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Left Crete at 16 for karate, drifted from God for 20 years

What the video says

The speaker left his Cretan village of about 2,000 people at 16 to rent a studio, work after school, and travel to Athens on weekends for national karate training. He felt free and grown up, but now sees he was seeking the attention he never received from an absent father and a mother who worked constantly, with grandparents raising him.

With no one to slow him down or talk with him, he drifted from God for 20 years, attending church only for weddings or a chapel in nature. He recognizes now that he was a boy trying to fill an empty place alone, and he asks when others drifted away.

Key moments

  1. At 16, the speaker left his small village in Crete to rent a studio near school and live alone.
  2. He worked after school to pay rent and traveled by boat to Athens on weekends to train with the national karate team.
  3. He felt grown up and free at the time, but now sees he was seeking attention he missed because his father was absent and his mother worked constantly.
  4. His grandparents raised him, and there was no one to sit with him and say, "Hey, slow down. Let's talk."
  5. He let go of God not by decision but because he was too young to hold on alone.
  6. For 20 years he went to church only for a wedding here and there or a little chapel in nature.
  7. He thought he was free but was actually a little boy trying to fill an empty place by himself.
  8. He asks the audience when they drifted away from God.

The speaker recounts leaving his Cretan village of about 2,000 people at age 16 to rent a studio near his school, work after classes to pay the rent, and travel by boat to Athens on weekends for training with the national karate team. At the time he felt free and grown up, but looking back he recognizes he was seeking the attention he never received from an absent father and a mother who worked constantly, while his grandparents raised him.

There was no one to sit with him and say, "Hey, slow down. Let's talk." With no one to slow him down or talk with him, he drifted from God not by a deliberate decision but because he was too young to hold on alone. For 20 years he attended church only for occasional weddings or a small chapel in nature.

He thought he was free but was actually a little boy trying to fill an empty place by himself. He asks the audience when they drifted away from God.

Main points

  • At 16 he left his Cretan village to live alone near school and train with the national karate team in Athens on weekends
  • He worked after school to pay rent and felt grown up, but now sees he was seeking attention from an absent father and overworked mother
  • His grandparents raised him and no one was there to tell him to slow down and talk
  • He drifted from God for 20 years without a conscious decision, attending church only for weddings or a nature chapel
  • He asks listeners when they drifted away from God
6 opinions in the discussion 6 participants The opinion with the most support As someone whose father was also never there, growing up in a small village while he was always travelling for work, I feel this deeper than you know. Thank you for being so honest and open about this, it's very inspiring. God bless you brother Read the discussion
9 comments at the source Original on Instagram

Discussion · 6

Opinions are anonymous retellings of real comments from the original discussion. The same colour marks the same participant.

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  • opinion#1400

    As someone whose father was also never there, growing up in a small village while he was always travelling for work, I feel this deeper than you know. Thank you for being so honest and open about this, it's very inspiring. God bless you brother

  • opinion#1401

    I guess when I succeeded in life and got lots of attention, I grew selfish, even though I never stopped going to all the rituals and ceremonies at church. But I think the heart wasn't there.

  • opinion#1398

    1981 until 2022... I'm 61. These last four years I've decided to be me spiritually. Now I'm happier than ever. I've always been very intuitive about the gospels and everything in between. It's good to learn again now I'm older, I'm a little wiser, I know what I need for me.

  • opinion#1399

    I don't think I ever left. Mom was a widow at 35 with two kids under 11... I was too scared to see her hurt more, so I stayed close to her. The three of us, mom, me and my brother, were very protective of each other. Mom's faith grew, and so did ours. I think my curiosity grew in my late teens, I looked into some Protestant churches, but something was missing. Coming back to the Orthodox Church and our roots turned out to be what I was looking for.

  • opinion#1397

    Oh, that made me really teary. 😢 I was raised Anglican at school even though my family were atheists. At the local church I asked the Vicar whether a baby would go to heaven if it wasn't baptized, and whether a murderer would go to heaven if he was baptized and repented on his deathbed. He said the murderer would but the baby wouldn't. I stopped going after that, I was 7 or 8. I still always went at Christmas through my life. I found Orthodoxy in 2021, started attending my local Greek Orthodox church in 2024 and was baptized a year later. Last September I visited Crete for the first time, totally fell in love with it, and have been back twice since.

  • opinion#1396

    Same as you, I was born into Orthodoxy, but where I lived nobody else was Orthodox. I was so curious about Christ that I tried Protestantism since it was so accessible... but it was a slippery slope, because there's no focus on the struggle, on repentance... on the hard work. Ten years of sliding down that slope, full of sin. Then I came back to Orthodoxy, and the struggle to save my soul really began.