Faith in the time of conflict

LOST IN THE LABYRINTH OF SELF DOUBT: A PRIEST’S
LONELY JOURNEY INTO THE MOMENT OF TRUTH
IN NIKOS KAZANTAZAKIS’ THE FRATRICIDES
COURSE: M.A
SUBJECT: ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
YEAR: 2017-2019

LOST IN THE LABYRINTH OF SELF DOUBT: A PRIEST’S
LONELY JOURNEY INTO THE MOMENT OF TRUTH
IN NIKOS KAZANTAZAKIS’ THE FRATRICIDES
Dissertation submitted to the University of Kerala
in partial fulfilment of the Degree of Master of Arts in
English Language and Literature
Name of the Candidate : Ancy M Varghese
Candidate Code : 1017001
Course Code : 530
Subject Code : APEN416
Mar Ivanios College [Autonomous]
Thiruvananthapuram
2018

CERTIFICATE
This is to certify that the dissertation entitled “Lost in the Labyrinth of Self Doubt: A
Priest‟s Lonely Journey into the Moment of Truth in Nikos Kazantzakis‟ The
Fratricides” is a record of studies and research carried out by Ms. Ancy M Varghese,
at the Department of English, Mar Ivanios College, Thiruvananthapuram, under my
guidance, and submitted to the University of Kerala in partial fulfilment of the
requirements for the award of the Degree of Masters of Arts in English Language and
Literature.
.......................... ................................
Dr. Teena Jude Francis Ms. Reshmy Sally Koshy
Head, Department of English Assistant Professor
Mar Ivanios College Department of English
Mar Ivanios College
Thiruvananthapuram
25 March 2019

DECLARATION
I hereby declare that the dissertation entitled “Lost in the Labyrinth of Self Doubt: A
Priest‟s Lonely Journey into the Moment of Truth in Nikos Kazantzakis‟ The
Fratricides” is a record of bona fide research work carried out by me at the
Department of English , Mar Ivanios College[Autonomous] , Thiruvananthapuram
under the guidance of Ms. Reshmy Sally Koshy and submitted to the University of
Kerala in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the award of the Degree of Masters
of Arts in English Language and Literature and that no part of this thesis has been
presented earlier for any degree, diploma or certificate.
Ancy M Varghese
Mar Ivanios College
Thiruvananthapuram

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
With profound feelings of gratitude and appreciation I acknowledge all the
people who rendered their guidance and support for the successful completion of this
dissertation.
At the outset, I thank God Almighty for all the grace He has showered upon
me during the course of my work. I praise Him for His great wisdom and guidance
throughout this endeavour.
I would like to express my sincere thanks to my supervising teacher, Ms.
Reshmy Sally Koshy, Assistant Professor, for the valuable guidance and constant
support extended throughout this dissertation.
I would also like to express my gratitude to Dr. Teena Jude Francis, Head of
the Department of English, Mar Ivanios College, for her encouragement at all the
stages.
I wish to extend my sincere gratitude to all the members of the Department of
English for their help during the entire period of my study.
A final word of thanks extended to the staff of College Library, to my parents,
friends and well wishers for their encouragement and support.
Ancy M Varghese

CONTENTS
Page No.
Preface
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: „Faith and it‟s Double‟: Father
Yanaros in the Wilderness of Doubt
Chapter 3: The Belief of the Unbeliever –
A Rebellion sans Faith
Chapter 4: Blood, Thunder, and Sacrifice –
The Priest‟s Moment of Self Realisation
Chapter 5: Conclusion
Work Cited

Preface
Kazantzakis is well known for his complex affair with religious faith.
His ideologies are actually a blend of unlike thoughts like Christian divine theology,
elements of humanism in Marxist theory of dialectics, Buddhist teaching on negation
and the existential thoughts of Nietzsche. He actually tries to build a bridge between
God and man. He believes in an interdependent relationship between God and man
and this is directly addressed in his work, The Fratricides. The story actually has a
conflict filled background of the Greek Civil War of the late 1940‟s. It is when
conflict occur, two things happen: either people lose their faith or they blindly believe
n whatever they hear, without a personal experience. The so called followers tend to
do things in the name of God. But they do not experience a personal relationship with
God. They forget to communicate with God. But Father Yanaros is an ordinary priest,
who is a God obsessed man. We could call him as a man, who has experienced the
love of God Almighty and has felt for him. He toils for his faith in the time of conflict
and how he becomes the “real” mediator of God. The demarcation of faith within a
single religion can also be seen in the novel. Therefore, the project aims at analysing
the theme of faith in the time of conflict and the demarcation of faith in Nikos
Kazantzakis‟ The Fratricides.

Chapter 1
Introduction
Nikos Kazantzakis‟ work The Fratricides, recounts the tragic violence that
swallowed the Greek countryside in the civil war of the late 1940‟s. The novel
contains many autobiographical elements. Kazantzakis, contemporary of Sikelianos
and Varnalis, was born at Heracleion in Crete and there in that small Turkish
dominated town, where the fever of revolution was secretly burning, he received his
elementary education. The revolution of 1897 obliged him to leave home and spend
two years at a school run by Franciscans in Naxos. According to A History of Modern
Greek Literature, “He was an unquiet spirit, a thirst for every sort of knowledge, and
he not only travelled a great deal, but also lived for long periods abroad and almost
deliberately cut himself adrift from actualities of Modern Greek life.”
(Noushad 221)He was influenced by Bergson and with Sikelianos, he travelled to
Mount Athos. Henri Bergson , one of the most famous and influential French
philosophers of the late 19th
and early 20th
century through his idea of creative force
that drives men towards their own evolution and the strong emphasis on intuition over
pure reason. Sikelianos is the Greek lyric poet and playwright, whose enthusiastic
nationalism influenced Kazantzakis.
The influence of Nietzsche was so clear in the works of Kazantzakis and was
to be permanent in his work both in the element of lack of faith and in the conception
of the superman. Kazantzakis‟ spirit was tormented by anxieties and fundamental
problems like struggle of man with God and his struggle with religious faith. For
instance, in Kazantzakis‟ The Last Temptation, he tried to reclaim the values of
Christianity. His biographers called it a metaphysical anguish. He was troubled by

religious problems, especially the person of Christ (that so mysterious and so real
union of man and God followed him as a permanent idea from his youth till his last
years. He used to travel to Mount Athos, to meditate on human condition. Through
this pilgrimage, he aimed at conquering pettiness, fear and death through faith.
P.Prevelakis, his most authoritative critic, makes a list of the „prophets‟ who in turn
possessed his mind: Nietzsche, Christ, Buddha, Lenin.
The tormented face of Christ was an obsession for Kazantzakis, from his
childhood. His ultimate aim was „freedom‟. The frequent fights between his birth
place Crete and Turkey, urge of his mind to escape from Turkish autonomy, hatred,
fear, prophets, idols- all these were hurdles in his life. His father‟s hatred against
clergy created in Kazantzakis a defiance against Toryism, an advocacy of
conservative principles, opposed to reform and radicalism. He opposed the Tories,
whose actions were noted for their outrages and cruelty. The frequent struggle
between soul and body was the source for all his sorrow and joy, even from his
childhood. According to Kazantzakis, “The dualism between the forces of Satan and
God is his soul and he loved both his soul and body equally.” (Noushad 18)
Kazantzakis had a Nietzschean style of discovering joy from frequent
affliction. He believed afflictions to be the conductive power of human life.
Kazantzakis loved Nietzsche‟s questions than the answers. As a man who integrates
both intense spiritualism and deep liberal desire, he was always socially committed to
social changes. For Kazantzakis, who wandered wretchedly through Christ, Buddha,
Freud, Nietzsche, Burgson, Lenin and Odysseus, god was not an idol, but a
destination, where man ultimately should reach. According to him, Christ is a lesson
to outlive the temptations of the body and earth. This can be accomplished by living
with the masses by surviving through these temptations, rather than by chanting and

living in hermitages. Kazantzakis‟ God was not the one who lurked luxuriously in the
castles of the sky.
Father Yanaros‟ quest to end the civil war in his village exists as a reminder of
those who sacrifice themselves to bring peace, not war. War and greed can destroy
any beautiful city but faith whether in God or man has the potential to repair even the
most damaged people and country. Greece, under the autonomy of Turkey in the 15th
century, was a place of slaves, conflicts, political instabilities, poverty and
superstitions. Kazantzakis represents this Greece in The Fratricides.
He drew the historical scripts of bloodstained Crete through a style of drawing
sequences from the stories woven out of historical events. The dialecticism between
vice and virtue, freedom and confinement, mind and body and the exploited and the
exploiter can be seen throughout his works. Kazantzakis‟ vision was the God who
merges with man and the man who dissolves into God. “Every individual must quarrel
against himself intensely in his soul”(Noushad 24) this happens through Yanaros in
Fratricides. The question, “Am I my brother‟s keeper?” is re-echoed in modern age
too and is depicted in the work.
The continuing story of mercilessness, which repeats in the name of
borderlines, races and theologies, is portrayed in The Fratricides. The concept of God
in the harsh realities of his life is painted in the canvas of the story line. Following
Christ does not mean asceticism, hiding lazily in caves, but the sacrificial life among
people-this is strongly shown in the work with instances like that of the priest who
earns money by exhibiting the Holy Sash of Virgin Mary. Nikos Kazantzakis, thus
through this work, questions the harsh deontology and depths of meanings of freedom
and revolution. In front of death too, Father Yanaros shouts out, “Kill me! You can

kill the last free man, but you will never kill freedom.” (Kazantzakis 249) When
Mandras abuse him as “traitor” (245), Father Yanaros in great pain looks into the altar
and asks how long will Christ remain crucified?”
The creation of Yanaros was the fruit of Kazantzakis‟ frequent research
through the lives of Christ, Nietzsche, Buddha and Marx. Autobiographical elements
are also reflected in Father Yanaros. The pain of people living with the fear of loss in
a foreign world is well said in The Fratricides. Kazantzakis believed in an inner
power that led Buddha, Christ and Lenin to the path of „karma‟ and called that inner
power as „freedom‟. When he left the monastery in despair, he could see God in the
almond tree that stood in the courtyard:
I said to the almond tree
Sister, speak to me of God
And the almond tree blossomed
To love is not a simple thing created conflicts in Kazantzakis. The encounter
between the soldier and the labourer in the novel clarifies this conflict. Yani, the
labourer, who cannot even buy food with his meagre salary, talks against the
employer. The employer along with other labourers expels Yani from the factory.
Yani reaches the hills in search of people who fight for justice. There he sees the fight
between revolutionaries and soldiers. Vassos, the soldier, catches Yani alive, who
joins the revolutionaries. During the tussle, he stabs Yani and has bread and water in
front of the wounded Yani. Yani begs for some water and this awakens the „man‟ in
the soldier, who eventually offers the water. When Yani tells the soldier about his
dependent mother, who lives in his home, Vassos remembers about his four sisters

who are still spinsters, due to poverty. Both Yani, who revolted against injustice and
Vassos, who became a soldier for livelihood are equally hurt and become human
beings who deserve s mercy. Kazantzakis found in the land of Greece, not just the
symphony between body and mind, but also a spiritual presence. After his journey,
the Greece didn‟t give him the memory of an aesthetic rock, but a blend of pain and
responsibility. Kazantzakis once wrote, “My soul is an outcry, my works, the
commentary of that outcry” (Noushad 24) and The Fratricides is thus the commentary
of Kazantzakis‟ outcry on faith.
One of the outcomes of a moment of crisis is the emergence of doubts in the
mind of a believer. Under normal circumstances his faith remains unexamined.
Confronted by a crisis he is forced to address the doubts lurking in his mind. When
one follows a scriptural faith, he is more or less protected from doubts. He can seek
answers in the scriptures and they do not disappoint him often. The case is different
when it is a highly personalized faith like that of Father Yanaros. His relationship
with God is unconventional. It is not that of pious humility. At times he even scolds
God. This kind of faith is, obviously, prone to self-questioning and the specter of
doubt is its constant companion. In the first core chapter of this project, „Faith and its
Double – Father Yanaros in the Wilderness of Doubt‟, this ambivalence in Yanaros‟s
faith is analyzed.
Perhaps in this ambivalence lies the strength of his faith. Even though doubts
torment him, he never strays too far away from his God. In fact, every test of his faith
reinforces it rather than weakens it. He knows that his understanding of God is in no
way intellectual. He is incapable of getting into theological arguments with anyone,
let alone the representatives of the established church. They prefer to denigrate him
for what they perceive to be his ignorance. The core second chapter of this project,

„The Belief of the Unbeliever – A Rebellion sans Faith‟ looks at the way the priest
endeavors to hold on to his faith under extremely trying circumstances
We cannot say that Father Yanaros succeeds in preventing tragedy despite his
sincere efforts to lead the warring factions to the righteous path. Nevertheless, the
priest emerges victorious in his own way. He has overcome doubt and anchors
himself on the solid ground of faith. He is like a valiant prophet who never hesitates
to tell the truth against all odds. His fate is not dissimilar to that of a prophet either.
His self-sacrifice does not come as a surprise and it is certainly the moment of his
triumph. In a certain sense he has overcome the phase of faith as well as that of doubt.
The stature he acquires is beyond doubt and faith. It is too mundane to call it
reconciliation. It is more like the final revelation of truth to him. The final chapter of
this project, „Blood, Thunder, and Sacrifice – The Priest‟s Moment of Self-
Realisation‟ is a close examination of this revelation.

Chapter 2
‘Faith and its Double’ – Father Yanaros in the Wilderness of Doubt
When a conflict arises, doubts begin to haunt one‟s mind. Conflicts
experienced both by the mind and the body sow the seeds of doubts in us, which
could be termed the fruits of bitter experiences. People usually grow sceptical and
confused, when they are in a state of dilemma. This is precisely what happens in
Kazantzakis‟ novel, Fratricides. The bitter experiences of the villagers of Castello
lead them to the threshold of doubt. The novel opens with the detailed and tragic
description of their life- years of hunger, whiplash and death. Kazantzakis calls these
villagers “Wide-flung travellers and slow returners”. (Kazantzakis 8) They lead a
completely tragic life in the arid land of Castello. Their life is portrayed as an
unceasing battle with God and every powers of nature, which eventually leads to
fratricides – “brother hunting brother”. (8)
Ironically, the presence of faith is the prerequisite for doubt. One without firm
convictions leads an amorphous life, and he always sways from one belief to another.
The religious lead a God centred life. Their every action is informed by religious
faith. The rebels, on the other hand have replaced God with man at the centre. Both of
their convictions converge on making life better for the people. They envision a just
and fair society. However, they choose entirely inimical paths to reach this goal. The
result is strife and chaos which often end up in bloodshed.
Owing to the firmness of their convictions, they refuse to recognise any means
other than the path of violence and sacrifice in their attempt to attain their goals. But
once they take this path doubts begin to assail them. At one time or another they
realise that their actions lead them to more misery and injustice than their proclaimed

goal of a just and happy society. Nevertheless, the nature of their convictions does not
leave space for introspection. Then on it becomes a more or less blind struggle. They
feel that they have reached a point of no return.
Now the only choice before them is to lay blame on the other side for the sad
turn of events. But this does not relieve them of their sense of guilt. They know that
they are as much blameworthy as their opponents. This knowledge keeps tormenting
them. Whatever they do after that will plunge them deeper into the labyrinth of guilt
and self-hatred. Strangely the rebel leader chooses the path of mindless violence even
when he knows that other options are open to him.
The fundamental doubt of who to blame for their calamities never departs their
minds. They did everything faithful men were expected do. They followed every
ritual to the word and took to fasting too. When nothing worked, they even questioned
God and the promise of eternal life in paradise. When they faced the harsh reality of
tearing their souls away from their familiar land, they started to doubt everything. The
doubts in their minds were triggered by their pain and their fear about being torn from
their soil. There is a moment when an old woman began to chant a dirge, but the men
turned around and shouted at her to stop. They doubted the efficacy of her chants, as
they had lost their faith in everything.
Moments of this kind demand the services of one who is convincing enough to
guide them out of the maze of doubts. Father Yanaros fails to look upon himself as
their saviour when he himself is racked with doubts. The church in which he had
placed his faith also deserts him. At the back of his mind, he might have felt that the
moment will come when he will have to take upon himself the task of rescuing his
people. But he is ordained to do it neither by the church nor by his congregation. The

villagers are no longer able to look at anyone without suspicion. Suspicion leads one
to mire where he gets the more bogged down the more he struggles.
Father Yanaros finds himself in this slippery ground where not even his faith
comes to his aid. His training as a priest inclines him to seek scriptural answers. But
he feels that his intellectual inadequacy prevents him from reaching the right answers.
He imagines that only one who is well versed in the scriptures is capable of resolving
the seemingly unassailable confusion into which he has been thrown. He does not
recognise that he is only materially poor and spiritually richer than his compatriots.
He can only measure himself with the yardstick of how his priesthood is
appreciated by his congregation. However, their poverty and naiveté at the face of
inexplicable violence and agony do not permit them the leisure to appreciate the
spiritual depth their priest possesses. Moreover, Father Yanaros himself finds the
equipment of his spirituality insufficient to the task at hand. A priest is not often
destined to be a man of action. So, it is merely natural that he finds himself at a loss in
the unfamiliar ground of intricate action.
Again, action, in his case, is never more than an act of persuasion. Perhaps, he
entertains some confidence in his skill to persuade people to choose the right path.
But this confidence is shaken by his discovery that neither of the sides is absolutely
wrong or absolutely right. In fact, the difference between their goals gets more and
more blurred even as he gives more thought on it. It begins to appear that the
difference is only a matter of differences in the means rather than the goals.
The priest can resort only to the language of faith in his attempts to convert
their minds. But even the supposed to be faithful no longer share the kind of faith he
has to offer them. It is doubt that has torn them away from him. They view their priest

and his intentions with suspicion. At a time of conflict people view things only in a
binary way. They are convinced that everyone should represent either one or the other
side as they do. In the case of Yanaros, they find it hard to tag a label on him. They
feel that being a man of God, the priest should denounce the rebels. They cannot
grasp why he hesitates to do that.
The rebels also face a comparable dilemma when they try to understand father
Yanaros and his actions. They do not expect the priest to have any sympathy for their
cause. His arguments baffle them as they sound as rebellious as their own. They do
not know that they are lost in the contradiction of means and ends just as Father
Yanaros is. The priest has been more successful in resolving it than anyone else in the
novel. However, even this success is not strong enough to save him from the doubts
that refuse to depart.
For Father Yanaros, all were his children, and all were his brothers and on all their
faces, he saw God‟s fingerprints. Whenever Father Yanaros stood in the middle,
hesitating whose side he should take, he ended up advocating love and brotherhood.
But the doubt in the villagers‟ minds made them curse and insult him as a fascist and
traitor. The doubts rooted in them were exploited by some monks, who claimed to
have the Holy Sash of Virgin Mary with them. Father Yanaros understandably, had
doubts about the genuineness of their claim. As there was no one to ask about it, he
turned to Virgin Mary, and asked her whether it was her real Sash. He failed to get a
clear answer from her as well. When Father Yanaros preached to the villagers about
love and brotherhood, the monk who claimed to have the Sash asked them to kill the
rebels. Torn between these extremes, the people of Castello fell into utter chaos and
confusion.

For the common man, there is no way available to distinguish between the
real men of God and false preachers. Most of the time counterfeits appear to be more
genuine and luminous and the real ones. In fact, it is their business to dupe believers
by appearing to be more convincing than the genuine preachers. At one time or
another, it should have passed Father Yanaros‟s mind that the true path to enter the
believer‟s mind could be crooked. At the same time, he knows that appropriating the
ways of false preachers is the devil‟s job.
The priest finds himself plodding a lonesome path time and again. He has a
feeling of having been abandoned. But he does not know by whom he has been
abandoned or how. For one thing, it has to be emphasised that he never feels that God
has abandoned him. His conversations with Christ continue uninterrupted. They, of
course, reflect his anguish and doubts. But they are never any misgivings about the
ways of God. Perhaps, it is the church as an institution that has abandoned him. He
has no means to deal with such abandonment. He knows that the superior wisdom of
the church is unfathomable to him, though he suspects something shady about it.
Father Yanaros longed to see a speck of faith in their eyes. He wished for a
smile on their faces, while he watched them during the first vigil of Sunday, but
Father Yanaros couldn‟t find anything soft on their faces. He preached to them about
God‟s passion, but it fell upon deaf ears. Christ couldn‟t enter their hearts, filled with
doubt. Their hearts were hardened because of doubts. Father Yanaros does all in his
powers to bind them towards God‟s passion and thus to avoid more fratricides. But
their voices remain angry and their faces grim. The words of the priest fail to pacify
the villagers. They seem to have only one aim- to destroy the rebels and they stay
determined to accomplish it.

The scenario of civil-war is built chiefly upon intolerance. Either side begins
to perceive things in black and white. The enemy is seen as the embodiment of evil
and their own side representing everything that is good. The very idea of such a
dichotomy has a core of self-doubt at its centre. So, in a way, the beginning of doubt
can be traced back to this self-doubt. Every voice they hear plunges them deeper into
doubts. It is no wonder that Father Yanaros‟s voice becomes ineffectual within such a
context.
When Vassos chases his enemy and attacks him, his mind is full of hatred, which has
no room for brotherhood. When the guerrilla asks him for a sip of water, questioning
his humanity, Vassos looks at the rebel‟s face as though for the first time. His mind is
in doubt, he finds it hard to determine whether to show humanity and give some water
to the enemy or to remain cruel and kill him mercilessly. The selection of the latter
choice will prove the lost humanity in Vassos, who is the epitome of doubt. Vassos
asks the guerrilla to bark like a dog. Although hesitant at the outset, for the sake of
getting some water, he does it with great pain. It is the pain in his voice that melts
Vassos‟ heart and makes him offer water to the enemy. It is the pain in their hearts
that makes the villagers doubt everyone and every act – “When a brother wounds you,
you are always badly hurt.”(56)
Kazantzakis deliberately chose the context of a fratricide to examine questions
on faith and the absence of it. Faith, by its very nature, must be akin to mercy and
kindness. When a person can commit the most heinous of acts in the name of faith,
what kind of transformation is taking place? Does it result in the total absence of
faith? Or does it mean the total absence of it even at the beginning? The fact that
Vassos‟s mind remains capable of melting at the sight of human suffering might
suggest the presence of faith in him even unknowingly of him.

We expect a rebel leader like Vassos to have firm convictions. We imagine
him to act from these convictions without ever being disturbed by doubts of any kind.
But he is as much tormented by doubts as even his lowliest soldier. The way he
attempts to confront insurmountable problems with violence shows his vulnerability.
His rashness and recklessness are the direct consequence of his uncertainty and
hesitation. He should be aware that his every action takes him further down the path
of totally reckless violence. He seems to be haunted by the feeling that things have
gone out of his hands.
But the mask of the leader he chose for himself does not allow him to reveal
his mind to anyone, let alone the priest. We find the discovery of his own feelings
unsettling him. A leader, by necessity is alone at the top. He cannot afford to have
friends. No one is generally permitted to counsel him either. Aloneness usually is an
ideal situation for introspection. But most often than not leaders take care to avoid a
confrontation with them. They prefer to believe that destiny has thrust upon them the
duty of even acting against their true nature. They fear the exposure of their
weaknesses more than the hollowness of their actions.
One young man, who was sent by Father Arsenios, tells Father Yanaros that
he cannot live in doubt. At a closer analysis he seems to have traces of almost all the
characters in the novel. In fact, he becomes the representative of all who live in the
time of conflict. His mind becomes the mirror of all those minds, which are troubled
by doubts in times of conflict. His faith in the representatives of God falters and this
leads to the doubts in his mind as well as that of everyone who has a similar fate.
Once they believed blindly in the representatives of the Church, but now they doubt
them with their whole heart. They found out that the Church had abandoned Christ
and created a new world sans Christ. They believed that the Church placed Christ

among the elites of the world, ignoring their power over other people‟s lives. The
young man says that he misses the poor, impoverished Christ, the one who is barefoot
and hungry- the Christ of Emmaus.
Here, Kazantzakis looks squarely at the role of the church in sustaining the
belief system of the masses. When it begins to take sides with the rich and the
powerful, more than anything else, it loses its credibility. The poor, the suffering, and
the oppressed find themselves pressed to the wall and they are forced to seek other
ways to reach God than the one prescribed by the church. The author explores the
desirability and possibility of discovering such a personal God. Yanaros‟s God
appears to be more and more of a personal God as the novel progresses.
A priest is supposed to identify himself with the church. The congregation is
not ready to recognise him in any other way. A priest who does not represent the
church loses authority in their eyes. Father Yanaros‟s doubts places him in such a
predicament. It appears unclear whether the church has abandoned him, or he has
turned his back on the church first. In the eyes of the villagers he is very much like a
defrocked priest. His efforts to get back into the good books of the church fail again
and again as the ways of the church gets progressively alien to him.
He knows that his lot is to face the crisis as a human being bereft of the
symbolic paraphernalia lent by the church. At the moment they lend him no support.
They stay on him as incomprehensible burdens that weigh him down. They curtail his
freedom of action rather than make his task easy in any way. So he forgets his priest‟s
garb and confronts his own self and recognizes it with its strengths and weaknesses.
He is no longer ashamed of his anger; he no longer rues his loss of self-control.

Areti, the village midwife approaches Father Yanaros with the dead body of
her grandson, questioning the presence of God. She asks Yanaros, how God could
claim himself to be Almighty and All-Powerful, when He didn‟t even have a little
piece of bread to give the child. She curses God and goes to the field to bury the child
without the last rites. Father Yanaros, disillusioned, wants to ask God for justification.
But he is afraid to do so. Doubts invade and choke his mind. His mind is in turmoil,
constantly failing to get any replies or explanation about the fratricides.
The weight of human suffering and its unfairness also sows doubts in the mind
of the faithful. He is trained to find God‟s mercy everywhere. The seeming absence of
it perplexes him. The turmoil gets harder when one is a priest with a calling to justify
the ways of God to man. The death of a child from poverty stretches his skills to do it
to the edge. He knows the words he can conjure up cannot be adequate to the
occasion. He faces an unfathomable void where even his very existence appears to be
a travesty.
Villagers slowly start losing their hope. “Years and years of struggle; years
and years of hope; How much longer?” (90) Hope gets drained from their hearts.
Doubts flood their minds. When Father Yanaros comes to meet the school master, he
doubts whether he should let Father Yanaros in. He thinks that Father Yanaros will
talk about God, which he is tired of hearing. The priest‟s calling itself is in crisis at
moments of this kind. He knows he has no other means to deal with the faithful than
his words. At the same time, he realises that the right words have abandoned him, or
they do not possess the intended meaning anymore. They will sound monotonous to
him as well as to others. The school master‟s perception of the priest has already
taken that turn. He feels he has nothing more to get from the priest other than empty
words. Father Yanaros is in no position to assert his authority either. He knows that

the school master, being more articulate than most of his fellow men epitomizes the
real state of mind of the villagers. He can imagine the other villagers turning more
impatient to his seemingly endless arguments than the school master.
When we look closely at faith, we realise that even faith is a linguistic
construct. The idea of God, of redemption, and of perdition is sets of meticulously
constructed verbal entities. The firmness of faith depends on the solidity of these
entities. A moment of crisis challenges this solidity. These constructs dissolve into
rather amorphous and formless clouds that roam the minds of the faithful. The assault
on faith too comes in the form of other verbal constructs. Eventually, it becomes a
question of accepting certain of them and rejecting certain others.
The equipment of the priest, which also is composed of verbal constructs,
begins to falter. Their attributed meanings tend to disappear. This is at the core of the
crisis he faces. Suddenly he faces the need to reconstruct them. He doubts whether he
is equal to that enormous task. We know that father Yanaros is not the kind of priest
who depends heavily on the scriptures in his communication with the congregation.
He likes to touch the realities of their life in his efforts to urge them to accept the path
of God.
Moreover, he is uncertain of his powers as a theologian. He does not possess
any depth of knowledge when it comes to theological questions. When he turns to his
elder priests for guidance, they seem to abandon him. The realisation that he has to
fight the battle on his own exhausts him. Perhaps, the school teacher has discovered
this weariness in the priest. The other villagers also could have at least a vague
understanding of it. At the same time, father Yanaros is not prepared to concede

defeat hands down. This determination makes him a true warrior of God and his
struggle heroic.
In the diary of Leonidas, in which he converses to Maria, a question raises its
head several times. Leonidas doubts, “Why am I fighting? For whom am I
fighting?”(103). As days pass, his doubt grows, so is his torment. He carries with him
his dream to run to Maria and lead a peaceful life. But he knows he can never leave.
Whenever he acts cruelly, Leonidas is aware of his brutality, similar to that of an
animal. He admits that he is not a human anymore. He writes in the letters that he
doesn‟t have the time or strength to think of anything else, when he carries the rifle.
He fights like a beast, to kill so that he will not be killed. But doubts about the reason
behind these brutal killings stay in his mind. He even doubts the ideology to which he
is attached. When he sees the captain, who has killed five young men, for refusing to
join the national army, he suspects his ideology to be false. These doubts lead him to a
state in which he cannot distinguish between truth and lies. Leonidas writes, “There is
no great sadness than being in love and having to part from your beloved;” (109) But
the romantic pain in his mind is dominated by the doubts about the war that fills the
weather. His mind riddled with doubts makes him unable to sleep.
Interestingly, the seemingly brutal fighter and the religiously faithful share
doubts of a similar nature. They doubt what they have put their faith in. Either of them
could be imagining playing a part in getting things better. But they realise that they
have definitely lost their way somewhere. But it is not in their hands to correct the
course. They cannot see anyone making an effort to do it either. They feel that their
lives are determined elsewhere and their actions are governed by someone else. A
naïve believer might put faith in his priest to resolve the conundrums of his existence.

An ordinary soldier might look forward to his commander to choose the right course
of action. Both of them find their faith betrayed in the end.
Every battle draws to its heart people like Leonidas. They could represent
opposing sides. They know that they have nothing to do neither with the origin of the
battle nor with its conclusion. They are thrown into the vortex of the chaos and it is
very unlikely that they will ever come out unscathed. More than anyone else, they
know the tragic nature of their sealed fate. Leonidas longs to lead a quiet life with
Maria, the girl he loves. However, he knows that he has traversed too far along the
path of chaos to think of a return now. The cruelty he displays in the battlefield is an
indicator of the inescapability of his predicament.
In every war, the foot soldier fights other people‟s wars. It has been so from
the moment our settler ancestor had drawn his sword against his brother for the first
time to protect property or redeem his prey even though he had only a vague idea of
owning them. In that sense, every war fought everywhere since then is fratricide. The
more aggressive among them started the war. The others had no choice but to join the
fight or get killed by his own men. The glorification of war also should have begun
with that.
It is no wonder that during intervals of introspection a soldier thinks soberly
on what he does. He cannot help despising himself for the atrocities he has
committed. The more he thinks about it, the more senseless the battle appears. Ideas
like martyrdom were constructed to neutralise the soldier‟s lapse into doubts. The
offer is of something higher in the other world for the dear things he sacrifices in this
life.

One wonders if this promise is capable of convincing every soldier. The
nobility of fighting for a just cause is another lure the soldier is subject to. Ironically,
the opposing sides believe equally in the purity of their cause. The promise is that of a
better worldly life. However, it is poor consolation to a soldier who cannot think of
escaping the battlefield alive. Another irony of war is the invariable loss of young
lives. Young people like Leonidas, with dreams of a happy future, perish in every
war.
The soldiers see a woman, with a red handkerchief sneaking around, who
hides and reappears. Every time she has been around, two or three soldiers get killed.
Some take her to be Virgin Mary. But doubt arises, asking whether the virgin will kill
people. Their doubts blend with their faith. Their thoughts on Second Coming and the
trumpet of the Angel get amalgamated with the doubts regarding war. They even go
to the extent of assuming God to be asleep. The entries in Leonidas‟ diary abruptly
come to an end in the evening of Holy Monday, for he gets killed on Holy Tuesday.
But the doubts still remain dangling in the air.
Moments of crisis bring their own delusions too. The apparitions might have a
soothing purpose at times. Nevertheless, even the soothing apparitions turn out to be
mere chimera later. The mysterious and inexplicable disappearance and reappearance
of the woman seem to be a promise and a threat in turn. When things get out of hand
the villagers can only hope for divine intervention to set things right. At the same
time, they are aware of the futility of such a hope. In many senses, they realise that
their predicament is something beyond repair.
When their faith in God or an ideology is shaken, people look for substitutions
to pin their faith on. Such moments signal the emergence of false prophets. Delusions

overpower people. They will be promising ones at times and entirely negative and
intimidating ones at other times. The appearance of the woman can be interpreted
both ways. People want to accept her as Virgin Mary, in their desperation. It,
obviously, is a soothing suggestion. But the idea soon gets clouded with doubts.
A crisis brings with it a topsy-turvy world. Conscientious priests like Yanaros
lose their authority, whereas false prophets begin to have a field day. Illusions and
delusions begin to control people. When the religious succumb to delusions of a
spiritual inclination, the rebels have their own secular delusions. They seem to think
that the destruction of faith will result in the establishment of a fair society. They are
oblivious of the fact that they also have nothing better to offer than faith, though of a
different kind.
Faith as a set of values and ideas gets transformed into apparitions. The power
of the word is eroded. Father Yanaros fails for that reason. He fails to comprehend the
cause of his failure for the same reason. Another option before him is to teach by
example. Can he assume the role of a fighter to set himself as an example? In that
case which side could he choose? There are no easy answers to these questions. Soon
the priest realises that it is futile to wrack his brain over these questions.
Blind faith sometimes leads people to be sacrilegious fools. For instance,
Hadji says that it is useful to become a Hadji because people respect him and
therefore it is much easier to fool them. Faith, during the time of conflict, gets
exploited in various ways. Hadji seems to live his life, exploiting the faith of the
villagers. Wherever he goes, he sets up his tent with a sign board, which reads “The
Mysteries of Marriage”. He trades in faith, offering to reveal the mysteries of
marriage for one drachma.

People are more vulnerable to the vile machinations of false prophets at
moments of crisis. They will be far too desperate to distinguish between genuine
preachers and fake ones. People like Hadji take full advantage of the uncertainty in
the minds of the faithful to enforce their hold on them. The proliferation of fortune
tellers and mind readers during adverse times is very common. When one stares at a
bleak future any promise will sound a blessing.
Apart from the general disorientation they experience at the face of crisis, the
faithful often feel that their faith itself is in crisis. Fake preachers find it convenient to
exploit such moments. They succeed in convincing the faithful that their brand of
faith is more powerful than his already wavering faith. The hurt and the wounded
need healing. Therefore, the promise of faith healing and fate reading seems attractive
to the faithful. Even meeting one with alleged powers of healing relieves their
anguish, at least momentarily.
Kyriakos, who wished to be a priest, has found an explanation for Christ‟s
actions. He characterises Christ as an irregular verb and those around him, including
Anna, Kayafas, Pharisees and Scribes, as regular verbs. The latter had laws to obey
and the Ten Commandments to follow. Whoever broke them was a rebel. This
explanation puts further doubts in the minds of the villagers and Stelianos airs his
confusion candidly, he asks him who is right – whether those who follow rules or the
one who emerges suddenly and rebels against all conventions. Doubts get crowded in
their minds. Iron bends when it is placed in fire and they call the fire Christ.
The role of words and language in the construction of any belief system is
reemphasised when we listen to Kyriakos‟s verbal jugglery in his attempt to justify
Christ. In fact, he resorts to a grammatical analogy. It seems a pretty self-conscious

way of distinguishing Christ and his compatriots. Christ is described as an irregular
verb with no obligation to follow any commandments. It will not be too far off to
imagine Christ being an element in the constellation of grammatical categories as is
every other historical figure.
We are also reminded that laws and commandments are primarily verbal
constructs. Faith, to a great extent, is built upon a body of constructs of that kind.
Words, by their very nature, are exposed to interpretations. When the going is easy,
the priest‟s job is very straightforward. He does not have to deviate too far from
consensual interpretations. The faithful generally accept them without any rigorous
examination. The techniques of preaching play upon the general lack of curiosity
among the believers. Many of them take most of the things the preacher tells them for
granted.
But when the going gets tough the preacher‟s task too gets complicated. The
faithful begin to pay more attention to their words making him suspect the erosion of
their hold over them. He suddenly faces the need examine each word he chooses.
Moreover, he suddenly discovers their inadequacy and struggles to formulate newer
ways of conveying his meaning. He falls into unchartered territory there and gets ever
doubtful of his powers to communicate with his congregation.
The struggle within their mind is between their urge to believe and to rebel
without even knowing which shape their rebellion would take. They have an
instinctive belief that disobedience is by its very nature evil. At the same time, they
feel that oppressive social conditions have to be remedied. In the first place, they
believe that the power to correct social ills resides in God‟s hands. It will be too
presumptuous on the part of man to claim the power of God. But letting injustice

reign also is not acceptable. Most often, their actions reap the wrong rewards, they
realise.
All the doubts in the minds of Father Yanaros coalesce and eventually lead
him to the path of complete devotion to God. He finds justice on both sides and
continues to remain uncertain whose side he should take. During the conversation
between Father Yanaros and Christ, the priest stares trembling and wide-eyed at
Christ. He suspects God‟s words to be double-edged, double-mouthed and dangerous.
The reason is the confused mind of man. God‟s words open both hell and heaven and
the fear in man drives him to doubts, which make him unable to distinguish between
both.
Father Yanaros‟s conversations with Christ set him apart from other priests. It
becomes clear that he talks with his own personal God. That is exactly what makes his
faith unique and of the difficult kind. It is, in no way an easy and comfortable variety
of faith. In a sense, it brings anguish to himself as well as to God. We can say that it is
a soul draining kind of faith. It involves a severe and relentless form of catechism.
Yanaros‟ doubts are all on God‟s strange words. He expects something
mysterious and incomprehensible in them. But they seem to be prosaically simple and
straightforward. He gets confused when he cannot find any hidden meaning behind
these words. He asks God the reason behind such concealment – “He pretends not to
know. He, the All- Knowing, the All- Powerful! Why? Why? Doesn‟t He love us?
Doesn‟t He grant us? Doesn‟t He care about man?”(149)
The mysteries of the world and those of the word can be disarmingly simple.
They could turn out to be no mysteries at all. Theology and the rhetoric used by
priests attempt to mystify the believer rather than clarify things to him. A layman and

a diffident priest of Yanaros‟s kind will get bogged down in the maze of high-
sounding words. They will take their failure to understand them as their own fault.
They cannot bring themselves to believe that the learned priests and their phraseology
also can be at fault. Eventually, they succumb to the intriguing absence of mysteries
which turn out to be more troublesome than the heaviness of mysteries.

Chapter 3
The Belief of the Unbeliever – A Rebellion sans Faith
The novel „Fratricides‟ examines how faith fares in the time of conflict. Faith
overcomes the test gloriously and emerges as the hero of the novel. Faith keeps the
characters survive, gives them hope and moves the novel ahead. Father Yanaros, in
the unenviable mantle of middle man in the conflict surrenders himself to God. He is
the lone person to stand between the blacks and the reds, stretching his empty arms
wide. The priest‟s faith lends him the moral strength and courage to confront the
violent opponents, unarmed and disillusioned. When Father Yanaros, God‟s
representative in Castello stands among them asking them to shed their hostility and
unite, they jeer and shout at him calling him a traitor and a fascist. But Father Yanaros
remains unperturbed and grateful to God for entrusting him with such a dangerous
task. He only asks him not to try him with too much pressure as he is no animal, but
human.
The strength of father Yanaros‟s faith lies in it being a personal faith. Though
being a man of the church, his faith is not precisely the kind prescribed by the church.
A system that depends too heavily on discipline and obedience has no resources to
deal with a time of chaos. That is where Yanaros‟s alienation from his church begins.
He believes that he does not require the mediation of the church to get in touch with
Christ. He has an instinctive understanding of what Christ symbolises and what His
place in the scheme of things is. But what the church in its assumption of superior
intelligence sees in father Yanaros is arrogance.
His faith makes him address the Almighty as Father. He believes in Father
Damianos‟s words, “He is our Father, would a Father want what is bad for His

Children?”(13) Faith made them believe that like Jews, they were moving from the
land of the faithless to the land of promise. When the village was enshrouded in a
cloud of tears, Father Damianos asked them to have faith in God and not to weep. But
he suddenly wept in pain. Their pain is sharp, but faith keeps them survive the conflict
at the end.
Though aware of the validity of having a personal faith, Yanaros does not
wilfully disobey his church. He is rather pained to see that the elder priests do not
even make an attempt to understand him. He never denies their superior wisdom. He
is too humble to think that he knows better than them. But the way the church takes
sides baffles him. He cannot believe that God despises anyone for his views.
When the villagers were forced to move out of the earth that was made up of
their ashes, sweat and blood, they kissed the soil and took handfuls of soil and hid
them in their clothes. Left to themselves, they murmured phrases steeped in faith,
“God is Great”, “God loves His people”, “Whatever God does, He does for our
good.”(16)With faith in their hearts, they steeled their hearts. Their faith enabled them
to make the sign of the cross and enter their new homes. When Father Yanaros stood
in the middle, not knowing which side to take, he saw them as God‟s children, as
brothers and on all their faces he saw God‟s fingerprints. This faith in God Almighty
makes him proclaim “Love”.
What we find in the villagers is very close to the kind of faith Father Yanaros
has. Their faith in God and His mercy is not shaken even when they suffer
displacement and loss of whatever they hold dear to their heart. Father Yanaros
understands their pain by experiencing it in himself. Ironically, the villagers fail to
understand him and their hostility merely increases when the priest tries to

communicate with them. This failure is another characteristic of a moment of crisis.
People begin to fight one another when words cease to be the mediator. Every
moment of crisis is, in a sense, a moment of verbal failure too.
Faith enables the priest to see Christ around him. He finds God on earth,
fighting. He feels the pain of God. He realizes the injustice suffered by God. He
wanted his people to feel compassion towards Jesus in pain. When the fratricides
began, he pleaded with them to unite. But it was in vain, and the priest found himself
alone in the church, with Christ, the Virgin and the Saints. He cried with Christ, felt
for Him and murmured, “My Lord, my Lord, they are crucifying You again.”(37)
Lent is considered a season of repentance and fasting. But even at the dawn of
Holy Monday, the warring people shouted furiously at one another. Father Yanaros,
as the middle man, ran helplessly from one dead to the other, administering
communion, closing the eyes of the dead and reading their last rites. He asks God
Almighty‟s forgiveness for their sake. The faith in Father Yanaros is not just a show-
piece; rather it drives him to spend his days with the people. He wished to remove the
cares of man from his soil, as one changes a soiled shirt. He can be called the modern-
day Simon of Cyrene (who helped Jesus to carry His Cross out of Jerusalem). He
carried the heavy cross of tolerance. He asked the people to repent, but they did not
respond to his desperate calls. His actions were aimed at standing with Christ, wiping
out His Tears, and making his people feel compassionate to put an end to fratricides.
War-cries cannot be characterised as verbal communication. They are mere
sounds without any specific meaning attached to them. Their chief purpose is
intimidation. They are responded to with similar cries. In fact, the chief characteristic
of a war situation is the total absence of communication between the warring sides.

Caught in the midst of a war of that kind, Father Yanaros is compelled to realise the
limitations of his equipment as a man of God. The abstract nature of faith demands
the right words to carry it to the people. There are no guidelines to follow in choosing
the right words. Moreover, they vary from time to time, person to person and place to
place.
When he saw that the bitter blood of vengeance had started to flow in the
veins of the kids in the village, he was horrified. One day, he saw a child at his steps,
out of hunger, eating soil. But when Father Yanaros asked him whether he was
hungry and offered him a piece of bread, he rejected it telling he was not hungry.
When the priest saw the world in a rotten state, he even felt compassion for God.
There is an instance in the novel, when Father Yanaros asks God, “My God, how can
You hold it in Your arms, without hurling it down and smashing it into thousand
pieces,”(47) so that from the mud, he can create a new world, a better one. He felt
guilty for the child who ate the dirt. He became helpless and desolate. He would
repeatedly say, “Every saint is a fire walker. And so is every honest man in his hell,
we call life.” (49)
Self-doubt torments him, whenever Father Yanaros comes across seemingly
inexplicable human suffering. Within a conventional belief system, a priest possesses
the power to answer the questions of the laity using recognisable theological and
scriptural interpretations. But when the contradictions between scriptural truth and
human experience become far too obvious this authority wanes. He begins to suspect
that we live within an uneven system where God‟s mercy and justice also seem to be
selectively distributed. It is very hard to find justification for a child‟s suffering. A
priest cannot simplify it as an instance of reaping the wages of sin. He cannot hide
behind the vagueness of the ways of God either. Facing this dilemma, the priest

recognises himself to be a victim rather than one with ready answers to the question
of human suffering.
When he was tired and exhausted, he sank on the cot. But he was not in need
of sleep. What he wanted only was the repentance of the people. In a dream Father
Yanaros had, Virgin Mary lay at God‟s Feet, praying for mercy. Father Yanaros sees
the Virgin reminding them that Her Son is not only just, but also merciful, reminding
us of Psalms 25:8, “Good and upright is the Lord.” And he saw Christ smiling and
permitting the sinners to enter Paradise. Even, he allows the demons to enter the
House of God, assuring them that the Second Coming doesn‟t mean justice alone, but
also mercy. When Father Yanaros identifies it just as a dream, his heart aches and he
longs for the melting of his people‟s hard rock minds. Woke up from the dream, he
thought he heard the deep moans of a man in pain. He was actually hearing the cry of
Christ in pain.
Faith, reaching the extreme, may make people mad. This happens with Father
Arsenios, who went mad. Due to rigid fasting and being too saintly, he lost his mind.
He had too many conversations with God. This may be the result of his discovery that
his rites and rituals were of no use. But this came as a shock to Father Yanaros. When
Father Yanaros comes to know why the young man, who came to meet him, secluded
himself with profane literature, moving away from his aim of being a bishop, he is
baffled. He explains that it was because the word of Christ has been degraded; God‟s
message upon earth has faded. He tells him that he cannot live without certainty,
which Father Yanaros agrees with and finds in it the reason for his own suffering.
When the young man tells him that he finds it too heavy to survive, Father Yanaros
states his stand on faith saying that he is not disillusioned, because he has a place to
stand beside Christ. When he sees that the young man is depressed because he saw

Christ‟s degradation by the church, Father Yanaros says that he is not worried about
the acts of the bishops. He has learned to value Christ‟s reverence more than that of
the Church.
One of the options before him is to choose the path trodden by Father
Arsenios. It is really an absence of choice. It is like exchanging your sanity with blind
uncertainty. The idea of sin and its expiation lies at the centre of such extreme
situations. The hope is that the more you torture yourself the more you earn your
release from sin. But none can be sure of the resultant state of mind of the mad priest.
It is not precise to call it a madness induced by the extremity of faith. The sane are not
really qualified to evaluate the insane and their ways. In reality they exist in different
planes which have nothing in common.
Father Yanaros knew God Almighty, and he addressed him Father. This was
made possible by the strength of faith in him. He knew that God designates for each
one the suitable answer for his salvation. He sighed, thinking of God as his Father.
(“The Spirit helps us in our weakness. We don‟t know what we ought to pray for, but
the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans” [Romans 8:26]). He
sang with the birds in solitude. He murmured about God in silence:
Solitude... solitude... solitude...,...... What sweetness, what peace, what
reconciliation! God comes, you see Him, and He sits beside you like a
long-lost father who has just returned from foreign shores laden with
gifts. (71)
He knew God in silence. He understood God and man as fighters and he urged men to
fight beside Him. He assured that the statements proclaimed by the rebels couldn‟t be
the Word of God, as they had a passion for material things.

A priest‟s vocation can be seen as one of action and passivity at the same time.
He feels that one can only experience God in solitude. This solitude implies the
essential singularity of Father Yanaros‟s faith. His faith is an entirely personal one
which cannot be shared with anyone else. In essence, faith in everyone‟s case is a
totally individualised experience. Just as one cannot share the most intimate sensual
experience one‟s faith cannot be truly understood or experienced by anyone else.
Father Yanaros had firmness in his faith. He heard voices within him. The
voice painted Satan as the leader of the happy, the satisfied and the contented and the
portrait of Christ was presented as the leader of the unfortunate, the restless and the
hungry. Even though the voice warned him, Father Yanaros took it as satanic
temptation and stood firm in his faith. Even when he grew tired to the abyss of
exhaustion, he didn‟t lose his faith, but rediscovered it in him. Father Yanaros always
had conversations with God. When he tightened his grip on the Holy Chalice, he felt
that God was leading him through the desolate alleys of Castello. He explained to
God the transformation of humans to animals. They turned out to be beasts. He
always depended on God and asked Him to help him and bring God‟s Image back to
Castello.
Father Yanaros believed that faith can move mountains. Leonidas‟ diary on
the noon of Holy Monday contains the same belief. He writes to Maria that he has
faith in his soul, with wings to fly and thus see the future; with this faith, Father
Yanaros struggled and fought to make the beasts human, considering Christ as his
refuge. He firmly believed that God will condescend to reply to man and with this
belief, he waited. Whenever he was doomed in damp uncertainty, he pleaded with
God Almighty to lead him out of it. He thus took God as his best friend and best
neighbour and felt relieved.

Father Yanaros suffered a lot. But he took it as God‟s gift to him. He always
thanked God for the bitter cups given to him each day. He was confused when he felt
that God treated people who loved him harshly. But he had enough faith in him to
believe that whatever God did was for good, regardless of our understanding of it. He
believed that it was too audacious to pretend to understand God‟s Actions. Whatever
questions and doubts arose in man‟s mind arose not from man, but from Satan. These
beliefs made his heart free from questions and fill it with unwavering faith.
He spoke for God. When the villagers came to the Church for the
Resurrection, Father Yanaros refused to open the door. He told them there would be
no vigil that night or no Resurrection the next day. He asked them to return to their
homes and said that Christ would lay in His Bier as long as fratricides continued. He
said that it is Greece, who is being crucified when they kill each other; along with
Christ. So he asked them to stop killing and resurrect Greece and thus resurrect Christ.
He realized the fact that Christ cannot rise from the blood drenched land. He cannot
resurrect in a place, where fratricides happen –not in Chalika, or in Prastova or in
Castello. He asked them to wash off the blood from their hands, and then resurrect
Christ. They called him Judas and warned him that the bishop would disrobe him for
this reason. But Father Yanaros, who is firm in his faith, is not afraid of that threat and
says in confidence that he will merely walk into Paradise without robes. Enraged,
Mandras threw his staff at Father Yanaros and blood began to spurt from his brow.
People cursed him as Judas and Anti- Christ. But he didn‟t respond to any of them. He
simply wiped off the blood from his face and closed the door. For him, as St. Paul
says, life was Christ and death was gain.
A great pain clutched his head, whenever he remembered a dream he had
during the first days of Castello. When he lay asleep in the crumpled Chapel of the

Forerunner on the side of the hill, he heard a woman‟s weeping. She introduced
herself as Greece and asked for refuge. He consoled Greece promising that he would
not leave Greece alone and unprotected. He asked her to have faith and promised to
die for Greece‟s sake. The sufferings and pains he took were those he did to keep his
word and faith. But he always had faith pinned inside him. “He felt the Invisible
around him, as hard as the stone and scented like the thymes.”Whenever he went to
the uninhabited hilltops, he felt the presence of God. With this his heart always
neighed like a stallion. He never felt lonely or desolate, when several of the others
around him felt so. Whenever he felt depressed, he discovered a supernatural strength
in his heart and his hands and thus gained a new courage.
When he saw the transition of the society, Father Yanaros wished for a new
incarnation of Christ. He saw a world lacking respect and God. He wished Christ to
appear with a whip and not with a cross, to rout the lawless and the unjust from the
world. Even when the village completely forgot Christ, when they laughed at the
mention of Christ, Father Yanaros stood uncompromisingly on the rock of his faith.
After the Resurrection, the captain asked everyone to return to their homes.
Indignantly, Father Yanaros asked the captain to keep his word. He wished with his
whole heart to stop fratricides. Hearing his stern and hoarse voice, Loukas grabbed
the priest by the shoulder and asked him about the force that made him talk with such
assurance. And Father Yanaros replied that he had God behind him, in front of him,
right to him and left to him. He said he was encircled by God. He was so sure that
none of the weapons would touch him, when he had God with him.
The verbal battle between Loukas and the priest takes a turn to the worse
threatening the life of Father Yanaros. But at the face of death too, he stays firm in his

faith. He says, “Death only frightens the unbelievers. I believe in God. I am not afraid
of death. I‟ve already dug my grave, there in front of you, and I‟ve carved on my
tomb stone the words, „Death, I fear you not!” (249)
He welcomes the rebels to kill him. He believes in eternal life – “Death is only
a mule; you mount it, and it takes you to eternal life.”(252) Father Yanaros could
shape anything he wanted in the air, because he believed and he suffered. Even when
he was shot dead, he opened his eyes and without uttering a sound, he fell calmly and
silently, face down on the stones.
Under normal circumstances faith follows a set pattern. It is heavily informed
by rites and rituals. Such a system does not offer scope for any personal examination
of it. Life flows on like a calm stream. However, any turbulence in this pacific stream
upsets the whole pattern. One is forced to discover the true nature of his faith. He
learns that faith has no monolithic structure as he had imagined. It does not stand
before him as a pristine example to follow. Painfully, he realises the need to discover
his own faith.
Churches and faith systems attempt to simplify a system of faith into easily
graspable tenets. The faithful lead their life obeying these tenets and feel self-
satisfied. They are content with the promise of a happier afterlife and feel that the path
to it is straightforward. A moment of crisis removes this simplicity and faith suddenly
turns out to be a complicated affair. By denying the freedom to the individual to
envision his own faith churches fixes his life to a framework of rigid habit. This
framework crumbles at the onslaught of a crisis, whatever is its nature.
The trauma of inexplicable suffering could derange a person‟s mental stability.
He will be thrown into an ungraspable land of uncertainty. He faces the need to

rearrange the elements that constitutes his faith. It will be tougher for a priest who has
been trained to view his faith in a predetermined manner. Confronted with a world
where his understanding of faith does not work anymore his mind either collapses
without resistance or rejects the faith as he knows it altogether. What happens to
Father Arsenios is precisely that.

Chapter 4
Blood, Thunder, and Sacrifice – The Priest’s Moment
of Self- Realisation
Being spiritual, but not religious and vice-versa often creates confusion. Some
are spiritual inside, find them happy internally and at the same time are not overtly
religious. In another case, people think of spirituality as mysterious and the privilege
of a few, and keep spirituality at a hand‟s distance. They are even apprehensive of
getting to know about spirituality, considering it to be something extreme, high and
unreachable. The American- Indian author, Deepak Chopra says, “Religion is belief in
someone else‟s experience. Spirituality is having your own experience.” Those, who
are spiritual, listens to their own inner voice and are peaceful inside. Being merely
religious means simply following the rites and rituals prescribed in religion, uttering
the prayers, without caring about their meaning and without a personal relationship
with God. They may also lack inner peace and joy. This distinction surfaces in Nikos
Kazantzakis‟ novel Fratricides.
Spirituality originates in a set of internalised values. The first precondition for
it is self-awareness. Thoughts on the role an individual has to play within the scheme
of things lead him to the necessity of transcending mere physical existence. The
transience and uncertainty of earthly life prompts him to think of a life beyond
phenomenal life. Naturally, he will begin to think that it should be eternal and more
meaningful than our brief sojourn on the earth. These thoughts generally come as a
solace and lend meaning to the seemingly pointless life a person leads.
One is tempted to call their years of suffering a testing time in religious terms
as well. Religions promise a better time either in this world or the other one. But it

will be hard to convince them of the truth of this promise at the face of relentless
suffering of this kind. Being illiterate and resource less they fail even to formulate
their questions or raise their doubts. Not being a theological scholar or enjoying a
high position in the hierarchy of priesthood, Father Yanaros represents the rightful
voice of the villagers, a fact both the priest and the villagers fail to recognise.
Aldous Huxley, the famous English writer and philosopher, in his lectures at
Santa Barbara on Man and Religion says,
“When we read the Book of Genesis, we find that religion, in the
conventional sense of the word, began only after the expulsion of
Adam and Eve from the garden, and the first record of it is the building
of two altars by Cain and Abel. This was also the beginning of the first
religious war” (Huxley 198)
The differences in their opinions made them enemies and thus began the first
fratricides. And what led to this fratricide are the differences between them. Aldous
Huxley is of the opinion that Cain was a husband-man, a vegetarian like Hitler, and
Abel, a herdsman and a meat eater. Their division could be seen in their occupations
and this gave them a kind of religious absoluteness leading to the sad result.
Religious mythology is significant in interpreting human behaviour and providing
us with a better understanding of it. The story of Abel and Cain contains a
comprehensive reading of fraternal relationship as well as the potential for strife at the
centre of every relationship. It is not merely about two warring brothers. It
encompasses the concept of universal brotherhood as well. The loss of belief in the
idea of friendship leads one to eventual fratricide.

Aldous Huxley speaks about two main kinds of religion – one is the religion of
immediate experience and the other is the religion of symbols. The religion of
immediate experience can be clearly traced in the Book of Genesis “of hearing the
voice of God walking in the garden in the cool of the day.” (Huxley 198)Thus it can
be called the religion of direct acquaintance with the Divine power. The second kind
is the religion of symbols, the religion of the imposition of order and meaning upon
the world through verbal or non verbal symbols and their manipulation, the religion of
knowledge about the divine rather than direct acquaintance with it.
The religion of Father Yanaros could be taken as the former one, where the
priest has a close relationship with God. For Father Yanaros, God is his best friend
and best neighbour. He hears the voice of God. He has a direct acquaintance with the
Lord, for he addresses him as „Father‟. The latter kind of religion is the religion of the
people of Castello. Their faith blossoms when they see symbols like the Sash of
Virgin Mary, without even thinking of its credibility. They curse Father Yanaros for
not resurrecting Christ, but can‟t understand the pain of Christ, as Father Yanaros
does. They take part in all the rituals, but they are not in a personal relationship with
God. Father Yanaros has firmness in faith, while the people of Castello think God is
asleep. They live on what Huxley calls as religion of myth, because it expresses faith
in the form of rituals, which they perform objectively, and not by their heart.
Every religion has a man-made structure surrounding it. In the case of
organised religions this structure is more rigid and hierarchical. But it has nothing
much to do with a person‟s faith as such. Perhaps it is needed to keep a less
contemplative ordinary person religious. Such a person, obviously, is not troubled by
spiritual questions. What he needs is to have easily understandable symbols to pin his
faith on and rituals that satisfy his mostly incomprehensible spiritual responsibilities.

As Aldous Huxley quotes, “The members of the official religion have tended
to look upon the mystics as difficult trouble making people.”(Huxley 201)
Characteristically, Father Yanaros is called a troublesome priest by the Castellians. At
the outset of the novel itself, we get an impression of Father Yanaros as a character
with the special destiny of standing in the middle of the chaos of “brother hunting
brother” (8) and asking them to unite. But the Castellians couldn‟t understand it and
they insulted him by calling him abusive and provocative names. When the monk,
with the so-called Holy Sash, enquires Kyriakos about the village priest, Kyriakos
describes Father Yanaros as a holy terror and a wild man. He remarks about the sour
face of Father Yanaros, “no matter what you do or what you say, he doesn‟t like it.
It‟s only what he says! As if he‟s holding God by the beard.”(29) Kyriakos could see
the priest as a holy man, though insufferable. It is the spirituality in Father Yanaros
that makes him thank God in the midst of curses and insults. In Father Yanaros, one
could find the face of Christ , who stood half-naked before the Roman soldiers,
beaten, lashed and maltreated brutally and finally prayed to Heavenly Father, “Father,
forgive them, for they don‟t know what they are doing.” (Luke 23:34) Throughout the
novel, the image we get of Father Yanaros is that of one who pleads with the
Castellians, “Love, love! Brotherhood!” (24)And what he gets back is curses and
insults.
From the beginning he feels that he cannot expect neither of the sides
to give ears to him. A time of conflict divides people into clearly demarcated sides
with nothing in common. Even if the struggle begins as a conflict of ideologies it
degenerates into a violent physical combat within no time. Both sides seem to think
they succeed in establishing the validity of their faith by reducing the number of their
opponents. No one is allowed to claim neutrality under such circumstances. Even

when Father Yanaros appears to support their ideology each of the sides looks upon
him with suspicion. They treat him like a spy or a double agent.
Dionysius, the Areopagite, in Mystical Theology and his other books,
constantly insists upon the fact that in order to become directly acquainted with God,
rather than merely to know about God one must go beyond symbols and
concepts.(Huxley 203) Father Yanaros gets into direct acquaintance with God, as he
dared to go beyond symbols and concepts. This is the reason why he tells a young
man that he is not disillusioned because he believes in the reverence of Christ than the
Church. Aldous Huxley in the collection of his lectures “The Human Situation”
speaks about the fruits of mystical experience. There is certainly an overcoming of the
fear of death, a conviction that the soul has become identical with the Absolute
Principle which expresses itself in every moment in its totality. This is why Father
Yanaros stands before Loukas, without any fear. Facing death ahead, Father Yanaros,
with all courage speaks out, “If you let me live, I‟ll cry out! If you kill me, I‟ll cry
out! You‟ll never escape.”(249) His words never contained any fear of death. He
stood in the warfront, preaching of love and pain of God and asking them to stop
fratricides and unite, without any fear of death. When he is called upon for the
meeting with the captain, he courageously says that he does not have two masters-
only God. When the coppersmith tells Father Yanaros about one who climbed the hill
at midnight, he said he could not know whether the man was wearing a dress or a
robe. Father Yanaros makes things clear, “it was a robe, it was a robe and inside the
robe was an old man, and around his neck hung a village.”(215) He became the voice
of the Divine Power. He tells the coppersmith about the sword, Love, by which Christ
conquered the world. When the coppersmith distances himself from the religion of
direct acquaintance, telling the priest not to weigh everything with the measure of

Christ, Father Yanaros speaks to them about the Christ within us. He once, even said,
“I am the lips, He is the voice, listen!”(220)
The priest has the uneasy feeling that his voice progressively loses its
effectiveness. He suspects that it could be because of the erosion of conviction within
him. Simple questions like good and evil begin to baffle him. He cannot bring himself
to view things in black and white. He does not believe that the faithful alone represent
God‟s wishes. In fact, he begins to think that there is nothing much to choose between
the rebels and the faithful. Both seem to exist in a limbo of self-righteousness.
Self-righteousness plays a big part in preventing conflicts from coming to a
resolution. In The Fratricides neither the rebels nor the faithful are ready to concede
any righteousness in the opponent. They are utterly convinced of the rightness of their
convictions. Strangely, they never make an attempt to understand the other side of the
question. They take it for granted that they can never go wrong, and the enemy side
can never go right. Father Yanaros, obviously, occupies a vantage position owing to
his neutrality. He has no difficulty to recognise whatever is good and bad in either
side. However, this does not help his cause in any sense.
In fact, his neutrality turns out to be a handicap. He seems suspect in the eyes
of both the sides as a result. Their state of mind does not permit them to recognise or
appreciate the priest‟s neutrality. Both the sides suspect him to represent the other.
Even the church is not amused by the priest choosing his own path in resolving the
civil war. The church‟s sympathies are definitive. It has no hesitation on that question.
They find it convenient to characterise Father Yanaros‟s qualms as a sign of naiveté.
The priest has nothing in his arsenal to counter the arguments of learned theologians.

Conversations with them make him more and more convinced of his own naiveté and
worthlessness.
Another fruit of mystical experience is that there is an acceptance of suffering
and a passionate desire to alleviate suffering in other. Father Yanaros was ready to
suffer. The words that came out of his mouth were words of love. But what he
received in return were all curses and insults. Kazantzakis writes about the priest‟s
pathetic condition. Most often his eyes were filled with tears. He ran among all,
pleading to each – first to the soldiers, then to villagers. He requested them to stop the
bloodshed. But demons filled their minds. None listened to Father Yanaros. He saw
them blood thirsty. They cried for more blood. Brothers fought against brothers. They
were enraged and violent against each other. When Father Yanaros thought of the
village, he saw the hungry children, mourning women, burning villages and rotting
corpses. When he thought of the opponents – the soldiers, the first face that appeared
before him was that of his son, Captain Drakos. He was in dilemma; his suffering had
reached its zenith. He always felt that he was bearing the sins of the world. He
thought that he was the one to answer for them during the Second Coming. Even
though he suffered, he had hope in God.
The young priest‟s dilemma originates in the void he discovers between
scriptural messages and the way the church actually behaves. He is convinced that
God can take only the side of the miserable of the earth. As the elite need no
protection or support from God they find God useful only in facilitating their material
advancement and enhancing their worldly power. The unholy nexus between the
established church and the powerful of the world everywhere baffles people for that
reason.

The church or more precisely, the men of the church lending support to
inhuman dictators across the world had been a familiar sight during the past century.
Dictators are aware of the influence of the church, especially on the suffering
millions. Finding their lives manipulated and controlled by the powerful, the poor
have nowhere else to turn to but the church. So the word of the church acquires an
unassailable strength. The common man tends to equate it with the word of God. The
rich and the powerful exploit the common man‟s faith in it.
When even a priest, who is supposed to be an insider, fails to fathom the ways
of the church how can the layman be expected to comprehend it? The young priest
laments the disappearance of the poor, impoverished Christ. What the church has
attempted to do is to reduce this image of Christ into a bawdy icon, shorn of its real
meaning. From the words of the young priest we realise that for the poor and the weak
of the world the image of the poor Christ retains the original meaning. What he yearns
for is the return of that Christ, not the glorified image of Him constructed by the
powerful of the world.
Father Yanaros re-enacts the confusions and anxieties experienced by the
villagers within him. He loses hold of himself and gets angry at certain moments. The
doubts born in the heart of Father Yanaros make Kazantzakis compare his heart with
“a morsel of flesh filled with blood, instead of with God‟s Grace – a piece of flesh
that ached and cried out”. Father Yanaros, like the villagers, begins to doubt every
man around him. He doubts whether the monk who visited him is Satan. When the old
fisherman converses with Father Yanaros, comparing God to a potter‟s wheel that
breaks and moulds humans into different shapes, the priest doubts why God should
break them. The doubts in the minds of the villagers have turned them into beasts.
They kill their brothers and eventually destroy the humanity in them. They become

animals, who seek blood. This doubt and chaos gradually move them away from God.
They see only Satan. This is the reason why Father Yanaros prays to God Almighty,
to help him bring God‟s image back to the village.
The image of the grieving Christ gives him courage to embark upon seemingly
hopeless tasks. Instilling hope in the villagers is one among them. He does not have
the arrogance to compare himself with Christ. But as the story progresses, we find it
impossible to avoid this comparison. The selflessness of Christ‟s sacrifice almost
imperceptibly becomes father Yanaros‟ guiding light. He reaches the point where he
realises the dispensability of his material existence. He begins to think that giving
undue significance to his own life and attempting to protect it at the cost of his
spiritual duty is an act of sacrilege.
The belief in eternal life, the combination of what Buddhists call
Prajnaparamita, which is the wisdom of the other shore with the Mahakaruna, is a
fruit of mystical experience. Father Yanaros always believed in eternal life. He
considered death to be a mule and through death he wished for eternal life. He stood
before the cruel soldiers with the great courage emanating from the belief that God
was around him. He felt God‟s presence inside him. He stood bravely before death as
he believed in the Second Coming and Eternal life.
Abbot John Chapman in his Spiritual Letters speaks about what is called
prayer of quiet , the prayer of waiting upon the Lord in a state of alert passivity and
permitting the deepest elements within the mind to come to the surface. (Huxley 203)
This type of prayer is adopted by Father Yanaros. Most of the prayers of Father
Yanaros were lonely ones as Christ proclaimed and practised: “When you pray, go
into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your

Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.”(Matthew 6:6) When he
prayed, he stood alone in the church, with Christ, the miraculous Virgin Mary and the
saints; His prayers could feel the pain of Christ. He found solitude and sweetness,
when he prayed to God, Almighty. Whenever the human weakness of anger came to
him, he made the sign of cross , stood on tiptoe, pressed his lips against the face of
Christ and asked God forgiveness realising anger to be the red devil, who saddled
him. He pleaded with God to help him speak gently, without anger or complaints.
Slowly, he would soften and reconcile with God.
A moment of crisis brings with it a whole set of contradictions that challenge
the foundations of one‟s faith. Suddenly the familiar system of faith seems to
crumble. An ordinary believer is not equipped to weather this crisis. However, the
true believer considers it an opportunity to test the tenacity of his faith. Time and
again, we find father Yanaros thanking God for letting him suffer to the utmost for the
sake of his people, and in turn for the sake of God. Gradually and unknowingly of
himself the priest is discovering his own faith. Perhaps, it has been an act of invention
rather than one of discovery.
Obviously, discovering one‟s God and one‟s faith is an involuntary act that
does not demand any serious sacrifice. The well-trodden path of convention is ahead
of him with clearly defined guidelines. On the other hand, faced with the need to
invent it one passes through the dark alleys of self-doubt. Father Yanaros successfully
negotiates it chiefly owing to the strength of his faith. At the same time, he fails to
carry his God and his faith to his people. What he has to tell them has no similarity to
the faith they know. So the priest‟s words only succeed in baffling them.

He might have succeeded if he were capable of constructing a recognisable
verbal structure around it. But father Yanaros is intellectually unequipped for such an
enormous task. The emergence of cults can be explained to an extent by the verbal
skills of cult leaders to convincingly reinvent unique belief systems. If he were
endowed with such skills father Yanaros would have become a cult leader with his
own following. As the case is, he becomes a failed priest despised by his
congregation. Under trying circumstances people long for a reinterpretation of their
own faith. But it stays as a vague and unpronounced desire at the back of their mind.
Father Yanaros also experiences such a need. The power of his faith
imperceptibly directs him to this reinterpretation. But he is unaware of this
transformation. He could have thought of it as a betrayal of his faith if knew of it at a
conscious level. He is tormented by his inability to show the light to the warring
brethren around him. He is sure of its existence as he sees it as daylight. He is rather
puzzled to find others failing to see it. He uses the conventional priestly formula in his
engagement with them. He does not know any other method. The alienation of his
congregation began with their disenchantment this conventional formula.
In the book Introduction to Religious Philosophy, Y. Masih writes,
“Mysticism is said to be the religious experience in the purest and concentrated form.”
(Masih 67) Father Yanaros goes through such a purest and concentrated form of
religious experience and therefore can be seen as a mystic. In Indian tradition, through
mysticism, the seeker identifies himself with Brahman. In the novel, Father Yanaros
often identifies himself with Christ. He feels the pain of Christ and even becomes the
voice of Christ. Masih continues by saying that whatever be the view of the mystics,
either one of complete or partial identification with the supreme object of worship,
mysticism is often been told as a good deal of warmth born of actual acquaintance.

(Masih 68)We find in Father Yanaros such warmth of friendship with God. He took
His Words in its practical sense: “Greater love has no one than this; to lay down one‟s
life for one‟s friends” (John 15:13). Henri Bergson talks about two kinds of
mysticism, namely partial or incomplete mysticism and complete mysticism. Father
Yanaros can be seen as a priest of complete mysticism because in complete
mysticism, according to Bergson, contemplation gives rise to boundless action, in
which there is action, creation and love. (Bergson 188)
For A.N. Whitehead, religion is what a man does with his own „solitariness‟.
(Whitehead 67) The essentiality of Christianity is seen in the very question, “What
shall profit a man, if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul?” (Mark 8:36)
Father Yanaros speaks of the solitude he enjoys when he speaks to God Almighty. He
has an inner spirit in himself which leads him to hold his faith. It is this inner spirit
that moulds him with such courage and fearlessness. Professor H. H. Price in his
famous work ‘Faith and Philosophers’ writes, “If there is no inner life, there is no
religion either. Religion is a matter of inner life.” For Father Yanaros, Christianity is
the matter of inner spirit that broods in him and it is this inner spirit that transforms
him into a mystic. This inner spirit leads Father Yanaros to the realisation of truth.

Chapter 5
Conclusion
The nature of faith is neither a constant nor a given. It does not have a clearly
defined structure as well. It varies from context to context. What Nikos Kazantzakis
attempts in the novel The Fratricides is a close examination of the contradictory faces
of faith. He knew that the most suitable context for such an examination is a moment
of crisis. The faith of Father Yanaros suits the novelist‟s objectives because his faith
seems to be in constant trial. The novelist emphasises the value of faith by showing us
how the priest negotiates the trials and emerges victorious in the end, despite paying
with his life for it.
In a sense, having no faith also is merely another faith. The unbeliever is as
much tormented by doubts as the believer is. Whereas the believer puts faith in being,
the unbeliever‟s faith is in nonbeing, in nothingness. It is the ultimate nihilism,
prompting the existentialist to lament how life is rendered meaningless by death. Both
of them endeavour to discover some meaning in the seemingly endless and senseless
procession of days that constitutes one‟s life. The religious and the faithful find solace
in the promise of an afterlife. This consolation is denied to the unbeliever. As a result,
he turns his attention more to the material side of life. Perhaps, his earthly
accomplishments compensate for the void within his mind in the absence of a faith in
a life after death.
Every religion envisages a morally perfect world. They aim at the creation of a
good way of living. But the very concept of the ideal way of living is problematic. In
the first place, it cannot be a universal ideal. Life is not governed by moral principles
alone. Physical, social, political, and environmental conditions play a part in shaping

it. Ethical principles evolve within such life situations. They are the products of life
lived against hostile and indecipherable conditions. Visionaries and prophets see
ahead of their time and device the rules to survive and thrive in rapidly evolving
living environments.
Under normal circumstances, these rules satisfy the spiritual needs of a
believer. Adhering to them, he believes that he leads a worthwhile life. Moreover, he
has the easy way of fulfilling his religious obligations by following a well organised
system of rites and rituals. In other words, the external trappings of faith gain
ascendency most of the time. But a moment of crisis alters the scenario altogether.
The inadequacy of a ritualistic religious practice gets pathetically exposed. Invariably,
the believer finds himself thrown into the wilderness of uncertainty. The ordinary
believer is quite unequipped to cope with such an eventuality.
These are moments that demand a reassessment of the tenets of morality. In
the first place, an ordinary believer has no occasion to confront questions of morality
individually. The framework of religious faith does that job for him. He is convinced
of the superior intelligence of the system. He never feels that he is capable of
questioning it. Therefore, when he faces a crisis, his mind gets riddled with doubt. He
discovers contradictions in the belief system he has taken for granted until that
moment. Consequently, he might lose his faith altogether or fall into a state of
irremediable confusion.
Most of the people in the village belong to either one of these categories,
Father Yanaros discovers. He wishes to save them from this doomed state of mind.
But he finds them more and more alienated from him as the crisis deepens. It begins
with a breakdown of communication between the priest and his congregation. He

feels that his words fail to have the desired effect. But he cannot understand the
reasons for this erosion. He can only pin them to his own inadequacy. His superiors in
the hierarchy turn out to be utterly unsympathetic to the priest‟s helplessness.
In fact, their relationship with the villagers is one of condescension bordering
on contempt. In their case, religion never transcends its base level of ritualism. They
have never even attempted to internalise their faith as father Yanaros did. Father
Yanaros does not separate his priestly duties and the flame of the real faith in him.
Most of his superiors in the church seem to lead a pragmatic life totally inoculated
from faith. Religion, for them, follows a set of time-tested formulae which they are
ready to dispense at short notice. They are not moved by the visions of misery and
bloodshed around them.
Their pragmatism comes to the fore in their choice of sides in the struggle, as
well. They have no compunction in labelling the rebels godless. They conveniently
forget that God will not differentiate people along that line. As priests, they have a
duty to acknowledge that even the godless are God‟s creations and they deserve His
mercy as much as everyone does. The attitude of the rebels seems to justify
theattitude of the priests. They poise themselves against faith. The rebels also waver
when it comes to be a question of faith. They feel they are obliged to take a rigid
stand when they have to negotiate religious faith.
The unbeliever also is uncertain when he has to confront questions of faith.
More or less, he tends to identify faith with the church. The animosity towards faith
has always been a characteristic of revolutionary movements. In fact, they do not care
to understand that their rival is the institutionalised church rather than the ordinary
believer who needs his faith to weather adversities. It is a fact that they often find the

church supporting conservative causes. But for instances like the emergence of
liberation theology churches have always taken an inimical stance towards
revolutions.
Most revolutionaries operate from a romantic plane. They put excessive faith
in the power of their movements to effect dramatic changes in the society. They fail to
see the different levels at which any society functions. Individual lives take their
elements from many different currents of social existence. Religious, political,
cultural, educational, and historical layers constitute a society. They are in mutual
exchange as well. In his blind faith in the power of arms, the revolutionary overlooks
these elements to his eventual defeat and disgrace.
If they were able to shift their perspective a little, the rebels could easily have
seen the role faith plays in the lives of the villagers. Their disenchantment, doubts,
and desperation are merely manifestations of their faith rather than of its absence.
What the villagers are tormented from is the feeling of betrayal by faith they
experience. They fail to see that it is they who have abandoned it. It is because they
have never envisaged faith as a property of their own mind. Father Yanaros stands
apart from them precisely owing to this realisation.
But, ironically, the priest does not see it that way. Perhaps, his priestly training
prevents him from conceiving of a personal god. It has often been said that, there are
as many truths in the world as the number of their seekers. This must be true in the
case of God too. But a man of the church does not enjoy the freedom to declare it. His
superior priests in the hierarchy also are forbidden to utter it even if they know it.
Instead, they revel in denigrating Yanaros‟s inanity as a priest. A priest is never
expected to stray from the trodden path.

Father Yanaros chooses to teach by example not as a conscious strategy. It is,
in fact, the direct outcome of his failure with words. He discovers that his words fall
on deaf ears. Moreover, the villagers begin to view him with hostility. He decides to
place himself in their midst more or less as a physical entity hoping to have an effect
on their minds with the help of his presence alone. There also his efforts do not meet
with any perceptible success.
Clearly, Father Yanaros is not disconcerted by his failures. He views them
only as part of the tests God has chosen for him. He gives voice to his gratitude
towards God for sending him his gift of suffering many a time. Gradually he acquires
a clearer picture of his obligations. His conversations with Christ increase in
frequency even as this awareness dawns on him. Doubts withdraw from his mind,
replaced by a clear understanding of what he is ordained to do. In the religious
context, martyrdom falls only upon the chosen of God.
The feeling that one has been chosen by God with the glorious task of the
ultimate sacrifice might result in the sin of pride. However, father Yanaros is seen to
receive this revelation with utmost humility. His sacrifice, coupled with this humility,
once again confirms his unwavering faith. We have seen many villagers succumbing
to doubt and confusion, ceasing to have faith in anything. In a sense, the priest takes
upon himself the expiation of their sins too. He suffers for their sake, though they are
too blinded by doubts to see it.
The warring sides also view the priest with derision and contempt. They
cannot find a place in their minds for a priest who apparently violates the dictates of
the church. The rebels suspect the priest to have some ulterior motives in preaching
peace. The villagers find his arguments unconvincing. However, his conviction gets

firmer even as he gets entangled in the maze of the violent fratricide. What lands
Father Arsenios in madness is the lack of this kind of conviction. In him the priestly
self and the suffering self remain separate. Naturally, he loses his contact with reality
and slips into the dreary landscape of madness.
Despite, the sombre mood encompassing the novel, it remains a celebration of
faith in the final count. Kazantzakis attempts the difficult task of reconciling doubt
with faith. He accomplishes it by creating the tragic yet heroic figure of Father
Yanaros. The humble priest tormented by doubt assumes superhuman dimensions in
his lonesome struggle to turn himself into an agent of peace within an environment of
blind violence. He accomplishes with his death what, perhaps, he has filed to
accomplish with his life. It is no coincidence that the poignancy of his final moments
echoes the final journey of Jesus Christ.

Faith in the time of conflict

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

Similar to Faith in the time of conflict

Similar to Faith in the time of conflict (20)

More from ancymary1996

More from ancymary1996 (10)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

Faith in the time of conflict