Panteleimon Reports

In Cairo last week a white-bearded Greek Orthodox prelate described how Greek priests are fighting Nazis and Italians. He was Bishop Panteleimon (rhymes with Damon), who escaped to Egypt from his see on the Greek Island of Euboea.

All over Greece, said Bishop Panteleimon, priests have risked their lives to aid Greek guerrillas harrying the Italians and Nazis. Many a Greek Orthodox priest has lost his life because he sheltered wounded British soldiers or in other ways offended the Nazi invaders. One priest was starved in a small cell for 28 days. Nazis forced another priest to witness the slaughter of all his children and grandchildren/- except one, then he and the last child were tortured and slain. One abbot was dragged out of his small monastery by his beard, shot dead. A priest at Herakleion Cathedral, accused of aiding the guerrillas, was stripped naked in the sanctuary, forced to dig his own grave, then shot. Most of these priests, said the Bishop, died murmuring prayers or singing the Greek National Anthem.

Bishop Panteleimon also told of a youth who was charged by an Italian court-martial with attempting to blow up two boats in the harbor of Piraeus. "Excuse me," the young man interrupted, "it was three boats."

/-Greek Orthodox priests marry.

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