God is dead. We killed him and we became orphans! ”

With these surprising words, the 78-year-old clergyman (now 89), Father Philotheos Faros, analyzes the modern - day relationship of believers with the Holy. A conglomerate relationship, which, it says, strengthens with their public attitude and way of life most clergymen.

With a bold style of speech, to some degree stinging but autocrytic, Father Philotheus is the first clergyman who does not hesitate to characterize the Free Coexistence Act properly, for the very fact that the Republic is addressing citizens rather than believers. He calls them hyerarchs and clergymen who rush to talk about prostitution, or sin, adding that their severity actually translates into the quest for a éalbyé to be disoriented to the right personal actions. He even holds them responsible for the fact that many young people end up in a psychiatrist in charge of guilt syndrome. As for those who view this as an attack on the Church, they respond significantly: Christ's “Church is not threatened by external enemies”

The stances of Father Philotheos Faros, which are published in the newspaper ʹKathmeriniʹ and affect the framework of state relations with the Church, will promote public dialogue; many will agree, and as much will oppose them, even personally provoked by attitudes in question.

It's more than fair that the Republic promotes and implements the Co-existence Pact. The question that arises here is whether Greece constitutes the parliamentary republic or the theocratic regime of the type Khomeini? It seems that in most of it Greece is a theocracy. Characteristic is the fact that candidates for MP, mayors and other politicised people must go to kiss Despot's hand before the election campaign is launched. And furthermore, there are cameras that tend to keep this moment in the memory of the public and to be looked back at by voters, because otherwise politicised people would no longer have any hope”- says Father Philotheos Faros.

Without any doubt, he declares his opposition with the spirit of a harsh decision recently handed down by the ancient Holy Sinody, and according to which every marriage outside Orthodox marriage is called ʹprostitution.

This Sinund stand expresses an essential departure from the Gospel spirit. The teachings of Jesus Christ and their spirit are distorted in my thinking. The rules, according to the Ecumenical Synod Pentect, are medicine and professorial measures used according to spiritual judgment. But they are not laws. Above all, Christ came to earth to change the regime of Jewish tradition and primarily that Pharisee. He looked for the internal spiritual development rather than the management of evil through legal and police perception. However, the Jewish-farcy spirit has long since penetrated Church life. Christ says that prostitution and other similar phenomena stem from the human body, but no sinner judges but the hypocrite. Christ's spirit has no constitutional and legal character but tries to show what the essence of sin is. Thus, it is not an outward conduct. For example, the murder is perceived by Christ as rejection of the other and therefore in his teachings cannot tolerate the concept of self- justification. No one can say I'm immune and then accuse others of being sinners”.

Heipokrit and Farisey

Not a few mitropolises suggest that spiritual sanctions should be imposed against those who become part of the Coexistence Act. What does Father Philotheus say about this?

Christ was clear when he declared he came to save the world, not to judge people. Do not judge to be judged! ) Rather, he openly condemned such conduct as hypocrisy. Speaking to the Pharisees, who then did all that we clergymen do today exposed them publicly because of the ornamental jewelry and glistening vests they wore, their insistence on sitting in the front ranks of dinner ceremonies, as well as the use of four - wheelers. Christ repeatedly condemned submission to material possessions, comfortable life, and luxury. We see all of this in the priests today. We live as princes, we walk around with a creisler and Mercedes, we're served by all that people, we're covered with gold, and we have absolute power over the souls of men. It is distressing if you feel that all of these are done in the name of Christ, who had no shelter and footless barist. Well, we are camels to all teachings of Christ, and the least one of us can expect is not to throw stones at others. It was primarily our sins that condemned Jesus Christ. He did not speak of premarital sex, but he clearly said that no one can serve two gods: God and Maimonides. He also said that whoever has two pairs of clothes, one should forgive.

We priests have many neurosis related to eroticism. And much of what we say in everyday life can be the result of the neurons we carry. I think the most radical part of the clergy in sexual ethics issues is even the most neurotics of Erotism, or those that hide through the creation of alibis. They apply radicalism not to allow others, the common people, to think that there is an intense personal life in them, which is related to one that is not reluctant to be punished but intensively. No doubt that when someone controls people's eroticism, then he's able to chain these people”

Hendeku

Father Philotheus speaks of divisions in society as the Church's Hierarchy considers the Party of Coexistence to be an act against the family.

I hear some mitropolites say they care about the health of the Greek family. I wish they cared, but they're really totally indifferent and unable to contribute to the management of the family crisis. The vast majority of the Pespotes and priests are partially invisible, and they have never stood near a man in need. Not to prescribe action, but to stay close. Because, many times, what a person in distress needs is not to offer him solutions, but to see that we care for him.

The Greek family is now in a frightening crisis. A considerable portion of young people today carry mental disorders, many of which are responsible for the violent priests toward bodily sins. It's us priests who take the children to psychiatrists. When I hear a psychiatrist priest say he's managed to cure homosexuals, I immediately realize that he's tried to apply psychological lobotoma, pushing them towards terrible torture and guilt syndrome. The path of psychopathology that enjoys international prestige and has been published for 50 years by the American Psychiatist Society does not consider homosexuality to be disease. On the other hand, there are Greek priests who view it as sickness. And I believe that the one who tries to heal a homosexual is himself a sick man who uses suffering people in his neurotic struggle.

With deep autocrytics, Father Philotheus condemns the authoritarian behavior of some clergymen:

You see, we clergymen, for the most part, are deeply rusty cacasians. So we try to cover up the feeling of internal insulin. Because a lot of us, if you take their beard off and fall, we're nothing. We'd just be nothing. However, these petals and personal items we wear make us gain prestige, enable us to determine the lives of others, others depend on our own words - that is, we gain power. And so we're deceived that we have the capacity to increase our self-confidence. The drop! When I say that, I'm not just about self-confidence, but about the responsibility we have when we push others into the Bay of psychotropic drugs, which is in itself a road without return. And many of us try to find other ways to point out that we too exist. For example, we deal with the question of the name of Skopje or other similar things that are not related to our mission to say that something we are worth and do. But do these have anything to do with Christ's teachings?

According to Father Philotheus, the church's attitude toward the Party of Coexistence should be, not the form of punishment and the madre of those who become part of it, but the word of life that Jesus Christ offers.

Christ's fundamental principles are man's love for God and man's love for fellow humans. Relationship with another is a basic source of life for man. But relationships themselves are not simple, and it takes great effort to make them healthier. Erotic dimension is even the most important of these relationships. And here it's easy to make a diversion. The more deviations, the less hard life is. And the fulfillment of life comes within the fundamental relationships that take time, can and real effort. If what young people need is some indulgence, then they do not differ at all from the priests who deprive them of it. Today God is dead. We killed him and we were orphaned. Lights that we often say, great, heavenly, and inert, not only reflect faith but reflect anxiety that characterizes us when we try to cover up our lack of faith. Because faith is not transmitted by talk, it is repeated. It's not enough to say I believe, but it's the way of life that testifies to faith. Today, the way of life of all of us alone cannot bear witness. We perceive faith as good material and consumption. We say, "We have one of these, we have one of them, so we have it all, and we don't hesitate to pretend: It's time to secure our property even in Paradise!

Shit.

The release of the interview 11 years ago in the newspaper “Kathmerini” was done with the case of the then-initiated discussion of the law that allowed and regulated the coexistence of homosexuals. This law triggered public debate and great reactions in Greek society, mainly in the Gulf of the Orthodox Church and its influence on the political and social sphere. Father Philotheos Faros was one of the only isolated voices publicly expressed in favor of the law and against the reaction of the religious spectrum. The impact of Father Philotheus ' original thoughts lies not only with the problem in question but also with social, moral, and political organization of other societies. For this very reason, we are translating the interview for the Albanian audience.

Who is Father Philotheos Faros?

Born 1930 in Piraeus. Political Science studied at the Panteio University in Athens; Juridical at Aristotle University in Thessalonica; Theology at the University of Athens; and Barimore Psychologists in the United States. He became a fugitive and then a priest in 1962 in Athens. Next served as a U.S. clergyman. During 1969-1976 he was a professor of Baritore psychology at the University of Oxford Theology in Boston. In parallel, during the 1970s-1976s, he served as a consultant-cleric near J. B. Thomas Day Care, where he offered shepherding support for young couples whose children faced serious health problems, as well as the head of the Family Support Department at the Human Resource Institute Clinic in Boston. Upon his return to Greece in 1976, he systematically took up research-scientious work and served at the Athens Youth Consultancy Centre. After retirement, he conducted religious services at the Church of St. Call of Rangava in Plaka, Athens, where he did not hesitate to talk every day about problems facing young people and young couples.

The English translation for Resublica.al: Jordan Georgi, professor of political studies at Fan S. Noli, Korca