[MauroDarudo]

Dear Effie,

He is from north Greece I hope you are as well. We have heard the news of the many fires in southern Greece and are sorry to hear that many have died and many are injured badly. So whether we are standing or sitting in pews on Sunday I'm sure many will be praying for our beloved Greek brothers and sisters. God be with them all.

In Christ,

Matthew Panchsin

[BalaGire]

Dear Effie,



I hope you are as well. We have heard the news of the many fires in southern Greece and are sorry to hear that many have died and many are injured badly. So whether we are standing or sitting in pews on Sunday I'm sure many will be praying for our beloved Greek brothers and sisters. God be with them all.

In Christ,

Matthew Panchsin

Thank you so much for your concern and your prayers, Mathew. I live in north west Greece and we have had a couple of forest fires. The mountains are heavily forested and fires are rare because of our climate but this year the weather has been very unusual.

We are devastated by what is happening in South Greece. The whole of the Peloponesse is suffering from these unheard of fires. Granted it has been an usually hot summer and there are very, very strong winds, but these fires have been started deliberately, except for two of them, one by an old man and one by a misfunctioning electricity pole. This is the work of ruthless arsonists because people say new fires started simultaneously in 5 different directions and in one case a firing mechanism was recovered.

My son told me this morning that one of the fire fronts is approaching Ancient Olympia. If anyone on this forum has visited this beautiful location in the last 5 years they will understand me when I say that whoever is responsible for the destruction of such beauty is below contempt.

Up to last night 50 people had died - I write this number and still just cannot believe it. Houses can be rebuilt, trees will grow again (slowly) but the victims that died either from the flames or from asphyxiation, so needlessly and so painfully, is something that makes me very angry and very sad.

The government also has a huge responsibility because of the lack of fire protection measures. I have personal experience of this because my house is surrounded on three sides by a pine forest and I have been telephoning the local council since early June, asking them to come and clean the pine needles on the ground, cut the dry branches and even some dry trees. We clean the area around our house ourselves but it is forbidden by law to cut even a single branch of a forest tree.

The council workers started work a week ago! Nearly the end of August, and why? Because of the forthcoming elections and because of the forest fires of the previous months. Last night, all night, council cars were patrolling the whole area - they are all very scared of fires now because it is obvious that most of the recent ones are deliberate.

I don't know whether it is the same in the US - New Orleans comes to mind -but here the government seems to wait until something happens before taking action - a policy of closing the stable door when the horse has fled.....................................

I have downloaded quite a lot of information from American government sites e.g.Colorado State University and the Colarado State Forest Service, on how to protect your home and area in case of forest fires. This US state service seems to be very well organized, something our own state services don't seem to be.

Sorry for the long post.

Thank you again for your concern.

Effie

One more thing - I won't tire you anymore. One of the images last night on TV was heartbreaking.... a monk stood outside his monastery holding an icon of the Theotokos in front of the flames. He had previously been fighting the fire but now felt that only the Theotokos could save his monastery.

[Seiblybiozy]

Dear Effie

I don't know whether it is the same in the US - New Orleans comes to mind -but here the government seems to wait until something happens before taking action - a policy of closing the stable door when the horse has fled..................................... In a catastrophe, it has to happen before anything can be done. Otherwise it would not be catastrophic.

In New Orleans, they (all the people of the city) knew they were several feet below sea level and depended completely on the dams and the pumps to keep the water out. They depended on their tower of Babel to protect them. When God showed them how defensless they were, they all complained.

Don't believe all you read or hear in our media!!! Personally, I would not believe any of it. It seems the mentality here is how much truth can you squeeze into a lie to make it believable?

Besides, what is the governement supposed to do for the people when they are being shot at by the people needing help? Things like this tend to slow down relief efforts too.

Paul

[BalaGire]

Paul, you wrote : "In a catastrophe, it has to happen before anything can be done. Otherwise it would not be catastrophic."

True, but in the case of forest or wild fires, measures need to be taken before a fire occurs to lessen the damage as much as possible.

re New Orleans : I read that the levees were the work of the engineering corps of the army and made the situation worse than it would otherwise have been. Can't remember exactly now, but something about a channel that was built and the silt from the river that should have been there to protect the wetlands and wasn't, etc.

The only positive aspect of catastrophes is the fact that the heroic nature of mankind reveals itself. I imagine you have seen some of the pictures that have been shown around the world concerning our tragedy. Never, have I seen such scenes - the walls of fires are so high that the only description that comes to mind are scenes from what we imagine hell must be like. But I have also seen pictures of young boys trying to fight the fires, old women bravely defending their homes, firefighters, many of whom are employed only during the summer, working beyond exhaustion with only a little sleep in the 3 days they have been struggling with this manmade obscenity. Firefighters and planes have come to us from many countries, France, Italy, Servia, Israel, Holland. The brave men from Cyprus didn't even wait to be asked - they come on their own initiative.

Young and old, all putting their lives on the line, just because some people decided, for their own twisted reasons, to set Greece on fire. The whole thing is being treated as a terrorist action because it is impossible that so many fire fronts, miles from each other, would appear simultaneously.

I'm sorry to go on and on but we all feel so helpless and so very angry and fed up.

Effie

[justashonglefan]

Dear Effie,

I lived in northwestern Greece when I studied for my masters in Byzantine history, so special greetings. I wonder how many other people on this forum have ties to the region.

Anyway, I remember that every year there were summer-time fires in Greece, also in Portugal, another country where I lived for a couple of years, but probably not of this magnitude in recent memory.

As for governments' being unprepared and sometimes irresponsible, a few years ago a bridge collapsed in Portugal, despite years of local government pleas to the central government to repair it, killing some 60 people, recently a bridge collapsed in Minnesota, USA, also despite warnings of possible problems and actual repair work that apparently did not address the critical issues, and we could cite many other examples around the world, year in and year out.

I, for one, am grateful to the people and government of Greece for four blissful years of subsidized study and to the Orthodox community of northwestern Greece for a rich spiritual life.

My question is, what would motivate a person, or group of people, to deliberately set such terrible fires? Insurance claims, clearing land, forcing owners to sell at, literally, fire-sale prices? Some combination of the above? Any insights?

In any case, our prayers are with those who are suffering.

[Ekrbcbvh]

Don't believe all you read or hear in our media!!! Personally, I would not believe any of it. It seems the mentality here is how much truth can you squeeze into a lie to make it believable?
Paul I'm sure that goes for media everywhere.

[BalaGire]

Hi Steve.

You wrote : "My question is, what would motivate a person, or group of people, to deliberately set such terrible fires? Insurance claims, clearing land, forcing owners to sell at, literally, fire-sale prices? Some combination of the above? Any insights?"

One of the reasons fires are started here is a law which forbids cutting down trees in areas that have been designated forest areas and building on this land. Once the trees are burnt though, and in spite of efforts by the government to prevent any buildings "sprouting up", we have all seen that new, expensives buildings have been built on burnt land.

Greece has not completed its cadastral survey, which means that the forestry registar is incomplete and that is why dishonest people try and steal public land that is covered in forests. As long as the trees are there, they cannot be cut and the land claimed. Their logic, burn the trees, steal the land.

The above is only one theory. Another theory is that the arson is a terrorist action as our Prime Minister has stated.

We know that in 1996 the turkish radical group "Grey Wolves" deliberately started fires on our islands.

"A Turkish deputy from Tansu Ciller's True Path Party (DYP) yesterday revealed that Turkish paramilitary organizations are responsible for arson fires in Greece's islands while, at the same time, an article published in the pro-government Turkish daily "Yeni Safak" provocatively boasted in its title: "We Burned Rhodes."

About 30 people have been arrested and are being questioned - 4 were picked up today after Greek citizens, enraged at what was happening, became extra observant and made citizen arrests of people behaving suspiciously. A video has been given to the police of 2 men starting fires near Athens.


What is happening in south Greece at the moment goes way beyond logic. Today has been as bad as the previous two days. The strong winds and the mountainous areas covered with pine and cypress forests and the small villages nestled in them are also making the job of the fire fighters very difficult.

I know that the year 2000 was especially bad for forest fires in the US and foreign fire fighters helped you just as they are helping us now. May God bless them. The difference is that our fires are not in a national park or somewhere uninhabited. Hundreds of houses and hundreds of cultivated acres of land have also been burnt in addition to the forests.

Yesterday afternoon the weather up here turned cool and a little rain fell. I prayed that it would also rain in the south but our valiant people fought all night long without a drop of rain. They are still fighting today.

[BalaGire]

I have uploaded a satellite picture of the fires.

[rassedgesse]

Yesterday afternoon the weather up here turned cool and a little rain fell. I prayed that it would also rain in the south but our valiant people fought all night long without a drop of rain. They are still fighting today.

May God have mercy! May Panaghia protect the land of Her Holy Garden! May our dearest Prophet Elias intercede to God for an abundance of fire-extinguishing rain in Greece! May all the Saints that Greece gave birth to, intercede for it! May God's will be done!

Forests, in addition to all the purposes they serve, like most of the Creation inspire awe and gratitude to God. To witness destructive forces is extremely saddening. I can not imagine how those beautiful forests in Greece look now (because I do not have the heart to watch the news about it). When I was in Colorado this past March, I read about and saw many beautiful evergreens attacked by a bug, and the national forest agency predicted that I think 70% of those trees would be harmed and destroyed by that bug. The forests of the Rocky Mountains were so beautiful and so majestic but the patches of dead evergreens were a constant reminder that that beauty might be soon vanishing... it was so painful... so sad to see the dead trees and next to them the beautiful alive evergreen trees in danger, it was like seeing people who were in danger...

In the case of Greece I can not imagine how can a person deliberately can cause such harm to the creation of God... There is a prophecy from Saint Kosmas Aetolos: "People will become impoverished because they will have no love for trees."

[BalaGire]

Hi Nina, You wrote " In the case of Greece I can not imagine how can a person deliberately can cause such harm to the creation of God... There is a prophecy from Saint Kosmas Aetolos: "People will become impoverished because they will have no love for trees.""

Nina, I have a book about St. Kosmas Aetolos by Bishop Augustus (Augoustinos) from Florina. I am having great difficulty in reading it because of the difficult language plus its in Greek Katharevousa.

Do you know of any website where I can download this saint's writings?

This prophecy is so right. When people lose touch with nature, when they are surrounded on all sides by so many artificial materials, so much junk TV, junk food, junk everything, when so many people are crowded together, how can they find peace. How can they find God? Last week I visited an auntie of mine who lives in an apartment in the middle of the city. The apartment is in a nice part of town but there are so many buildings built close together. She told me that nearly every night she can hear bitter quarrels between people and she just can't understand why people have changed so much since she was a child.

Where I live, I can hear various birds, the murmur of the pines, my wind chimes, the water dripping onto the roots of my vegetables, etc. Peace and contentment. We rarely quarrel in our house and are at peace with nature.

Man needs nature, he needs to feel the earth with his hands, he needs to see things growing, to eat the fruit of his labours, to become aware that everything in nature is connected and just to slow down and enjoy life.

Elder Paisios also told us that hard times were coming and that we should each own a small block of land. Plant trees and vegetables, be as independent as we can be, live as simply as we can so that we do not rely too much on others. I don't know whether we are approaching these "hard times" or not but things seem definitely to be getting worse each year.

Effie

[rassedgesse]

Hi Nina, You wrote " In the case of Greece I can not imagine how can a person deliberately can cause such harm to the creation of God... There is a prophecy from Saint Kosmas Aetolos: "People will become impoverished because they will have no love for trees.""

Nina, I have a book about St. Kosmas Aetolos by Bishop Augustus (Augoustinos) from Florina. I am having great difficulty in reading it because of the difficult language plus its in Greek Katharevousa.
Do you know of any website where I can download this saint's writings?

I have the same book!!! So nice! But I have a couple of translations of that book also.

You can find parts of the book in English here. We just celebrated his feast day - I am very fond of St. Kosmas Aetolos. I was blessed enough to venerate his relics during a trip with friends and our spiritual father. Also this past May I was in Toronto and I went to visit a monastery 1 hour away from Toronto, dedicated to St. Kosmas and the sisters allowed me to kiss his relic (a small part) and venerate them. I have some pictures and I can post them later here. I could not believe it: a monastery for St. Kosmas Aetolos in Canada (not many people know about him although he is called an 'apostle')! Such a blessed treat for me personally! Some of his prophecies are already fulfilled.


This prophecy is so right. When people lose touch with nature, when they are surrounded on all sides by so many artificial materials, so much junk TV, junk food, junk everything, when so many people are crowded together, how can they find peace. How can they find God? Last week I visited an auntie of mine who lives in an apartment in the middle of the city. The apartment is in a nice part of town but there are so many buildings built close together. She told me that nearly every night she can hear bitter quarrels between people and she just can't understand why people have changed so much since she was a child.

Where I live, I can hear various birds, the murmur of the pines, my wind chimes, the water dripping onto the roots of my vegetables, etc. Peace and contentment. We rarely quarrel in our house and are at peace with nature.

Man needs nature, he needs to feel the earth with his hands, he needs to see things growing, to eat the fruit of his labours, to become aware that everything in nature is connected and just to slow down and enjoy life.

Elder Paisios also told us that hard times were coming and that we should each own a small block of land. Plant trees and vegetables, be as independent as we can be, live as simply as we can so that we do not rely too much on others. I don't know whether we are approaching these "hard times" or not but things seem definitely to be getting worse each year.

Effie I agree with you. Quarrels... I have read that demons feed and receive a lot of energy and strength from our passions and quarrels. Antichrist will feed on them also. It is scary to think the impact we people have on everything.

Nature... I always marvel at the love Saints had for all things surrounding them. But it is sad that I can not simulate them.

[popsicesHoupe]

I have a book about St. Kosmas Aetolos by Bishop Augustus (Augoustinos) from Florina. I am having great difficulty in reading it because of the difficult language plus its in Greek Katharevousa.

Do you know of any website where I can download this saint's writings?

I found an online copy of Father Kosmas: Apostle of the Poor; The life of St. Kosmas Aitolos together with an English translation of his teaching and letters by Nomikos Michael Vaporis. The link goes to the table of contents page.

In Christ,
Mike

[SypeKifef]

Dear Effie,

I lived in northwestern Greece when I studied for my masters in Byzantine history, so special greetings. I wonder how many other people on this forum have ties to the region.

I lived mainly in northeastern Greece, and witnessed the destruction of the beautiful pine forests of Thasos (for which marble quarrying firms were blamed). That was bad enough, even though I don't think anybody lost their lives. I don't have words for what is going on now.

[BalaGire]

I found an online copy of Father Kosmas: Apostle of the Poor; The life of St. Kosmas Aitolos together with an English translation of his teaching and letters by Nomikos Michael Vaporis. The link goes to the table of contents page.

In Christ,
Mike

For the second time today, I thank you, Mike.

Effie

[BalaGire]

I have the same book!!! So nice! But I have a couple of translations of that book also.

You can find parts of the book in English here. We just celebrated his feast day - I am very fond of St. Kosmas Aetolos. Nature... I always marvel at the love Saints had for all things surrounding them. But it is sad that I can not simulate them.

But, even with a tiny balcony you can still have some potplants.

I have been researching the beneficial house plants - those that purify the air inside our homes. Spider plants, golden pothos, mother-in-law's tongue, even chrysanthemums (these are also called St. Demetrius' plant here because they flower around late October). One plant that purifies both the air inside the house and the air around it outside is English Ivy. As my husband hates the stuff and spent an entire day trying to remove it from one of our ground floor verandah posts I won't bother mentioning the fact that it's beneficial!!

Thanks for the link, Nina. It was the same one that Mike gave me and the site is a really good one.

Effie

[BalaGire]

I lived mainly in northeastern Greece, and witnessed the destruction of the beautiful pine forests of Thasos (for which marble quarrying firms were blamed). That was bad enough, even though I don't think anybody lost their lives. I don't have words for what is going on now.

In a few years we will have lost all our forests at the rate we are going.
I heard today that only 10% of the burnt lands in the past were reforested!!!!!!!!!!!!

Greed and love of money. Today's gods.

[rassedgesse]

To Effie and Andrew and someone else to whom I promised to post pictures from the monastery of Saint Kosmas Aetolos, near Toronto, Canada. This monastery is founded by Geronda/Elder Ephraim of Arizona. Links to the life of Saint Kosmas Aetolos can be found in the posts above. It is interesting to note that Elder Ephraim before coming to USA, lived in the same cell where Saint Kosmas Aetolos lived when he was at the monastery of Philotheou in Mount Athos. Saint Kosmas is considered the greatest missionary of modern Greece and also the Apostle of the poor.

APOLYTIKION.
By teaching the Divine Faith, thou hast richly adorned the Church and become a zealous emulator of the Apostles; for having been lifted up by the wings of divine love, that hast spread far and wide the message of the Gospel. O glorious Cosmas, entreat God that He grants us His great mercy. KONTAKION.
Having led an irreproachable life on Athos, like Moses thou hast been deemed worthy of God's manifestation; wherefore truly thou dost gladden the Church exceedingly by thy deeds and thy God-inspired words, O Father Cosmas, having contended for which, thou hast been adorned with a double crown.
MEGALYNARION.
Rejoice thou emulator of the Apostles, teacher and luminary of the Church; rejoice thou divine cultivator of piety, associate of Martyrs and peer of Angels. http://www.serfes.org/writtings/stcosmas.htm

[rassedgesse]

Speaking of fires... a friend just called me from Boston and told me that near a neighborhood where I lived before in Boston, there was a huge fire in a tiny Chinese restaurant which claimed the life of ten people (a couple of them firefighters) and has injured many. May God have mercy on their souls!