An Aegean Prophecy - Jeffrey Siger [7]
‘So, what do you think the monk was doing running around outside the monastery at that hour?’
‘No idea, but I’m pretty sure he was coming from, not returning to, the monastery. His body was found in the square by the entrance to the lane we took coming here. If he’d been walking through the square he’d have seen whoever was waiting for him. And even an old monk would have put up a struggle for his life. That would have left marks on his body. Besides, if he were returning to the monastery, whoever killed him would have waited up the lane where there were places to hide, and the body would have been found there.’
‘My bet is he was meeting someone.’
Andreas nodded. ‘And I’d bet the answer to all this somehow ties into that meeting.’ He drummed his fingers on the table. ‘Was he giving or receiving? Telling or listening?’ He shook his head. ‘No idea.’
‘Here’s your coffee.’ Dimitri put two cups, a coffee pot, sugar, and milk on the table. A boy behind him set down plates of cakes and cookies. ‘Compliments of the house.’
Andreas looked at Kouros. Kouros winked.
‘So, Dimitri,’ said Andreas. ‘Would you like to join us?’
Dimitri launched into a running monologue on ‘all things monastery,’ supposedly to show ‘what to expect from the abbot.’ Andreas doubted Dimitri’s views were shared by everyone; certainly not by the monks, but he was entertaining and obviously knew far more than any outsider about what went on inside the monastery. Dimitri had grown up within the literal shadow of its walls, had family who rose to prominence in the monastery’s hierarchy, operated his business for years within steps of its main - and he claimed only - entrance, and fought almost daily with monks and the abbot over what he considered their unfair interference with his business.
Dimitri was quick to say that the murdered monk was one of the few not ‘written on my balls,’ a place far worse than any shit list. He agreed with the sergeant: everyone liked Vassilis, including himself, and he had no idea who might have killed him.
He talked about the history of the monastery only when he felt it necessary to put in context his views on what was currently going on ‘inside.’ ‘If you want history, buy a guide book,’ were Dimitri’s exact words. He said he confined his history lessons to tourists who didn’t realize that the Greek Orthodox Church was only a very small part, population-wise, of the three hundred million-member Eastern Orthodox Church dominating Russia, Eastern Europe, and the Christian populations of much of the Middle East. To them, he’d say that what gave the Greek Church its exceptional influence over the Orthodox churches of other countries were the many unique and revered sites within Greece, of which Revelation made Patmos perhaps the best known to the non-Orthodox world.
He described Abbot Christodoulos as ‘one right out of the history books.’ He’d taken his name from Hosios Christodoulos, who founded the monastery in 1088. That first Christodoulos obtained absolute sovereignty over the island and permission to erect the monastery in a direct grant from the Byzantine emperor in Constantinople. Since its early days, the monastery faced a seemingly endless flow of marauding pirates, meddling local bishops, and demanding foreign occupiers. Indeed, not until the end of World War II, when the Italians were ousted, did Patmos return to Greek rule. It took great leadership skills and delicate foreign alliances, including several with the papacy in Rome, to enable the monastery to safeguard its independence and treasures for nearly a thousand years.
‘The monastery has always known how to reach far beyond this tiny island’s borders to survive. Even today, it’s not subject to the Church in Greece, its archbishop, or any other Eastern Orthodox leader. It owes allegiance only to the Ecumenical Patriarch in Constantinople, the worldwide spiritual leader of the Eastern Orthodox Church. At least that’s what we Greeks like to consider him to be, a first among equals in the patriarchs responsible