Description

The encouragement of many friends and acquaintances who know my life and work in Switzerland led me to the decision to record the experiences of my long service in the German-speaking region of Switzerland, with the sole purpose of leaving something written for future generations so that they may know how our church started and how it reached its current form. In Switzerland, and generally in Europe, the Orthodox Church started from a zero base.

Today in almost all major cities in Europe, there are beautiful churches that house and warm thousands of souls and stand as witnesses to our holy Orthodox faith. All these churches are the fruits of struggles and great sacrifices made by both the spiritual Fathers and the faithful people of God, who together collaborated and managed to reach the point of not only existing but also coexisting with the local heterodox Christian churches.

It is known that the Christian church is not the building but the people of God. This people in the city and region of Zurich was homeless and beggarly for a full forty years, begging here and there for a place to celebrate the Divine Liturgy and the sacred mysteries. At some point, they needed to acquire their own space. However, for this achievement to materialize, it required time, money, and many sacrifices from many.

It was the duty and obligation of the priest to approach and inspire many devout Christians to stand by him and together realize this great purpose. In this book, all the efforts, difficulties, humiliations, disappointments, but also the joys experienced by many precious collaborators until we managed to organize a well-organized parish, which is a great honor for the expatriates, will be recorded.

Protopresbyter Dr. Emmanouil Simandyrakis

Contents

Foreword ix

The village where I was born 1

My high school years 3

My university years 7

Preparation for departure 19

The beginning 20

The great day of my life at the ordination of Deacon and Presbyter 23

Our journey to Zurich 24

The first excursions 25

The first clouds at the beginning of my ministry 32

An emotional story 35

A great experience 38

A new page in my ministry 41

A humanitarian illegality 58

The founding of the Stiftung 66

The day of the inauguration 76

An unexpected moral reward 79

The contribution of the Church to the Diaspora Greek community 87

Only by economy does it justify us 92

From the current life of our parish 97

The philanthropic sisterhood "Orthodoxy" 123

The Greek choir of Zurich 125

As a postscript 127

Some snapshots from the life of the parish 136

Now in Zurich 139

A global trial 142