Christ is in our midst!
Lest our Brothers and Sisters in Christ be led astray.
I want to present the truth here about the excommunication of Nikos Kazantakis (and open it up to other authors who have crossed the line and dishonored the Church by writing scandalous books.) So, if any of you have information on this topic, please be sure to site your references.
It is well known that Nikos Kazantakis was excommunicated and that the Greek Orthodox Church refused to bury him. Usually other Orthodox Churches honor excommunications and will deny the sacraments to excommunicated Orthodox, no matter what the jurisdiction. (BTW: a funeral is considered to be the last sacrament in the Orthodox Church, as the Orthodox Church believes that a religious tonsure and funeral are sacraments.) It is somewhat surprising then, to learn that the Crete Orthodox Church which is autocephalous from the Greek Orthodox Church decided to honor him with a funeral. However, it appears that they did not bury him on consecrated ground.
One of the most influencial and humble priests in the OCA, who told me that he prefers to remain unnamed, said that Nikos Kazantakis died unrepentant and was buried on unconsecrated ground. Do you believe that this is only the Russians bashing the Greeks? Or is this evidence that Nikos was unorthodox and didn't care what the Greek Orthodox Church said? Notice that the Greeks refused to bury Nikos also. So the bashing theory as proposed by a magazine editorial doesn't work.
Here is some informaton about Nikos Kazantakis taken from the website.
What do you think of Kazantazakis' epitaph? Does it sound Orthodox?
http://www.historical-museum.gr/kazantzakis/index1.html
Kazantzakis chosen epitaph is inscribed on the tomb: "Den elpizo tipota. Den fovumai tipota. Eimai eleftheros." (I hope for nothing. I fear nothing. I am free.)
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http://www.interkriti.org/culture/kazantzakis/kazantz2.htm
"His book, The Last Temptation of Christ, was considered quite controversial when first published in 1955, and prompted angry reactions from both the Roman Catholic Church which banned it, and from the Greek Orthodox Church which excommunicated him!"
[The Pope of Rome, Pius XII, placed Nikos' Last Temptation on the List of Forbidden Books = Index. The Pope rarely puts books on the Index. Note: this was before the excommunications were mutually lifted between the Greek Orthodox and the Roman Catholics by Pope Paul VI.]
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http://www.simplyfamily.com/display.cfm?articleID=000316_SALMAN.cfm
"Not since the 1955 excommunication of Nikos Kazantzakis, modern Greece's literary giant, has a book caused such consternation. Kazantzakis, who like Androulakis was from Crete, was buried on unconsecrated ground after the church refused to forgive him for daring to question Jesus' divinity in: The Last Temptation of Christ."
[It seems like Crete has a bunch of dissidents who are quite unorthodox.]
---
http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft9602/iannone.html
[To be fair, I will quote this also, with excerpts from whole paragraphs so as to have it in context.]
The Last Temptation Reconsidered
"It is not accidental that Kazantzakis, after creating a Christ figure in The Greek Passion, was led to the figure of Christ himself, for it allowed him to resolve several longstanding preoccupations. His early existential and anti-Christian view that God does not redeem man, but man God (delineated, among other places, in his 1927 work The Saviors of God: Spiritual Exercises), is reformed into a serious attempt at Christian theology when the man in question is known to be the redeemer sent by God. The Nietz-schean nihilism of Kazantzakis' earlier writings is transcended here; though Jesus engages in the typically Nietzschean struggle to realize himself, the self he realizes is divine. Finally, bitterly disappointed by the failure of revolutionary Marxism, Kazantzakis could see Jesus as transcending politics toward the greatest revolution of all. Some commentators insist that Kazantzakis to the end was not a Christian and did not believe in God. It doesn't seem to matter in this work; his theology may not be orthodox but he believes in Christ, and that seems to suffice. ...
"Kazantzakis wrote, "I never followed Christ's bloody journey to Golgotha with such terror, I never relived his Life and Passion with such intensity, such understanding and love, as during the days and nights when I wrote The Last Temptation of Christ." Scorsese has said, with considerably less formality, that making the film helped him to know Jesus better. Many readers of the book and viewers of the film have shared these experiences to some extent and it can seem odd that Christians should want to condemn the works that brought that about. [end]
"Carol Iannone teaches at the Gallatian School of Individualized Study at New York University and has written for Commentary, National Review, and Modern Age."
Lest our Brothers and Sisters in Christ be led astray.
I want to present the truth here about the excommunication of Nikos Kazantakis (and open it up to other authors who have crossed the line and dishonored the Church by writing scandalous books.) So, if any of you have information on this topic, please be sure to site your references.
It is well known that Nikos Kazantakis was excommunicated and that the Greek Orthodox Church refused to bury him. Usually other Orthodox Churches honor excommunications and will deny the sacraments to excommunicated Orthodox, no matter what the jurisdiction. (BTW: a funeral is considered to be the last sacrament in the Orthodox Church, as the Orthodox Church believes that a religious tonsure and funeral are sacraments.) It is somewhat surprising then, to learn that the Crete Orthodox Church which is autocephalous from the Greek Orthodox Church decided to honor him with a funeral. However, it appears that they did not bury him on consecrated ground.
One of the most influencial and humble priests in the OCA, who told me that he prefers to remain unnamed, said that Nikos Kazantakis died unrepentant and was buried on unconsecrated ground. Do you believe that this is only the Russians bashing the Greeks? Or is this evidence that Nikos was unorthodox and didn't care what the Greek Orthodox Church said? Notice that the Greeks refused to bury Nikos also. So the bashing theory as proposed by a magazine editorial doesn't work.
Here is some informaton about Nikos Kazantakis taken from the website.
What do you think of Kazantazakis' epitaph? Does it sound Orthodox?
http://www.historical-museum.gr/kazantzakis/index1.html
Kazantzakis chosen epitaph is inscribed on the tomb: "Den elpizo tipota. Den fovumai tipota. Eimai eleftheros." (I hope for nothing. I fear nothing. I am free.)
---
http://www.interkriti.org/culture/kazantzakis/kazantz2.htm
"His book, The Last Temptation of Christ, was considered quite controversial when first published in 1955, and prompted angry reactions from both the Roman Catholic Church which banned it, and from the Greek Orthodox Church which excommunicated him!"
[The Pope of Rome, Pius XII, placed Nikos' Last Temptation on the List of Forbidden Books = Index. The Pope rarely puts books on the Index. Note: this was before the excommunications were mutually lifted between the Greek Orthodox and the Roman Catholics by Pope Paul VI.]
---
http://www.simplyfamily.com/display.cfm?articleID=000316_SALMAN.cfm
"Not since the 1955 excommunication of Nikos Kazantzakis, modern Greece's literary giant, has a book caused such consternation. Kazantzakis, who like Androulakis was from Crete, was buried on unconsecrated ground after the church refused to forgive him for daring to question Jesus' divinity in: The Last Temptation of Christ."
[It seems like Crete has a bunch of dissidents who are quite unorthodox.]
---
http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft9602/iannone.html
[To be fair, I will quote this also, with excerpts from whole paragraphs so as to have it in context.]
The Last Temptation Reconsidered
"It is not accidental that Kazantzakis, after creating a Christ figure in The Greek Passion, was led to the figure of Christ himself, for it allowed him to resolve several longstanding preoccupations. His early existential and anti-Christian view that God does not redeem man, but man God (delineated, among other places, in his 1927 work The Saviors of God: Spiritual Exercises), is reformed into a serious attempt at Christian theology when the man in question is known to be the redeemer sent by God. The Nietz-schean nihilism of Kazantzakis' earlier writings is transcended here; though Jesus engages in the typically Nietzschean struggle to realize himself, the self he realizes is divine. Finally, bitterly disappointed by the failure of revolutionary Marxism, Kazantzakis could see Jesus as transcending politics toward the greatest revolution of all. Some commentators insist that Kazantzakis to the end was not a Christian and did not believe in God. It doesn't seem to matter in this work; his theology may not be orthodox but he believes in Christ, and that seems to suffice. ...
"Kazantzakis wrote, "I never followed Christ's bloody journey to Golgotha with such terror, I never relived his Life and Passion with such intensity, such understanding and love, as during the days and nights when I wrote The Last Temptation of Christ." Scorsese has said, with considerably less formality, that making the film helped him to know Jesus better. Many readers of the book and viewers of the film have shared these experiences to some extent and it can seem odd that Christians should want to condemn the works that brought that about. [end]
"Carol Iannone teaches at the Gallatian School of Individualized Study at New York University and has written for Commentary, National Review, and Modern Age."
