Blessing water for Parliament? Bishop Augoustinos says it needs an exorcism instead

Bishop Augoustinos Kantiotes of Florina recalls that when he served on a synodal committee, he was asked to perform a blessing of waters (agiasmos) in the Hellenic Parliament. He answered that he would come, but that he would also bring Father Porphyrios. He describes what he would have said to the Parliament: asking it what its name is, and answering that it is a legion of demons, that all the devils have gathered inside it, the demons of adultery, of prostitution, of atheism, and of unbelief.

Because of this, he says, the Parliament does not need a blessing of waters but an exorcism. Since he calls himself a sinful man, he says he would call on Father Porphyrios to come, raise the Cross, and exorcise them all. He calls this the madness of being a Christian: a time is coming, he says, when the world will call Christians mad, and then they will be happy to be called mad.

He states that the madness of the Cross will save the world. He repeats that the Hellenic Parliament does not need a blessing of waters because it mocks the things of God, and that he would preach to its members that they need an exorcism, with Father Porphyrios raising the Cross and exorcising the demons that have nested in the heart of Greece.

The quote is attributed to the late Bishop of Florina, Father Augoustinos Kantiotes. The post presents the passage as a word of counsel and rebuke addressed to Greek public life, framed around the contrast between a ceremonial blessing and the casting out of demons, and around the willingness of Christians to be counted as fools for the Cross.