General Yannis Makriyannis Vision about Constantinople (d.

1864)

General Yannis Makriyannis ( , was a Greek merchant, military officer, politician

and author, best known today for his Memoirs.
A few months after completing his Memoirs, on New Year's Eve in 1851, Makriyannis started to write
another "history", as he called it, which he interrupted rather abruptly in late March 1852, when he was
under house arrest. This text was acquired in 1936 or 1937 by Yannis Vlahogiannis, and was finally
published in 1983 by Angelos Papakostas, aptly titled Visions and Wonders. It has, according to
Papakostas, far less historical significance than the Memoirs.1 The events described therein are given
briefly, and are used only as an excuse for his meditations and the interpretation of his Visions, on which
he particularly insists. Vlahogiannis, according to Sphyroeras, considered the manuscript to be a
religiously overzealous work of a deranged mind, and that is the reason he did not publish it.2 The work,
however, is also the product of a physically and mentally tormented soul, who, being isolated at the age of
54, instead converses with God, the Panagia, and the saints. It also shows Makriyannis's deep religious
feeling; he turns away from guns, instead seeking the nation's salvation through divine intervention.
Furthermore, as Sphyroeras points out, the work is unique in Modern Greek literature in its subject
matter, and is, as the Memoirs, a significant source of linguistic and cultural information.3
Excerpts of Prophecy
() Then the Lord God spoke and said: and the entire family of the Western nations should abandon their
idea and their demands at the expense of Orthodoxy. This is a new edifice, it is My wish and the wish of

those within My Kingdom that they (the Greeks) will receive again their glory of the past; I was the One
Who took that glory away from them, I Am the One Who gives it back to them; no nation among you
should ever raise that claim again, not even, not even Russia, herself; whoever raises such a claim will
have to face My wrath, not only he, himself, but also all those who may wish to run to his assistance; this
realm will be the domain of My Only-Begotten Son, this will become My domain also, and herewith I
appoint as My deputy the man named after John the Baptist, and I bequeath the realm to him and his
offspring and the offspring of his offspring through the ages. This is My wish and this is My pleasure.
You, king John, you are faithful to Me and to My kingdom, let your issue follow your own example; you
and your progeny are going to move your residence into the Palace of Constantine, and nowhere else.4
Notes
1) General Makriyannis, (Visions and Wonders) (ed. Angelos Papakostas),
Athens: 1983. (in Greek)
2) General Makriyannis, (Memoirs), Athens: Papyros, 1996 (work first published
1907) (preface by V. Sphyroeras). (in Greek)
3) Ibid.
4) General Makriyannis, (Visions and Wonders) (ed. Angelos Papakostas),
Athens: 1983. (in Greek), pp. 205-6.