Posted by PANAGHIOTIS on May 20, 2002 at 23:47:44:
Theodore Kolokotronis had this deep faith. And when the Revolution began, and he ascended to the mountains he was almost alone. And he says, “...I was alone in the mountains with God”. And he made the first revolutionary flag. With tow tree branches which he united crosswise. And this was his banner. And he said, “the preeminence to the cross”. “The preeminence to the cross”. The Cross is the trophy of victory. The Cross is the weapon against the devil. The Cross is the sign of tree joy. The Cross is the proof of God’s love to humanity. For this reason Theodore Kolokotronis used to say “preeminence to the Cross”. And glory to the crucified ones unto the ages. And the crucified ones are always glorified. Our forbears were crucified. They passed through the Holy Friday of the Race with the Turkish occupation and reached the sweet dawn of 1821 which was the Sunday of Pascha for the enslaved Race. For this reason and when they greeted each other they used to say “Christ is risen” and the others responded “Truly He is risen, and Greece is risen” they would add. There’s where the enslaved Greek Orthodox and the rest of the enslaved peoples of the Balkans and of the other countries, who were Orthodox Christians supported themselves on. In the holy faith of Chris, for this reason even after the liberation Kolokotronis spoke at Pnika to the students of High School and told them amongst other things: “When we grabbed the weapons we said first ‘for the faith’, the homeland didn’t exist”.
Theodore Kolokotronis was God-loving, philanthropic and homeland-loving. And once when they asked him to what party he belongs, to the French, the Russian or the English, he said: “I am not either French-loving, nor Russian-loving, nor English-loving, rather only I am God-loving, a friend of God, I belong to the party of God, I belong to the Church of Christ. I love my homeland the Orthodox and glorious one. And I will give all for her”. So how much a man is vivified by these, how much his soul fills and afterwards he comes out and want to also struggle. To love God, to love the homeland, to love people, to correct his own self, to become better and to fill with the grace of this love and of this majesty.