Digging at the Crossroads of Time

by Christos Morris

  He felt the chill of cold nerves. He wore the simple black gown of a common priest. He was about to meet the most revered religious leader in all of Greece, Archbishop Iakovos. Iakovos was a name the Archbishop adopted when he was appointed. He was Giorgos Efframethes when Father Dimitrios had met him twenty years before. He had been the head of the Thessaloniki seminary school, which he ruled efficiently and with precision. He was, at the time, a doctrinaire and had a Sallonican arrogance; a disdain for Greeks from the south.

  Father Dimitrios knew that St Paul also had a disdain for the Cretans when he failed to convert them to the teachings of Jesus Christ in the first century. Chased from Crete, St Paul had arrived in Athens claiming pigs and slowbellies inhabited the rocky island to the south. As Father Dimitrios waited, he couldn’t help but wonder if Iakovos from Thessaloniki shared St Paul’s resentment.

  A door opened. A small elderly man in a white robe peered out, expressionless. Their eyes met. The man motioned to Dimitrios to come into the room. Their eyes touched again as Dimitrios walked through the doorway; two dispassionate faces looking at the other, saying nothing, expressing nothing.

  In the room was a rectangular wooden table where three men were seated on each side. A seventh chair was at the end of the table, empty. This large chair was, no doubt, for the archbishop. The room was dimly lit. Behind the table, along the back wall, was an enormous carved crucifix. It was fifteen feet tall and specially lit. It captured the priest’s attention because of the sheer size of it. There was no chair for him to sit on. He stood at the end of the table, holding his briefcase. Each of the seated men had before him a folder filled with papers. Each of the folders was opened about midway, indicating they would be proceeding along with the order of daily business. There was no Archbishop Iakovos at the head of the table. Hopefully this meant that the issues deriving from his sermon didn’t warrant his presence. Maybe this dispute was less important than he thought. His heart calmed, relieving slightly the tightness in his chest. Father Dimitrios still felt the discomfort of them staring at him, the discomfort of their silence. Should he speak first, open his briefcase and display the exact transcript of his sermon? He felt beads of sweat trickle in his hair. He knew they would soon appear on his forehead, displaying his nervousness, maybe his guilt.

  One man thumbed through his pages. He raised his head and then spoke. “Father Dimitrios, the archbishop offers his apologies for not being here and asks us to carry on. So I will be brief. There have been a number of complaints raised against you from members of your own church. They are very serious complaints that have to do with the very essence of your responsibility to your parishioners and your responsibility to us, the arbiters of Church doctrines and codes of behaviour. Now I know you are an educated priest, so I do not need to spell out the problem this has caused. You are here today to tell us in your own words how this problem can be resolved.”

  The man then nodded toward Father Dimitrios, requesting his reply. The priest clumsily opened his briefcase, removing the sermon extract, leaving the briefcase on the carpeted floor. He had planned to show how his sermon had been distorted, taken out of context. Their comment about him being an educated priest suggested he should deal less with blame, guilt and his defence and more with the practicality of the solution. What he was about to say to them had never entered his conscious mind before. The words seemed to have simply formed instantly from countless waves of solutions shimmering through his cranium. What he was about to say seemed unconsciously selected and was contrary to his plan.

  “Gentlemen, I accept full responsibility for the nature of the sermon and the consequences of it. In doing so, I effectively resign my position, as of this moment, as priest of the Church of St Constantino and Eleni.

  Father Dimitrios could not believe the words that had fallen out of his mouth. His entire life was discharged in an instant, dashed against the rocks by his own hands. The voice that spoke these words was his own, he knew, but it was as though another had spoken them.

  Only afterwards did it appear to have a sense to it. Looking with the warmth of certainty at the men around the table, he thought, They are not interested in the construct of truth, the intention of my sermon. They are interested in me only insofar as I was the cause of all this, and therefore the most likely person to end it. Otherwise, the speculation will continue about my flirtation with the devil and pagan sorcery. The only way to restore equilibrium and respect to the Greek Orthodox Church is to resign my charter as priest of St Constantino and Eleni and accept responsibility for my words. As the scapegoat, I stand upon the cliff and leap outward, freeing the Church from me. Whether I fall evermore or glide safely to earth again depends upon my God and my intention.

  From the glances around the table, his resignation came as a complete surprise.

  “Is this your considered opinion, Father Dimitrios?” asked one of the clerics. “You have been a priest for many years.”

  “Yes, sir. Yes, it is.”

  The six men glanced at one another with a collective shrug of acknowledgment.

  “Well then, Father, we shall consider your advice and report to the archbishop. Is it possible that you could remain in Athens until tomorrow? We have a place where you can stay.”

  The priest accepted their offer.

  In the morning, in a four hundred-year-old cavernous space beneath the Monastery of St Paul, Father Dimitrios cleansed himself from the jug and basin of water provided. He dressed by the light of a single candle.

  He had slept alone in a long vacant room filled with many beds, thirty-three old mattresses lined in a row. The room was airless and damp. His mattress smelt musty and made him cough throughout the night. He had tried to wash away this smell from his skin in case it had taken hold while he slept. There had been a time when this monastery housed many hundreds of Greek monks all prepared to live and die in this house of God. Poverty and war caused immeasurable hardships upon the souls of the gentle men who sought solace with God. Here they could find food, a place to sleep and, maybe, a little wine. The long crypt was now unused except by travelling priests like himself.

  After Dimitrios had finished dressing, he climbed a narrow staircase and walked slowly down a long, dark hallway. On the door of one room was a sign, Meals Hall. As he entered, he noticed that the massive space within contained only three trestle tables. At each of the tables sat a single cloaked man. Dozens of trestle tables lay folded against the wall in abandonment more than in readiness. The simple breakfast arrived in the hands of a small bearded monk whose waist-length hair was tied in knots along his back. He presented the porridge in silence, followed by a cup of metrio coffee and a clean, folded piece of paper.

  The priest opened the paper quickly. He felt the discreet, dark eyes of the others upon him.

  The note read: The office of His grace, the Archbishop Iakovos, wil be open to you at 9.05am this morning. It said nothing more. It was not signed. Father Dimitrios stared at the words, which he read over and over again in case they showed a glimpse of intent, a decision – a reprieve. His porridge and coffee were cold, as were the prying, dark eyes within the hooded cloaks. His stomach twisted in sourness, prompting a vision of the doors of St Constantino and Eleni being closed to him, sealed shut while he pushed will all his strength to open them. He had taken responsibility for whatever sins he was accused of, and by his own action, he had severed a lifelong attachment to the Church. He did not feel like eating. As he rose from the table he asked one of the monks the way to the archbishop’s office. “At the end of this corridor, take a left. You will see big double doors. That’s his office.” Father Dimitrios glanced at his watch. It was 9am. He quickly found his way down the corridor.

  His breath grew heavy as he approached the open double doors that led into the office of His Holiness. Was the archbishop the same man he had once known? He had come a long way through the Church since the old days when they first met. To have reached this position would have required a certain greatn
ess; a height of intellect married to a depth of judgment sewn with the thread of prudence.

  The priest peered through the doorway. The office was large, with windows that brought the trees and the sky inwards. The walls were lined to the ceiling with books that surrounded a large 19th century French ormolu-mounted desk. The whitebearded archbishop was seated at the desk wearing a gold gown. He looked up and motioned for the priest to enter. Approaching the holy man, Father Dimitrios kissed his hand before bowing. The archbishop guided him toward the chair in front of his desk. He seemed casual, less formal than the priest expected.

  “Please, have a seat.”

  Father Dimitrios promptly sat but fidgeted in discomfort.

  The archbishop glanced at the papers in front of him. “It says here you are an educated man, Dimitrios. An education beyond the Church?”

  “Yes, your worship, I took a degree in philosophy and ancient history before entering the seminary.”

  “You wanted to be certain of your choice?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The archbishop smiled. “And was your judgment the correct one?”

  “Yes, I thought so.”

  The archbishop read through the bottom of his glasses, which were perched at the tip of his nose. “You thought so? It would appear to be a paradox that you are here.”

  The priest tilted his head quizzically.

  “I mean, two men have just entered my room. The first one is a man of God, a man of truth, a man of light in the eyes of the parish. The second man is a man of the world, of uncertainties and ambiguities, a man in search of truth through reason.” The holy man paused, cocking his head to one side as if to ask: Is that right? Do you agree?

  The priest nodded with uncertainty.

  “Each of these men seeks the truth. One looks to God. The other searches elsewhere, in history, in science, in mathematics, maybe archaeology, and eventually in his own ability to reason. So where does truth rest for his man?” The archbishop paused, awaiting an answer.

  The priest thought carefully, knowing he wished to say that truth lay within the soul of both men. The first man asks fewer questions about the nature of himself. Complex questions asked by the congregation are answered by directing their attention to look toward God’s wisdom. God’s benevolence. God’s forgiveness. The first man humbly interprets what he believes are God’s wishes. Should someone ask, How can I save my marriage? or How can I reconcile the failure of my business? the answer is the same. Which leads to the second priest, who is a man of the heart, whose sympathy knows that the pain being caused may not be lifted by simply pointing to the word of God. Such questions require a human voice, a depth of knowledge of life on earth and the intellect to help this man help himself with the aid of God.

  Instead he said in a quiet voice, “The second man asks questions of the world around him, seeking answers from God and from his own heart.”

  The archbishop removed his glasses and sat back in his chair, sighing. “I see. In an information age, when the world becomes smaller, it also becomes much larger, more complex. Spiritual truth falters in the mind, replaced by seemingly endless possibilities. The virtue of God’s voice has become one in a plethora of possible choices. In effect, a kind of mental lawlessness. So many possibilities to pin his hopes on. Which does he choose? But if I put it to the second man he will find no truth, only questions. His inquisitive mind leads him away from God toward the many paths of confusion and sadness; not toward an enlightened man, but a man unresolved. He does not find the answers he demands from God and thus looks internally, within his own limitations, within the arrogance of his own mind.

  “The first man is a man of wisdom. He allows his ego to sleep. He knows he is not all-wise and seeks enlightenment from God the All-knowing. How could he hold measure to the Creator in any way? His faith is complete and not left wandering. He feels the warmth of truth in the faith of God’s wisdom. The second man is right to feel depressed, confused, and worse, alone with himself. His personal search for truth will lead to his own demise, his destruction.”

  A voice within Dimitrios wished to argue, Why are not both men the same? The quest for truth by both men is internalized and the answers they hear are interpreted by the very consciousness that allows them to think, to create the words they speak and the dreams that appear in slumber. They are not two men. They are one. But instead, he simply asked, “How are you certain of this?”

  The archbishop stiffened, raising one eyebrow. “Dimitrios, I, too, am educated. In my position, I am a man of God as I am a man of the people. I have learned all people feel a strange attachment to the forbidden. Prohibit something, and they will rise in the night to taste it. That is the nature of temptation. Sin and the devil will never be defeated as long as we look at them with wonder. It is the weakness of our nature. Temptation is the cause of disloyalty and betrayal. Should we dare to prohibit God and the Church, everyone who has left his faith would come back to it.

  “I know of the closure of the temple on Oaxsa and the edict to close all traffic up the mountain, and have been made aware of your relationship to all this. I have also heard of the archaeologist: the demon, some call him. Some say you have fallen under his spell, which I do not believe because for thousands of years men have elevated the unknown high into the air and into the sphere of God.” His eyes raged with a red hot flame as he repeated himself loudly and in anger. “Lifting false thoughts – up! Into the sphere of God! These temptations have, by necessity, brought you here. By your own admission you have taken full responsibility, which I accept. And for the moment, I accept your resignation.”

  The priest’s eyes fell from the weight of the archbishop’s words and the weight upon his chest caused what air there was within to be released.

  The archbishop continued, “You can remain at the monastery if you desire. It is a place of solitude. Of course you are free to go to any place of your choosing. In time, you may reconsider your position in the priesthood and the reasons for your resignation. Then we can speak again.”

  Dimitrios felt himself shrink into nothingness. He felt himself become a speck so small the room around him was now unrecognizable. I am alone, he thought. Yanked outside myself, beyond humanity. I am not a free man. I am nothing at all – and alone.

  The archbishop had spoken of two men entering his office. Dimitrios Vassilio knew he would leave as neither. As a priest, he had comforted hundreds of people as their loved ones sped away into death’s darkness. His body was numb. Was it his time? He felt the very eyes of his soul being sucked out into a blind space at the speed of light. In an instant, his life with God exploded with a cosmic force with finality. Where he once stood as a man of God on earth, at ground zero, now there was deadness. Nothing at all. Even memories vaporized.

  He stood, and then turned away from the archbishop. His eyes grew moist. His stomach ached with remorse and fear. He could no longer feel himself. Father Dimitrios was dead. Out of reach. Gone into a dark abyss through a wormhole membrane a universe away.

  Palace of Eleus

  1637 BC

  Basilius befriended no man. He gave himself completely to Meterra. His every thought and word glorified her. Unashamedly, he spoke to her as he spoke to me. How She did not strike him dead for such a deed was a mystery! I never would have dared to do the same in Egypt but then I was not in the land of my Pharaoh.

  While walking the streets of Eleus I witnessed men speaking to the air, making conversation with it. Someone spoke back to them, but I could not hear a sound. The air spoke to them, but not to me. Sometimes the Keftiuian might laugh aloud as though a friend was near. Once, while walking with the old priestess, Keesos, I asked her why I could not hear. “Whom were they speaking to?”

  She stopped in the road and looked at me in surprise. “Do you not see the colours of the mountains, hear the wind from the sea, feel the sun on your skin?”

  “Of course,” I said.

  “And you cannot hear the voice of your God?”
She looked at me carefully while I searched for an answer. “If not, Minunep, how do you listen? How might God guide you?”

  I walked on with Keesos, silently troubled by her words. She was right. How did I listen? I did not know the answer. I never heard my God’s voice, though I knew my God was there. He guided me by the laws of my Pharaoh, the chosen one. He alone knew the language of the sun, the moon, and the universe. But never did God speak to me.

  Despite my failings, Basilius was kind to me. On the day of the procession of the corn harvest, I was invited to walk from the fields to the sea to rejoice in Meterra’s bounty. It was a joyous time. We marched two by two from the valley of Oaxsos singing songs of praise to Meterra beneath the soil. Farmers carried forks and sickles that they held up in the air, waving them from side to side. Basilius led us all. He was wearing a special robe of golden leather suns. The air was filled with song and our bellies with strong wine. I played my sistrum and I played it well for all to hear. Others joined us in Eleus. Together, a thousand strong, we sang, we sang our way to the palace. A special surprise awaited me there.

  The dance of the bull ceremony took place only twice a year. Once when the seeds were planted and again at aparchui, when the first new plants of the earth had ripened. I was familiar with these harvest blessings, for our priests performed these duties in Egypt at exactly the same time, bu the dance of the bull was unknown to me. Only once in Hurrian had I encountered such a thing. There I was told of Teshub, a Hurrian god in the sky, who rode upon a giant bull’s back holding a thunderbolt in one hand and a double-headed axe in the other.

  The double-headed axe, the labyros, was a strong symbol of Keftiu. It adorned the palace of Eleus and palaces to the east. The labyros was worshiped, but not as a god. It was worshiped as a symbol of sacrifice and life renewed. So was the power of the bull. The ceremony of the labyros was joined to the power of the bull.