Synoro, Orthodoxy and modern-Greek life, issue 39, (1966), 83 pages.
The 39th volume opens with two notes regarding the death of G. Theotokas, by Ag. Koyrtesis and Chr. Yannaras. G. Theotokas, collaborator of the magazine and one of the biggest intellectual statures of Greece, was the person that sought the self-consciousness of modern Hellenism in the sources of the Orthodox tradition. His loss marked negatively the publication of the journal.
Tassos Zannis refers to the work of the recently (at the time) ordained f. Kallistos Timothy Ware referring to the doctor from Chios and “apologist” of Orthodoxy Eustratios Argentis. Zannis presents to the readers the systematic work of f. Kallistos on Argentis which, besides the points that lights up with regard to him, offers a picture of the occupied under Turks Hellenism during the 18th century.
Chr. Yannaras in the next essay deals with the notion of “the people of God” in the work of Makrygiannis. Observing initially in his text the development of this notion in Israel, Byzantium and Dostoyevsky, he focuses on Makrygiannis, who without contradistinguishing the religion and the homeland, does not comprehend them as terms of ethnic messianism, but as existential conditions of the individual in the frame of an ecumenical religious consciousness. He sees a kind of junction of identity and idioprosopia through which each one is placed in the cross-national entity of Christians.
Extracts of opinions of T. Papatsonis on the famous Skiathite and his contribution to the recognition that the Greeks owe to the Christian East for the configuration of the identity of the modern Greek-Orthodox man,are published under the general title “Alexandros Papadiamandis”.
Ap. Alexandridis then publishes his text “a phenomenon of modern-Greek religious life: the Christian organizations” and approaches this crucial issue (particularly during that period) first historically, by considering the organizations as offspring of the weakness of the institutionalized Church to follow her main theological and functional work disorientated from her ethnical role during the Ottoman occupation. Then he mentions the autocephalous and to Pharmakidis, passing on to Papoulakos in order to identify in the face of Kosmas Flamiatos the first link in the chain of organized movements that later played a significant role in modern-Greek Orthodoxy. However, Alexandridis reports Ap. Makrakis as the dominating figure with which we enter the phase of organizations. His students advanced in the establishment of large Christian movements (e.g. Zoi) and of their precursors (e.g. Anaplasis). The text follows the course of organizations from the division of Zoi into Zoi and Sotiras, up to the “Orthodox Christian unions of young men and women” by Fr. Markos Tsaktani and Angelos Nissiotis. In the end, the text does not hesitate to evaluate with boldness the positive but also negative work and role of these Christian organizations.
Iak. Mainas in the next essay “The possibilities of Christian presence in Greece today” attempts to record the causes of weakness (considering the lack of genuine Christian self-consciousness as a basic one) and to propose solutions (the end of aphasia) for the relation of Christians and society in modern Greece.
The volume is completed with five poems by N. Triantafyllopoulos, an extract from the travelling impressions ofLeonZander entitled “Pictures from Greece” and the permanent columns Comments, the Book and Letters.