Photios Kontoglou on Fyodor Dostoevsky

By Dr. Constantine Cavarnos

Having high esteem for the Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821-1881), particularly impressed by his work The Brothers Karamazov, and knowing that I was like-minded, he invited me to join him one afternoon, together with his wife and daughter, Mrs. Despina Martinou, at a cinema on Stadiou Street, where this work was being shown. I gladly accepted the invitation, even though I was even less of a movie-goer than Kontoglou. After the show, he took us for a treat at a nearby shop where pastry was served. There we discussed our impressions about the film.

Both he and I were especially interested in "The Legend of the Grand Inquisitor" contained in The Brothers Karamazov. We were in accord with the opinion of the emigre Russian philosopher Nicholas Berdyaev, that "The Legend of the Grand Inquisitor is the high point of Dostoevsky's work and the crown of his dialectic" (See Berdyaev's Dostoievsky, trans. by Donald Attwater, ch. VIII). I had read this story as part of the reading that had been assigned by one of my teachers at Harvard, Professor Julius S. Bixler, in a course in Philosophy of Religion. The story made a great impression on me, as it had on Kontoglou when he read a French translation of the novel in the early forties. Seeing this film was expected to make this story and other parts of Dostoevsky's magnum opus more vivid for us. But to our disappointment, what interested us most, "The Legend of the Grand Inquisitor," had been left out.

Movie: "Papaflessas" (a film about the Greek Revolution)

After the conquest of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453, the Greeks were in slavery for 400 years. Until one day they decided to fight for freedom on 1821. Papaflessas the priest and Kolokotronis were the great heroes. And many more. Papaflessas, a Greek priest, took part in almost all the battles fought in the Peloponnese. In 1825 he fought with only 300 men against 6000 Turko-Egyptian soldiers in Maniaki near Kalamata, where he fell heroically on May 20. This is the true story of a man who was a real patriot. Includes English subtitles.

Photios Kontoglou on American Writers (Emerson, Poe and Dana)

Ralph Waldo Emerson

By Dr. Constantine Cavarnos

On November 21 [1958], the day after my first lecture on American philosophy, which was on Ralph Waldo Emerson, I visited Kontoglou at his home. He had not come to my lecture. As I noted earlier, he hardly ever left home in the evening. And, so far as I know, he never attended public lectures. He had some acquaintance with Emerson's essays and regarded him as a great philosopher. Emerson was one of the few American writers that really interested him. The others were Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) and Richard Henry Dana (1815-1882).

He asked me to tell him some of the things in Emerson's philosophy that I considered a special significance and which I discussed in my lecture. I mentioned Emerson's emphasis on the soul, his ethical and metaphysical idealism, his distinction between "beauty in nature", which is perishable, and "inward and eternal beauty", and his views on the fine arts, particularly his conviction that higher art is characterized by simplicity, universality, and spirituality. With all these features of Emerson's philosophy he was in sympathy, and he was glad I brought them to the attention of my audience.

Photios Kontoglou on European and Other Philosophers

Blaise Pascal

By Dr. Constantine Cavarnos

Kontoglou said:

I am a primitive man, I am not versed in philosophies and such things. The other day someone was telling me about Descartes, and mentioned his statement: "I think, therefore I exist." This assertion is absurd. For when I think, I do not simply "exist". It is when I am asleep that I "exist".

The person who was telling Kontoglou about Descartes - the 17th century Frenchman who is regarded as the "father of modern philosophy" - used the Greek word hyparcho for the French je suis, or the Latin sum, which mean "I am". Thus, the absurdity noted by Kontoglou does not occur in the French or Latin texts of Descartes. I explained this to Kontoglou. He had a point. When one asks a Greek how he is, and he answers: "I exist," he means that he feels that he is merely vegetating, is making no headway in life.

Kontoglou's statement that he is a "primitive man" was an expression of his humility. For he was a man of wide learning and was acquainted with the thought of a good many philosophers. He has authored a book on the celebrated French philosopher Pascal, who was a contemporary of Descartes. However, he showed little interest in European philosophy. Even Pascal interested him primarily as an apologist of Christianity and a critic of the rationalism of Descartes and others.

Photios Kontoglou on Ancient Greek Philosophers

Wall Painting, with which Kontoglou decorated a wall of his house, 1932; now in the National Gallery. The fifth portrait from the right on top is Pythagoras.

By Dr. Constantine Cavarnos

"Pythagoras," said Kontoglou, "was an important figure. He rose to great heights. He, Empedocles, and some other ancient Greeks were important."

"I believe you would include Heraclitos in your list," I remarked.

"Yes, indeed," he said.

Kontoglou did not explain in just what sense he thought that Pythagoras "rose to great heights", and that Pythagoras, Empedocles, and some others were "important". But from later conversations I had with him and from various writings of his it became clear to me that he believed, as did Saint Seraphim of Sarov and Saint Nektarios of Aegina, as well as earlier Saints, that some of the ancient Greek philosophers had grasped certain important truths, illuminated by God. Saint Seraphim, whom Photios esteemed very highly - as is evident from a long article he wrote about this great Russian Saint - says:

The presence of the Spirit of God also acted among the pagans who did not know the true God, although it did so less strongly than among God's people. Indeed, even among them God found for Himself chosen people.... Such were the pagan philosophers who, although they wandered in the darkness of ignorance of the Deity, yet sought the truth which is beloved of God. By this very God-pleasing search they were enabled to partake of the Spirit of God.*