Konstantinos Simonides, the leading Symian thinker who captivated the intellectual world
It is written by
Hlias K. Kypreos
statesman of Dodecanese
Konstantinos Simonidis (1820-1867) belongs to the category of those people whom nature has rarely endowed with such a brilliant mind of universal radiation, who conquered and charmed the entire intellectual world of his time, but at the same time attracted the envy and slander of the world Intelligence, as a result of which he was slandered by her as a "forger" and "adventurer", while,
150 years after his death, careful examination, with the method and means of modern technology, rules in favor of the authenticity of the famous ancient papyri and documents of. Konstantinos Simonidis was born in Symi in 1820 and the registry act of his birth should logically be registered in the archives of the Demogerontia of the Municipality of Symi.
From the first years of his student life, he showed a strong interest and adoration for ancient texts, to later develop into a demigod collector of them. He spent his entire father's fortune traveling incessantly plowing the world in order to locate and purchase papyri, parchments, palimpsests and ancient manuscripts from monasteries, private individuals, antique dealers, etc.
Without being surrounded by the monastic form, he stayed for several years in the Athenian State to study and immerse himself in the early Christian manuscripts and effectively contribute to their preservation and rescue, which had been worn out by the use made by the monks in their daily prayers.
Simonides initially causes excitement and is praised by the world intelligentsia as the savior of ancient writing.
As is well known, the Intelligentsia has always been and is constituted by academics, artists, teachers, writers, self-proclaimed "wise men" and generally the entire system and establishment of the society of letters. The biggest newspapers in the world dedicated to Konstantinos Simonides eulogies, praises and praises.
He associates, corresponds and meets with the leading intellectuals of his time, who wish to meet him and study the ancient precious documents he possessed.
The authentic texts of Constantine Simonides attracted the keen interest of Kings and wealthy collectors, who offered him huge sums of money.
The letters of John and Judas, of which he was unjustly accused of forgery, were finally proved to be genuine, as was also that of
Androsthenes, Admiral of Alexander the Great, as well as the precious manuscripts of
Archimedes, Cicero, Pliny, etc. using X-rays and wavelengths of light.
However, as soon as the Intelligence spread its marginalization and began to sense that its primacy and cerebral scientism were threatened by the genius of Constantinos Simonides, it changed its behavior drastically.
Excitement and praise turned into unfounded accusations, and they began - knowingly untruthfully - to claim that they were all misled and deceived by the gifted and eminent archeologist Symia, that they allegedly did not perceive the forgery of his ancient papyri and documents and that they could not establish their true chronology, despite their supposed authority and expertise for which they themselves contended, and did not hesitate to question even the authenticity and genuineness of his degrees, precisely because their "highest" interests were at stake.
This anonymous behavior of the Intelligence did not surprise or surprise Konstantinos Simonides.
But it caused him deep sadness, because the systematic defamation and the organized slander and plagiarism against him also marked the end of his brilliant reputation and his career. In order to earn a living, he is forced to offer his services as an interpreter and eventually goes to the patriarchate of Alexandria from which he is assigned the duties of bishop of Ethiopia. His death occurred in Alexandria in 1867. Ancient parchments and other precious ancient documents from his collection are in the museums and great libraries of the world and very many have ended up in the Sinai Monastery.
The house of Constantinos Simonides in Symi was opposite the municipal pharmacy.
Today, alongside the foreign writers who dedicate articles and publish books about the ignored and grossly wronged Konstantinos Simonides, we Dodecanese must highlight the personality of this genius Symian with the global reach, influence and impact, who literally shook the intellectual world of his era.
A serious effort was made during the Mayorship of Kostas Kyprai from
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Konstantinos Simonidis: A genius or a fraud?
By Nikolos Farmakidis
civil engineer
A Symian, Konstantinos Simonidis, a genius who lived from 1820 to 1867 or 1902, made it his sole goal in life and managed to enter the Academies and Museums of Europe. His story is fascinating, but above all, "his manuscripts shake scientific concepts in the air, make academies and museums tremble," says author Rüdiger Schaper.
And this continues now and will suffer in the future as well, having mortgaged the knowledge of the so-called "scholars" of Western Europe for centuries. The 2,000 or 5,000 manuscripts, which no one knows who they are, make them wonder why this man set out to do them so much harm. They do not find answers, because their minds are not enough, since they do not understand the most basic thing, the nature of a "wounded Symian".
A German, Rüdiger Schaper, editor-in-chief of the cultural section of the Tagespiegel newspaper, is impressed by his personality and writes a biography of him, which is published in Greek under the title "THE ODYSSEY of the forger Konstantinos Simonides" (NEFELI publications).
Nice try but this is not Simonides, since the author, lured by silly stories of his enemies or possibly Constantine himself, because he liked to play tricks on everyone, describes him as a marginal person.
The author did not even understand where he was born, because they confused him. Konstantinos was born in 1820 in the midst of the Greek revolution, on a ship traveling from Hydra to Symi, and was the son of Simon Simonides and Maria from Symi. Konstantinos spent the first years of his life in Symi, where he learned his first letters.
We are living in times of prosperity for Symi, but also of reorganizations. In 1823, the people of Symia considered that they were freed from Ottoman rule and that they joined the Greek State. This state later (1830), without having such a right, gives it, together with the other eleven islands of the southeastern archipelago, to the Ottomans, exchanging it for Evia.
When the Symians find out and react, the mishandlings become blunders. It was the reason to stop an independence of at least three thousand years. The people of Symia do not forgive this to the prisoners in Greece at the time, but they swallow it.
The year Constantine was born, the Turks closed the famous School of Agia Marina, which was housed in the church of the same name. The Turks considered her a member of the friendly company and apparently destroyed the buildings she was housed in. In 1823, with the teachers of Ag. Marinas, the Greek School of the Castle or Public Greek School, housed in the buildings of Panagia tis Megali, is being revived.
This is where Konstantinos studied and he assures us of this, since in his autobiography he mentions the teachers of this School one by one: Neophytos, Benedictus, Ioannis Fotiadis Symaeus who was renamed Ierotheos, the Frenchman Vitalis, etc.
The School of Agia Marina 1765 – 1820 was an advanced Gymnasium school, preparing students for higher institutions. It was modeled after the Academies of Moldo-Wallachia and was in direct contact with the Academy of Odessa, and it was well known in Panhellenium. Her students were admitted to the Universities of Europe, such as Vardalachus in the medicine of Padova and others.
The same thing happened later with the School of the Castle, since the graduates of Symiac studied medicine, law, economics in universities such as Leipzig, London, Paris, Graz, etc.
Renowned teachers taught at the school of Agia Marina, such as the Hieromonk Gerasimos who also taught at the School of Cairo. He was also a schoolmaster. Neophytos Fasoularis from Symi who was transferred from the School of Quinces. Pantelis Symiakos, the hieromonk Agapitos HatziNikitas, George, Konstantinos, Michael, Nikitas Boyatzis, Ioannis Kalodoukidis – Miglis, Benedictos (Michael Sypachios) and Ioannis Fotiadis, Nikandros Philadelphos who later taught in Chios, etc.
Vardalachos, Benediktos, a hieromonk who became the Schoolmaster of Spetses and Poros during Kapodistrias, were among others students of the School. The subjects taught were Greek language, rhetoric, geography, mathematics (arithmetic, geometry, algebra), experimental physics, chemistry, metaphysics, logic, ethics, natural history, archaeology, Latin, Russian, German and French.
The author of the book tells us that he does not know his mother's name and tells us about a stepmother and a homosexual relationship with a certain Benedict with whom, after Constantine tries to poison his father and his stepmother Mary, he leaves and goes to yes.
There is no stepmother Mary, because Mary is his mother and she certainly does not poison his father and mother whom he loves dearly. If this story was not set up by himself to fool them, it was set up by his enemies. After all, in 1853, writing to his guardian, Alexandros Sturtzas, and referring to his father, he says:
"My respected father, who embraces you from the bottom of his heart, asked by my letter (according to your order) about the bishop of Rhodes..." and below, "and all this useful news about this Gospel, the akamata in all my respectable father writes, oh and myrias I confess to him, from my heart, grace", as well as, "O Agapius (may my respected father, and the man be well known)" and finally, "O Paisius philo-turk and philo-tyrant it became the mastic of the scattered islands.
I have as accomplices the satrap of Rhodes Sukiur pasan and the abbot of the panormite Kladakin Kakakion, whom my father banished by a sultan's firman as opponents. But Paisios, who recovered the shepherd of Rhodes at the sacrifice of a lot of money, and being unable to bear it, escaped at night, my father moved against him, as you also saw this a long time ago, and Methodius, a lover of money and nothing more." All this shows that not only did Constantine not try to assassinate his father but his love and admiration for him was great.
The German writer thinks he is making a discovery by referring to the testimony of the Archdeacon of Thessaloniki Nicolaidis (1839 – 53), who said that he had never heard of a Benedict in Athens. And indeed, because Benedict besides being a teacher at St. Marina was also Abbot of the Holy Monastery of Taxiarch Michael of Panormitou from 1794 until 1838, when he died.
He never went with Constantine to Athos, where according to the German author he died in 1840 and he certainly did not decorate it as he claims. In Athos, Constantine had two teachers, Damascenes and Gennadios, so he perfected the Hagiography he learned in Symi.
He left Symi in 1843 at the age of 23 and not expelled at 16, as the author of the book claims, and went to Odessa, under the tutelage of Alexandros Sturtzas, not to Athos. A. Sturtzas (1791-1854), whose biography was written by Konstantinos Oikonomos, was a Greek scholar of Odessa and the Tsar's official translator.
He was a friend of Kapodistrias and carried out diplomatic missions for the Tsar whom he advised on foreign affairs. Vardalachos had already taught in Odessa and in general there were ties with Symi. Sturtzas appreciates Konstantinos, helps him and watches over him.
Under his supervision he studies and travels. His appreciation is documented by the letter that Constantine writes to him from Alexandria in 1852. In this letter, Constantine writes him various information, about the bishops of Rhodes, about the Simian Hagiographers, about the Gospel of the Monastery of Roukouniotis and finally he translates a hieroglyphic text. What he writes is true and one can verify it even today, as I did.
So Simonides does not live in Greece, but in Symi. Greece, which the Symias looked up to in those years hoping for days of prosperity, believed that it sold them out to the Turks along with the great powers in 1830. It is therefore logical that it sees all the bureaucrats and scholars of the Greek state with a crooked eye.
On the one hand the Europeans, who furiously carve and grab "with their profane hands" that it is Greek and on the other hand their mouthpieces, make Simonides aggressive.
In order for the reader to understand the character of Simonides, I quote two testimonies of 15th century travelers. Anselme d'Adornes, an English count who went to Mount Sinai and Jerusalem, apparently to steal relics, wrote about Symi: "it was inhabited by Christians who belonged to a strange race and who had a bad character.
Therefore, when the Turks capture them, they set them free again, because no one wants to buy them for their bad character. They swim very well. They often swim from Turkey to their island to escape their masters. The distance from land is five to six miles.' While Ilericus Martellus, a German geographer, wrote: “It is inhabited by intelligent and active people.
The myth states that they were created by Prometheus, the son of Iapetus, when he was exiled there by Zeus. Conflicting opinions, which in their composition show characters: multifaceted, resourceful, cruel, untamed and intelligent.
If Rüdiger Schaper now read the birth of the Tragedy of his compatriot Friedrich Nietzsche (chapter 15) he would understand that he had before him a "harrier", who saw "Europeans" as chariots and horses and almost always both chariots and horses they are of very low quality and insufficient for the glory of their rulers, who think it a game to lead them to the abyss, which they leap over with an Achilles' leap.
So Simonides made them ashamed and afraid of him, because he believed that they should have the courage to admit that the Greeks are the masters of every civilization and that whoever approaches their achievements, old or new, must do so with reverence and not to desecrate them, as they have done for centuries.
On the other hand, his opponents sought to find the glass of hemlock, with which they could get rid of him once and for all, that is, the poison of envy, infamy, and hatred to destroy his self-sufficient splendor. . But they laughed as Nietzsche very wisely warned them.
I note that I am not saying this to lure you into self-satisfaction, since now that we are aping, that we are being Europeanized, as we used to gnaw, we cannot have these demands. After all, this is what Simonides is also fighting against.
For Konstantinos, the manuscripts he finds are like the beautiful statues, which have been buried for centuries in the Greek land or in the depths of the sea. They are not thrown away, nor neglected, just waiting for the right time. After all, if we were Germans, we would have done it long ago.
Many of them are broken and need a gentle and special hand to bring them back to their original glory. They are not objects of frantic pursuit of profit, and even by profane hands. But he cannot stop this descent, so he devises a genius plan: this "wielder" of knowledge will discredit its supposed protectors.
So he starts from Athens and discredits his first goals. The "givers" of enlightenment. Simaida is also inspired there.
Symmaida is a masterpiece of literature, which Simonides writes to glorify, according to Homeric standards, his homeland and its history in education, with the School of Ag. Marinas, he doesn't aim to make fun of anyone.
That some naive Englishman might have believed it, as Rüdiger Schaper says, was not Constantine's aim. But the establishment hated him so much in Greece, that instead of introducing it to schools so that children can learn literature, we threw it in the trash and read "20,000 leagues under the sea" by Jules Verne. From this feeling, it can be seen what Constantine's heart was, because he saw his beloved, glorious homeland, Symi, betrayed.
His next target was Istanbul and then Paris. According to the author, he does not know French, and wonders how he wrote the letters of recommendation for the directors of the Museums. He himself tells us that he learned French in Symi, next to his French teacher F. Vitalis, for whom he even boasts that he was a student of the famous French David. But he doesn't question that they might be true, after all his relations with Sturtzas had opened many doors for him.
After finishing with Paris, he "stopped" in London, as he says verbatim in his biography. On August 29, 1853, Simonides presented his manuscripts to the Royal Philological Society in front of 500 people "who applauded him heartily for a long time", while on the other hand he was praised in all their publications, newspapers and magazines.
The last stop was Leipzig, the temple of the Logies of Germany. Here he also writes the epimeter of his story, when he sees the Germans celebrating the discovery of the Sinaitic codex. Simonides shakes their heads: "It's my creation, I wrote it!!" The pandemonium reaches its peak, it has entangled and spoiled them all.
Konstantinos had rusty nails on his desk. When someone asked him what he does with them, he simply replied that he puts them in his tea, because when he was in Athos the water had rust and now he misses it. Stupid Frank did not know that iron oxide pigments were the basic colors of ancient artists from Egypt to India and China.
Rusty nails were tools of his trade, not a treat. But Simonides liked to tell them such stories, which remind me of my childhood, when a stranger naturally asked us about things, we told him silly stories.
Simonides, aloof like many Symias, attributed his behavior to the stepmother he didn't have, the attempt to poison the "doctor?" his father, whom he loved too much and finally that a certain Benedictus took advantage of him at the age of seven.
Apparently it was the first name that came to mind. It reminds me of the "Kamakia" of Rhodes in the 60s, for some they became tycoons and for others they had just been released from prison, with the sole aim of winning the sentimentality of the moment.
After Leipzig he departs and goes to Alexandria, stays there for a while, and then leaves life in his own way. A letter, forged as they later discover, announces his death from leprosy. A death without a body, announced only to a certain Rodokanakis.
And while Simonides died, a certain Demetrius II Doukas Angelos Komnenos Paleologos Rodokanakis appeared in Athens. A name with Byzantine opulence. His presence is underlined by a book entitled "Life and writings of Prince Konstantinos Rodokanakidos".
Rodokanakis is gifted and eventually ends up in England, where he is promoted to "court physician" and dies in 1902. An exit worthy of an ancient Greek lawmaker, a courageous elder who let the chariot fall into the abyss, into chaos, and he was analyzed in seven heavens of eternity which he created.
Konstantinos Simonides is the angel of revelation, he is the punisher who comes from the old days and who condemned the ignorant "scholars" of the West to an eternal agony, something like Dante's hell. They will be burned by the fire they lit inside them, the fire of the constant search for the "authentic", since their content is foreign.
It is so strange that there were English scholars who maintained that Pope's or Chapman's translations of Homer were better than the interesting but ultimately barbaric original. Thus the chimera of the eternal search for the authentic will eat them like carrion, with the ghost of Constantine watching over them.
Simonides triumphed and sent to Tartarus those who destroyed with their barbaric hands his world, the beautiful Greek world, the world of his Symi.
Read the opinion of Rüdiger Schaper, in the light I have given you, you will be delighted with the beauty of Constantine!!!
NOTES:
1 Symi, along with eleven other islands of the Aegean, was self-governing and subject to taxes in the Ottoman Empire during the Treaty signed by the people of Symia with Sultan Suleiman (1540)
2 Georgiou T. Vergotis "The Community of Symi and its Education" Holy Monastery of Panormitou
3 Ioannis Fotiadis became a clergyman with the name Ierotheos and served as Abbot of the Holy Monastery of Taxiarch Michael of Panormitos from 1839 – 1860. 4 In the year 1817
Kon/nos Vardalachos accepted an invitation to teach at the newly founded Greek school of the Community of Odessa, why not he saw the fulfillment of his hopes at the school of Chios. In the year 1819, Constantinos Vardalachos returns to Bucharest to teach at the school designated as an Academy of Philology by the ruler Alexandros Tsoutsos.
5 Konstantinos Oikonomou of Oikonomou (1780-1857) was a Greek scholar and representative of the Neo-Hellenic Enlightenment.
Posted 31st March 2019 by
lsim
