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For the first time in the ecclesiastical history of the Greek Kingdom, a Metropolite abdicated from his throne, rejected by his closest friends, helpless under the anathema of the people, above whom he was called to be the spiritual leader, his life imperilled by the injured public sentiment, Procopios, left a real wreck cast by the shore, as a warning sign of those dangers to which every public man is exposed, when corrupted by higher favours and neglects his duties to the people who entrusted him with responsibilities of national importance.
Procopios was only an instrument transmitting orders. And if I was allowed to publish all that Procopios himself told me, in Salamis, it would make the Greek people sit up and take notice, but in my vows as confessor I have to carry the confession of the fallen Metropolite Procopios with me to my grave, unless the need arises to serve the best interests of my beloved country.
Procopios, in the opinion of his own friends, was the last man in the Greek priesthood, qualified to occupy the Metropolitan Throne of Athens, and totally lost his will power when he became Metropolite by Royal favor. There was an organized clique around the Metropolitan mansion, but the controlling power should be located within the walls of the Royal Palace.
And when every one of his colleagues deserted him and the King and Queen shut their door in his face, leaving him a pitiful victim of the political plots to save the royal skin, and while there was no visible friend to give him a helping hand when fallen from the Metropolitan Throne, and while this monk-metropolite Procopios, in all his glorious days had been a profound enemy against every honest effort, especially against young priests who refused to serve his unlawful appetites, and my own experience with this monk-metropolite Procopios is not of the kind to be printed, yet, it was I who put my own life in a probable danger to save him from the mob, that was ready to attack him, and probably kill him, the day after I made his escape possible into the Saint Mary's Monastery, Salamis, where at the time I was Archimandrites.
Within 24 hours from that terrible bloody day, that will remain an indelible stigma in the history of Queen Olga's life, the most exalted Metropolite Procopios was a fallen ragmuffin and the most hated person in all Greece.
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