Renewed Persecution of Syria’s Greek Orthodox Christians by Islamists — Europe Must Intervene

 

ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ: Για τους νέους διωγμούς των Ελληνορθοδόξων Ρωμηών της Συρίας από τους Ισλαμιστές!

Photo from here

In the first days of October 2026, a new wave of violence broke out against the Greek Orthodox Christians (Rum Orthodox; Romeoí) of Syria, centred on ancient Seleucia (Al-Suqaylabiyah), which was founded by the Greek king Seleucus I Nicator around 300 BC.

A Greek Orthodox Christian (Romeós) from the area, whose own life and the lives of his family are in danger every day, writes:

“Last night, in the Greek Orthodox town of Al-Suqaylabiyah in the Hama countryside, armed Muslim groups from the neighbouring village of Qalaat al-Madiq stormed Al-Suqaylabiyah. They smashed shops, roamed the streets, broke into homes, vandalised property, and opened fire randomly, injuring a woman in her hand. They were assisted by members of the Public Security. Some threats were received to shell the town, and when the men of Al-Suqaylabiyah tried to defend themselves, Public Security began arresting them. These recurring events in the town of Al-Suqaylabiyah are no longer just passing incidents, but rather a systematic plan to empty the town and displace its people.”

We recall that only last March (2026), a new attack had taken place against Romeoí, again centred on the same town. A personal appeal, accompanied by video footage, was published by a Romeós from Al-Suqaylabiyah, addressed to the Greek Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, asking him to take action for their protection.

In that appeal he wrote:

«Mr. Kyriakos Mitsotakis,

I write to you from the town of ancient Seleucia, known today as Suqaylabiyah.

Do not leave us alone in the face of these Turkish-backed armed groups. We, and the generations before us, have never abandoned our Antiochian Greek heritage. For this identity, we have paid dearly—thousands of lives over the years.

Today, in 2026, our streets are once again filled with the smell of blood—echoes of the suffering our grandparents endured. History is repeating itself before our eyes.

There was a time when the world did not see what was happening to us. But today, there is no excuse. You can see it with your own eyes.

We ask you: do not abandon us»

The Romeoí of Syria have lived there for two thousand years, since the earliest days of Christianity. For at least the past fifteen years, they have been tortured, murdered and uprooted from their homeland as a result of uncontrolled Islamist fanaticism.

In 2013, the Greek Orthodox Bishop Paul and the Syriac non-Chalcedonian Bishop Yohanna Ibrahim were abducted and, according to a video that later circulated, were tortured and killed. In the same year, more than 200 Romeoí—including many young children—were murdered by Islamist extremists.

From then until the present day, our brothers and sisters, the Romeoí of Syria, have continued to endure terror, violence and killings, culminating in the deadly bombing of the Greek Orthodox Church of the Prophet Elijah in Damascus on 22 June 2025.

We also recall that, on 11 May 2026, Syria’s Foreign Minister, Asaad Hassan al-Shaibani, declared that in Syria “there are no minorities”. This statement caused understandable alarm, as it was interpreted as an indication of an intention on the part of Syria’s new jihadist regime to eliminate the country’s minorities.

On 31 March, Greek Member of the European Parliament Nikos Anadiotis, of the NIKI party, submitted a motion for a resolution of the European Parliament calling upon the European Union to act for the protection of Syria’s Greek Orthodox Christians from massacre (see “Greek MEP Aims to Break EU Silence Regarding Christian Persecution in Syria”).

The Democratic Patriotic Popular Movement NIKI urgently calls upon the European Parliament and all institutions of the European Union to demand from the Syrian regime a firm commitment to the protection of the Romeoí and of all Christian communities.

It is inconceivable that the European Union should proceed with agreements supporting Syria’s political regime without first having secured the safety of Christians, particularly while fanatical Islamists continue to attack them.

When Europe accepts, without protest, hundreds of thousands of Muslims of unknown origin and intentions, it is inconceivable that it should leave unprotected hundreds of thousands of civilians who have lived in those lands for centuries before the arrival of the Arabs and the emergence of Islam, and who have kept Greek and Orthodox Christian civilisation alive for thousands of years.

When they have all been slaughtered or uprooted from their ancestral homes, will we not be ashamed before History, which will record in letters of blood that we abandoned them?

Please see more here:

When the Romeoi (Rum) are persecuted, does Greece merely “follow the situation”? 

New Massacre of Romeoi in Damascus

Greek Orthodox (Romeoi/Rum) continue to be murdered in Syria! NIKI denounces the killing of two Romeoi in the Valley of the Christians and demands justice and protection for the Romeoi.  

Will the European Parliament Help Persecuted Christians in Syria?

ECUMENICAL ROMANÍA — A book that explores questions of Romeosyne, identity, historical continuity, Church and State, Constantinople, ecumenicity, and the place of the Orthodox person in the contemporary world.

 

Romania is the true name of the state we have become accustomed —erroneously—to calling "Byzantium".

Αmazon.com

by Ioannis Con. Neonakis (Author)

What does Romanía mean today—not merely as a vanished state, but as a living historical, spiritual, and civilisational consciousness?

Ecumenical Romanía explores this question from within the Orthodox and Romeic tradition. For Ioannis Con. Neonakis, Romanía is more than the historical polity conventionally called the Byzantine Empire. It is a way of understanding the human person, community, history, political life, and the vocation of the People of God—a living continuity centred on Christ, the Church, and the ecumenical horizon of the Romeoí.

The book develops the idea of Ecumenical Romanía as a supranational, ecumenical, and soteriological proposal: a vision of freedom, unity, and historical continuity addressed to the postmodern world of the twenty-first century. Rather than proposing a return to the past, it asks whether the experience and civilisation of Romeosyne can offer principles for a renewed common life in the present and future.

The volume unfolds in three parts. The first clarifies the historical and theological terminology and establishes the framework of the argument. The second presents a Foundational Statement and a Conceptual Proposal concerning the formation of a movement and, ultimately, a polity inspired by the Romeic, ecumenical, Orthodox tradition. The third brings together essays on Romeosyne, identity, Church and State, nationalism, political authority, historical memory, Constantinople, economics, globalisation, and the challenges of modern collective life.

Written for both specialists and general readers, the English edition also includes a substantial Analytical Glossary, designed especially for the English-speaking reader. It explains key theological, patristic, ecclesial, historical, and civilisational terms—many of which have no exact English equivalent—and helps the reader enter more fully into the conceptual world of Romanía and Romeosyne.

257 pages.

From the author (here)

My book Ecumenical Romanía — now available in English on Amazon as of today, 2 October!

Dear friends, it is with great joy that I announce the completion of the English translation of my book, Ecumenical Romanía, and that as of today, 2 October, the English edition is available as an e-book on Amazon.

Ecumenical Romanía is an attempt to approach Romanía not simply as a state belonging to the past, but as a living historical, spiritual, and civilisational consciousness.

Drawing on the Orthodox and Romeic tradition, the book explores questions of Romeosyne, identity, historical continuity, Church and State, Constantinople, ecumenicity, and the place of the Orthodox person in the contemporary world.

The English edition also includes an extensive Analytical Glossary, designed to help the English-speaking reader approach key theological, ecclesiological, historical, and Romeic concepts, many of which have no exact equivalent in English.

I hope that this English edition will allow the book to travel beyond the boundaries of the Greek-speaking world and, even in a small way, contribute to a deeper acquaintance with Romeosyne and its ecumenical horizon.

With God’s blessing, may it have a good journey!

 

Ioannis Con. Neonakis

 

Read sample 

 

Some articles by the author

From Ancient Hellenic to Romeiko Civilization 

On the Islamization and Turkification of Our Genos

Our forgotten brothers: the Rum Orthodox Christians (Romeoi) of the Middle East

The Romeoi (Rum) of the Levant: Identity and a Concise Historical Overview

“Constantinople, the eternal capital and heart of the Romeoi”

Post-Liberalism: The West in Search of Romeosyne

New Romanía: The Great Vision and the Favorable Contemporary Geostrategic Framework.

TWO SEPTEMBERS: 1922 AND 1955

 

 

By Dimitri Kepreotes
Member of the Romeosyne Policy Department, Democratic Patriotic Popular Movement NIKI 

From here 

September 14, 1922, and September 6, 1955.

Two historic milestones in modern Greek history. Two instances of the tragic demise of Hellenism in Constantinople and Asia Minor.
Why should a people preserve its historical memory? It is so that their future generations may remain aware of the dangers that surround them, and so that they are prepared to confront these dangers with diligence and intelligence.
Τhe purpose of this brief commentary is not to focus on the events of 1922. So much has already been written about the Catastrophe of Smyrna. When a Greek recalls that tragedy and the massacres that accompanied it, one phrase and image comes to mind: ‘Smyrna is burning!’

The correspondent of The Guardian newspaper wrote on September 16, 1922:
“The fire was started with petroleum yesterday at midday by Turkish regular troops with the object of hiding the bodies of those massacred the night before.”

(source: www.theguardian.com/world/2022/nov/30/the-destruction-of-smyrna-archive-1922)

For a lengthy and illuminating account of the massacre of Greeks and Armenians in Smyrna in 1922, The Blight of Asia by George Horton cannot be recommended highly enough. Horton was the US Consul General in Smyrna during World War I. His book can be read online in English free of charge at www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/76324. And for further eyewitness accounts and testimonials regarding the uprooting of Hellenism in Asia Minor, one may study a wealth of material available on the excellent website greek-genocide.net
When compared with the unspeakable crimes of 1922, far less attention has been devoted to the massive and deadly riots that took place in Constantinople on September 6, 1955, perhaps because the scale of destruction was smaller. And yet, the devastation was by no means small. The Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs records the destruction of 1,004 houses, 5,000 businesses, 73 churches, 23 schools and two cemeteries.

We may reasonably regard this not merely as an attack on ethnic Greeks and their property, but also as an assault on the remnants of Christian civilisation in what had traditionally been its heartland and stronghold: Asia Minor. Following the exchange of Christian and Muslim populations with the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne, Constantinople was the principal exception to that exchange and remained the last major centre of Greek Orthodox faithful in modern Turkey.

By 1955, and then in 1964 for other reasons, this community was brought close to oblivion with astonishing speed, as illustrated by the following estimate of the Greek Orthodox population over the past century:

Period Approximate Greek population
1923 100,000–110,000
1955 before pogrom 67,500–100,000
1955 after pogrom 48,000–80,000
1964–65 30,000–48,000
1978 7,000
2006 2,500
2008 2,000
2014 2,200–2,500
2024–26 2,000–3,000

(sources: Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ecumenical Federation of Constantinopolitans demographic chart and Alexis Alexandris, The Greek Minority of Istanbul and Greek-Turkish Relations, 1918–1974)

Given that the rioters deliberately targeted churches, icons and other sacred objects, schools educating Christian children and cemeteries, the events can be understood as an assault not merely on the Greek community of Constantinople, but on Orthodoxy itself.
These swift seismic upheavals of 1922 and 1955, following the massive genocide against Greeks, Armenians and Assyrians earlier in the 20th century, resulted in the removal of Christianity from the historic geographical setting in which it had existed throughout Asia Minor since the time of the Apostles.

When seen through spiritual eyes, this was evil. Seen through political eyes, it was a methodically designed and well-executed campaign carried out ruthlessly by Turkish military and civilian leaders.
The churches, schools and cemeteries were not ‘collateral damage.’ Together they constituted the very fibre and structure of the Orthodox Christian presence in Constantinople, involving worship, education and remembrance of the dead.
The pretext for the riots was a bomb attack on the Turkish Consulate close to the supposed birthplace of Atatürk in Thessaloniki that took place only hours earlier. However, the evidence indicates that an organised anti-Greek mobilisation was already being prepared in Istanbul before the bombing in Thessaloniki. The evidence also indicates that the bombing was an inside job.

The Deputy Prime Minister at the time, Fuat Köprülü, said to the Turkish National Assembly on September 12, 1955, that the bombing and the subsequent events were the work of “the same hands, the same organisation, the same systematic centre.” The bombing served as the justification for the furious mobilisation of mobs in Constantinople. Within hours (how was this achieved so quickly?), propaganda and photographs of the explosion appeared in the front pages of newspapers such as Ιstanbul Express, further inflaming violence against the Greeks.

Speros Vryonis expressed the magnitude of what occurred with remarkable succinctness:
“This historic Greek community which had lived and created in the city on the Bosphoros from its first foundation in 668 B.C. up to 1955, for some 2,623 years (some 104 generations), suffered a complete and destructive catastrophe in only seven hours.”

(source: ‘September 6, 1955: Krystallnacht in Constantinople’, https://archons.org/greek-america-magazine-reports-on-september-6-1955-krystallnacht-in-constantinople)

Finally, it is worth quoting a Turkish eyewitness, Mehmet Ali Birand, writing in the Turkish Daily News on September 7, 2005:
“I am one of the living witnesses of what happened in Istanbul 50 years ago. I was 14 years old. I did not know what it was all about. However, the passage of time made me understand the seriousness of the incidents and I always carry the shame.
We were living on Ethem Efendi Street at the time. Our neighbours were mostly Greek. They were my best friends. All of a sudden, they shut themselves in their homes. They talked to no one. I can never forget Madam Eleni when she asked, ‘Can we seek refuge in your home if they attack us?’ The barbershop she managed with her husband was in ruins. They were in shock. My mother sent them food for a week. We let them live in one of our rooms.
I was too young to make sense of what had happened. Why should they attack Madam Eleni?
The Greek families in our neighbourhood started to move to other places or go to Greece. After 1963 none of them were left. They left Istanbul. They took with them an important culture and a different lifestyle. They left us alone in Istanbul to live our colourless lives. Later on we were full of regret, but by then it was too late.
Turkey admitted all culpability. Much later, we learned the September 6-7 incidents were the doing of the infamous deep state. It was planned with government approval in order to let diplomats say that the people were reacting during the U.N. discussions on Cyprus. However, it later got out of control and turned into a shameful plunder. It became a crime that the deep state could not handle, and it shamed the Turkish nation.”

(source: https://archons.org/greek-america-magazine-reports-on-september-6-1955-krystallnacht-in-constantinople)

Greece has so many historic battles and heroes to commemorate, it seems that each individual commemoration receives much less attention than it truly deserves. Yet even when Greeks suffer massacres and the uprooting from their ancestral homelands within living memory, they seem to display an almost scandalous degree of either forgiveness or forgetfulness.
So, at the risk of sounding provocative we may ask ourselves: Is forgiveness the only remaining virtue for today’s Orthodox Christian?
Similar, if not greater, threats exist at this very hour in the Aegean and in Cyprus. Along with forgiveness, what has become of the other great quality about which the Lord advised His disciples: to be “as wise as serpents” (Matt. 10:16)?
The snake is exceptionally aware of its surroundings and capable of detecting a trap before falling into it. Neither should we be naïve about our geopolitical environment. And when under attack, as St John Chrysostom notes, the snake coils up and protects its head. For us, the head symbolises the pinnacle of all we hold to be most sacred: our altars and our homes, and they must be defended above all else.

 

Tradition as Communion

Fr. Stephen Freeman

Glory 2 God for all things

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, concerning the Word of life—the life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare to you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us—that which we have seen and heard we declare to you, that you also may have communion (koinonia) with us; and truly our communion (koinonia) is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. And these things we write to you that your joy may be full. (1 John 1:1–4)

Typical of St. John’s writings, a vast reality is packed into a single sentence. In but a few phrases, he describes the full life of the Church and its place in the world. He does this under the heading of communion (koinonia). Later centuries would search for adequate language to express what St. John says here.

The Councils used the language of nature and person to express our union with Christ. Christ assumed our human nature in the Incarnation, uniting Himself to us, and us to Him. We say that “He became what we are that we might become what He is.”

But St. John’s language has a dynamic quality to it unmatched in later centuries. He begins by speaking of Christ as “the life which was with the Father.” He places that dynamic quality into a context that is extremely vivid: “that which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled…” What he expresses and declares to his readers is a completely “immersive” and “participatory” experience. It encompassed the whole being of those who were there.

The startling reality of this testimony of St. John is that he relates something beyond what “happened,” or what he “saw.” The “life” which was with the Father continues with him in what he describes as “communion” (koinonia). The life which was with the Father is now also with him. And, at the very heart of his message: this “life” of communion is available to all. It is this “life” itself that he declares to us.

There is yet another aspect of St. John’s words, utterly essential to their meaning and import: he writes in the plural. What he describes is not a private matter, but relates what “we” have experienced and known. Who is the “we”? Some scholars describe this as the “Johannine Community,” the Church surrounding the noted Apostle. It is clearly the Church, but, I think it describes that first Apostolic generation, the eyewitnesses who became “communicants” of eternal life in Christ. Additionally, I think we could and should identify this experience described by St. John as what Orthodoxy means when it says, “Tradition.”

For a variety of reasons, most people confuse “tradition” with the notion of “the way we have always done things.” This is neither its meaning nor does it express its importance. “Tradition” means that which has been “handed down,” or “delivered” to someone. It can refer to any number of things: beliefs, practices, authority, etc. However, here in St. John, we clearly have a reference to something being handed down which is itself “living.” What has been given is the “communion” with the Father and the Son, as well as a communion with the living community of the Church. And this communion is “life.”

Orthodoxy is often characterized as a “way of life.” I suspect that many imagine that phrase to describe a “way of doing things” exemplified by certain beliefs and practicies. Though there are beliefs and practices that are an intimate part of Orthodoxy, it should be rightly understood as a way of “life,” that is, of an abiding in the the living communion of the Godhead.

For example, though Orthodox Christians offer up morning and evening prayers (often as prescribed in various prayerbooks), the most prevalent teaching on prayer is that of the “unceasing remembrance of the Name of God.” This practice of the Jesus Prayer has its roots in the depths of the monastic life and unites the whole of Orthodox daily life, both monastics and non-monastics. It is said that monastics do not live a different life from those in the world, but a more intense form of the same life. This is fully in accord with the “tradition” of communion invoked by St. John.

I have had a rich experience in the work of nurturing the Orthodox way of life with converts. There are aspects that include teaching and nurturing a way of understanding and seeing – “traditioning” Orthodox doctrine. Of far greater and more lasting import, however, is something that only comes with time. I have seen this in myself as well as in others. I would best describe it as the movement of external forms into internal reality. St. Paul says this when speaking to a young Galatian community:

“My little children, I labor in birth again until Christ be formed in you,” (Gal. 4:19).

He can write to them, repeating the arguments and teachings that they have heard before, but nothing is settled until that life (which is Christ) is actually formed within them. St. John, strikingly, describes this under the heading of love. For St. John, it is love (particularly the love of the brethren) that is the mark of true spiritual formation. It is in his epistle that he famously declares that “God is love.” From that, he says that anyone claiming to know God but who does not love is a “liar” and the “truth does not dwell in him.” 

The love of which St. John speaks is no mere moral action – it is nothing less than the actual life and love of God dwelling in us.

“Do not marvel, my brethren, if the world hates you. We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love his brother abides in death. Whoever hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.

By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoever has this world’s goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him?” (1 John 3:13–17)

This is the most fundamental form of the tradition – that which has been delivered to us. Just as the life of Christ is given in the sacrament of His Body and Blood (“As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on Me will live because of Me.” John 6:57), so His life is given as well in the fullness of the Church. This is the true “content” of all that we receive in the Church. It is not a particular activity or pattern, but the content (the life and love) that has been vouchsafed to us in the whole of our life together. However, we do not abstract that life from the activity and pattern of the Church. These patterns and actions are the vehicles that nurture the life within us. Nevertheless, if we do not see the love of the Father and the Son in the life that we are given, then we are missing the very heart of the faith.

This is our communion – the very life of God – the God who is love.

 

Human, Metahuman and Godhuman

 

By Theodore Riginiotis, theologian

Source: Άνθρωπος, "Μετάνθρωπος" & Θεάνθρωπος (& here)

 Translation Κ.Ν.

The human desire to surpass one's natural capabilities has been an element of the human psyche, as well as the culture of all peoples, since ancient times. It has driven people to more significant achievements, which have helped individuals, families, communities, entire peoples - even humanity as a whole - to survive under adverse conditions, to win seemingly invincible battles, to sacrifice themselves for the other, to travel, to explore, to also make groundbreaking discoveries and inventions that have improved their lives.

This desire had fueled the myths of superhuman heroes, but it also shaped the actual, historical heroes of all times, from the brave warriors or martyrs, who became symbols of the indomitable spirit by sacrificing their lives, through to the ordinary people, who had held on to their ideals and supported their families under conditions of indescribable poverty, danger, uprooting or oppression. History did not record these by name, but they nevertheless constitute History.

But we can also see the opposite aspect: the arrogance, the insatiable desire for wealth or power that lead to blind violence and bloodshed, the Nietzschean “thirst for power”, the Freudian “death drive” – an aspect that all the wise teachers of all peoples have rejected as an aspect of transcendence of human potentials. In the Greek spiritual tradition, there is mention of “hubris” and “sin”. Whatever their name, these trends lead to destruction and to self-destruction.

In the ancient Greek traditions we encounter stories about "hubrists", who committed heinous crimes by upsetting the natural order of things (such as the murder of parents or children, incest, the murder of guests offerred hospitality, or the attempt to deceive the gods) - such as the cases of Tantalus, Sisyphus, and even Oedipus or Orestes (of these, Oedipus’ act was unintentional and Orestes’ was simply revenge, whereas Tantalus and Sisyphus were actually evil personalities).

However, even in the Orthodox Christian tradition we can read about the first-fashioned humans, who had attempted to "become like gods" by eating of the forbidden "fruit of knowledge of good and evil" (Genesis 3:5); also about the people immediately before the Deluge, whose "evils had multiplied upon the earth" and where "everyone persistently thought about evil things in their hearts all the time” (Gen. 6:5). Also mentioned are the people of Babel, who had decided to build a tower that would reach the heavens – an accomplishment that they believed would secure their eternal fame (Gen. 11:4). Then there were the Sodomites, who not only committed unrestrained immorality among themselves, but the entire male population of the city had sought to en masse attack the divine visitors to their city, declaring their lust to rape them (Gen. 19:3-5).  We also read of the fall of King David, who had betrayed the trust of Uriah the Hittite by orchestrating his death in battle in order to possess his wife for himself (2 Kings 11 and 12), etc.

People in modern times - even today, in the so-called “postmodern era,” - often no longer acknowledge the concepts of hubris and sin; they do not admit their devastating consequences, but instead consider it their right to do “whatever they want.” Moreover, they do not acknowledge that the special abilities of each person (intellectual or practical) are God-given gifts, but instead  consider them to be their own exclusive property. They have forgotten that the terms “talents” and “charismas,” originating from the New Testament (Matth.25:14-30, Rom.12:1 and 1Cor.12), all reveal that what we possess are indeed God’s gifts. When they do happen to remember this detail, it is vaguely attributed to some personified and deified “universe,” as the notion of ​​referring to the God of our fathers is abhorrent to them.

So, because we tend to sink ourselves to the very depths of our passions - that is, in spiritual and physical addictions, without thinking of resisting the pleasure they arouse in us (whether it is carnal pleasure, or the pleasure of acquiring power, authority, wealth, or knowledge, but not wisdom), we are ultimately led to despair, violence, and annihilation.

Hence modern man’s nightmares: invasions by alien races, autonomy and domination by machines, the teratogeneses (the creation of monsters), the viruses that turn most of the human population into zombies, are all being expressed in a shocking manner, through literature, cinema and the modern media, ever since the 19th century, with works such as Mary Shelley's “Frankenstein”, Robert Louis Stevenson's “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” or the novels by H.G. Wells, up to the modern myths captured in dystopian science fiction movies, all of them shaping entire cultures and subcultures.

And yet, people are not backing down. In fact we are now being informed about "meta-humans" and "metahumanism". Modern man imagines himself genetically modified or enhanced with technological implants and assumes that in this way he will surpass his physical-biological capabilities and evolve into something superior. He will no longer be human, but “superhuman” (also “ubermensch”); but for this to happen, he must previously become a “meta-human”.

*****

In this corner of the world called Greece, but also in other places and peoples that have embraced the liberating message of Christianity throughout history (without transforming it into a paranoid thirst for power, as it unfortunately happened in the Western European Middle Ages), the wise and holy teachers, but also the wise and simple people who raised us, are very familiar with the insatiable thirst of people of every era who tried to transcend their limits and capabilities.

They know this very well, because that is precisely what they themselves have been doing throughout the ages – except that they transcended without turning into something other than humans. That is why in their daily lives and communication they had elevated the term “human” to a sublime value – by embodying expressions such as “be human”, “have humanity”, knowing that otherwise you become “inhuman”, “bestial” - you become a “beast”, an animal, something non-human, and your actions become “bestiality”, animal barbarities.

So, my brother, my sister, my child, there is no need to evolve into something “meta-human” in order to transcend from what you feel is holding you back; you only need to ensure that you remain human, and you will discover that is more than enough.

Perhaps it is necessary to explain how those holy and wise teachers of our Orthodox Christian culture perceive the human creature, so that what we are saying can be fully understood.

Saint Justin Popovich († 1979) writes: “Mankind!... All creations fall silent before this most extraordinary miracle of all worlds. As if God had gathered all the miracles from all His worlds and summarized them in one, in man.”

Also:  “It is gospel truth - the all-true gospel – not mine, but of God’s saints – that man is a great mystery, a holy mystery of God. So great and so holy that God Himself condescended to become an incarnate human in order to present us with the full depth of the human mystery. The truth of the gospel, the all-truth, is that God became man, in order to make man a god by Grace.” (Saint Justin Popovich, Man and God-Man).

While traveling through Christian antiquity, it is worth stopping at an anthropological crescendo by Saint Gregory the Theologian:

The Creator Logos creates man as a creation out of two elements – that is, of visible nature and invisible. And although taking his body out of matter that already existed, He inserted breath out of Himself (which the Holy Bible knows this as “noetic soul” and “image of God”). So He placed him on earth as another world (different to the rest of the universe), small, and within the small, large; another angel, a combined worshiper, a supervisor of visual Creation and a mystic of the noetic (that is, with knowledge of the noetic, of holiness, of angels etc.), king of the earth, but with his own King above him – terrestrial and heavenly; temporary and immortal, visible and noetic, between grandeur and humility, himself of spirit and flesh... a creature that is perfected here and transferred elsewhere, and – the finality of the mystery – he is deified by turning towards God.”

(Logos 45, ON HOLY EASTER, PG 36, 632 – An English rendition).

*****

Do you want to know what kind of human the saints of our tradition had exalted with so many hymns of praise? If you search, will discover that apart from the evil, the violence, the despair or indignity that you very probably see around you, there is also greatness, beauty, love, heroism, and holiness. The tendency to go beyond the potentials that we usually think we possess is in fact a built-in characteristic of our species, namely, the human race.

To attain the ability to go beyond your potentials, you do not need to become an imaginary Superman or Black Widow, Thor or Captain America; you can strive to become like Basil the Great, Philothea the Athenian, Cosmas the Aetolian, or local historical heroes and patriots such as Manto Mavroyenous, Makryannis, Galatia Soureli, Callirroe Parren, Carathéodory or Papanikolaou… All of these personages had changed the world in the era and society in which they lived and acted, by precisely enforcing the advantage of being human.

Would you like to meet some contemporary “superhumans”? You can search the Internet with the term “Orthodox Mission to the Third World”. But we don’t have to go that far; you may just look back at your own parents and their parents’ parents – even throughout your family line - and you will surely come across some of them who had given (or are still giving) their best - quite possibly under terribly adverse circumstances - not only for themselves, but also for their family and very possibly for a wider circle of acquaintances, or for their city, or for society as a whole.

If you are still searching for the perfect, I would suggest studying the lives of the saints – both the ancient and the present-day ones. There you will discover how a human can become, not a “metahuman”, but a “godhuman”, by being connected – through struggles and sacrifices of course – with the Godman Jesus Christ Himself.

Study closely the love, self-denial, humility, devotion, but also the ascetic life and prayer and self-control of the saints, not just their miracles. Only then will you be able to discern that the entire discussion about “metashumans” and “metahumanism” has sprung from within a world that thirsts precisely for the supreme Good, that is, for Christ and holiness. It is a world that thirsts, but does not know where to seek the “living water” to quench its thirst; a world that hesitates to turn to the slandered Christ and His slandered Church. It hesitates to seek the precious diamond among common stones, so it instead seeks and accumulates ordinary stones, extolling them as diamonds. Unfortunately, regardless of how many stones are collected, they will never constitute the treasure that the heart truly desires.  Whereas on the other hand, a humble and poor ascetic (even an everyday, homeless person) who lives prayerfully in the name of the Lord Jesus, are most probably the truly rich - both here and in eternity.