Greek priest challenges church attitudes with cult doom metal album

A Greek Orthodox priest whose church has traditionally viewed electric guitars and secular music as the devil's work has gained cult recognition with a home-recorded album combining doom metal, Byzantine music, Christmas carols, rap and religious dubstep.

Father Dionysios Tabakis, a 53-year-old ordained priest based in Nafplio on Greece's Peloponnesian coast, believes musical instruments are creations of god and is seeking to challenge negative perceptions of electric guitars within the church, reports The Guardian.

Speaking from his flat, surrounded by religious icons and a large collection of musical instruments, Tabakis said the devil cannot create anything because everything has been created by god.

His favourite instrument is an adapted Harley Benton R-457 electric guitar, which he bought for €135.

The guitar produces chords that are more unstable and atonal than those of a conventional guitar, while also sounding warmer. Tabakis compared its distinctive distortions to the waves of the human voice.

The instrument features prominently throughout his album, "Paradise Metal," which propelled him from relative obscurity to cult status earlier this year.

The album received a critics' score of 7.6 from the music publication Pitchfork, higher than the ratings awarded to Aphex Twin's "Drukqs" and Daft Punk's "Discovery."

Tabakis said electric guitars remain misunderstood in the Greek Orthodox Church and are often associated with the devil.

The Orthodox Church has traditionally regarded musical instruments and secular music as satanic influences and threats to the modesty of family life, but Tabakis is pursuing what he sees as a personal mission to change that attitude.

Despite the attention generated by the album, he remains highly reclusive.

Representatives of his record companies told The Guardian they have neither met him in person nor spoken to him by phone.

Apart from a YouTube channel, he has little significant online presence and rejected most media invitations after the album's release in April because he fears being portrayed as ridiculous on television.

Tabakis is one of around 8,000 presbyters registered with the centuries-old Greek Orthodox Church and remains deeply committed to his priesthood.

Although Orthodox priests are not required to remain celibate, he has been married to his wife, Foteini, for 32 years and they have three children.

He nevertheless admires the ideal of religious isolation and makes annual pilgrimages to Mount Athos, the autonomous monastic territory in Greece.

He also admires ascetic and self-sacrificing priests, including his grandfather-in-law, who lived among bears and wolves near the Albanian border.

Tabakis described such figures as the real priests and modestly characterised his own talents as more showy.

Born in 1972, he grew up in the port city of Piraeus in a family so poor that his parents attempted to terminate the pregnancy twice, but the doctor was unavailable on both occasions.

His grandfather was among the Greeks who fled Smyrna when the city was set ablaze by Turkish forces in 1922.

Tabakis said the Byzantine culture brought by those refugees remains part of his cultural identity and influences his music.

Priests in his parish introduced him to Byzantine music while he was in middle school.

Since then, he has taught himself to play a range of uncommon Byzantine instruments, including the banjo-shaped cümbüş, the kabak kemane knee fiddle, the long-necked yayli tanbur lute, the zurna pipe, the ney flute and several types of lyre.

He owns 15 varieties of the ney and demonstrated the differences between two of them during his interview, describing one as having a more tooth-like quality.

The instruments were arranged beneath a large portrait of the Virgin Mary, whom Tabakis credits both with his survival before birth and his recent success in music.

He began recording his own songs around four years ago through a highly informal, do-it-yourself process.

His son taught him how to use music production software, while an upstairs neighbour taught him to play guitar.

Vocals were provided by Evgenia Simela Armeni, a 23-year-old woman he met at church, who recorded herself on her phone inside her university flat.

Tabakis began uploading songs to YouTube around the same time and gradually attracted about 4,000 followers, although he said he had never intended to become famous.

One of those followers was Nikolas Rafael, founder of Thessaloniki-based music label Elhellell, who later contacted him after finding his email address on a Christian forum.

Rafael said many contemporary musicians follow repetitive archetypes and appear to be copies of one another, while Tabakis represented a refreshing departure from the typical artist.

Paradise Metal blends Christian Orthodox chanting with heavy metal, rap, techno and Byzantine music, often shifting unexpectedly between styles.

One track, titled "Techno in a Monastery," begins with the call "Are you ready?" before moving into rhythmic chanting layered over a dark electronic beat.

Pitchfork described the track as a musical playground that was both ambitious and unpretentious.

Tabakis said he tries to experiment and explore through music.

He cited Greek poet Yiannis Ritsos, who wrote that he envied large windows rather than large houses, and compared every musical instrument to a window offering a view of another part of the universe.

He also said the word metal derived from the Greek term metalláō, meaning to mine or explore.

Another track, "Flexareis Karga, Ekklisiastiki Rap," roughly translates as "You're Flexing Big Time (Church Rap)".

Tabakis explained the title by saying flexing means occupying oneself with something, while big time means doing so extensively.

He does not consider himself a political musician, saying he is uncertain how much of what people see is real.

However, the song "Dubai Paei," meaning "Bye, Dubai", was inspired by the current conflict in the Middle East and the departure of large numbers of people when bombs struck the luxury-focused UAE city.

The event reminded him of Babylon in the Book of Revelation, which became empty, and he described the song as a satire on the vanity of wealth.

Despite his religious position, the album is largely non-preachy.

Tabakis said he turned to rap partly to bridge the divide between older generations, whom he considers sometimes inflexible, and younger people who use a different language.

He searched online for slang while trying to compose rhymes.

None of his children is particularly religious. His 25-year-old daughter is a tattooed photographer living in Athens.

Tabakis said he deliberately avoided imposing his religious or musical interests on his children.

He said fellow priests have not commented on his success, which he considers positive.

Although he has lived in Nafplio for 27 years, he still described himself and his family as outsiders and suggested that competition and concern for power exist within the wider church.

The traditional association of secular music with the devil does not trouble him.

He said god has good taste, appreciates beautiful things and is not crude, adding that creating something beautiful through musical instruments honours his faith.

Tabakis remains uncertain about his future as a recording artist and said he will never leave the church to pursue music full-time.

He considers priesthood more important than kingship because a priest can transform bread into the body of Christ, something he said even an angel cannot do.

When walking with his wife, he said he somehow always finds himself returning to his church.

Asked about possible live performances, he compared the experience to taking a fish out of the water for a walk so it could get some air.

Although he feels uncomfortable with performing live, he said he would consider doing so if it brought people joy.