The conversions to Islam and the incestuous marriage of children continued until the late 18th century in western Greece, Epirus and Albania, and Kosmas Aitolos would emerge as the leader of the fight against them. His forerunner and spiritual mentor, relatively unknown to the wider public, was the Northern Epirote hieromonk from Moschopolis, Nektarios Terpos (born between 1675 and 1690 and died between 1740 and 1741), both through his actions and his books. Among them was the Booklet, called Faith, which went through 12 editions, between 1732 and 1818.*
OR Faith its main objective was to deal with the conversion to Islam and the conversion of the Orthodox. We read in the preface of the work: "Therefore, I did not compose this Booklet, called Faith, for wise and literate people, but for the illiterate and peasants, because in these parts of Turkey, many Christians have been misled, and are being misled by a little need and the giving of tribute, and they deny (forsake) Christ, and they are delivered into the hands of the devil.".
Nektarios served as a teacher at the school of Moschopolis – the later infamous New Academies– he toured as a preacher in present-day Northern Epirus, Verati, Spathia and Mouzakia, as well as in Southern Epirus up to Arta, as a precursor of Kosmas Aitolos. His anti-Muslim and anti-Turkish positions also led to his abuse on Christmas 1724, in the village of Tragoti, near Elvasan. When he was preaching, he noticed that his audience consisted of 120 women and only 15 men, because the rest had converted. Then he turned against Muhammad, which led to his savage beating:
"Then two brothers from Agarene, who were soumas, learned how I preached, confessing [ ] that Muhammad was a liar and a deceiver, and a first disciple of the antichrist. They came and took me to the Pope's house, and each of them had a short stick made of glatzina, and beat me mercilessly... They beat me in all places, in other places my body turned red, and in more places it turned black, and what the cupping and the horns did, and by the grace of Christ I was healed, but my arm remained injured, and I can never rest in this place."
Anti-Turkish and anti-Muslim sermon
Terpos, In his texts and sermons, uses a violent anti-Turkish, anti-Islamic language, which we rarely encounter in texts that circulated, and especially to such an extent, in turkish-occupied Hellenism:
"Woe to that man who wants to die in the misguided religion of the false and apostate [ ], of Muhammad, and of his son-in-law Ali, who are, and always are, in the midst of the fire of hell, together with their father the devil. Let no one, therefore, dare to say that God made the Turks, and gave them kingdoms and power.... Such are the Turks' words against us. Beasts of reason, oblivious wolves, ravenous poisoners, harmful basilisks."
Given the enormous circulation of his books – the circulation of Faith exceeded 10,000 copies – his positions did not go unnoticed by both the Turks and the Greek pro-Turks and "injustices", even the clergy. Moreover, he also intervened in the social conflicts that took place in Moschopolis.
In the bloody clashes of 1724, the workers resisted the Turk-Albanians who had been invited by the "kumbanies". The clashes over the administration of the city, between the "lords", the guilds, as well as the demands of the workers who demanded an increase in wages, had taken on an endemic character. A few years later, new bloodshed is recorded, with the murder of prefects and merchants, inside the monastery, in 1735, during the feast of Diakainisimo:
"And who are those who have God in the lower parts of hell? There are those who seek power and authority, and to stand as judges, without the country and the state wanting them. There are also those who give and brush white for power. [ ] There are also those who bring royal men, and harm the country and the poor. [ ] These are all disciples of the devil, who fight, and commit robbery, and become rulers."
National and social dimension
For nektarios, The social and national dimensions seem to be inextricably Intertwined. liberation from ottoman rule is directly related to the "many of God", the "poor". The liberating and Hellenistic character of his preaching is also underlined by the frequent references to the ancient Greeks: "The best beginning of all things is God, but the head of all virtues is faith," as Aristotle says. "Socrates the philosopher, seeing a certain rich man in a state of disgrace, said to those who were with him: Look at the golden idol."
He makes repeated references to Alexander, Plutarch, Diogenes, Solon, Diogenes Laertius, Epictetus, Epicharmus, Thucydides, Pindar, Stilpo, Xenophon, Aristides, Democritus, Pythagoras, Empedocles, Lucian, etc. Finally, G. Valletas extols the literary value of the language of his predecessor Makrygiannis.
If, for scholars and educated Greeks, language and history were a component and enhancer of their identity, apart from religion, for the people the Orthodox faith was the only barrier to the loss of identity and Islamization. Hence the enormous importance of the neomartyrs. Terpos refers to the case of the neomartyr of Northern Epirus, Saint Nicodemus of Elvasan, who was martyred in 1722 and whose memory is commemorated on July 11:
“And you have heard. This saint was from Belgrade [ ] out of envy of the devil, he denied Christ openly, and became a Hagarean [ ]. And his wife had great compassion for him, and begged him… to return to the Lord again. Finally he went to the Holy Mountain and confessed to the Fathers there, [ ] received the Holy Icon and became a monk. [ ] And Saint Nicodemus, when he came to Belgrade [ ]… was taken to the ruler called Husen of all. [ ] And the saint apologized to him; may it never happen, O ruler, that I should deny him (Muhammad), I believe that he is a prophet of Satan, and he sits in the eternal fire, he and all who believe him to be a prophet. When the saint said this, the ruler became angry and immediately decided to have him beheaded. [ ] And his holy soul ascended, wearing a crown, to the choir of the holy martyrs, and the Christians, taking his holy relic, deposited it in the temple of the Theotokos, called Souroumbouli, to the glory of God.
Terpos, more than any other writer of the Ottoman period before Rigas, Korais and the "Anonymous" of Prefecture, uses his book as a war machine against Turkish rule, because it is at the heart of the struggle against Islamization. His homeland, Moschopolis, was an outpost of Hellenism in Northern Epirus. The enormous dissemination of his writings also testifies to the directly resistance-oriented nature of the invocation of the Orthodox faith for the Greek rajades.
From his book George Karabelias «Church and Nation in captivity", Alternative Publications, Athens 2018.
