Elder Paisios and Hagia Sophia.

The postcard above was sent by Elder Paisios to one of his spiritual children, who later became a monk on Mount Athos, in October of 1974. It says the following:

My beloved brother John, I pray God quickly grants the waning of the Turkish moon. Amen. On Saint Demetrios it will be two years since I prayed in our Hagia Sophia, and I said my complaints to the Good God. The Turkish guard understood that I was praying and was driving me off, etc., and I added other complaints to God. I believe He will not leave our Hagia Sophia in the hands of the dirty Turks. They are a people like the gypsies, dirty and fearful. Now they have no ideal, because before they believed in Muhammad, later Kemal. Now they neither believe in Muhammad (because they somehow got educated, and have seen that Muhammad was an impostor) nor Kemal, but in the worship of the flesh. But we believe in Christ, who continually has His Divine Value, and the Greek people always have an ideal. May Christ and the Panagia be with them.

With love in Christ,

Monk Paisios

http://www.johnsanidopoulos.com/2012/06/elder-paisios-and-hagia-sophia.html