This post will be an excerpt from Nikos Kazantzakis’ interview with Manolis Gialourakis. It took place at Kazantzakis’ house in Antibes, in the South of France, and was published in the Newspaper Ta Nea on 24/11/1954.

Kazantzakis is the author of the novel Zorba the Greek, which has been transferred to the cinema and whose leading role is played by Anthony Quinn. After publishing his novels “The Last Temptations of Christ” and “Christ Recrucified,” Kazantzakis faced harsh criticism from the Greek Orthodox Church. He struggled with and questioned Christian morals and values, but he never claimed to be an atheist. However, the myth exists that he had been excommunicated by the Holy Synod and the Greek Orthodox Church.

Here’s the interesting excerpt:

[..] We found ourselves at the end of a historical epoch. The world that we live in is falling apart. Moral decay, mental, economic. The world reeks of decay. This is our era. Another era, as it always happens, is struggling to be born because decomposition has always been the preface of synthesis. This world is in its infancy. It is born but still humming. It doesn’t have the strength to resist well-organized injustice.

There are two realities. The space between a civilization being lost and one being created has always been called the Middle Ages. This is in which we live; we don’t see it. The historians will see. And it’s a fact that the Middle Ages always have wars. […]