spent half an hour or so having some sort of debate about the words “hypostasis” and “Person”. I think they eventually came to a mutually-agreed position, to the effect that God cannot be a Person unless He is also Trinity. That is, if God has knowledge but no Spirit, then He is just a force, not a person. On the other hand, if God has a Spirit – hence can have experience – but doesn’t have a Logos, knowledge, i.e., doesn’t know what to do or how to do anything, then He is a more complete idiot than any human being.)

Afterward, walking toward the car, we spotted Ioannis’ daughter, Sister Dorothea, and stopped to speak with her.

Next, Ioannis took us to his house, where Manolis (Manuel) and Vasilea were waiting, long-time and dear friends. Kostas and Mena soon arrived, as well, and we had a wonderful feast around the other Mena’s (Ioannis’ wife) big table. It would easily seat 12, and since it is square, everybody can pretty much reach everything. We had pork and goat (which Greeks like even better than lamb) and assorted vegetables and salads and cheeses. For dessert there were fresh strawberries, chocolate and/or vanilla ice cream, and a Greek version of lemon meringue pie.

Of course we all told stories, especially the men. Here are three of them I’ve selected for you.

Ioannis told about watching a nature show on television with his little granddaughter. “Papou,” said she, “are you afraid of lions?”

“No, my child.”

“Papou, are you afraid of tigers?”

“No, my child.”

“Papou, why is it the only thing you’re afraid of is Grandma?”

(What makes this story extra funny is that, in company at least, her Grandma is quiet, meek, mild, and self-effacing, the last person on earth you’d ever dream of being afraid of!)

Kostas told about a woman named Helen who studied to be a teacher and was a classmate of Mena’s. (That’s Kostas’ wife, Mena, not Ioannis’ wife of the same name.)

They had a professor named Leonidas, whom Helen greatly revered. Her adulation of him, in fact, was such that one time, when he sat stroking his beard, she noticed a hair fall out, and after Leonidas had left the room, she picked up that hair and put it between the leaves of a book to keep forever and ever!

Now it happened that the dictatorship came into power some few years after that, and the new government arranged for Helen’s husband, Anastasios, to be fired. His brother had been executed many years before as a Communist and there was some suspicion that Anastasios might be a Communist, too.

The dictatorship also ousted the bishop of Thessaloniki and in his place, installed this same Leonidas who had been Helen’s and Mena’s professor. Helen, therefore, decided to go pay the new, so-called bishop a visit, in hopes he could help her husband.

Leonidas hemmed and hawed but in the end, did nothing.

So what did Helen do? She went home, dug that book out of the bookcase, removed the hair from between the pages, and put a match to it!

(In the end, an investigation proved Anastasios was no Communist and he was restored to his job – with back pay.)

Manolis said that during that time, when the true bishop (whom he knew well) had been dethroned and the usurper Leonidas installed, he had a friend who used to telephone him and pretend to be someone else. (Demetrios and Kostas do this to each other almost every day. Demetrios will call Kostas and say something like, “This is the office of Secretary Hillary Clinton.” Or Kostas will say, “George Bush here.”) Well, one day the phone rang and when Manolis answered it, the party at the other end said he was the Bishop of Thessaloniki.

“Oh, now, that’s all we need,” Manolis replied, chuckling, “You pretending to be the rightful bishop!” – only to find out, a moment later, that it WAS.

Then somebody told about the Euro that died and went to stand before St. Peter. St. Peter let it into heaven. Then the five-Euro note appeared at the Pearly Gates, and St. Peter let it in, too, and then the ten-Euro note. Finally the twenty-Euro note appeared, but St. Peter refused to let it in, saying, “We’ve never seen you in church!”

After the dessert and after the stories, Ioannis said, “Well, is it time to sing?”

“No,” said Vasilea, who was obviously getting sleepy, “It’s time to say, ‘Through the prayers of our holy fathers…’” meaning, about time to wrap things up (as if she’d said, “It’s time to say, ‘Amen.’”).

But she was overruled, so out came the songbook and a half-hour song fest ensued. All the men are singers in the church, and they always sound very good harmonizing with each other.

Then Manolis and Vasilea drove us back to town in their new red Citroen. It was a gift from their daughter, Maria. It only has a one-liter engine. It goes 400 miles on 7 liters of gas.

We arrived home, happy but exhausted, and stuffed, around supper time. We took naps instead of having supper, and had a little snack late at night before turning in again.