“God and the Virgin Mary have never abandoned us. They will not abandon us now either. Our monasteries in Meteora and all over the world are vigilant, and our monks are constantly praying holding tight their prayer ropes for all of us and for the cessation of evil.”
Those were the words of Metropolitan Theoklitos of Stagoi and Meteora during yesterday’s Divine Liturgy in Kalampaka for the Feast of the Annunciation and the celebration of the Greek Revolution.
Metropolitan Theklitos, who once again performed the Divine Liturgy without the presence of the faithful, noted, “It is time to think about why our churches were closed and ask why God punished us in this way.” He went on to say, “So our church is humiliated for a while and stops performing the Divine Liturgy in order to sacrifice herself for her children by refraining from the mass public gathering.”
On the Church’s decision to comply with the government’s order and temporarily shut down the churches, Metropolitan Theoklitos emphasized, “If the churches were open and the people were gathered and there was an outbreak, everybody would say that the church is to blame; the priests and the Christians are blameworthy for not caring.”
He added, “Every day we experience this hatred and this polemic often carried out by us and some unfledged theologians who constantly want to show off their theological knowledge by writing various things, judging and criticizing everyone.”