GIVING BACK TO AFRICA: An Interview with Archbishop Damianos of Sinai, Faran and Raitho

"... All of this corresponded to my original idea of giving back to Africa. I consider this work one of the greatest, because charity is a great thing, and this was recognized by the Bedouins, by all, not for me personally. Everything I did, I did for the Monastery and the Monastery was given all the credit."

For the Feast of Ss. Cosmas and Damianos of Arabia

GIVING BACK TO AFRICA: An Interview with Archbishop Damianos of Sinai, Faran and Raitho 

The Archbishop of Sinai, Faran and Raitho, Damianos, welcomes us to the Abetios school in Cairo and talks to us about the work and spiritual radiance of the Sinai Monastery.

By Angelos Rentoulas

Tuesday afternoon, on our long journey through the desert to the Sinai Monastery. We have passed Suez, the landscape from the window of the van motionless, slowly changing, nauseating at times. The desert is a spiritual place, stimulating for introspection. I put the headphones in my ears, to listen to the interview with the Archbishop of Sinai, Faran and Raitho, Damianos.

I hear him reconstruct the details of a turbulent, overflowing life, the spiritual details of his own beautiful desert adventure. I merge into the events he describes, I empathize. Before my eyes, an entire era is being reconstituted. Our conversation has historical, educational, sociological value, reveals a world unknown to many, keeps the memory alight. His words are simple, his descriptions humble but vivid, small prose, embroidered with soft, muted words. Next year he celebrates 50 years in the archbishopric, 50 years as a captain of Sinai. The interview took place the day before the trip to the desert, in the conference room of the Abetios School in Cairo, the Greek school founded by the Abet brothers and operating continuously since 1861.

... We search for traces of monasticism in the desert, traces of its own course, we discuss the spiritual radiance of Sinai. "The reach of its spirituality has universal scope and significance for the whole world, regardless of religion or belief," he will say. With him we open the heavy door of the monastery, we get a first taste of its long history, an idea of life in the oldest Christian monastery in operation in the world. I am gleaning some of what he said here.

From Athens to Africa and the Desert

Born in 1935 in Athens, "to good parents and well-to-do people", as he says, the first of seven siblings, after finishing the seven-grade Gymnasium, declares his desire to attend the Theological School, despite the encouragement of his father, a merchant, to study at a School of Economic or Commercial Studies. Now he is studying theology and very soon decides that he wants to leave for the mission in Africa. The first question is the most obvious – logically he must have answered it many times in his life:

Why Africa?

I was restless, I wanted adventure in general, but that wasn't all. A Ugandan Orthodox clergyman had come to Athens at the time and we were thrilled. So we started a group to go and help our African brothers. In fact, this team was taken over by the current archbishop of Tirana, Anastasios Giannoulatos. So I went and took the first step there. But I also wanted to go to a monastery, because there were things I had to learn in practice. Then I was a layman, I had to become a clergyman, and this is not learned at university. There you have the sciences, but you do not have the practice of theology. So I read somewhere that in the Sinai Monastery they needed monks. I didn't even know that there was an Orthodox monastery on Mount Sinai. I didn't know, do you believe it? We had not been able to see Hellenism in its breadth, what the Orthodox Church has finally offered. I then wrote to Archbishop Porphyry III of Sinai a little about myself, that I wanted to come to Sinai and, if I finally decided to do so, to allow me to go to the East African mission. This holy man writes back to me: "I am happy for you to come and offer what we can, and if God enlightens you and you insist on going, I will give you permission to go."

So when did you come here?

In 1961. I remember I took a plane by myself with a few things and arrived in Cairo, to the Metochia where we will go in a moment, and I stayed there for the first few days until a car with a group was found for Sinai. I would go up with them or, if the Archbishop decides to go up for one of his missions, then we would go together. So, it finally happened, I waited and we went up with the old man (elder). He was then 80-something years old, yet he went up twice a year, on holidays, to see the fathers, to encourage them and to come back, because Cairo is the Seat of the Archbishops. That is why in Sinai there is a Dikaios, his representative. In the administration system of the monastery, we usually have four persons: the first is Dikaios, who represents the Archbishop and is like an Abbot of the monastery. Second in line is Skevophylax, third is Economos. These are both superiors and deacons, and each has his own ministry, so to speak. Of course, before Egyptian law, the Archbishop is responsible.

Bedouins and the Value of Giving

How did you feel when you arrived at the Monastery?

In Cairo I was not surprised, I was coming from a city. Of course it was quite different from Greece, with the cars, the traffic, the roads. At the Abetios school, here, I taught later for eight years. "Well, come, blessed one," the elder Porphyrios once tells me – the word "blessed" was often uttered. "Get ready to go to the Monastery." Now it is asphalt, then it was largely dirt road. We were literally maneuvering through the sand and stopping many times. When Pericles came out, our guide, who knew the road well in the desert, he was trying to push, I was getting out too, pushing and pushing, it was not easy at all. ... We got stuck three times, I remember it specifically. At some point I see some children and they came there. "Bakshish, bakshish, bakshish!" The elder gave them candy and they gathered in bunches and helped push the car. All this excited me, of course, I was thinking about what it would be like in the mission. But even where I went, they were even more in need ...

In Sinai, I was received by the few fathers who were there. In fact, I remember Kathimerini had written an article – I think Giannaras – commenting that the monastery was left with very few, because six or seven had died in a year. When I went, I didn't know that, then I found out. So, the five or six fathers received me happily, they offered me a good room to stay in, I took it, it had a window to the side of Mount Sinai. The Bedouins gathered below because they had learned that I always had something to give them. And every noon I gave them from my food in a basket. In addition, I showed that I know a little bit about medicine. I had already taken first aid courses, but quite advanced, preparing myself for Africa. In the monastery there was no doctor, of course, but there was an old monk, Father Elias, who was a pharmacist of the old days, one of those who made the medicines themselves. He had also shown me some things, but even when I sometimes left for Greece on Monastery's business, I would return with boxes of medicine. All of this corresponded to my original idea of giving back to Africa. I consider this not the most important thing, but one of the greatest, because charity is a great thing, and this was recognized by the Bedouins, by all, not for me personally. Everything I did, I did for the Monastery, and the Monastery was given all the credit.

How was your relationship with the Bedouins?

We have always had good relations. When I came I helped them with their medical problems, I was a bit more scientific, let's say, and I kind of had the gift of approaching them. I somehow knew the language, to the extent of making a diagnosis to them. But all the fathers helped them, we did not leave them like that.

The Bedouins work for the monastery.

They had worked, are working now and will work for the Monastery. The Monastery is for them essentially the source of their life. They will not do the work that the priest will do, but they will clean the church, cook and get paid of course, people are paid normally. ...

10.04.2023