The Cafeteria Prayer

The Way of the Arpha: 8 of 12

A chronicle of Cypriot boot camp.

Intro HERE and last section HERE

The next day, during dinner, Grivas lectured us on how we must respond to his call for attention in the cafeteria.

“When I say ‘Camp’ you stomp your fists once upon the table at shoulder width distance apart and leave them there.” Grivas paused. “CAMP!”

We slammed our fists on the table, knocking the cups over. “Stay there with your heads forward and without moving until I tell you otherwise,” he said while pacing the cafeteria floor. “I said don’t move!” he snapped. 

After a pause, he resumed in a slow, measured tone. “I hear some of you have complained about the food. I eat the same food as you. If you spit in it, then I will eat it.”

“That’s how much of a shithead you are,” a conscript at my table murmured.

“Keep quiet! Don’t murmur!” Grivas barked. “It’s easy to be a critic, but it’s not easy to dance to the orchestra in front of everyone.” He paused to let the force of his metaphor could sink in. Someone raised his hand. “Don’t raise your hand!”  He continued ranting as we sat with our fists on the table, as if each clutching the invisible bars of a cage. Once he finished, he silently paced with his hands folded at his back. 

“Everyone say the Lord’s Prayer together,” he finally demanded. The air at once filled with the bowed murmurings of the Lord’s Prayer as the hundreds of conscripts crossed themselves in the Orthodox pattern. It was the most disciplined, synchronized display in all of boot camp. Arphades disrespected army officers but they didn’t mess with God. The prayer ended. “You are free,” Grivas said.

There was no pretense in the Cypriot army about separation of church and state. As far as the permanent officers were concerned, the Lord’s staff was an assault rifle. The army apparently wanted to ensure that the warrior spirit was built upon the love-thy-enemy, turn-the-other-cheek teachings of Jesus. That way in the case of war an atmosphere of brotherly love and compassion would prevail after the smoke and screams had subsided.

There was prayer before and after every meal and prayer before bed. Occasions of greater consequence demanded more than a short prayer. For such events, a blessing was in order.

“You are now going to go to the church for a blessing,” an officer told us after breakfast during Monday morning lineup. “And then you are going to get your guns.”

The epicenter of the training camp was a vast plaza the size of a football pitch where all parades and ceremonies took place. The paved plaza was empty except for two buildings. On the far end, overlooking the Mediterranean, was the training camp headquarters. And in the middle of the plaza, rising out of the center of this vast concrete plain, was the church. Its focal location sent the clear message that the activities of the training camp were dedicated and beholden to God, who was, after all, the best general the army had ever known since He was the only superior to command the respect of all soldiers. He was so effective at infusing discipline and elevating morale among army ranks that no other officer had ever raised the tender and controversial matter of His beard, although a few officers did secretly nurse the hope that He might one day be reconceived as a clean-shaven Lord, or at least a mustached one.  

The officers marched us from our barracks down to the plaza, where we lined up before the church. A priest soon arrived, briefcase in hand, and after lighting the candles proceeded with the chants and service. There were no interruptions, although the presence of a curvaceous black-haired female officer who was normally hidden from view in the headquarters building did disrupt the ecclesiastical solemnity by sending the congregation into a nerve-jangling, tooth-gritting torment of a most unspiritual variety.  

After sprinkling us with holy tapwater, the priest then lectured us on our Hellenic roots and on how we were unraveling as a people because we’d begun to embrace the dissolute culture and customs of the West. It wasn’t the materialism or consumerism that the church was opposed to but rather the erosion of its cherished millennia-old tradition of sexual repression and patriarchy. These admonitions and diagnoses had already been given to us on our first day in boot camp via a four-page Orthodox pamphlet titled The Lamp. There had even been a section dedicated to “The Western Way of Life” warning us about the “phenomena of anarchism, crime, drugs, lewd sex, and homosexuality observed in the communities of the West.” 

The Lamp also urged abstinence until marriage and quoted the “wise professor of psychiatry” at Zurich University A. Forel who, according to the pamphlet, claimed that “chastity and abstinence until marriage not only does not hurt a youth but actually helps tremendously with his health.” All ‘prophylactics’ (the word was always in quotes) were “half-measures and a dangerous temptation.” It then condemned those “unscrupulous doctors and antichrist hawkers of sexuality who recommend the use of ‘prophylactics’ for illegal relationships.”

The pamphlet highlighted in bold certain lines or phrases that it considered particularly valuable, like its metaphor for describing those who promote condom use: “It is like telling thieves that they can freely commit the injustice of theft and robbery but should take all the necessary protective measures to avoid arrest from the police. Hey, people, wake up!!!”

There was separate advice for the youth of each gender. Under the subheading “Man or Rascal?” The Lamp informed that a “man can never be that wild long-haired hippie with the varicolored shirts, the tight pants and the earring. With his comic appearance he plays the stud, the man, and he boasts about his sexual conquests. In fact, he is not a man but a squirt, not a person but a shrimp.”

“The Future Mothers,” meanwhile, offered concrete dos and don’ts in the hope that all female readers might live long repressive lives: “Girls need to prepare appropriately to responsibly and worthily take on the role of the mother. They must learn to be modest and obedient so that they can be good wives and affectionate mothers… [The young woman] does not go to discos, dances, or to parties and sinful entertainments. She does not drink alcohol. She does not smoke and she does not play cards… and she maintains the principle of chastity as the apple of her eye.”

The priest had no time to delve upon subjects of deeper philosophical and spiritual complexity like Christian love since we still had to get our assault rifles, so he concluded his sermon with a tribute to the glories of Hellenism. The blessing was now complete. The officers lined up before the priest, one by one bowing down to kiss his hand, and then marched us off to the firearms storage room. 

*to be continued in a week with The Zastava