THE CHINA MAIL, OCTOBER 10, 1988.
At 14 His
Marriage GREATEST THREAT For Happiness
TO CHURCH
Sir C. Norwood On Totalitarianism
‘ROTTEN' STANDARDS OF MODERN LIFE
Totalitarian dangers to Chris- tianity and modern social tendencies were referred to by Sir Cyril Nor- wood. President of St. John's College, Oxford.
In his presidential address to the Conference of Modern Churchmen at Loughborough, Leicestershire, Sir Cyril said he believed that only
Patriarch Who Speaks Seven Languages
Kosta Stankovitch, patriarch of the little
Recipe
He is too late.
Now I have been
married for 54 years and there is- my wife over there be motioned to an elderly woman with a mhawl over her head who was picking scraps of metal from the car dump.
"We have had our quarrels,ibut We are happy. everybody does. Oh yes. Our Greek Orthodox re- That is right. Oh yes. In London Jugosla-ligion allows no divorce.
That they have 3,000 divorces.
vian colony in Essex, knows seven languages and cannot read or write a word in any of them. He has been married to the same wife since he was
14, and believes in letting the young to marry
as soon as they fall in love.
by Christian education could the A couple of months ago he led a motor tour of Bri-
world he saved from an abyss of which no man could see the bottom.
The ordinary man no longer
tish-born relatives back in Jugoslavia.
is wrong. They wait too king) A man here in Essex he wait for seven years and then the girl What is marry some other man.
wrong.
Unless you are a very bad man you should marry young at 1471ke me, and be happy.”
'Oh yes," said the young Kosta.
feared Hell and had ceased seriously The result was that four young men found brides and considered the view of pleasant
to hope for Heaven.
"The one id
becoming a region of comic stories and the other of iairy tales," Sir Cyril added.
in Bosnia after a three weeks' tour.
..
"WE ARE HAPPY"
They were married in the same youngest of them, had taken one of Perhaps the strongest threat to church there, and then they motor-the cars and gone to the seaside. Christianity
from came
totali-ed back to England. tarianism in all its forms. It could not honestly be denied that Nazism in Germany, Communism in Russia, and Fascism in Italy had conferred a good many benefits on their spective countries.
re-
I went to the village of Little Baddow, near Chelmsford. to find out how these hasty marriages were getting along.
I found a dump of motorcars in various stages of decomposition, INDIVIDUAL SUBMERGED But these benefits were bought at two gilded caravans and two woo- Apart from the den huts at the top of a gentle rise, a heavy price. State, the individual had no value. writies an "Evening Standard" re- The race, the nation, the party, porter. stood supreme, demanding and ceiving complete surrender.
re-
A plump, brown-skinned girl who was knitting in a rough little gar- den said "Good afternoon", - shyly, and bolted indoors.
"WE LIVE SIMPLY”
Patriarch, Stankovitch lit his pipe
countryside. -- "I have seen many lands, I have not much money, but I have near wanted anything. Our cow givea We live simply.
The
us milk. We have à radio.
I winters are mild in England. have rheumatism now, oh, yes; but But her happy husband, 18-year-my father was 95 and my great- was 124 when he died." old Kosta Stankovitch, nephew of grandfather the old man, was about the dump, his hands black with grease from the old cars.
He is short, stocky, handsome in a Valentino.way, "I just met Melia and loved her and she loved me, and we are very happy," he said.
He was born and went to school here, so his English is perfect.
"It was love at first sight with all our Doys and girls,” said the patriarch coming over to hear what was going on.
:
And then his voice became touch- said. ed with melancholy, and he "I cannot read of write. If only I was a scholar. I would have, à little business now a shop. But it is too late; oh yes, too late."
My last sight of little Jugoslavia in-Essex, was of an old woman bent over broken car bodies, and of young and old Kosta leaning on the fence and considering the pleasant prospect of their adopted land.
"Go back to Jugoslavia to live?" young Kosta had said "Not me. Give me England.”
The Stankovitches are here to
"Oh yes, it is right for the young of to marry.
What use for an old bachelor of 30 to try to settle down. 'stay.
This is fundamentally at issue with Christianity, which holds that human personality has value in
Then Mr. Stankovitch came out. "There can itself." said Sir Cyril. be no compromise or conciliation He is 68, spare, swarthy.
true He has a luxuriant moustache, between totalitarianism and Christianity, for they are at bot-bushy eyebrows and sunbursts
wrinkles, as though he had spent tom opposed.
Christianity has to face a strug-years screwing up his eyes in the gle over a wider field and of severer Tropics. He has. intensity than any, perhaps, it has yet known, Bound up with it is the hope of democracy. To conceal these truths is to mislead people.
the
"We should, I think, see a strong Fascist party form itself if Labour came into power with
roamer.
NOT A GIPSY
A
over
He is not a gipsy, but he is
He has been all South America. He has gone over tracks in the Andes and trails in ever Canada. He used to train brown an bears and monkeys and run a small absolute majority; nor should I be circus. Also he dealt in horses. other than apprehensive for freedom if some sections of Labour party had their own way.
true
Now the main job of his family breaking the is buying old cars and
them up.
In the winter he saws up logs and sells firewood, dragging a trailer behind a Bentley.
For the truth is that materialism, in the decay of Christianity, has taken a strong hold upon many in
་ These Jugoslaviane girls have all classes, and the materialist has
married into 2 motor-owning use for the freedom of other
family. Patriarch Stankovitch people."
up his One was commonly told, Sir Cyril unfortunately smashed said, that the Church was faced by Minerva in Switzerland during the so great a relaxation and change of bridal tour.
no
morals as to amount to a rejection
But he has another by the dump
of Christian morality by the modern and one of his sons, who has two world.
CINEMAS AND NEWSPAPERS
other cars has left a Delage behind.
- The Stankovitch clan has multi-
It had to be admitted that the plied since Kosta, his brother-in- standards of a certain section of law; and their families arrived in 7 society, and among them a certain England (42 years ago and decided section of the intellectuals, were exto settle down. tremely loose and, as he would say rotten.
"But it is one of Mr. Stankovitch's sorrows that it has to multiplied "We are noteament
But their example did not spread move rapidly.
to the mass
warning of the nation save in breeders" he said. "I had six chil-|
øb far
not
acted healthily as
example..
adren and four are living.
others have only two or three?!
"The cinema admittedly is aphroOnly one of the brides, 16-year-old and Bome newspapers Melia,lives at Little Baddow, where
salacious, but both the patriarch owns 20 acres
intelligence and the land.
for
he miblic
they, do
"
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