A Publication of the ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN LAITY
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| Volume 6 Number 33 - Tuesday, August 17th, 2004 |
A Publication of the ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN LAITY |
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The Orthodox Christian News Service |
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Need for Continued Teaching of Hellenic Language Editor: We have noted that in the recent past there have been several letters posted within your website which contemplate the need for the continued teaching of the Hellenic language within our Holy Cross School of Theology. Furthermore, other articles often discuss the elimination of the Hellenic language during liturgical services in parishes across this great land of ours. The latter phenomenon is gradually becoming a reality based on personal observations in quite a few Greek Orthodox parishes. We are greatly saddened whenever we observe our seminarians (and all others who either attend or teach at the Holy Cross Hellenic School of Theology) argue against the language of the New Testament, the language of our ancestors, those who have safeguarded, spread, and passed on Orthodoxy to us; they are one and the same people who, with a multitude of sacrifices, built the Holy Cross Hellenic School of Theology and so very many Greek Orthodox parishes across America. Rather than argue with all those expressing such unwarranted and improper anti-Hellenic views, I consider it prudent to present to you and your readers a couple of short speeches given by Xenophon Zolotas, an internationally respected Greek economist, during some meetings with his peers in Washington, D.C. and at Harvard University. The speeches were in English but in essence they were comprised almost exclusively of Greek words. While their content is non-religious, they nevertheless demonstrate to all that read them the value of the Hellenic language and its significant contribution towards English. Mr. Zolotas audience was English-speaking (mostly American) economists, bankers and University students, all of whom fully understood his speech. For the purpose of some background, Mr. Zolotas was an eminent Greek economist and Professor of Economics and who also served as an interim non-party Prime Minister of Greece. He studied economics at the University of Athens, and later in Leipzig and Paris. He was a member of the Board of Directors of United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration and held senior posts in the International Monetary Fund and other international organizations. He published many works on Greek and international economic topics. The speeches that follow were delivered in 1957 and 1959. As Professor Zolotas said: "I always wished to address this Assembly in Greek, but I realized that it would have been indeed Greek to all present in this room. I found out, however, that I could make my address in Greek which would still be English to everybody. With your permission, Mr. Chairman, I shall do it now, using with the exception of articles and prepositions only Greek words". We hope that these two speeches provide some small glimpse into the immense value of the Hellenic language to our seminarians, our Greek Orthodox laity, and the entire English-speaking world at large. As Orthodox Christians, we must always remember that this is the language which our Lord and Savior selected to spread His divine words. I humbly suggest that if our seminarians, our laity, and (most important) our children have an opportunity to learn it, we, the older generation, must stand in support of this desire and stop serving as its hindrance. In Christ our Lord and Savior, George Karras Greek Orthodox Brotherhood of St. POIMEN
First speech - September 26, 1957"Kyrie, I eulogize the archons of the Panethnic Numismatic Thesaurus and the Ecumenical Trapeza for the orthodoxy of their axioms, methods and policies, although there is an episode of cacophony of the Trapeza with Hellas. With enthusiasm we dialogue and synagonize at the synods of our didymous Organizations in which polymorphous economic ideas and dogmas are analyzed and synthesized. Our critical problems such as the numismatic plethora generate some agony and melancholy. This phenomenon is characteristic of our epoch. But, to my thesis, we have the dynamism to program therapeutic practices as a prophylaxis from chaos and catastrophe. In parallel, a panethnic unhypocritical economic synergy and harmonization in a democratic climate is basic. I apologize for my eccentric monologue. I emphasize my eucharistia to you Kyrie, to the eugenic and generous American Ethnos and to the organizers and protagonists of this Amphictyony and the gastronomic symposia.''
Second speech - October 2, 1959 "Kyrie, It is Zeus' anathema on our epoch for the dynamism of our economies and the heresy of our economic methods and policies that we should agonise between the Scylla of numismatic plethora and the Charybdis of economic anaemia. It is not my idiosyncrasy to be ironic or sarcastic but my diagnosis would be that politicians are rather cryptoplethorists. Although they emphatically stigmatize numismatic plethora, energize it through their tactics and practices. Our policies have to be based more on economic and less on political criteria. Our gnomon has to be a metron between political, strategic and philanthropic scopes. Political magic has always been antieconomic. In an epoch characterised by monopolies, oligopolies, menopsonies, monopolistic antagonism and polymorphous inelasticities, our policies have to be more orthological. But this should not be metamorphosed into plethorophobia which is endemic among academic economists. Numismatic symmetry should not antagonize economic acme. A greater harmonization between the practices of the economic and numismatic archons is basic. Parallel to this, we have to synchronize and harmonize more and more our economic and numismatic policies panethnically. These scopes are more practical now, when the prognostics of the political and economic barometer are halcyonic. The history of our didymous organisations in this sphere has been didactic and their gnostic practices will always be a tonic to the polyonymous and idiomorphous ethnical economics. The genesis of the programmed organisations will dynamize these policies. I sympathise, therefore, with the aposties and the hierarchy of our organisations in their zeal to programme orthodox economic and numismatic policies, although I have some logomachy with them. I apologize for having tyrannized you with my hellenic phraseology.
In my epilogue, I emphasize my eulogy to the
philoxenous autochthons of this cosmopolitan
metropolis and my encomium to you, Kyrie, and the
stenographers." |
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