SOTERIOLOGY

 

The reader finds the diatribist this week outside Westminster Abbey, seeking admittance to the coronation of King Charles. The various misleading rumours that have gone more viral than an email sent by the President of the Panimian Federation of Upper Craigieburn by carrier pigeon have caused me to resort to print in order to provide much needed clarification.

Hence, it is my sad duty to inform the general populace that the news broken last week on social media about an announcement by the Albanese government to the effect that it was sending GOCMV president Bill Papastergiadis and myself as part of the delegation to the coronation of Charles III is only partially correct.

It is thus completely untrue that I have been tasked by the CFMEU with the responsibility of teaching Charles Byzantine chant, while the august president will be teaching Camilla Greek in the pre-match changing rooms, although the fact that Camilla has not yet entered the Abbey and the president is nowhere to be seen is starting to become cause for concern.

Similarly, rumours that the President has swapped my musical notation for the traditional Byzantine chant of acclamation «Άξιος» (Axios) with the soccer chant «Δε θα γίνεις Έλληνας ποτέ, Κάρολε» are purely apocryphal, leading us to believe that those who propagate these fallacies truly do constitute the Axios of Evil.

Nay brethren, my presence before the doors of the Abbey can be ascribed to other deep dark and nefarious purposes all of which relate to the salvation of the motherland and us, its diasporic offshoot. My masters, to my initial question: “Can Greece be saved?” made sure to efface those verses from Lord Byron’s “Childe Harold,” which stated:

"A thousand years scarce serve to form a state;

An hour may lay it in the dust; and when

Can man its shatter'd splendour renovate,

Recall its virtues back, and vanquish Time and Fate?"

 

Then again, Lord  yron was what in polite parlance is deemed an έκφυλος, someone who literally exists outside a gender and thus is a fitting role model for today.

 

According to prophecy of Agathangelos, from which Lord Byron liberally borrowed, the saviour of the ethnos will be of the «ξανθόν γένος» that is, the blonde race. Originally, my masters were convinced that this was Putin, but now point to the fate of the Greeks of Mariupol but more so those of Limassol as evidence of their gullibility in this regard. It is only after my timid suggestion that the blonde race referenced by the prophet is actually the entire Nordic race, which has been known for its blondeness ever since the terrestrial manifestation of Abba, that they have begun to consider other possibilities.

 

We know for instance that the saviour of Greece cannot actually reside within its bounds. Illuminatus and Grammar nazi Adamantios Korais hinted as much when, learning thay Greek governor Ioannis Kapodistrias had been assassinated by the detestable Mavromichalis clan, he wrote that the murderers had saved:

"the trangressor against Hellenic laws from a punishment more just than death: expulsion in disgrace from Hellas."

Then again, we have the same Korais to that for introducing the word πολιτισμός into the Greek language, to denote civilization, our word being a calque of the original. As a consequence of Korais’ linguistic interventions, the word has also come to denote culture: a term that has its origins in the Latin term for cultivation or growing things and literally translates as καλλιέργεια.  Thus a cultured man can be referred to as πολιτισμένος or καλλιεργημένος with the emphasis in the first instance on social behaviour and in the latter, on learning. Evidently, our saviour can thus not be a Greek politician.

 

If Homer is anyone to go by, and though the saviour may not be sitting in Greek parliament, this does not preclude him (my masters exclude the possibility that the saviour can identify with any other gender) from having the tendency to say one thing and mean another. In the Homeric epics, Homer refers to the language of the gods. It becomes apparent that there is a διωνυμία where men have one word for something and the gods call it something else.

For example, in the Iliad he tells us that the river called Skamandros by mortals is called Xanthos by the gods. Similarly, in the Odyssey, Homer tells us that the name in the gods’ language for the plant Hermes gives Odysseus as protection against Circe is known as “moly” while the Symplegades Rocks are known in the gods’ language as “Planktai.”

 

In like fashion, it does not follow necessarily that the saviour will even speak Greek and if he does, this will not inevitably lead to harmony.  According to ancient Greek myth, men had lived without law under the rule of Zeus and spoke one language, gifted to them by the god and goddess of ingenuity, Philarios and Philarion. It was the god Hermes who after the deliberations of an Olympian policy committee brought in diversity of speech and along with it separation into nations, ensuring that discord ensued. Zeus then resigned his position, surrendering it to the first king of men, Phoroneus. According to Pausanias, Phoroneus "was the first to gather the people together into a community; for they had up to then been living as scattered and lonesome families." We have come a long way since then, but we are still in the need of salvation. Whether that be in terms of time or money, remains to be discovered.

 

Could the saviour actually have already walked among us in the form of British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain? After all, he was of Nordic stock and it was he who provided the guarantee to Greece that Britain would come to her defence in the event of an attack by Nazi Germany. This would probably explain why when in 1939 the British PM Neville Chamberlain returned from the Munich Conference bearing the "scrap of paper" which promised "peace in our time," he received from Greece, a rapturous request for a piece of his umbrella, to be used as a relic in an icon, replicas in painted plywood of which are still sold by enterprising expatriates in Monastiraki of Oakleigh to the present day.

 

My masters also originally sought not to discount American dancer, artist, poet, craftsman, and philosopher Raymond Duncan, who was wont to parade among the unsuspecting populace in Grecian garb, a pursuit he found invigorating. In this endeavour he was ably assisted by his wife Penelope, the sister of Greek poet Angelos Sikelianos, known in the Greek poetic underworld as “the Sicilian,” and feared accordingly. Considering however that Duncan's ultimate goal was a "complete technique of living" which, by synthesizing work, the arts, and physical movement, would result in the further development of man and not specifically the Greek variety of the species, he has to be crossed off the short-list.

 

After a good deal of deliberation, my masters have finally swung to my point of view. The only true saviour of the Greek people who is genteel, an exile, with a connection to Greece, of Nordic stock can be the son of Philip of Greece and hence King Charles, whose predilection for consorting with clerics of the Orthodox variety is well known. Even more well known is his penchant for consorting with Cretans and his participation in the busting of Cretan dance moves while executing the pentozali. Was it not the erudite H. H Munro who in ‘The Jesting of Arlington Stringham,’ observed: “It was during the debate on the Foreign Office vote that Stringham made his great remark that ‘the people of Crete unfortunately make more history than they can consume locally?” Where better to outsource than in the lands of the former colonial suzerains?

 

By now I think I trust you well enough by now to reveal that in keeping with tradition, prophecy and considering his Cretan affiliations, King Charles is actively being considered by the ruling New Democracy part of Greece as the next Consul-General of Greece in Melbourne, as a consolation to those of our diasporic tribe who were completely overlooked for candidacy in the upcoming May elections. According to the policy pundits, only King Charles can save the ailing fortunes of the Cretans, who if the ND party analysts are to be believed, are the only Greeks surviving in Melbourne, post-COVID.

 

And this is where the crux of my dilemma lies. In light of recent revelations as to the identity of Greek-Australian candidates in this month’s Greek parliamentary elections, I am not only authorised to announce that I will be standing as candidate representing the KKE (left-deviant trans-dialectic Hoxha faction) but also that following the party line, which holds that we must support the most reactionary and class exploitative regimes in order to speed the advent of the revolution, I am burdened with the task of forcing my way into the Abbey and co-opting Prince Harry, known for his affinity to things red, to accede to leadership of the Party, or at least challenge the last Greek left in the Socialist Left faction of the Australian Labor Party for it.

Σώσον Κύριε, and may the best comrade win.

DEAN KALIMNIOU

kalymnios@hotmail.com

First published in NKEE on 6 May 2023