Sit tibi terra levis, Vlassis Rassias

“No suffering can happen to a fair man, either during life or after death”

 

This morning a mate and long-standing friend informed us that Vlassis Rassias, the head of the big heathen community of Greece YSEE (Ellenic’ Council) is passed away.

The news, unexpected, came like a slap.

While I’m writing i don’t know how and why he has died yet.

Immediately many memories of his strong personality and of our various meetings, happened in a time frame of fiveteen years, reached my mind.

Different occasions, between different people and lands, but similar at the same time, along our Europe roads.

Contacts and congresses happened pursuing a common goal: the right to the legitimacy and dignity for those seeking and finding answers and cohesion in the ancient and eternal religiousness of our respetive Ancestors.

The first coming to my mind are the images of our last meeting, not lacking of dialectic, but always respectful and with the aim of the common good: it was in occasion of the last E.C.E.R. Congress (former W.C.E.R.) organized in Rome on April 2018 by the M.T.R. coinciding with the Foundation of Rome celebrations MMDCCLXXI a.U.c.

However our pasti is old timed.

With Vlassis, indeed, we were in touch from the beginning of the century thanks to the tireless witness of the Roman-Italic Tradition that was  Salvatore Ruta, cofounder and princeps of the M.T.R. of the origins.

Through Salvatore, with Vlassiv we enstablished a very hearty connection based on mutual exchange, by virtue of the common aim of making the Religion of our Ancestors live. Actually his trip to Messina and the meeting with Ruta were for Vlassis the starting point for the development of his next productive path in the Ellenic land, with his Y.S.E.E.

Then the new technologies spread in those years, internet and the debate blogs, helped our exchanges and meetings: Vlassis on 2006 called me to concelebrate at his great event: the Prometeia, organized in Greece on the Mount Olympus, in occasion of the Summer Solstice. I embraced the invitation leading a M.T.R. delegation in the Ellenic land.

After that journey – because of the surprise of attending a Solstice celebrated by an unexpected crowd of people, men, women, erderly, children, a whole community, and because of the interesting organizational and doctrinal insights of those days with Vlassis on the Moun Olympus and in Athens – that I arrived to a method decision: time had come that we, Italian heathens, as well, came from our ivory tower and opened up to the world.

So I owe to Vlassis the turning point that i gave to the M.T.R., first one in Italy to undertake international relations.

So we take part to the W.C.E.R. congress on 2007 in Latvia, in Riga and Jurmala: even in this occasion, between the Y.S.E.E. mates and us, important affinities and strong correspondences emerged coming from the common classical culture. Then we met in Poland and, after a few years, in Lithuania, in Vilnius on 2014 and in Prague on 2016. Vlassis gave us the courtesy of a friendship visit, as well, in our hedquarters in Rome, to strengthen the ancient bond. Dear Vlassis, let me say that your long and constant work for the benefit of the current Greek and European paganism has been essential. we hope that others will know how to seize your important baton and that they will be worthy of raising the torch high, always keeping the sacred fire burning. May the Gods be favourable to your new journey undertaken, and may the ground be light for you.                                                                                                                                              

Daniele Liotta  

MTR President