I glance across the sorrow-filled room and the grave nature of his stare catches my eye immediately. The tension between his expression and the holiness of the structure before him is visible. The wrinkles around his eyes, from years of working in the Australian sun, stand as firm as I have ever seen them; on edge as if they too know what is happening. While a very familiar face that I have seen time again, this is a state I have never witnessed before.
A disconcerting aura of confusion and fear overtakes his face and, for the first time in 21 years, he surrenders his guarded exterior. I see him as vulnerable and scared. He stares at the structure in front of him for six whole minutes. Does not move. Does not utter a word. Eventually, he turns to the figure next to him, points his finger forwards, and through his thick migrant accent utters, “that is where I’m going”.
This is my view as I stand at the funeral of my late Uncle Foti. The smoke from the Greek thurible accompanies the prayers of those beside me in an ascension above and an intense divinity floats around the room. The thurible’s twelve bells sound in synchronicity to alarm the heavens of Foti’s spiritual arrival, and the lives of those around me of the imminence of loss. Entrenched in a never-ending sea of black on black, passion is echoed in my family’s sorrowful mourning. But this is no usual funeral. This funeral holds a sense of deep loss in migrant camaraderie; a loss of connection, identity, experience and journey held between people like no other kinship alive.
When the devastation of World War II brought instability to the Greek government, many Greek citizens were forced to flee for a better life. Australia was this better life for more than 160,000 Greek Australian migrants, who have revelled in Australian freedom and happiness since the early 1960s. As Australian life now modernises, post-WWII Greek migrants are losing strong migrant kinship in the face of life’s most inherent truth: death.
Konstantinos (Kon) Papageorgiou is a 70-year-old Greek Australian migrant whose 50-year anniversary in Australia also marks the death of fellow migrant and brother-in-law Foti Limneos. Drinking home-brewed Greek coffee from the finest Greek teacup, whose pictorial ending holds more significance than the bible, the original ‘Kon the fruiterer’ places the teacup down and looks at me. “I think back to the funeral and realise that is where we going … We were 46 years together. I didn’t expect him to die. People die and they never coming back. I don’t know.” Kon and Foti arrived on Australian shores with not a word of English, no Australian connections and no clue what the future held. What they brought with them, however, was a keen thirst for liberty and a hope for stable economic support that filtered through the 46 years that followed. Forty-six years marks nearly half a century of camaraderie between them; a brother-like kinship defined by a never-ending connection of strength. For the pair connected by family and Greek spirit, inter-migrant support started from the moment Foti took his first step on Australian soil in 1969. Along with the birth of Kon’s first child, Foti was welcomed into the Papageorgiou household with the warmest of prides – more of the family had made it to Australia. “Both of them were very hard workers. They were also both very happy.
They would go everywhere together, always by each other’s sides. And they always helped each other. That’s just how it was,” says Kon’s wife, Anthea Papageorgiou. Two years later, Foti flew the Papageorgiou coup, landing himself a jeweller’s shop in Melbourne’s Box Hill, as well as long-term partner and amazingly loving wife-to-be, Angela Limneos. But the camaraderie and integral support between Kon and Foti was not at an end just yet. For life beyond the ’70s, like migrants of all backgrounds in Australia, inter-migrant support boiled down to the most fundamental human instinct of endurance; in a land where everything was completely unknown, Kon, Foti and their families needed each other to survive. For years, this fortitude was epitomised through family picnics down the east coast, Papageorgiou and Limneos family trips to Greece and the fusion of their six children. When Foti turned 35, however, the reality of survival became all the more stark as the families were required to live together in order to help Foti survive through kidney loss; a grave illness that would see Foti’s health suffer for the rest of his life. “We took Foti and his children, Effie, James and Benjamin, in for six months while Angela was in Greece looking after family affairs. We took him to dialysis every second day, also taking all the kids to school. It was a crazy house.” Anthea and Kon are saddened as they reflect upon their earliest days of Foti’s suffering. Eighteen years filled with late-night ‘jim-rummy’ games and traditional name day celebrations of ouzo and conversations about life around the lamb spit went by before Foti endured more problems with his kidneys. He lost the transplanted kidney and dialysis began again. After the search for another kidney ended with no kidney replacement found, Foti was admitted to hospital with a chest infection and we lost him just three months later. It was through the journey of Foti’s health that the uniqueness and importance of migrant camaraderie was tried and tested and the power of its presence prevailed. All in all, a 46-year affinity of inter-migrant support, struggle, achievement and pride in the new life Kon and Foti made for their families and wives in Australia was strongly held between individuals and families. And now that was all over. Chris Stamelos has headed the Orthodox division of Victoria Funerals for more than 20 years and his experience is one that resonates with the uniqueness of migrant loss. According to Stamelos, the passing of fellow migrants brings a unique social and emotional depletion to the lives of many across Australia. “Migrants have struggled. They have opened up a new territory … a new home somewhere else, away from their homeland.” This conjures a unique sensitivity. As an individual who has devoted his career to providing traditional Greek Orthodox funeral services, Stamelos tells me that the most common issues raised by migrant loss not only revolve around the loss of migrant kinship, but also questions of migrant identity and notions of home. Death on soil other than that of Greece strikes a dichotomous chord in the identity of Greek migrants. Ultimately, a divided spirit is conjured between their devotion and passion for Australia as a primary source of modern happiness, and a distinct cultural pride in Greece held even a million miles from home; overt in the Australian wearing of the Greek Orthodox cross, the thousands of olive trees that line the fences of Greek Australian homes and the tears that stream down the faces of Greek men during the traditional zembekiko dance. According to Stamelos, the divided notion of home resonates when Greek Australian migrants make burial decisions. While they are physically dying here, Stamelos says that they “aren’t really settled” and reminds them that religiously, “there is only one paradise. There is not an Australian one, nor a Greek one. While [one’s] bones will remain at one location or the other, the spirit won’t”. However, this does not settle the minds of some, as Stamelos comments that it is quite common to hear ‘we will bury him here and ten years later, we will take him to Greece.’ That is how strong their tie is to home.” For Konstantinos, however, confusion is outruled by the overwhelming love he has for his family, and Australia as an economic funder of life. He ponders the question for less than a minute and his return is powerful in its simplicity. “My life is here because my grandchildren are here,” he states, as he pounds his fist down on the table just as a judge would in a final judicial decision. In a spiritual briefing with Father George Adamakis, I am given deeper insight into the Orthodox experience of death in Australia. Adamakis’ voice of spiritual conviction surrounds me as my view is clouded by hanging crosses comprised of three bars to remind onlookers of the presence of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, red carpet symbolically paralleling the blood of Christ, and old brown timber pews that have heard more prayers than Adamakis himself.
It is a gloomy day outside, but the candles lit by those waiting for confession provide the room with a golden haze, accompanied by Adamakis’ voice as he ponders upon his encounters with multiple cross-sections of the community.
“I have seen migrants lose fellow war veterans, daughters lose mothers, and even within our own parish we have experienced the loss of fellow migrants. The loss is infinitely unique and one defined by two ultimate journeys. ‘We all came here in one boat; now we are all leaving at different times, on a different journey’ – this is the most common saying I hear from Greek migrants,” says Adamakis.
During the religious journey of Greek Orthodoxy in Australia, death can cause religious apprehension spawned by aligning Greek Orthodox tradition in Australia with culturally distinct customs in Greece.
Under Greek Orthodox theology, ‘when the soul dies, it is resting; There is no pain. No sorrow. No mourning. And when the body is buried, the soul has already left, it has entered another dimension and it is immortal’.
However, such a perspective is overridden by cultural ‘attitudes’ that are brought with migrants from Greece to Australia.
“Many migrants will bring their own traditions surrounding death and mourning to Australia,” says Adamakis, but there is a disparity and they suffer “religious confusion”.
Adamakis, like many Greek Orthodox priests, provides religious clarity for his adherents; acting as a religious stepping stone for the execution of rituals surrounding death in Australia. Through the commitment of the Parish and Greek Australian migrants, Greek Orthodox religion has been well maintained, and funerals see the execution of the memorial service, the funeral, the burial and the consumption of the traditional ‘koliva’; a spiritual symbol of rebirth.
It is with these rituals that the unsettled minds of migrants can revel in Greek tradition in order to honour the fallen, ensure their ascension into the religious afterlife and treasure a religious connection to Greece.
The most recent spiritual connection with Uncle Foti was at his 40-day memorial service last month. My family gathered in sacred commemoration of our cheekiest uncle – the soul who, no matter what, would bring youthful fun into our family life. Combined with the memorial of two other families, I looked around the room and side-by-side stood elderly Greek men and women. Momentarily, those who have known a life of movement are stagnant. No moving forwards to a better life. No looking back towards Greece. For 20 minutes, confusion is subsided and the room lifelessly ponders the final destination. I pray for the harmonious arrival of my uncle.
Until we meet again – Rest In Peace Theio Foti.