By Arben P. Llalla
Part Nine
– Greek Collaborators, the Projectors and Leaders of the Genocide in Chameria (1944-1945) The Truth of the Chams’ Collaboration with the Germans –
FOREWORD
Memorie.al / The period I started writing the book was from 2008-2016, gathering materials little by little. It was very difficult for me to find original photographs and some Greek-language newspapers for the years in question. For about 70 years, the Greek state, with its state structures, has been feeding both internal and external public opinion with books and false writings about what truly happened from 1936-1945 concerning the Albanian minority in Chameria – Southern Epirus.
Continued from the previous issue
CHAPTER VI
The Role of Greek Orthodox Clerics in the 1944-1945 Genocide against the Albanian Population in Chameria
The Metropolitan of Ioannina, Spiridon Vlahos, was elected Archbishop of Athens and all of Greece in 1949 and died in 1956. After his election in 1949, Archbishop of Greece Spiridon Vlahos appointed Serafeim as Metropolitan of Arta, who had directly participated in the massacres against the Albanian population of Chameria.
For their high careers, the clerical projectors and participants were rewarded with the blood of the Chameria Albanians. They shed their religious robes and wore the military uniforms of EDES to cleanse Chameria of Muslim Albanians in 1944-1945.
The two participants in the Greek genocide against the Chams, Metropolitan of Paramithia, Dhorotheos, and the simple priest Serafim, climbed the ladder of their clerical careers precisely thanks to their participation in the massacres against the defenseless Muslim Albanians of Chameria.
By connecting the historical event-the activities of the two Metropolitans of Southern Epirus-Chameria, namely Spiridon Vlahos of Ioannina and Dhorotheos Naskaras of Paramithia, Filat, Giromeri and Parga-and the secret letter of Archbishop Damaskinos, carried by a courier dressed as Deacon Serafim (who would later become a Metropolitan and Archbishop), we conclude that the project to cleanse Chameria of Muslim Albanians was carried out precisely by the high clerics of the Autocephalous Orthodox Church of Greece, before the execution of 49 Greeks in Paramithia by the Germans.
Metropolitans Dhorotheos and Spiridon Vlahos knew the Albanian language because they had lived with Orthodox and Muslim Albanians in Chameria. Both had graduated from the Halki Theological School in Istanbul and had a hatred for Muslims. The Archbishop of Greece, Spiridon Vlahos, had appeared as the vanguard of the Greek armies during the wars in Ioannina in February 1913 and in Gjirokastër in February 1914.
In 1940, the Metropolitan of Ioannina, Spiridon, had led a meeting in Gumenica where it was decided to intern all Albanian males of Chameria from the age of 10 to 95. In April 1941, Metropolitan Spiridon Vlahos was in Gjirokastër to pressure Greek officers to surrender the Greek divisions to the Germans without a fight.
The event of September 29-30, 1943, where 49 Greeks were executed in Paramithia, casts a shadow of doubt that Metropolitan Dhorotheos was directly involved in this event, while the Metropolitan of Ioannina, later Archbishop of Greece, Spiridon Vlahos, was indirectly involved. From the time of the German army’s occupation of Greece from 1941-1944, no incident or murder had occurred in Paramithia between the inhabitants and the German forces.
Why was Dhorotheos (Dhimitër Naskaras), the man ordained as Deacon by Archbishop Damaskinos, sent as Metropolitan of Paramithia in April 1943? Why did Archbishop Damaskinos (Dhimitër Papandreou) send a letter to Napoleon Zervas in the summer of 1943 through his trusted man, the priest Serafeim (Visarion Tika), whom he had baptized as a Deacon? What did Archbishop Damaskinos write in the secret letter to the commander of EDES, Napoleon Zervas?
Why did the priest Serafim put on the EDES army uniform after delivering the letter to Zervas? What prompted the Metropolitan of Paramithia to remove the spiritual robe of the Orthodox faithful and put on the military uniform of EDES, when it is known that the Germans protected the leaders of the Greek Church and monasteries by direct order of Hitler?
Why did the Metropolitan of Paramithia, Dhorotheos, enter Paramithia with EDES dressed in military attire to carry out massacres against the defenseless Muslim Albanian population instead of wearing the Metropolitan’s robe?!
Instead of spreading the word of God, love for one another, and peace among people, the Metropolitan of Paramithia, Dhorotheos, was a direct participant in the massacres of the EDES army against the Muslim Albanian population of Chameria – Southern Epirus!
The Autocephalous Church of Greece and the Patriarchate of Constantinople have always fought for the assimilation and disappearance of the Albanian language and nation. During the period of the Ottoman Empire, in the Vilayet of Ioannina, most of the leaders of the Metropolitans were of Vlach origin, or Orthodox from Asia Minor.
As we have said, in the EDES army that operated in Chameria and was always close to Napoleon Zervas, there were Orthodox clerics such as: the Metropolitan of Paramithia, Dhorotheos, the priest Serafim who would become a Metropolitan and Archbishop after the war, and the priest Spiros Zafeiris, who was killed in January 1944 by ELAS.
The history of the events leads us to the anti-Albanian traces of the high leaders of the Autocephalous Church of Greece. The guide of the massacres against the Albanians in Chameria was the Metropolitan of Paramithia, Dhorotheos, because he had a good knowledge of the territory, personally knew all the elders of Chameria, and spoke the Albanian language.
The Metropolitan of Paramithia, Dhorotheos, was Zervas’s right-hand man and guided him on every action he needed to take in Chameria, as Napoleon Zervas did not know the territory or the people. The priest Serafim, who came to Zervas’s EDES army with a letter from Archbishop Damaskinos, directly participated in the massacres against the Chams.
What connected these four names-Damaskinos, Spiridonos, Dhorotheos, and Serafim-that we encounter in the events of 1943-1945 in Chameria?
a. The Metropolitan of Ioannina, Spiridonos (Spiridon Sito Vlahos), who was elected Archbishop of Greece in 1949, is the man who put pressure on the Greek generals in April 1941 to sign the act of surrender. Metropolitan Spiridonos was a trusted man of the Germans; after signing the capitulation, he had shown ambition to become the prime minister of Greece.
b. Archbishop Damaskinos (Dhimitër Papandreou) was elected Archbishop of Greece on July 6, 1941, with the help of the quisling government of Tsolakoglou and the Nazi Germans. He had blessed the quisling governments of Georgios Tsolakoglou, Konstantinos Logothetopoulos, and Ioannis Rallis. Archbishop Damaskinos was a man in the service of the Germans.
c. The Metropolitan of Paramithia, Dhorotheos (Dhimitër Naskari), was ordained a Deacon by Archbishop Damaskinos in Corinth. They had known each other since 1929 and had close ties. Archbishop Damaskinos had baptized Dhimitër Naskari with the name Dhorotheos.
d. The priest Serafeim (Visarion Tika), who would later become Metropolitan of Arta, Ioannina, and Archbishop in 1974, was ordained a Deacon by Archbishop Damaskinos in 1938, who baptized him with the name Serafeim.
e. Dhorotheos and Serafeim were old friends from the 1932s, having lived and worked in Corinth near Metropolitan Damaskinos, who became Archbishop of Greece in 1941.
f. Damaskinos, Spiridonos, Dhorotheos, and Serafeim knew the Albanian language and were fighters for the annexation of Southern Albania – the Autonomy of Northern Epirus. They had an extreme hatred for Muslims. This has been observed over the years during their activities.
g. Spiridonos and Dhorotheos were Vlachs, so they were of Vlach origin from Pindus.
From all that we have presented, we conclude that the projectors of the Greek genocide against the Albanian population in Chameria were the Greek Church, Archbishop Damaskinos, the Metropolitan of Paramithia Dhorotheos, and the Metropolitan of Ioannina, Spiridon Vlahos, who was the Archbishop of the Autocephalous Church of Greece from 1949-1956. A participant in these massacres was also the Archbishop of Greece, Serafim, who at that time was a soldier of Napoleon Zervas’s EDES, which operated in Chameria.
In June 1993, the Archbishop of Greece, Serafim, met the Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadžić in Athens, and when the latter tried to kiss his hand, the archbishop gently pushed him away, saying: “I should kiss your feet.”
This publicly expressed wish of Archbishop Serafim to kiss the feet of Radovan Karadžić—the man who ordered the massacres against Muslims in Bosnia and Herzegovina and is imprisoned at the Hague Tribunal for genocide from 1992-1995—leads us to understand that Archbishop Serafim had an extreme hatred for Muslims, regardless of their nationality. The Greek genocide against the Muslim Albanian population in Chameria was planned and led by the Autocephalous Church of Greece.
Falsifications of history through the alteration of photographs
The fact that Greeks and Greece are known as great falsifiers and deceivers has been globally proven by all the organizations of which it is a member. That is why the Greek state has deep economic and national identity problems. (The well-known Greek writer and poet, Nikos Dimou, in an interview given on June 23, 2009, to the ‘NY TIMES’ newspaper, said: “We spoke Albanian and called ourselves romaikos…”)
History cannot be written by falsifying documents and misinforming about the photographs that may accompany it. It is regrettable to read the books of Greek historians, scholars, and publicists, who offer readers materials falsified by themselves.
Every Greek historian or scholar who has dealt with the issue of the Albanians of Chameria for the years 1941-1944, to prove the accusations that Greece has raised over the years that the Chams were collaborators of the Italians and Germans, accompanies their books or writings with photographs showing Bosnian Muslims in German SS uniforms, or Albanians in ex-Yugoslavia in the company of Italian and German officers, or in SS uniforms. These miserable writers have offered the wider Greek public unscientific, limited writings, making primitive distortions.
Sometimes a photograph speaks louder than hundreds of words from a historian. Therefore, with the help of falsified photographs, we are denouncing the Greek historians and scholars who have done unprofessional work for so many years, offering their readers photographs that show German collaborators as if they are Albanians from Chameria, but in reality, they are Bosniaks and Albanians from ex-Yugoslavia, not Chams, fellow citizens of the Greeks.
There is no genuine document or photograph that implicates the Albanian population from Chameria as having collaborated with the Germans to the detriment of the Greek people. If the Chams were indeed German collaborators, the first denunciation would have been made by the Jewish people of Ioannina, Grevena, Larissa, etc., who were put on trucks accompanied by Greek Security Battalions to be sent to labor and extermination camps.
At least publicly, the Jewish people have thanked the Albanian nation for not handing over a single Jew to the Germans during World War II, and this means a lot for those who want to learn the true history of the Albanians of Chameria. / Memorie.al
To be continued in the next issue
