Mission to Macedonia – Skopje – Albania

(25 – 29 October, 2018)

The Ecumenical Hellenism Foundation in cooperation with the Institute of Religious and Ethnic Identity conducted a mission of exceptional interest in the aspects of religion, ethnicity and tourism.  While leaving the region of Macedonia, we continued our visit to the country of Skopje and Albania, without great variation in neither tone nor scenery of the regions, as our course continued on to locations including Greek historical tourist attractions and monuments.

Our journey began at Nymphaea.  Indeed a jewel of the North, including the Museum of the Macedonian Struggle exhibiting the lives of the Makedonomachoi.  Then our mission crossed the border at the village of Niki and entered the country of Skopje.

Ohrid.  A center of Hellenism and Orthodoxy, the city contains numerous historic temples.  Our mission visited Samuil’s Fortress and then travelled downward to Lake Ohrid through winding cobbled streets like those found in the historic area of Plaka in Athens, Greece.  The statue of Naum, Bishop of Ohrid can be seen here as well.  Bishop of Ohrid Ioannis, opened the Church and performed the Holy Liturgy for us on the feast day of St. Dimitrios according to the Greek calendar, despite the fact that they celebrate on a different day.  Every member of the mission was moved to tears while listening to the Holy Liturgy in Greek, feeling as if we were on Mt. Athos.  Finally, a discussion took place with the topic, The World of Orthodoxy in the Modern European Reality.   Speeches were delivered by Xanthi Doumboulaki, Art Historian, Efstathios Kekridis, a Professor at the University of Thrace, Efstratios Kritikos, Nominee Professor of Theology, and Athanasios Angelopoulos, Professor.  The meeting was closed by Bishop of Ohrid, Ioannis, who spoke in fluent Greek explaining the history of the Archdiocese.   Last but not least, the Bishop was presented with a commemorative plaque and the Greek flag.

Krusevo. Walking through the picturesque town of Krusevo, originally a Greek-Vlach town, we felt like we were walking in the town of Kastoria.

Monastery-Bitola. Yet another historic city which has played a major role in the history of Greece from Antiquity to the Period of Samuil’s descent in the 8^th century.  Numerous Byzantine temples and the Monastery of Naum with its great history, comprise the main tourist attractions of the area.

 Pogradec was the mission’s first destination in Albania, arriving on October 28^th, the historic Ohi Day.  It was in this exact location in November 1940 that the great Greek victory against the Italian troops in El Basan took place, playing a leading role in the outcome of the war.

Moscopole.  The city was a center of Hellenism as well as a spiritual and intellectual beacon of light.  With a former population of 60,000 people prior to the destruction led by Ali Pasha, today there are ruins of unique Byzantine temples and a population of 800 Greek speaking inhabitants.

 Vodositsa, is the location where the remains of 3,000 Greek war heroes of the Balkan Wars lie.

Korce, or Korytsa.  Is similar to any Modern Greek city, though simple and poor.  It includes the Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ.  The Holy Liturgy was performed by His Eminence Bishop of Korce, Ioannis, during which the members of the mission paid tribute to the war heroes of 1940.  It was exceptionally moving for all the members to walk in the footsteps of their brothers, their fathers and grandfathers who fought bravely, without ample military training, in the Balkan Wars against well-trained military troops.

Returning to the city of Kastoria, the mission was met by His Eminence Seraphim, Bishop of Kastoria, at the Monastery of Myrtidiotissa.  The mission visited the unique Byzantine monuments of the area and the Paleolithic ruins dating back 6,000 years BC.

Prespes is a fishing village where many eremites lived in recluse.  The mission approached by boat the locations where the eremites lived, climbing 150 steps.  The experience was considered to be one of a kind!

Το άρθρο 2018 | Mission to Macedonia – Skopje – Albania εμφανίστηκε πρώτα στο Μέλαθρον Οικουμενικός Ελληνισμός.

Mission to the Greek speaking villages around the world

(June 29th – July 9th 2012)

Trip to South Italy and Sicily, Palermo, Selinoundas, Akragas, Syracuses, Catania, Messini.

We visited the Greek speaking villages, met the Greeks and their history, we admired the dynamics of the ancient Hellenic culture and walked throughout the castles of the Byzantium and the middle Ages.

90 of our members participated from around the country.

“We are the Greeks!” That’s what the Greeks of Great Greece answered at the question “Are you also Greeks?”

This mission was carried out under very difficult circumstances. With a temperature of 40 to 45 ° C, humidity up to 80% and the President of the Program Universal ill throughout the whole Mission, this trip was the most tedious so far. The distances covered under these conditions seemed endless to the companions, but what they saw and felt when visiting the Great Greece surely overshadowed everything else. Fifty-six members, collaborators and friends of the Ecumenical Hellenism, participated in these difficult times of our country in the mission and the big meeting with our Greek-speaking brothers and sisters in Calabria and Apulia. They traveled to historical places on the tracks of the ancient Greeks – settlers of southern Italy and Sicily.
Leaving behind the port of Patra and then Igoumenitsa on the morning of June 29th, we started this unique 11-day trip to the lively traces of Greater Greece and the Greek Orthodox world in southern Italy and Sicily.

Shrines – monuments – centers, visited by the mission

Bari, the capital of the region of Apulia, with its unique old medieval city. Graphic, narrow, paved streets with various shops and local cafes that relaxed us after our pilgrimage to the Romanic and Gothic age royal Church of St. Nicholas. The interior consists of the hall and two corridors and is divided by granite columns and pilasters. This Church was the first of this design, setting a precedent, later imitated in many other structures in the area. The Church hosts one of the most remarkable Romanesque sculptures of southern Italy, the Episcopal throne of Elias, the first archbishop. There are precious mosaic floors in the crypt and the presbytery. The crypt, the oldest of the area, is also decorated with mosaics. The crypt, with 26 columns, houses the relics of St. Nicholas.

Our next stop was the Metapontum, where we saw the archaeological park with the temple of Lakinia Hera, and then Rigio at the nose of the Italian “boot”. There we visited the Museum of Great Greece, whose main exhibits are the Dioscuri, the paintings of the Locri, the antiquities and the brass warriors of Riace.
Bova Marina, Calabria’s headquarters where we were warmly welcomed by professors from the Greek-speaking Institute and informed from local actors and Greek speakers. The two-volume project “Thrace – History – Culture” and “Alexander the Great” were presented by the President of the Foundation of Ecumenical Hellenism and given for their library, as well as Greek flags. We dined together and talked in the local dialect and groups of Greek-speaking children, dressed in their traditional costumes  danced in honor of us with the accompaniment of live traditional music, with temperature conditions above 40 oC.
Passing through the narrow streets of Messina (Skylla and Charybdis to Homer), we stopped in the beautiful medieval Kefalou with the small, picturesque streets, we saw the Byzantine mosaics in the church of Rogiros and visited the medieval laundries.

Palermo, the capital of Sicily, the city of contrasts and various characters. Old and new, well-built and ruined, alive and dormant, Christian and aloof, you see everything there, except Greek antiquities. The Normand element prevails, especially the metropolis, but the baroque era is not left behind. There are Churches everywhere with elegant bell towers and statues at the central gates and ornate windows. Piazza Pretoria and the Praetorian Hall, the Norman Cathedral and the tombs of the Kings, Martorana with the Byzantine mosaics and the famous Duomo of the neighboring Monreale, with the most mosaics (6,350 sq. M.) after Saint Sophia, are in the center of our attention. It is built in a magnificent location, at the depth of the great bay of the northwest coast of Sicily, at the foot of Mount Pellegrino, in a fertile valley. It is a city with ancient history. It was a colony of the Carthage, while the Phoenicians and the Greeks used it as a station on their journeys. It was conquered by the Romans, the Normans, the French, the Spaniards and the Arabs. During our stay in Palermo, a visit was fulfilled to the catacombs built in 1599 by Capuchins (monks) to be used as capuchin catacombs.

However, in the following centuries it became a symbol of a social position in order to place the dead of Palermo’s society, citizens (usually wealthy) in the Capuchin catacombs. They are a spectacular monument of the area, with 8,000 mummified corpses being kept there.

The ancient Selinountas. Selinus was founded in the second half of the 7th century BC on the southwest coast of Sicily as a subsidiary city of the East-Sicilian Doric Colony of Megara Hybla. The city owes its name to the Greek word Selino, which means wild celery, the plant that is rich in the region. It has one of Sicily’s most extensive archaeological parks and a valley with giant temples, the fortification wall, the Acropolis and a place of religious worship, where the ruins of the majestic temples still stun the passenger that walks by and reveals the level of prosperity and wealth of Selinoundas between the 6th and the 5th century BC. There are eight temples here, the most imposing being the one of goddess Hera, while the vast columns of the rest are scattered everywhere, which having as a background the acropolis columns, unwillingly return your memory to the exaltation of Greek colonialism.

Akragas is the jewel of Sicilian antiquities. In addition, Akraga and Selinoundas, compete in number, size, and imposing of temples and offer the record of the total number of ancient temples in the Greater Greece, compared to all the ancient temples in metropolitan Greece. In ancient years Akragas was home to artists, philosophers and great men of history.

It was a rich city with great power and the poet Pindar called it “the most beautiful city of mortals”. The valley of temples in Akragas is a rectangular area of ​​12 km and is a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1998. The temples of Hera, Heracles, Dioskouros, Zeus and the Thereon monument are the central themes of our tour. The temples were built during the period of the Great Greece and are all of yellow sandstone, which could be cut with a saw! Throughout the valley there are several olive, almond, carob trees and countless prune trees. However, there is almost no shade and most of the tour is fulfilled under the hot sun. The Temple of Castor and Pollex – Tempio di Castore e Polluce or Dioskouros, is the first to meet. Then there is the Temple of Olympian Zeus – Tempio di Giove Olimpico. The temple was supported by the great Telamones and the Atlases that occupied the space between the columns of the peristyle. Then is the temple of Hercules – Tempio di Ercole. In Sicily, Hercules was worshiped as a god and not as a demigod, as in Greece. It is the oldest temple of Akragas and dates back to the 6th century B.C. The Temple of Omonoia – Tempio de la Concordia is located in the center of the temple’s hill and is preserved in excellent condition. Last is the Temple of Hera of Likinia – Tempio di Giunone Lcinia, with 25 surviving columns out of 34 and the best view of the hill and the sea. In the old town we saw the cathedral, the Duomo, built on the ruins of a temple of Zeus. It has a nice view, since it is built on a hill. It’s rhythm is Gothic – Norman of the 14th century.

Syracuse, the largest and most powerful Greek city of the Greater Greece. Cicero called it “the most beautiful and most popular city.” The impressive ruins of the center of the ancient city are a UNESCO’s World Heritage Site. We visited the quarry where we saw the ancient theater, the altar of Hiero and the gallery of Dionysius and then we moved to Ortygia. The historic city center is located on this small island, named after the abundant quail it had. You don’t need a boat to go, because the island is connected to the city by the Ubertino Bridge. We visited the Temple of Athena and the fountain of Arethousa and wandered in the picturesque Straits of Ortygia. Syracuse was not only the economic and political center, but also the scientific and cultural center of ancient Sicily. In the palace of tyrants, the philosophers and poets of the whole Greek world met. Teatro Greco is the Italian name of the ancient Greek theater of Syracuse. From the 5th century BC it has seats for 15,000 spectators and has been carved over the rocky area. During the ancient years, the theater welcomed for the first time, many projects from the greatest dramatic writers of the period such as Epirchamus, Euripides, Aeschylus and others. In 472 BC.  “Persians” by Aeschylus was first presented here. Along with the ancient Greek theater of Syracuse there are the famous Quarries. Quarry Del Paradiso is today the largest visited area where you can see a fantastic garden. Here, about 7,000 Athenians captured in the Peloponnesian War, in 413 BC suffered and melted. On the northwest corner of the quarries, Dionysius’s ear opens, the Orecchio di Dionisio, an artificial hollow of 65 meters long, 5-11 meters wide and 23 meters, which shape refers to an ear and which has excellent acoustics. The name was received in 1586 by the painter Caravaggio at a visit of his to Syracuse. Instigated by the opening in the rocks similar to the human ear and due to the acoustic phenomenon, where each sound is increased 42 times, the tyrant Dionysius left the pit to be used as a prison, a certain place for imprisonment, according to a tradition. It is also said that, without looking at the opening at the end of the pit at the top left, there is a hole where the tyrant personally listened to the conversations of the prisoners and the enemies of his state.

In the beautiful city of Catania with its Baroque architecture, we wandered around the city in the small picturesque train. Catania is the second largest city in Sicily after the capital, Palermo. It is a transport hub, a financial center and a campus. In the center of the city is Piazza Duomo with the Baroque-style buildings and the Cathedral (Duomo) built in the 11th century and repaired after the devastating earthquake of 1693. The façade is Vaccarini’s work and inside is the tomb of the composer Vincenzo Bellini, who is loved very much in Catania.
The largest volcano in Europe, Etna. We reached the shelters and the first craters. Approximately 10 people from the group dared and had a thrilling experience, climbing by cable car and then using a 4×4 jeep, something like our own army REO to the central crater. At 2,900 meters, we saw the view of the areas of the craters after the 2001, 2002, 2003, 2006 and 2007 eruptions. We went to the Belvedere area and enjoyed an unforgettable view of the volcanic mountain and the Bove Valley as it is called which is the only place on Earth that resembles Mars. The whole landscape has the characteristic lava and we also saw caves and rivers of dried lava.

The cosmopolitan Taormina with its picturesque cobbled streets and countless shops. Its beauty is breathtaking with its natural balconies overlooking the Ionian Sea. Taormina is the ancient Tavromeni, where the inhabitants of ancient Naxos were evicted and settled after the Syracuse victory. The Greek Theater (Teatro Greco) is the most important attraction of Taormina, not only for its great historical value but also for its excellent location. If you see it, you will understand that this is the most beautiful ancient theater built by Greeks. It is known that the ancient Greeks carefully chose the location of their theaters trying to have a nice view. Taormina combined the beautiful sea views and good acoustics.
Messina. We visited the historic center. We saw the Norman Duomo of the Mother Mary of Gorgoepikoos, the Renaissance Orion’s Fontana, the Flemish bell tower with zodiac circles and allegories. Once again we pass by the Straits of Skylla, and we meet the Italian coast. The journey is fulfilled with stops for rest, purchase of local Calabrian products and food.
On our route we met Taranto, the most powerful colony of the Spartans in the West. Taranto was the only colony of Sparta in Greater Greece. For the best view of the city, we walked along the beach, the heart of the old town. The Città Vecchia, is located on an island separating Piccolo Mare from the Grande. The modern city is located to the north of Lungomare Vittorio Emmanuelle. At the Museo Archeologico di Taranto, we traveled and met a collection of artwork from the Paleolithic to the modern times. Most of them are the results of archaeological excavations in the area. The museum has the world’s largest collection of terracotta, along with a unique array of art such as vases, gold ware, marble and bronze sculptures, mosaics, and more.
Our journey is completed with the Greek-speaking villages of Apulia, Lecce, Otranto, Calimera, Sternate, Alberobello.

Lecce is the capital of the Salento region and the birthplace of painter Antonio Verrio (1639-1707). It is one of the most beautiful cities of Italy and has been included (the only city in Italy) in the list of “Best to Travel 2010” by Lonely Planet, a city that had to be visited in 2010, along with nine others, for the beauty of Its monuments and its historical Baroque center. It has been named “Apulia in Athens” for the grace of its inhabitants towards the arts, as well as “Florence of Baroque” due to the 17th and 18th century architecture and its elaborate monuments built or decorated at the time of the peak of this rhythm. Lecce’s emblem depicts an Oak tree and a wolf. The tree is to represent the oak forests in the land of Otranto until 1700, while the wolf is the link to Roman civilization. Its historical center is surrounded by walls with 3 entrances (doors).

The village of Alberobello looks like a fairytale setting and has been declared by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. The notorious Poulian dome is scattered in all its provinces, from the outskirts of Bari and Brindisi to Taranto, the most famous Greek city of Magna Grecia, with its more characteristic place of concentration, called Alberobello, the capital of Domes. The construction of the dome is concrete, without many deviations: the building is almost square or rectangular, with walls from 80 cm to 2,70 meters thick, while the roof has the traditional stone conical shape. Of particular interest, are the icons painted with chalk on the roofs, as well as their peaks. Today, the settlement is a strong attraction for tourists, but it has not lost its beauty, its peculiarity and its historical and cultural significance.

During our visit to Sternate we experienced unique moments, as we were welcomed with the sign “Welcome Hello” and residents who spoke the local dialect. The inhabitants of this area are descendants of the Greek settlers who settled in southern Italy and Sicily in the 8th century BC and use a dialect that has its roots in the Greek Doric language but has experienced a different evolution from the Greek Common language. From Graecus in Latin, the inhabitants of Grecia Salendina are called Grikos and their dialect Griko.
At the local association “Geitonia”, Professor and President, Mr. Giorgio Filieri, guided us to their places and talked about the history, language and tradition of Greek-speaking villages. He sang to us in Grikos and the President of the Foundation of Ecumenical Hellenism, the Professor of History at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and  member of the Ecumenical Hellenism Foundation Mr S. Kakridis gave a speech and the two-volume project “Thrace – History – Art & Culture”, the volume “Great Alexander”, the volume “Holy Pilgrimages – Towers of Orthodoxy” were donated to Mr. Giorgio Filieri along with Greek flags, which were accepted with great joy and emotion. We then traveled to the old underground mills.
The same volumes and flags were handed over from the President of the Foundation of Ecumenical Hellenism Mr. Stavros Panousopoulos and our member, lawyer Markoulakos Ioannis, to the Director of the Folklore Museum, Mr. Sylvano Palamas, who welcomed us and guided us throughout the village of Kalimera and its Museum.

Excellent ending for our trip before our return to Greece from the port of Brindisi, the dinner we had at the Greek-speaking Tavern of the region with excellent local dishes, the four-member musical ensemble of Griko, which was also attended by Professor Giorgio Filieri and young Tarantella dancers. All members of the mission enjoyed, sang and danced carried away by the cheerfulness of the singers and young dancers. The traditional dance of Lower Italy, Tarantella, is connected to the ancient Greek colony of Taranto, which is located in the core of the Greek-speaking villages of Salento. It is associated with a phenomenon called Tarantism. Tarantism was a form of frenzy that they thought was due to the stinging of a spider and that’s why it was called Tarantela pitsika from the pitsikare-bite. The Likosa Tarantula they believed was stinging a person in the fields and to cure someone who was stung, a musical exorcism took place.
On this trip to the land of Apulia, the Ionian Sea and the sun of Salento, we experienced the most moving and beautiful moments. One more trip was over. Tired physically, but spiritually turned up. After a trip to Sicily, Goethe said: “Sicily and Great Greece make me hope for the regeneration of life.”

Το άρθρο 2012 | Mission to the Greek speaking villages around the world εμφανίστηκε πρώτα στο Μέλαθρον Οικουμενικός Ελληνισμός.

Mission to the streets of the East
(June 22nd-30th 2011)

Trip to Cappadocia and the Black Sea
Cappadocia-Samsun-Trebizond-Mother Mary of Soumela
A trip to the unforgettable homelands of Cappadocia and the Black Sea

100 people participated

A journey to the unforgettable homelands of Cappadocia and the Black Sea can only mark an exciting journey. It is the match of the oriental aura, the Greek tradition, the intense historical experiences of our race and orthodoxy that leave their testimony to these beloved places everywhere.

My long-lasting desire to visit-pilgrimage these places was fulfilled by the Foundation of Ecumenical Hellenism with the journey they organized from June 22nd-30th 2011 in Cappadocia and the Black Sea Regions.

The journey starts with an unexpected scene for the season. Upon arrival at Kayseri Airport, we faced a snowy mountain. Our guides, Ekrem (from the Pomak villages of Ksanthi) and Sophia (one of the remaining Greeks of Constantinople) are not slow to explain that the Argos Mountain, standing before us, is a volcano, always snow-covered and in addition with the other volcano, Hassan, one gets how the landscape throughout Cappadocia is created.

Searching for information about Cappadocia, we are informed that there are many opinions about the etymology of the name (Cappadocia), with the prevailing one being that the Greek name has its roots in the Persian Catpatouka, ie the country of the beautiful horses. In fact, in our tour we met scattered horse statues that advocated this opinion.

Cappadocia is one of the largest areas of East Asia Minor, and the first of the historians to mention it is Herodotus. Its inhabitants, the Cappadocians, must have settled there, after 1600 BC, when it was still the Hittites state, with its capital being Hattusa (where most monuments were found). Their submission followed to the Persians, the Macedonians and the Romans. Alexander the Great respected the autonomy of Cappadocia and kept it until his death, when his successors captured it and gave it to Eumenes (322 BC). In 315 BC the city was captured by Antigonus the Monophthalmus, but after the battle of Ipsos was subjected to the Seleucid state. It quickly regained its autonomy. Later, Mithridates VI of Pontus clashed with Rome, conducting three wars (Mithridatic Wars). The Romans then seized the Cappadocian state by changing it into a Roman province. Mark Anthony gave the throne to Cappadocian Archelaus, a scholar and writer.

In the 1st century AD, the Hellenization of this region is complete. In this spirit, remarkable centers of Christianity such as Caesarea, the first in the hierarchy and prestige of the Metropolis of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, are situated. Well known cities that are famous at this time are: Ariathamia (on the Saros River), Tavia (Gozgat), Nissa, Mokisos (on the River Aly), Arabisos, Colonia, Iraklia and Nazianzos. In the 3rd-5th c. education and literature flourish. In Cappadocia, the great Fathers of Church, Fermelianos of Caesarea, Gregory of Neo Caesarea, Leontius and Eusebius of Caesarea, Basilios the Great, Gregory Nazianzinos and Gregory Nissis (brother of Great Basilios), can be distinguished in the sanctuary. The power and enforceability of the Metropolitans of Caesarea was so great that they were leaders in every political and religious movement. The purpose of each Metropolitan was to promote the literacy and sensual institutions, making all of Cappadocia a fast center of all religious and educational action, preserved for centuries. At the times of Great Constantine, Cappadocia was united with Pontus and constituted a small state. The emperors of Byzantium, recognizing the strategic position and importance of the country in defending the empire, made it a great military center. Also, in Cappadocia, Justinian won the army against the Persians and Heraclius when he defeated Khosrow II (623). Eventually, however, he succumbed under the weight of repeated Arab attacks. Cappadocia was recaptured by the Byzantine Empire in the 10th century.

In the late 11th c. Cappadocia was subjected to the Seljuk Turks and in the 13th century, to the Ottoman Turks. After the occupation by the Ottomans and because the country was not so fertile, the immigration of Christians began with three main outposts: towards Mersin and from there to Alexandria, to Constantinople and Smyrna and to Amisos. In time and with the development of transport in Asia Minor, a series of thriving communities began to emerge along the above routes, from which came great merchants, bankers, even government officials, the well-known Kayserlides. In the nineteenth century a new beginning for the Greek-Christian element and the Greek studies began in Cappadocia.

On our trip to Caesarea, the city of Saint Basilios, we were impressed by the imposing Byzantine castle (Ic Kale) of Justinian. Searching for the traces of the famous “Basilica” of this charitable state founded by the great Saint Basilios, bishop of Caesarea, we were given an area on a hill very close to the city, traces that do not survive today. In the Caesarea’s market (consisting of a closed and an open section), where our noses led us, since the smell of pastrami was particularly intense. In our tour we also came across the first orthodox church of our trip, Saint Nikolaos. The cross of the dome was missing and today’s use is … a gym! Full of images of the first day, we took the road to Ugrup-Saint Prokopios, as it is mentioned in the Episcopal lists of Leodos Sofos – where we would also stay the night.

During our tour, on the second day of the trip, we saw that Cappadocia is an endless museum of natural lava sculptures. Nature is the creator: the volcanic hills, the rocks that emerged, and especially the soft limestone, the erosion from the harsh weather on the plateau and the absence of wood. Human part: With the toughest volcanic rocks as tools, with art and passion, they were led to dig caves to use as homes and for protection. Protection from each race of raiders who, over the centuries, crossed and looted Asia Minor.
Some of us enjoyed the exciting experience of sunrise, flying with hot air balloons over these volcanic formations.

Our visit to Goreme left us speechless, as we found ourselves in front of a great monastic state of churches carved into the rocks. St. Zoumboulakis, Director of the magazine “New Hestia”, in a speech of his at the Center for Asia Minor Studies (21-6-2006), informs us that “… one of the treasures of this place (of Cappadocia) the most precious one, is that there are more than two hundred Stately churches – others are yet to come to light – which, divided into three large groups, are geographically distributed as follows: a. Goreme valley, second valley of Soganli and third valley of Ihlara “. Crossing the Valley of Goreme, we found ourselves in front of dozens of Byzantine churches, chapels and monasteries that gathered the faithful up to the 13th century. The existence of banquet facilities in many of them testify  the beginning of organized monastic life. G. Lorenzatos, prefacing in G. Seferis’s book “Three Days in the Monasteries of Cappadocia”, writes: “Almost everywhere on the walls of the stone-built monasteries, there is an inscription” Lord help! “. The years of St. Basilios fall in the 4th century AD. and the raids continue for many centuries later. In difficult times, the monks clog the doors of the monasteries with thick stones. Waves and waves are hitting Cappadocia from everywhere, the wild and abducting occupiers with all the means of that era … and the faithful have nowhere to escape except in caves and the earth. As soon as one riot calms down, another one immerges, and another..and another…”.

We visited a number of churches, which were given unusual names. Ekrem, our companion, informed us that the church, which had Archangel Michael in the hagiography holding the world, was called “The Church of the apple tree” because it was believed that the illustrated globe (world) was an apple. Similarly, the churches of “the snake”, “the Sandals”, “the Stephans”, “the Swords” were named after the same way of thinking. Mural paintings-frescoe paintings are preserved in a very good condition, all known hieroglyphic “circles”, that show the events of the life of Christ, the Virgin Mary and many saints. We were impressed by the “Dark Church,” whose hagiographies are better preserved, having a particularly bright blue color, with a variety of performances. After his victory over the Arabs, Emperor Nikiforos Fokas built a carved church, which we also visited.

Continuing our journey, we traveled through Aly, the longest river in Asia Minor, and our team leader, Ekrem reminded us of the history of Croesus and Solon, that is associated with the region. On the banks of River Aly is a beautiful Byzantine town, Avanos, which is famous for its pottery. We saw the relative potter’s monument.

On our way, we saw the impressive Uchisar, the huge rock that looked like a hive from a distance, with its numerous dwelling caves. We took a moment to admire the landscape and take commemorative photos.

Our tour, on the same day, ended with our visit to the city of Mustafapasa, an ancient Byzantine town, with distinctive signs of Greekness and Orthodoxy. Many mansions with Greek inscriptions and two well-preserved churches (Saint Constantine and Helen and the Great Basilios) reveal the thriving Greek Hellenism of the city. We passed through the Temple of St. Constantine and Helen, who was also a metropolitan, a three-aisled basilica built according to its inscription in 1729 with many decorative elements in its interior and exterior. Opposite the church is preserved, not in a good condition, the house of the priest, whose façade (as in many other Greek houses) had carved Byzantine figures around the doors and windows. We visited a Greek mansion that the current owner has transformed into a hotel and a restaurant, we went up to the rooms with the old short tables, the beautiful paintings, the colorful ceilings, and out in the yard, facing Greek houses around us, we drifted in to the past. How would life be when all these mansions were in their prime? We were confused by the smell of the flowers in the pots with that of the Asia Minor Greek cuisine and the white-washed clean curtains on the windows! How many stories we have heard, how many we have read, about the housekeeping and the fortunes of the women in Asia Minor?

The third day of the trip was equally impressive. Passing from Nevsehir, the capital of Cappadocia, we were informed about the existence of a church for the Assumption of the Virgin, which was used as a prison from 1924 to 1982 when a prison building was built in the area. We passed from the city of Gora, which was never inhabited by Turks because they considered it a haunted ghost town because of its violent abandonment by its Greek inhabitants.

Our course continued towards Malakopi. From the etymology of the word we came to safe conclusions about it. Mala + kopi means is a lot of trouble. Indeed, due to the frequent raids, the need raised, for each home to have another space under that like a basement, so that the family could remain safe until the danger expired. Over time and because staying in these underground areas lasted long enough, the underground houses were joined using corridors, resulting in the creation of underground cities. We learned that in the area of ​​Cappadocia, 36 underground cities have been found, which are considered as constructive wonders. Some have up to 8 floors that were created progressively. We saw the point from where the central airway started which went up to the top floor and communicated horizontally with each floor separately, in such way that oxygen could be ensured in every space. Therefore, the residents were safe in the underground cities for as long as the raids continued. The temperature is the same in winter and in summer. Many of us went down 30am while the most courageous attempted descent to 80m. In any case it was a special experience. Going down to the first floor, we came across animal stables, which reasonably existed on the first level, considering the difficulty to move big animals and the stench of their impurities. On the lower floors, except of the houses, we came across wells, meeting rooms, a church and even a cemetery.

Before we left Malakopi, we were given the opportunity to visit the temple of Saint Theodore. We were impressed by its size, the Armenian influence on its art and the elaborate embossed vine on the main entrance. In its interior, we experienced abandonment: birds were flying over our heads, broken wooden walls and rotten floors, faded images and rubbish all around. Two hagiographies in a better state of the Annunciation and the imposing form of Jesus Christ in the dome, managed for a while to eliminate our bad feelings.

The journey continued through Kaymakli, place of origin for a traveling companion, who stayed for the rest of the day there, searching for the home of her ancestors. Her only supplies were an old photograph and her grandmother’s information, which is no longer alive. I must mention here, that amongst us there were many who sought their roots in Cappadocia or in  Pontus, following this journey not for pleasure but mainly for a pilgrimage-promise to the birthplaces of their ancestors, a fulfillment of the due honor on the part of the younger generation to their forefathers. We thank those fellow travelers for allowing us, even for a while, to share their emotions and experiences.

On the third day, we fulfilled a tour to the Ihlara Vadisi with its dozens of churches and beautiful nature. We walked down the 380 steps leading to the gorge, walked along the river Melendi and worshiped the ascetic of St. Gregory the Theologian and the other cave churches that existed there.

The third day was completed by our visit to another wonderful Greek city, Guzelyurt, the most important town in the southwest of Cappadocia. The temple of St. Gregory of Nazianzenos has unfortunately, been turned into a mosque. The relic of the saint, which used to be there, is now kept in Nea Karvali in Kavala, where the Cappadocian refugees transported it with the exchange of populations in 1924. We also saw the Greek girls’ school, which today operates as a hotel. The energy of the active Greek community in the region cannot be hidden behind the neglected “face” of the present city. An encouraging fact for the future of the city of Karvali is its recent establishment as a preserved city. Leaving behind the Karvali Hills, we are in front of an idyllic landscape. A magnificent lake, and next to it a hill, at the top of which dominates a church, the Catholic of the once Holy Ascension Monastery.

On Saturday June 25th, our road trip from Cappadocia to Pontus was scheduled. Before leaving, however, we passed by the stable where St. John the Russian lived after his capture by the Turks. Soldier of the Great Tsarist Army of Russia, St. John, in a fight to defend his homeland, Russia, is captured and led to Constantinople and from there to Prokopi in Cappadocia. He suffered physical and mental torture with remarkable bravery, until he finally became dear even to his persecutors. Eventually he died, after the hardships he had suffered. The miraculous relic was carried by the faithful to Greece, with the exchange of the populations and since 1925 it has been kept in Neo Prokopi, Evia, where a sacred temple was built in his honor. In the old Greek Prokopi district in Cappadocia, with the cave houses, the stables that St. John was living in, as well as the bed he himself carved in the wall, are preserved.

As far as the modern town of Prokopi is concerned, it is particularly well-preserved, with paved tiles, many flower beds and a beautiful square, in which there is an old Greek church which today, unfortunately, functions as a hamam. As we were walkinging the streets of Prokopi we saw nice shops selling: tea in various flavors, decorations of the Cappadocian volcanic landscape, nuts and spices. Cappadocia is particularly known for its carpet industry, that’s why we saw so many carpet stores. It was easy to see, looking in windows, the craftsmen crafting the famous handmade carpets.
With our suitcases full of “impressions” and “feelings” we left Cappadocia and traveled about 8 hours by coach to Pontus.

Our destination was initially Samsun, the Byzantine Amis. The Euxine Sea or Black Sea (Kara Deniz) was impressive. It was named Black Sea (hospitable sea) euphemistically, in fact Axenus, because it has always been wild and stormy. It is large closed seashore between Europe and Asia Minor. Around the Black Sea are Russia, Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey. It connects with the Mediterranean Sea via the Bosporus and the Sea of ​​Marmara and the Azov Sea through the Kerch Ishma. The water was brown because of the rivers that end there from all the around countries.

Samsun, the home of mathematicians Dimitrios and Dionysodoros, was initially named Amisos by the inhabitants of Miletus in the 7th century BC. Etymologically, the term derives from the expression “in Amison, S’Amison, Samsun”. Later Amisus belonged to the Kingdom of Pontus, which was later part of the Great Alexandrian Empire. In 47 BC, it became property of the Roman Empire, in 1200 AD the Seljuk Turks took over and finally in the 15th century it became property of the Ottoman Empire. It was the most commercial harbor on the southern Black Sea coast, a transit trade center, with rich cereal and tobacco crops. In the middle of the 19th century, 60% of the tobacco trade was in the hands of the Greeks, making them, along with the big merchants, the richest among the inhabitants. The rest of the Greeks were shopkeepers, craftsmen, doctors, lawyers etc. We found ourselves in front of the ruins of three tobacco factories in the city, which, as we were told, will be restored after a permit issued by the Municipality of Samsun. Its population is about 400,000 inhabitants according to the 2004 census.

During our tour of Samsun we walked to the Greek area and saw old mansions, others preserved and others not. Chinekio, a well-preserved school complex, that was used as a school for boys only, girl only and a kindergarten. The complex had the famous temple of the Holy Trinity, which, however, has been destroyed from its foundations. The Philharmonic Orchestra of Samsun was famous. We walked through the Clock Square and finally headed to the Archaeological Museum of the city.

Approaching the indoor market of Samsun, we were surprised to see a huge poster that covers one side of the building. It presents Samsun in the early 20th century and Kemal. At the bottom of the poster there is a clear reference to May 19th 1919, when Kemal Pasha (later named Ataturk, meaning ” Turk Generator”), an officer of the Ottoman army, disembarked at Samsun with the mandate to protect the Ottoman residents, meaning also the Greeks and the Armenians, from the massacres of the army. Instead, Kemal became autonomous from the central government and created the nationalist movement, whose main concern was the repression of the Pontiac guerrilla. After the Balkan Wars and especially with the beginning of the First World War, the Ottomans’ decision to finally resolve the national problem of the Empire with the natural extermination of indigenous ethnicities began gradually and through various means, being realized. It is reported that Amisus paid the highest blood bill, since nine missions of mass displacement were carried out until September 1921, which together with the alleged Amasia Courts of Arbitration, led to their spiritual and economic extermination.

The second day of our trip to Pontus was dedicated to the martyr city of Amasia. Amasia is a beautiful city 70 km south of Samsun, built on both banks of the river Iris. Homeland of the ancient Greek geographer Strabo, whose statue we saw on the banks of the river. In the same area, there were massive busts of sultans who attended the Amasia schools. There was the temptation to send the children of the sultans, the princes, to get high education and a selective administrative experience. The sources report that at the beginning of the 20th century, the Greek element of the area numbered 155,000 inhabitants in 392 parishes with equal churches and 325 schools where 10,000 students attended and 565 teachers taught. It was also the head of the Metropolis. The name of this city has been linked to the terrible torture suffered by the Turks by the Greeks of the Pontus in prison. Between January 1921 and 1923, hundreds of Greeks, many of them distinguished in the economic life of Pontus, passed from the so-called “white cells”. In September 1921, teachers and students of the Hellenic American College of Merzifounda were hanged. On the same day, Turkish courts condemned to death, without apology, 180 other Pontiac Patriots. More than 70 people were hung from the Turks in the central square.
The carved tombs of the Mithridateus Kings on the slopes of the mountains north of the city, are impressive. We visited the archaeological museum, walked through the old Greek neighborhoods, with the “ghost houses” and finally took the opportunity for tea and souvenir shopping. The city’s population today is about 80,000.

The next day, we set off for Trabzon. An impressive journey along the Black Sea coastline, with the rough sea on our left and the verdant landscape on our right, combined with the gray sky of Pontus – that as we found out, is like that 300 of the 365 days of the year.

We met the homeland of the Amazons and the Black Sea, which was near the river Thermodontas. On our way we came across Unye, Fatsa, and visited Yasun burnu. Jason on his way to Kolchida (today Georgia) may have found a storm in the alien sea and rested in this cape. Here he built a temple dedicated to Zeus. Later on the Monastery of Saint Nikolas was built o these ruins, the monks of which have undertaken the commencement of the maintenance of the adjacent lighthouse. Nowadays, the deserted church of Saint Nicolas, which we were allowed to enter, is preserved. Close to the temple there is a newer marble slab with references to the Argonautic Campaign, which portrays Jason grabing the golden fleece.

Afterwards we stopped at the known by the Descendants of Xenophon, Kotiora (Ordu). During our visit to the temple of Ypapanti I personally experienced some of the most moving moments of the trip. In the front of the temple, there were photographs that referred to earlier times when the church was used as a prison. Moving into the main part of the temple, our hearts began to strike stronger when we saw a hall of events and a piano in the place of the Holy Trinity.While on the sides of the sanctuary, where the icons of Archangels Michael and Gabriel prevailed, a huge Turkish flag and a poster of Kemal Ataturk. With such a disappointment, we walked out towards the yard when an unexpected scene was awaiting us. A poetic lyricist gulled our sorrow with his melodic Pontiac lyre. In our effort to manage the mixed feelings of joy and sadness, a sympathetic, obviously excited fellow traveler, who was from Kerasounta spontaneously started dancing. Immediately he was followed by others, composing a unique setting that surely stayed deeply engraved in our memory: the lyre player sitting on a bench in the courtyard of the temple, a team of tearful dancers, a crowd of excited people clapping at a pace, while in front of us a beautiful seaside town, and the Black Sea. Later on, we walked to the old Greek town and saw the Polycarpio School.

After our trip, always on the coastline, we visited Kerasounta
(Giresun). We generally heard that the name comes from the cherries that thrived in the area, but from our guide we heard another version, that it was named after the city’s shape that grows like a horn on the Black Sea coast. In Kerasounta, which was founded in the 2nd century BC, there is a Byzantine castle, while at the bottom of the harbor we see an islet known as the Amazon Island. In the 19th century, it became the economic center of the region, relying mainly on the trade and cultivation of hazelnuts. We visited the church of St. Nicholas, which operates as a museum. Next to it there was a storage room for the needs of the church and opposite, the house of the priest. In the mist, there was a girls’ school nearby. Kerasounta, a city with a naval tradition, had a number of major ship-owner companies and bank branches: Ottoman, Athens and Georgios Pissanis.

We continued our journey through Tripoli (Tirebolu) and Akcaabat to reach Trabzon. We recalled the descent of the Ksenophonian Myrians, and in particular the army of the Spartans, when, after 18 months of exhaustion, returning from Kounaksa, traced the sea of Trebizond and shouted: “Thalatta, thalatta”.

The historic capital of Pontus, Trebizond, owes its name to the trapezoidal shape of the hills on which it is built on, at the northern foothills of the Alps. It was founded in 756 BC, as a trading station in Sinope and has enjoyed great prosperity until its conquest by the Romans. During the reign of Emperor Justinian I, it becomes of particular importance, as it becomes the basis of the Byzantines in the Black Sea Region in their struggles against the Persians. At the same time, both in the city and in the wider area of ​​Trebizond, walls and an aqueduct are being built. In the 7th century in his autobiography the Armenian Ananias Sirakinos informs us that at that time the city was a major spiritual center with a mathematics and astronomy school. In the 10th century, the commercial importance of Trebizond takes off and the city becomes the prime destination for the merchants of the precious commodities (silk, myra and paints) of the East. Fifty years later, after the Byzantine defeat in Matzikert, in 1071, Pontus was severely challenged by the persistent Seljuk attacks and the city had to be found for a short time in their possession. Saint Theodore Gavras was a general and liberator of Trebizond, establishing independent hegemony. In 1098 he martyred in Theodosioupolis for the Christian faith. The Gavras family will dominate the political scene of the region during the critical period until the end of the 12th century.

After the fall of Constantinople by the Franks (1204), the Komnenos state was established in Pontus, the city known as the Empire of Trebizond and its symbol was the one headed eagle. Its founders were the grandsons of the Byzantine emperor Andronikos I Komnenos, Alexius and David. The end of it, however, came in 1461 when David Komnenos delivered the city to Muhammad II. The city still retains its medieval character, as large parts of the walls and the Great Komnenos Palace are preserved.
Among the most famous of Pontus, who excelled from the 13th to the 16th century, were Bessarion, Georgios Amiroutzis, Georgios Chrysokokis and Gennadios the Trebizond.

The 19th century was a period of impressive growth for Trebizond in the fields of economy, education and community organization. The city had a theater, three cinemas, and the Greek community had a large nuber of social organizations and associations. At the beginning of the 20th century the population was estimated at around 50,000 (15,000 Greeks, 4,000 Armenians, 600 Europeans and the rest, Turks). During the First World War, in 1916, the city was occupied for almost two years by the Russian army. At the same time, the presence of many diplomatic missions prevented the new-Turkish plans of persecution. In addition to the metropolitan throne of the city, there was a great hierarch, Chrysanthos Philippidis (1913-1925), later Archbishop of Athens (1938-1941), who played an important role in one of the most critical periods of the Pontiac Hellenism and, on the other hand, as a top ecclesiastic man for his spiritual work and ethos. The appreciation of the Turkish authorities towards him and the prudence with which he ruled Trebizond during the Russian occupation prevented reprisals against the Greeks when the Russian troops left the city in 1918. Later, however, the Pontiac element along with Hellenism and the element of Asia Minor underwent terrible persecutions. The results of the war, which must have been counted and mistakenly manipulated by metropolitan Greece, were known in our collective memory as an Asia Minor Disaster, which was sealed with the Treaty of Lausanne (July 24, 1923). As far as Pontus is concerned, the Hellenic Parliament unanimously in 1994 recognized the genocide of Pontian Hellenism and established it as a day of remembrance on May 19th. According to the historian Costas Fotiadis who studied the archives of diplomatic missions in Pontus “out of the 697,000 Pontiacs who lived in the Pontus in 1913 more than 353,000,  more than 50%, died by 1923 by the Turks and the Kemalists in towns and villages, exiles and prisons, labor battles, the so-called “amele tabourou”, which were death battalions. ”

Walking through the city of Trebizond, we passed through the church of Saint Anne. It is the oldest church that is preserved in Trebizond, but cannot be visited. A three-aisled basilica of the 7th century that, according to an inscription above the entrance, was renovated in 884-885 by the Byzantine emperor Basilios A. We were informed that it is used by the Municipality, mostly believed, as a warehouse.

In the list of the city’s sights, we should not leave out Gülbahar Hatun’s mausoleum.   Gülbahar (the Spring of Rhodes) was Greek from the village of Libera of Pontus, known for her exceptional beauty, which later became husband of the sultan Bayezid II.

The walls of Trebizon are still preserved in a good condition despite the great disasters they have suffered over the years. Their story is interwoven with that of the city. The walled city consists of three sections distinctly different from each other, a phenomenon particularly common in Byzantine cities. The upper part, the acropolis, the Byzantine Castle, usually enclosed the city’s administrative center. The Middle, Upper or Middle Country was the residence of the rulers, while the third, lower section, which was usually tilled later, after population growth, was intended for the rest of the city’s inhabitants. Going from “Exokastron” to the middle city, one finds himself in the area where the temple of Mother Mary Chrysokefali dominates, which we visited. Built on an ancient Roman temple, it has been converted into a mosque since 1461 and was the metropolitan temple of the MegaKomninoi – where the emperors’ coronations were also carried out.

Nearby, outside the walls of Trebizond, is the Church of Saint Sophia (13th century). Composite cruciform engraved with dome, narthex and three impressive propels. The bell tower dominates. It was built by Manouil Komninos in the area, where once the ancient temple of Apollo existed. In the exterior dominates the one headed eagle, emblem of the empire. Indicative of the beginnings of the new Empire of the Komninoi, as part of the hagiography, are at least two representations of Christ in the temple. The way in which the elements of architectural shaping, painting, mosaic and sculpture decoration are combined could be described as unusual and perhaps unique because of the coexistence of disparate influences from the West and East. Part of the mosaics and hagiographies of the church’s main worship space have been preserved to this day. Literary sources of the 14th century mention “the monastery of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Saint Sophia”. The funerary function of the monument is evident in the formation of the monument, which is presumed by the burial niches and tombstones housed on the temple’s precinct.

On the hillside of Trebizond there is a green suburb, Kryoneri. There we were impressed by the Kapayannidis villa. We went up to the two floors of the building with the many rooms and we admired the beautiful overlooking, colorful of the varieties of flowers, gardens. We had the pleasure of a descendant of the Kapagiannidis family accompanying us. Afterwards we visited the mansion of banker, Kostas Theophylaktos. A special scene was carved in my memory: the wonderful dance hall with the beautiful, elevated space for the orchestra and the imposing glass vault, which discreetly allowed the light to diffuse, giving a dreamy, and fairy tale sense to the room.

During our tour in Trebizond, we were particularly impressed by the “Hellenic School of Trebizond”, also known as “Lighthouse of the East”. As a school, it began to function during the first centuries of the Turkish slavery, which, although it did not have a prominent position, was the only one in the whole region. By the time, however, its recognition began, it was renamed “School” and together with the Evangelical School of Smyrna, it was the most important school of its time. In this institute, great teachers of the time, such as Trebizondus Sebastos Kyminitis, Savvas Triantafyllidis, Savvas Konstantinidis, Iraklis Triantaphyllidis, taught in the 17th century and great personalities of the history of Pontus and of Greek history in general studied, such as the Pontius of origin, Ypsilandis. It operated in spite of adversity until 1922. Its contribution was very important in terms of the intellectual and moral rehabilitation of the Hellenic Pontius, the training of competent teachers for the communities there, and especially the development of their national consciousness.

Trebizond now numbers some 200,000 inhabitants. The technique of silversmithing is known. We were in stores where we were able to watch the special way in which, as if they were knitting and embroidering, craftsmen made sophisticated bracelets, necklaces and earrings with silver. In the streets of the city one can meet textile shops, many groceries with fresh cow butter, kefalotyri and others. (Trebizond is famous for its livestock breeding).

This wonderful journey was slowly coming to an end. It was time for our pilgrimage to the monastery of the Mother Mary of Mount Mela. Many of us traveled to fulfill a craving, perhaps, a vow to Our Mother Mary, and along the way we experienced the unexpected. In the Matsukas province, in a verdant valley leaking from the Pyxitis River is the Holy Monastery of the Most Holy Soumela. It is covered with dense forest with various types of trees: walnuts, spruce and pine trees, from which the Pyxitis river is named after. Reading a relative article by Archimandrite Pavlos Apostolidis, former abbot of Saint Mary of Soumela of Vermius and nowadays Metropolitan of Drama, we learn: In 386 the monastery was founded by the Athenian priests of Barnabas and Sofronios, after the revelation of the Virgin Mary, which encouraged them to follow Her image On Mount Melas of Trebizond and to establish a monastery. The icon has, according to tradition, been made by Evangelist Loukas. After the Evangelist’s death in Thebes, Ananias’s disciple brought the icon to Athens, to a temple that was destroyed by fire in 1885. The icon of the Athenian Mother Mary flew from the temple and was carried by two angels to Mount Mela. The saints Barnabas and Sofronios followed the picture, arrived in Trebizond and climbed to mount Mela, where they discovered the holy image in a cave. The two founders of the monastery lived until the year 412 and died on the same day. Already, from the very first time of its foundation, the monastery was a great place of pilgrimage for Christians, later for the Muslims of Pontus, for all Asia Minor, Russia, and for the rulers of Moldavia. The emperors of Trebizond, the Komnenoi, showed special reverence for the monastery. Ecumenical Patriarchs secured it’s rights and Ottoman sultans provided donations and secured privileges. In 1923, after the expatriation and desolation of the monastery, manuscripts and sacred relics were seized by the Turks, forbidding the monks to take anything with them. The Turks caused irreparable damage to the monastery’s buildings and frescoes. From the sacred relics, three most important were rescued: the icon of the Virgin Mary, the Cross with the Holy Wood donated to the monastery by the Emperor Manouil III and the Gospel of St. Christopher. During the expatriation the monks buried them in a corner in the chapel of Saint Varvara, near the Monastery, which remains are preserved until today. In 1931 Archimandrite Ambrosios Soumeliotis, in charge of the Fund of Inland Community and Public Benefit Reliefs, found the sacred heirlooms and transferred them to Athens in 1931. By order of the Ecumenical Patriarch they were temporarily placed in the Byzantine Museum. In August 1951, the icon of the Virgin Mary was transferred to Mount Vermius, above the community of Kastania and the foundation stone of the temple was placed, which was completed in 1952. Later, the other two heirlooms were placed in the monastery too: the Holy Cross and the Holy Gospel. In June 2010, the Turkish State authorized the Ecumenical Patriarchate to celebrate the Feast of the Assumption (August 15th) after 87 years, as it has been converted into a museum. The Patriarchal Holy Liturgy was repeated.

To approach the monastery, we had to board small buses until a certain point and then walk for a while. We were compensated by the wonderful verdant scenery, but especially when, at last, we got to the monastery. Our excitement could not be described and we thanked the Virgin Mary for stepping on those holy grounds and for the wonderful weather we had that day (as mentioned above, the sky in Pontus is usually dull and rainy). We admired the remaining internal and external hagiographies, the surrounding area of the monastery, and we saw with awe the holy water through the giant rock.

We sat down to rest next to the river and continued our way east of Trebzon. We visited Surmene and climbed the Pontiac Mountains to the Pontiac Serpent (Uzungol). Surprised, we found ourselves in front of a beautiful scenery that reminded of a painting: green mountains surrounded by a river with plenty of water and scattered bridges that ended up in a dream lake. We took great pictures and ate trout in the restaurants there. Several of us, found the opportunity to chat with locals who insist on speaking Pontiac and were photographed with them.
In the afternoon we returned to Trabzon and from there the following day we would return via Istanbul to Athens. Some took advantage of their long stay in the City and admired all of the attractions they had come to visit.

The journey had come to an end. Left with the dizziness of our impressions, we were filled with experiences, knowledge and thrills. Following the steps of our ancestors, the streets of the turbulent history, the paths of emotions, we took a fragrance of the east with us and promised that we would not forget the struggles of our ancestors in the name of Hellenism and Orthodoxy. We left behind, at the holy ground of Cappadocia and Pontus a piece of ourselves, perhaps the most true and  authentic part and committed to pass on the fullness, satisfaction and happiness that this extraordinary experience of traveling gave us, and perhaps  repeat it in the future.

Speech by Michalis Charalambidis at the Pontiac Genocide monument in Philadelphia, USA

(Michalis Charalambidis “The Pontiac Issue of Today – The Pontiac Problems in the UN”, STRAVON Publishing, Athens 2005):

“In our mythical world, Pontus is alive with Prometheus, the Argonauts, Jason, the Amazons. According to the Greek conception of the beginning of the world, it is one of the components of its creation. In our historical world it is alive with Greek cities – Sinope-Amisus – Trabzon – Kerasounta. This Mithridateus Kings of Pontus (Mithridateus the Eupatorium placed a statue of Plato in the Athenian Academy that the great philosopher himself created in Athens). These Komninian Emperors of the kingdom of the Trabzon (1204-1461). These Ypsilanti’s leaders of the Hellenic and Balkan Revolution against the ethnical parasitic feudal regime of the 19th century…  For centuries, Pontus was the Economic and Commercial and Cultural Center. Philosopher Diogenes that gave us the word “cosmopolitan”, the Geographer and Historian Stravon, savior of Greek classical literature, of books on Ottoman – Islamic totalitarian barbarism and great father of European and Western civilization Vicario were Pontiacs.

Pontus was a model of harmonious relationship between the natural, human and architectural landscape. Among the people, the cultures, the humans. This harmony has been violently disturbed by concrete ideologies. This historic cultural core was murdered and thrown into re-development. That was the Turkish conquest, the Sultan regime, the most barbaric regime that Humankind met. The final blow, however, was given by an ideology of death which is represented by Kemalism. Even now, every person of Asia Minor knows about this genocidal lasting racism.

Pontus today, consists of ruins of churches, monasteries, palaces, government buildings, homes, schools, villages, towns, castles that have been the eclectic creations of the world’s civilization. If they hadn’t been destroyed, they would have been more beautiful than Tuscany, Burgundy, and Andalusia. However, the Sultan Turkish Islam was very different from that of Andalusia, it was barbarous and devastating. In no part of the world do you meet so many destroyed monuments. The Taliban used to exist here from time to time killing people, they were more barbaric and in the past century they had the support of both Europe and the Soviets. An immoral alliance.

Within these ruins, one can meet the last guardians, the descendants of this civilization, which after the entire racist devastating catastrophes, insist in speaking the closest language to Ancient Greek, spoken today. They are the great inhabited population of the Islamized Christians and even crypto – Pontiacs who remained in Pontus.

Through the ruins, the melancholic and, at the same time, sweet fiches of young children are revealed and answer to the question: “Who is your mother and father?” They respond as if they were children of Homer’s time. “My mother answers to Aise and my father to Muhammad.” Homer wrote: “The name he answers to is Achilles, Odysseys, and Aiantas.” He does not write: they call him Achilles. The modern Turkish state denounces the existence of this ancient language.

This was the response of the Turkish representative to the United Nations, Altay Genciger at our intervention towards the Human Rights Committee of the Organization (February 2002) concerning the rights of the Islamized Pontiacs in Pontus today.
They are killing instead of protecting a language that is a part of the foundation of the World’s Cultural Heritage. The young children in the schools of Trebizond are bullied for their confinement.

The crime of genocide committed in Pontus from the Young Turks and the Kemalists for eight decades continued, for geopolitical reasons, with the crime of silence. “Turkey should not have been disturbed”. The voices of the survivors, two thirds of the population, were covered. The ones escaping to Russia, after Kemalism met Stalinism in central Asia, the homeland of the Turks. This is one of the great anomalies in history … In the last few decades we have claimed the reunification of our relationship with Mnemosyne by claiming our right to remember. For many decades, for geo-political reasons, our own dead ones have been buried in graves with no names, no monuments, lost in battlefields of the East, Kurdistan, Auschwitz, Mauthausen etc. As all people have endured political violence, we established a memorial day for the Pontiac holocaust on the 19th of May. . . “.

Kyriaki Vazdirvanidou-Kostopoulou,
Judicial Officer-Graduate of the Theological School of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens

Το άρθρο 2011 | Mission to Cappadocia εμφανίστηκε πρώτα στο Μέλαθρον Οικουμενικός Ελληνισμός.

Mission of the members and friends of the program “Ecumenical Hellenism” in China

(1st-15th July 2009)

The mission’s goal:

a) The contact of Greek and Chinese culture was the main banner-goal of the mission. This goal would be accomplished with the following actions:

1) Visits to the great ancient monuments – symbols of the culture of Chinese people and

2) With the contact and cohesion to Chinese everyday life. This is the reason the mission used all means of transportation along with plains of course, trains, ships, buses and bicycles. Many meetings and acquaintances took place between our journeys with Chinese people. Our mission was large and attracted the interest of the locals because of the differences between Greek and Chinese culture. They communicated in English, of course, the language that most young people spoke.

b) Our second goal was to visit Greek connected Institutes and people such as: the Hellenic Embassy in Beijing, the University of Beijing with the department of Greek studies, the Sacred Metropolis of Hong Kong and Far East and the friends of the program (businessmen and scientists, who work in China). They all received several publications of the Ecumenical Hellenism Program in Greek and English.

Mission’s route: Beijing, The Great Wall, Temple of Heaven, Xian, Neolithic Village Banpo, Hangzhou, Xitang, Shanghai, Suzhou, Guilin, Jiangsu, Canton, Hong Kong. In all these pre-mentioned cities and villages are:

a) Monuments of Chinese culture and

b) The everyday rhythm of traditional and modern Chinese life.

Our discoveries:

From Chinese every day life:

1) The “ancient element of Chinese and Greek culture” was the main spot of communication between our team and the Chinese people, especially the young ones. The fact is not superficial but connected to the Chinese conscience. This is the main explanation for the warm gestures and words our team received from Chinese people in every place during our stay in China. They surprised us with their friendly behavior, which was based on our common element: the ancient character of our cultures.

2) The fact above was even more intense because of the Olympic Games of Athens and Beijing.

3) The last official visit of the President of China to Greece in autumn 2008 where he visited Knossos in Crete and many other important monuments and was mentioned a lot on the Chinese TV and newspapers persuaded the Chinese even more, about all the commons which connect Chinese to Greek people. Both of these countries share a long history.

4) This fact leads to a spiritual and cultural cooperation between China and Greece and opens the way to an international, commercial, political, tourist connection.

5) After all these matters mentioned above, we believe that Greek people can happily exist, with respect, in this huge country of 1,5 billion people! The development of China is a fact! Even more, nor the USA, Russia or Europe can program their tactics or politics without China! China has a great, moving and developing potential.

b) For the matter of Hellenic Orthodoxy in China:

1) The existence of the House of Missionary Metropolis in Hong Kong is a permanent positive fact on its own, even though the Hellenic Orthodox Church is at its birth there. Even more we have to consider that Chinese people have a historical problem with colonialism, which Christians of the west used. The east Christian Orthodox Church has nothing to do with political or religious colonialism. The total philhellenic climate in China, in combination with the common ancient monuments of culture and religion give us certain hopes for successful results.

2) The religious background and the fixed mentality of Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism and ancestor worship do not allow immediate results.  It has to be mentioned that in China, 50% are Buddhists, 30% Confucianists and Taoists and the 20% are adherent to ancestor worship, atheists and syncretism believers. The presence of Islam is lower than 0,5%, but growing. We cannot talk  for the percentage of Christians. Some thousands of people are Roman Catholics or Protestants and some hundreds are Orthodox.

3) The crucial necessity of the Missionary Metropolis of Hong Kong and the Far East is the reinforcement of the number of people working there and the permanent assets.

4) We have to add here the urgent need to have a decent privately owned house for the Metropolis. A Greek businessman has offered a house, where the temple and some other activities are lodged and although this is an action of great hospitality and love, it is not a permanent and decent solution.

5) The Church of Greece, this “unending tank” of people and other means, is supporting the Orthodox Mission round the world, in Alexandria and Constantinople, Latin America and the Far East. Likewise, they could help in the reinforcement of Orthodox Religion in China. The Greek state could also be helpful in this effort. We have to mention that the promotion of Hellenic Orthodox in the Far East could serve many interests of Greek politics in the area too.

6) Of course, the business world, the private initiative, can also contribute to this, as it has done in many cases. We should mention here, the historical role of merchants in Christianization and civilization of the Slavs and non Slavs in the Byzantium. The state cooperated with the Church in this specific case and the profits of cooperating like these are always expected in the long run.

7) In any case, the presence of the Ambassador Theodoros Georgakellos, a man with rare virtues and a burning spirit, in Beijing, in cooperation with the new Metropolitan of Hong Kong and the Far East Nektarios, may lead slowly but surely to great actions, with the help of the center, of course.

8) This article will reveal an absurdity to people who work in foreign policy, in relation to Macedonian – Skopje issues: In Pictures exhibited in the Museum at the Temple of Heaven, there is a picture of the President of Skopje, Trajkovski, mentioned as “President of Democracy of Macedonia”! All the Chinese who visit this monument get the wrong information about the name of the state.

Το άρθρο 2009 | Mission in China εμφανίστηκε πρώτα στο Μέλαθρον Οικουμενικός Ελληνισμός.

Mission to the Black Sea Countries

(July 4th -16th 2008)

Romania, Ukraine and Moldova

We traveled 10,000 km by road to visit the abandoned Hellenism of these areas.
Here, there was once and there is still another Greece.
40 of our members participated.

Forty people, ready for the most difficult and tedious mission, began the journey to the Black Sea regions, where Hellenism thrived for hundreds of years. Bucharest, a city with a population of 3,000,000 was the meeting point for travelers from Athens and Thessaloniki to begin the most difficult mission of the “Foundation of Ecumenical Hellenism “program.

It was considered difficult because the areas we visited have neither tourism infrastructure nor a perception or culture of tourism and we experienced this throughout our tour, by crossing 10,000 kilometers on a destroyed road  – where we needed at least 10 hours to travel 500 kilometers – with few stops where we could get the basic replenishments, while gas stations had one common bathroom for men and women which most times did not even have water!

On the road from Chisinau to Odessa, to Crimea and half way to Kiev, the farmers stopped their work and looked at us as oddities. Wherever we stopped they asked us who we were and what we were looking for in these areas, because no bus had passed by for the past 20 years. It is worth noting that knowing all these difficulties, the Program rented a luxury bus from Greece in order to carry out the mission.

In all the cities we visited, all the places we passed through, we heard and saw something Greek. We all had the feeling that Greece used to be here!

The first contact with this “other Greece” was for the travelers from Thessaloniki, when passing over the borders of Bulgaria with Romania, over the bridge of the Danube, where they saw many small ports used for commerce during the years of the Turkish Occupation. The management of these ports was assigned by Russia to Great Greek benefactor, Syggros.

We needed 14 hours to cross 630 kilometers from Budapest after passing Moldova and the small independent state of Pridenstrovie, we ended up late at night in Odessa, the centre of Hellenism in the 18th century and one of the most beautiful and best preserved cities of Europe, with great architecture and colors. A special city, with happy people taking their strolls down the city’s roads on impressive horses, while the coffee shops offer their customers blankets to wrap around themselves in the biting cold. We visited the National Museum with the famous Golden Hall, where findings from the ancient Greek cities of Southern Ukraine are on exhibition. The port! This is where the revolution of 1917 began, when the first revolt against the Czar took place in 1904 by the sailors of the Potemkin battleship.

No matter where we went, everything was Greek. The most touching moment of our mission was the pilgrimage to the house of the Filiki Eteria (Friendly Society). It was the property of the Maraslis Family, and it was offered and used as a hideout by the founders of the Filiki Eteria: Ksanthos, Skoufas, Tsakalov and Anagnostopoulos. Our eyes were filled with tears and we were overwhelmed, when the Patriarch of Alexandria and All Africa, Theodoros II, read out the oath of its members.

We met Greeks in an old neighborhood! A dirty yard, surrounded by poor houses and clothes hanging on the clotheslines, filled with the love of the Greeks of Odessa who greeted the mission of the “Ecumenical Hellenism” Program.

Greek children, dressed in traditional costumes, offered fruit and treats, all simple, but genuinely Greek. We offered books, flags and our love! It was an emotional meeting. Elisavet Polychronidi, President of the Community, and her sister Aglaia, confessed to us that when they left, the “cries of desperation” and protests lingered in their hearts, how the Greek State does not treat them as Greeks, and does not even issue Visas so they can visit the land of their ancestors.

The new Consular of Greece, Mr. Manolis Papadogiorgakis was kind enough to visit us in the hotel we were staying. He appeared like a person interested in Hellenism. Let us hope that his presence here will help Hellenism and put a stop to the blackmail towards Greeks, that forces them to pay 100-150 euros, which equals a month’s pay in Odessa, in order to be able to issue a Visa for Greece.

We left Odessa and headed for the Crimean peninsula. Ancient Greeks called this the peninsula of Taurus. There is a strong presence of the Greek population. All the cities have a prominent Greek element. Simferopol, Sevastopol, etc.

On our way to Yalta, our next stop, we stopped at Olbia (which means “happy”). It was founded by Greeks of Miletus in 650 B.C. This was the richest and most important colony of Greeks and the capital of Greek colonies.

Yalta. The word is Greek and it means “seaside”. This was the vacation resort of the former Soviet Union. In the area of Livadi, 3 kilometers from Yalta, inside the house of the Greek Demvegiotis, the Conference of the three Great Powers took place in 1945. Specifically Roosevelt from the USA, Churchill from England and Stalin from Russia met in the “Argonaut Conference” and reached world altering decisions. According to these, World War II ended earlier and the creation of the United Nations was decided.Our guided tour of the beautiful Yalta ended with our visit to the houses where Maxim Gorky and Anton Chekhov lived.

We also visited the Greek community in Simferopol. The community’s building was being reconstructed, so the Greeks of the region greeted us on the pavement outside the community. They could not believe we had made it all the way there, since we were the first mission from Greece that ever visited them. The President of the Community Vasilis Symvoulidis opened his heart to us. The same problems, the same complaints as in Odessa.

Returning to Yalta we passed through Balaclava, a large region of Sevastopol. This is where Odysseus met the man-eaters Laestrygonians. This is where the shipyards and hideout of the Russian submarines, 150 meters under the surface, were located, where only 5 people had access. This is the region where Gorbachev spent the crucial hours of the political change of the Soviet Union.

Sevastopol, a city with 340,000 inhabitants, was built on the location of the ancient Greek city Kherson.

We took the road to Kiev. The distance from Yalta was 1000 kilometers and it took two days to get to the oldest capital of the Russian state. Impressive architecture reminiscent of St. Petersburg. Temples with golden domes everywhere. The Independence Square, where one can see the classic statue of the Russian Revolution and the Statue of the Twinning of Ukraine and Russia. The Monastery of St. Lavra, with the catacombs and the remains of 130 Saints. We were received by Father Antonios, Father Kyrilos which is the head of the Monastery’s internal affairs and the Vice-Chancellor of the Theological School, Mr. Klimis. The hospitality was cordial and the discussion very productive for the cooperation of the Program with the Monastery.

Here we did not meet the Greeks because their bureau was absent in Greece. However, we visited the Consulate. The Consul, Mr. Emmanouil Papadogiorgakis, having a workload, as he said, welcomed the mission without spending much time. How could he find time, with 350,000 Greeks living in Ukraine. We thanked him and delivered our spiritual work. We also went to worship  the temple of St. Andreas.

Leaving Kiev, the next destination was Chisinau, the capital of Moldavia. Here, the great Greek Michalis Katsikas, Captain of the Russian Army, builds his home and offers it to the members of the Filiki Eteria for their struggle. The cemetery also shows that once here everything was Greek. Here are the family graves of Mavrokordatos and the Katakouzinos. 30 km outside of Chisinaou there is the villa of the Ralli family, which came from the Phanar. Today it is called Pushkin Museum. The meeting with the Greeks was painful. Here, President Vladimir Yanev doesn’t speak Greek, but calls himself Greek. Our whole conversation took place with a translator. No comments.

The last station of the mission is Braila, Romania, built on the Danube Delta. Beautiful city with a strong Greek element. In the Orthodox Church the President welcomed us and we gathered to hear the exact same things. Problems, the same concerns in the poor but neat community

We started heading back. Our emotions were indescribable, as yours will be when reading about this journey.

Το άρθρο 2008 | Mission to the Black Sea Countries εμφανίστηκε πρώτα στο Μέλαθρον Οικουμενικός Ελληνισμός.

Mission to Mexico

(7th -17th  July 2007)

Meeting the culture of the Aztecs, the Mayans, the Zapotecs, the Miletus and the Toltecs and the forgotten Greeks.
50 of our members participated.

After the necessary consultations with the Presidents of the three Communities, Vas. Karamanou of the Kouliakan community, Pan. Lambrou of the Guadalajara community and particularly, Eleni Stamatiadou of the Central Community of the City of Mexico, we decided to hold an event at the Community Center of Mexico, where representatives of the other Communities would also be present. The event took place under the general coordination of President Eleni Stamatiadou, on Saturday, July 7th, 5 – 8 pm, at the Community Center, which is located in one of the most prestigious and safe neighborhoods of Mexico City, Saratoga.

Our Mission (45 people total) was welcomed at the entrance of the Community Center by President Stamatiadou and the clergy Joseph and Athanasios, who represented the  Archbishop of Mexico and Panama Athenagoras, who was absent at the time for his co-operative duties in Constantinople. Our mission was led to the central room, where almost 100 members were awaiting and a vibrant emotional atmosphere was created from the very beginning.
The event’s program, under the organization and coordination of Prof. Athanasios Agelopoulos, started with the team’s welcoming by the President of the Community Mr. Stamatiadou, who, in a buzzing and trembling voice, expressed her emotions evolving the visit to the Community of such s large mission. She confessed to us, her pride for her Greek origins and the great effort it takes to preserve in this very distant country of Mexico the Greek culture and the Greek presence.
Representing the “Ecumenical Hellenism” Program’s mission in Mexico, Prof. Athanasios Agelopoulos explained to the audience the philosophy and the objectives of the Program, which is based entirely on private initiative. One of them is the direct communication with the dispersed Greeks of the world. Having conveyed the warm greetings of the President of the Program Mr. Stavros Panousopoulos, who due to force majeure was unable to accompany the Mission, Mr. Agelopoulos read a written message from the President of the Special Permanent Committee of Hellenes Abroad of the Hellenic Parliament, Mr. Evgenios Haitidis, which he after handed over to the President for publication in the press and briefing of the Homogeneity.
Then Mr. Agelopoulos presented to Mrs. Stamatiadou, a memorial plaque, a gesture of honor and gratitude of the program “Ecumenical Hellenism” towards her and throughout the Hellenes Abroad for their love, preservation and promotion of the Greek idea and presence in the country of Mexico. A commemorative plaque was also given to the Ambassador of Greece in Mexico, who was absent at the time in Panama and represented at the event by a member of the Consul.
The first part of the event was completed with brief greetings to the Hellenes Abroad by members of the Mission, representing the self-governing, entrepreneurial, intellectual and educational sector of Greece.
During the second part of the event, we awarded Greek flags, two hundred in number, to the President and the dispersed Hellenes present. The atmosphere was particularly emotional as our Greeks embraced and grasped the Greek flag with tears, considering our offer as a small acknowledgment of the retention in this distant country of the roots of our Greek Orthodox tradition. Our program honored the two native clergies Joseph (from Colombia) and Athanasius (from Cuba), who honor Orthodoxy and the Greek Spirit.
Finally, we offered a flag to each child, boy and girl who danced for the event, dressed in traditional uniforms. It is indicative to say that these young people, as they wore the Greek flag on their neck, kissed it, embraced it with tears in their eyes and applause, which together with the applause of the audience, waved the hall.

After the dance events, our program has been offered prizes for its publishing activity. In particular, volumes of Alexander the Great,  Macedonia (History, Archeology, Culture), Holy Pilgrimages-Towers of Orthodoxy, and the magazine “Ecumenical Hellenism” 5 + 1, all in many copies for the Community libraries, the Schools and the Churches, at the President’s discretion, along with a number of flags.
A reception followed from the Community towards the members of the Mission and the dispersed Hellenes with local, Mexican-style dishes.

Το άρθρο 2007 | Mission to Mexico εμφανίστηκε πρώτα στο Μέλαθρον Οικουμενικός Ελληνισμός.

Mission to Cuba

(4th-12th July 2005)

The Archbishop of Panama and the United States of America, Mr. Athinagoras, the Mayor of Havana Mr. Leal, and the Minister of Religious Affairs and Relations with Greece Mr. Calida, welcomed us, representing President Fidel Castro. We now know what love for Greece and ancient Greek culture means.

80 people participated.

For eight days we lived in a country, where one surprise succeeded the other, one experience was coming after the other, one sensation was prevailing over another.

“Help!!! We need your help. We suffer. Of course, if anything happens, I am obliged to deny everything and call you liars. That 10 year old girl you see in front of you, if she doesn’t get any help, if you don’t support her, at 13-14 years of age, she will have to become a prostitute in order to survive.” A “cry” from a Cuban mother.

We were astounded by what we saw.

At the University of Cuba, where Mr. Isidoro Gomez Santos and Dr. Rogelio Rodriguez Coronel welcomed us, we saw what we haven’t seen in any other University anywhere else in the world. A huge hall with copies of sculptures from Ancient Greece and the Parthenon, in order for the students to learn the Greek history and civilization.

At the Havana Museum, Mrs. Morain Clavijo Colon guided us through the area, where Ancient Greek statues and vessels in perfect condition prevailed at the most central part of the museum.

We, the leaders of the mission, Mr. Panousopoulos Stavros, President of the “Ecumenical Hellenism” Program, Mr. Agelopoulos Athanasios, Professor at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and scientific supervisor of the Program and Mr. Petros Mantouvalos, Member of the Greek Parliament, visited the Mayor of Havana, Mr. Leal. We were accompanied by three personalities of the Orthodox Church of immense significance, His Holiness the Metropolitan of Panama and Central America Athinagoras, the Archimandrite Timotheos and Father Athanasios.

It was one of those experiences that are never forgotten. At the City Hall, the Mayor welcomed us in the warmest way an official has ever done and after offering “his” chair to the Metropolitan he took a stool, one of those we use here in Greece in order to sit by the fireplace, and sat beside him. He started to talk, with knowledge, respect, love for Greece, the Greek civilization and Orthodoxy. We were amazed, for we couldn’t imagine that the heart of the communist regime has such feelings for us.

And it wasn’t the only example. The Minister of Religion and Affairs with Greece, Mrs. Calida, welcomed us, at the building of the party’s Central Administration,  in the area where Fidel Castro works and the members of the University we met at the Institute of Religion of the University and our “guide”, Mr. Isidoro Gomez Santos, ambassador of Cuba made us feel awkwardly wanted and at the same time very proud due to their knowledge and love for the Greek civilization.

We were told that the great visionary leader Fidel Castro has offered to Orthodoxy, everything an ideologist leader could offer and more than any other contemporary leader has ever done. Apart from the holy temple of Aghios Nikolaos, which in 1983 was consecrated by the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, he offered a huge building of 3,000 sqm, in order to house the School of Theology. That offer of his, which shows the greatness of that leader, is the greatest of offers towards Orthodoxy and Hellenism, because of that school, local priests will spring, those who will staff the abandoned church of Latin America. For it is one thing to send priests to Latin America from Greece for a couple of years and a completely different thing to educate young priests, locals, from Cuba, Panama, Bolivia, Argentina, to serve their congregations and their “country” , as we heard the priests from Bolivia and Cuba calling Greece.

Three kilos of rise, two kilos of beans, half a kilo of sugar, ¼ coffee, soap for two people for a month and in addition, milk and meat for the children until the age of 7. This is what the state provides them with. Everybody has a job but with the 250 Cuban pesos they earn they can only buy meat twice a month, while they need six months of salaries in order to buy a t-shirt and a pair of trousers.  Of course, it would be great if they didn’t need medicines, because the very low local production doesn’t cover the special pharmaceutical needs.

The roads are full of people who wait for some vehicle to come and take them to their destination and the waiting hours are endless for a distance of 10klms. They might be waiting 4 and 5 hours.

The Denis typhoon, the biggest typhoon that has ever passed from Cuba the last 200 years, made us live a remarkable experience. The preparation for it started the day before. At our hotel they started to seal the doors and the windows with big wooden boards. The shop owners were emptying their shops of their merchandise. The villages were abandoned in an exemplary way. Fidel Castro, from the T.V all day, was personally directing the operation for the protection against the typhoon, and when it all finished, he went from corner to corner, in order to give courage to those stricken and to see in person the problems that the typhoon had caused. It is remarkable, that even thought the typhoon literally wiped out entire villages, there were only 8 casualties and those were people who refused to leave their houses.

The biggest problems aroused after the typhoon. The state was paralyzed, the hotel employees couldn’t reach the area, in order to serve us and the food was reduced, due to water and electricity cut off for three days.

We visited the Holy Temple of Aghios Nikolaos. At the entrance, on the right hand side, a mosaic prevailed with the photograph of the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and Fidel Castro. Here another surprise awaited us, the simplicity of the priests and the “permission” the Metropolitan of Panama gave for the Holy Communion even for the “unprepared”. We all received the Holy Communion.

The Ambassador of Greece, Mr. Avgerinos, a very gentle person, who contributed the most for the realization of the mission, hosted a reception in honor of the mission, after the Mass.

Six children of Cuban families wanted to be christened and become Orthodox. For us, this was a special moment, for it was the first time in the 10 years of our program that with a plastic tub we became godfathers to those six Cuban children and gave them Greek names: Stavroula, Dimitris, Vasilis, Panayiotis and national ones such as: Hellas, Macedon etc. We left a part of our soul to those children and through them we will watch the development of Cuba’s modern history.

Education in Cuba is at a very high level. All children receive literary free education, private tutors for the special aptitudes of every child, while the percentage of the youths that study to become doctors, is the highest in comparison to any other country.

Since 1992, when the Soviet Union stopped sending help, the situation in Cuba is tragic. The American embargo doesn’t allow any ship to approach the biggest island of the Caribbean. Everything in people’s houses is old, rusty, torn and broken. But in their hearts they have love, goodness and their love for Greece. Maybe the Church’s missionary work will help for the resurrection of their souls as well as for the reduction of prostitution, since all women, in order to sustain themselves, were in the tourist’s disposal.

The TV plays only Cuban channels. Every day, on one of them, Fidel Castro gives courage to his people for endless hours. The satellite programs are watched only by the tourists in the hotels, for tourism in the only way to contact the rest of the civilized world.

Το άρθρο 2005 | Mission to Cuba εμφανίστηκε πρώτα στο Μέλαθρον Οικουμενικός Ελληνισμός.

Mission to Australia
(April 6th-26th 2005)
Sydney – Melbourne – Darwin – Brisbane

30 of our members participated.

“…Greece, I didn’t get to know you very well, but I carry you in me, great, admirable, sacred…”

“… We wanted Greece and we brought her with us …”

Two verses from the poems of Ms. Dina Amanatidou, a genuine Greek woman living in Australia since 1958.

These verses can characterize the Greeks who met the mission of “Ecumenical Hellenism” in Australia, Greeks who made us feel like we were in our homeland.

The “Ecumenical Hellenism” program “closed” its first ten-years and its second round of projects with this great mission to Australia and the distribution of five hundred volumes and 2,000 Greek Flags.

The 25-member mission lived emotional moments in Sydney, Melbourne and Darwin during the events held under the auspices of Deputy Foreign Minister Scandalakis Panagiotis, who was represented by MP of Kilkis and Former Minister Mr. Tsitouridis Savvas.

Leaders of the mission were Mr. Savvas Tsitouridis, the Program’s President Mr. Panousopoulos Stavros and the Professor of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki Mr. Agelopoulos Athanasios.

Sydney

In Sydney, the Center for Neohellenic Literature “Kostis Palamas” organized an event in honor of the mission, attended by 150 expatriates, including the representative of our Counselor in Sydney, Mrs. Raptaki, the Vice-Consul,  Mrs. Katsarou Lyberopoulou, the President of SAE. Kostas Vertzagias, the President of the Greek Community of Sydney, George Agelopoulos.

Melbourne

Everyone was touched, during the visit to the National Center for Hellenic Studies and Research (EKEME) at the Latrobe University in Melbourne, where head of the Center and Professor Anastasios Tamis was head of the mission and supporters of highly sensitized Greeks, like Mr. Dardalis, have undertaken  a huge national project.

“House of Ecumenical Hellenism and Ark of Modern Greek History” named the EKEME the President of the Program in his greeting, as the whole history of Hellenism of the South Hemisphere has been assembled in written and electronic form, while leading newspapers of the Metropolitan Greece are kept in archives.

Professor Agelopoulos Athanasios gave a lecture at EKEME on the subject “Reflections on the Church and State Relations in Greece and Their Effects on the Dispersion”, in the presence of the distinguished guests of the Foundation.

On April 12, the mission was honored to be near the Greeks of the Oakleigh Community. The Council of the Hellenic Community and President Mr. Tsongas organized a series of events in honor of the mission.

In the morning of April 12th, the mission was warmly welcomed by the students of the Greek School of Oakleigh. Afterwards the members of the mission walked the streets of the Community, where every corner resembles Greece. The day ended in the best possible way, with a big event, which started with a press conference in the Greek newspapers of the community. The event was attended by representatives of the Australian government, including the Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Theo Theophanous, the representative of the Prime Minister Mr. Steve Bracks, Ms. Murray Thompson as spokesman of the Chief of the Opposition Mr. Robert Doyle, as well as the Consul General of Greece in Melbourne Kouvaritakis Eleftherios.

Darwin

At Darwin’s Parliament, the mission was welcomed by the Honorary Consul, Georgios Kapetas and the Minister of Multicultural Affairs, Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries and Minister of Mineral Wealth and Energy Kostas Vatskalis and the Deputy Prime Minister Stirling Syd, who conveyed the greetings of the Prime Minister Claire Martin and received  the historical volumes for the Parliament’s library. A reception followed, at the Greek School of Darwin that was held by Minister Vatskalis in honor of the mission and important political, judicial and economic agents from Darwin were present, including the Greek Consul  Capetas George, Mr. Anichtomatis Giannis former governor, Julienne Hince Director of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, several journalists and distinguished Greek Entrepreneurs.

Το άρθρο 2005 | Mission to Australia εμφανίστηκε πρώτα στο Μέλαθρον Οικουμενικός Ελληνισμός.

In the streets of the East

(July 4th – 9th 2004)

Istanbul – Imbros – Ayvalik – Smyrna

We chartered a cruise ship and made a “Cultural Trip” to unforgettable homelands.

600 of our members participated.

Within deeply moved emotional circumstances, the program “Ecumenical Hellenism” carried out the great “cultural journey” on the roads of the East from the 05th until the 09th of July.

Leader of the mission was Panousopoulos Stavros, President of the program “Ecumenical Hellenism”, Agelopoulos Athanasios Professor of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Hetidis Eugenios MP of New Democracy for Serres & President of the Committee of the Hellenes Abroad, Vassiliou Theophilos MP of New Democracy for Achaia, Mantouvalos Petros MP of New Democracy for Piraeus, Simeoforidis Konstantinos former MP and Member of Parliament Deputy Minister to the Prime Minister of the Government of K. Mitsotakis, Giannakopoulos Ioannis former MP of PA.SO.K. for Messinia & Member of the Central Committee of PASOK, Pappas Theofilos Mayor of Sivota, Tzannis Ioannis Mayor of Parapotamos and Anastasopoulos Efstathios Deputy Mayor of Messinia.

The musical background was offered by Petros Gaitanos.

CONSTANTINOPLE

The mission’s first stop is the Ecumenical Patriarchate. There, we visited the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew who blessed all the members of the mission one by one and then awarded honorable plaques to the supporters of the program “Ecumenical Hellenism”.

AYVALIK

In Ayvalik, a great surprise was awaiting us. The Mayor and Deputy Mayor of our city had prepared a brilliant reception. Traditional ensembles and the municipality band danced and played throughout our stay there. It was the first time that a cruise ship – not only Greek – fanned in their area. The deputy Mayor welcomed at the Mayor’s office, leaders of the mission and exchanged souvenirs. Upon our departure, a large police force mingled with the Greek visitors and wearing the T-shirts of Ecumenical Hellenism, but also holding Greek and Turkish flags, danced the Smyrnian dances. Unique moments for all of us.

EFESSOS

In Ephesus, unfortunately, we once again experienced the propaganda created by the tour guides and the distortion of the truth about the historical Greek and Christian monuments.

SMYRNA

In Smyrna, a reception took place on the cruise ship, attended by the Greek Consul Mr. Evangelos Sekeris, the President of the Chamber of Commerce of Smyrna Mr. Ekrem Demitras, the Mayor of Conac, Mr. Muzaffer Tuncag, the President of the Economic Chamber Mr. Banu Bilen, as well as journalists from the Turkish CNN, EGE TV, from the newspaper HABER EKSPRES from ASKAM NEWSPAPER  and from the TURKISH DAILY NEWS, where they welcomed travelers and exchanged commemorative gifts with the leader of the mission.

Subsequently, the leaders of the mission visited the Mayor of Izmir Mr. Azizi Kocaoglou at the Town Hall.

In Smyrna, we felt that there are values ​​and needs that are common to all and we could perhaps rely on, to lay the foundations for a better tomorrow.

Το άρθρο 2004 | In the streets of the East εμφανίστηκε πρώτα στο Μέλαθρον Οικουμενικός Ελληνισμός.

Moscow, St. Petersburg – Russia

(May 3rd -11th 2004)

Wherever we went, we were stepping over ‘’Greek tracks’’. Everything was…Greek.

Highest note, when we met the Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia, Alexius the 3rd.

92 of our members participated.

We must visit our Greeks to remember our History and to feel that we are Greeks, because unfortunately in Greece we have forgotten it.

This was heard by our fellow travelers once again after the events that took place with the distinct Hellenism of Russia.

The mission consisted of 92 personalities from all over Greece leaded by Panousopoulos Stavros, President of the program “Ecumenical Hellenism”, Mantouvalos Petros MP of New Democracy, Archimandrite Gervasios of the Metropolis of Neapolis and Stavropolis and Director of the Primary School of Katerini, Pappas Theophilos Mayor of Syvota Thesprotias. ANT1 TV with the reporter Yannis Pachoulakis and the cameraman Ventouris Dimitris, were with us.

MOSCOW

The leader of the mission visited the Consulate General of Greece in Moscow Kontoleontos Iphigeneia, from whom he was warmly welcomed. The leaders of the mission were welcomed not only from the Consulate, but also from Sotidis Konstantinos President of the Association of Greeks in Moscow, Kotsonis Anatolis Head of the House of Ethnics, Zelilof Kosmas Deputy President of the Association of Greeks and Nicolaou Natalia Director of the Hellenic School of the Hellenic Association .

The “Lomonosof” University, where the Department of Byzantine and Modern Greek Literature operates, was visited by a delegation of 10 members. There they were greeted and guided by Dim. Yalamas, President and Professor of the University and Professors L. Fonkich, M. Bibikov, Ir. Kovaleva and El. Sartori. The President of the program “Ecumenical Hellenism” offered towards the needs of the University, several two-volume publications of “Macedonia” and “Holy pilgrimages” in Greek and English.

The members of the mission paid tribute to the Divine Liturgy performed by the Patriarch in the Holy Church of Saint George of Moscow, (in the presence of the official representatives of the Russian State and the Mayor of the city) and the President of the Program Mr.  St. Panousopoulos honored the Patriarch by offering him the symbol of Ecumenical Hellenism the “Gold Crown”.

SAINT PETERSBURG

In the magnificent city of Grate Peter, we visited the Hellenic School 200, where we were welcomed by the General Counsil of Greece Mr. Lakatzis Ioannis with the headmaster of the school, Polychronidis Eugenios, the President of the National Association of Greeks of St. Petersburg Mr. Apatsidis Har.arHarnx, the President of the Russian-Hellenic Club. Kesidis Jordan, teachers and schoolchildren.

In our turn we distributed to all children Greek flags, school materials and several copies of our collections.

Το άρθρο 2004 | Mission to Russia εμφανίστηκε πρώτα στο Μέλαθρον Οικουμενικός Ελληνισμός.