 The history of Christian countries is a wonderful wellspring: It gushes forth inspiration for those who stop and refresh themselves with its cool, sweet waters. Southrons will find such to be the case with the last Greek ruler of Trebizond and his family. The background of their story begins in this manner: ‘It was 15 August 1461. Mehmed the Conqueror, after a brutal siege, occupied the capital of the Great Komnenoi, in Trebizond. The final strong bastion of Orthodoxy and Hellenism in the East ceased to illuminate. The empire was extinguished and our heritage was turned over to others. The Greeks of Pontus lived difficult and critical moments. Many times they felt the breath of death. And yet this death in this bastion of Hellenism, which is called Pontus, saw nothing but upright souls and indomitable resolve. ‘David, the Great Komnenos and last emperor, was a hostage in the hands of the Conqueror together with his three children and his nephew and successor Alexios V and displaced in Adrianople. The salvation of Trebizond was certainly impossible.’ The Christian Greeks falling to the Muslim Turks is much like the Christian South falling to the pagan Yankees. More on that in a moment. Let us continue tellin’ the story of this latter-day King David: ‘When David appeared before Mehmed he gave him two choices: to stay alive as long as he renounced his faith or for him and his entire family to be killed. From this terrible proposal David chose the second option, saying boldly to Mehmed: "No torture is going to bring me to the point of renouncing the faith of my fathers." So David went to eternity exchanging his royal crown for the halo of a martyr [this occurred on 1 Nov. 1463—W.G.].’ Their deaths have deep significance for Greek freedom and Greek faith: ‘Savvas Ioannides in his History and Statistics of Trebizond writes: ‘"The Greeks, to their honor, boast of two emperors: one who died bravely fighting for his country, Constantine Paleologos, and one who was martyred for his faith, David the Great Komnenos, the last Emperor of Trebizond. ‘So there are two elements to the national existence of all Hellenism, which are faith in the homeland and religion. Divine Providence has contributed to this with Constantine as a leader and hero of Hellenism and David as a leader and hero of Christianity." ‘ . . . The scholar Archimandrite Panaretos Topalidis, abbot of the historic Monastery of the Honorable Forerunner Vazelonos, in his erudite work titled Pontus Over the Centuries, comments as follows regarding the martyric end of the Emperor: ‘"... and then after some months he was cruelly faced with the dilemma, either to forswear or be slaughtered with his children. He preferred the second and saw the slaughter of his sons and his nephew Alexios, and together with them he was slaughtered on the hill called 'Pegioglou' by the Turks, which according to texts, on the other side of this hill Constantine Paleologos fell in battle and was killed. And so was fulfilled the martyrdom of Hellenism in the person of its two emperors: the one who was killed in battle for the defense of freedom, and the other slaughtered in testimony for the faith."’ This is how many Southerners describe their war against the Yankees: an attempt to protect Dixie’s freedom and the purity of her Christian Faith from the invaders. But like the Pontian martyrs, the deeds of the Southerners who sacrificed themselves for the well-being of their people have been obscured: ‘From these testimonies and opinions, we effortlessly conclude that we stand before a crowned martyr vindicated by God the just Judge, yet unjustly treated by all of Hellenism, since his sacrifice is neither highlighted nor his martyrdom honored. There are many reasons why the martyred King was not properly honored. But now we, the descendants and heirs of the Trebizond Empire, should highlight the common consciousness regarding his martyrdom for Christ, and pay him what he is due as sons of the beloved homeland, and verify the golden-mouthed saying which says: 'Just as the sun will not embarrassingly extinguish, the same goes for the memory of the martyrs."’ Thus are the Greeks reviving the memory of the Martyr David and his family. Moving words, these: ‘The ever-memorable former Metropolitan of Leontopolis, Sophronios Efstratiadis, in his scientific work titled The Hagiologion of the Orthodox Church, writes the following regarding our debt to the martyrs who were in obscurity without due honors being attributed to them: ‘"Wherefore we have a sacred duty to resurrect the dead of the earth and the living in heaven, and for the Church to ascribe to them her glory - the beauty, the forms and the names of the heroes of the faith - who through their blood and through their life established her foundations and are part of her undefiled crown, diamonds fallen from the precious crown, a sacred treasure of our faith. We have a sacred duty to seek and find the stars hidden by the clouds and place them among the heroes of the faith."’ And the closing lines, just as powerful: ‘We must honor the day of his martyrdom, proving to all those who delivered to obscurity this person and his martyric end, that the children of those who were uprooted, as the years go by, that not only are they not forgotten, but rather with sacred awe they address their sacred history, they study and learn the lessons, values and power and proceed to sail around the world in the Argo that did not stop her journey. The children of the Pontians do not forget, because they have within them the voices of their fathers, as trumpeted by the ever-memorable Leonidas Iasonides: "May our throats become dry, if we forget you, O Pontian earth."’ Southerners have this same duty, to rescue from obscurity the noble deeds of our ancestors who fought a mighty enemy with scant resources but strong faith in God, who sacrificed life and the fair bloom of youth and the quiet repose of their agrarian homes for their Southland, who watered it with rivers of their blood. This is our duty, the duty of every one of us: to reverence our ancestors with awe and hand down their stories to our children and to our children’s children as sacred history. Perhaps for such an act of filial piety the Lord our God will allow Dixie to make strides towards cultural and spiritual renewal, and to recover the political independence we knew for a few fleeting, difficult years.
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