Former Greek Foreign Minister Theodore Pangalos passed away at eighty four years old. He served under Prime Minister Costas Simitis. Pangalos will be associated with bringing Greece back under Washington’s strict influence.
He will be associated with the turnover of Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan to the Turks and reversing Greece’s hitherto pro Serbian stance in the balkans. As Christians, we pray for the memories of those who repose.
The following letter is in intended to convey my profound concern for the well being of Armenia which faces constant threats from the dictatorship in Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan is threatening to attack the Armenians who control Nagorno-Karabakh in which a majority of ethnic Armenians reside. The United States must ensure that Azerbaijan does not attack the peaceful Republic of Armenia.
Azerbaijan is a brutal jihadist regime serving as the puppet of a hostile Turkey and has collaborated with elements of Al Quada. The government in Baku has made threats to
Armenia that are genocidal. Azerbaijan must be told in no uncertain terms that it will face strong punishment in the event of an attack on Armenia. Azerbaijan should be
considered as hostile to the United States.
The United States has a chance to show that it supports democracy. There is no media championing the righteousness of the Armenians. The Armenians are very real freedom fighters facing an existential threat. The United States should support Armenia because it is the morally correct thing to do. There must never be a repetition of the Armenian
Genocide.Never again!
Theodore Karakostas
President Erdogan of Turkey appears to have been re-elected President. Technically, this is not good for Greece and Cyprus. Erdogan’s threats to invade the Greek islands remain a concern.
The rise of Islam and the downfall of the Kemalist establishment in Turkey put enormous strain on Turkish relations with America and Europe, but did not bring about a complete break. This is a tremendous disappointment as the west still refuses to see Turkey as an enemy. On the other hand, the restoration of Kemalist rule in Turkey would repair Turkish relations with the west. At least with Erdogan, tensions remain.
Kemal Kilikdaroglu is more dangerous than Erdogan. He opposed Erdogan from the right and from the left. From the right, he denounced Erdogan as soft for not ending the Greek “0ccupation” of the islands. From the left, because he is a secularist and this appeals not only to American and European leaders, but to many Turkish secularists. Technically, he would probably have been less of an authoritarian than Erdogan.
But then this is a lethal mix that is more threatening to Greece, Cyprus, and Armenia. The image of a westernized Turkey did the Christians enormous harm throughout the twentieth century. Kemal the mass murderer was pro western. Adnan Menderes and Bulent Ecevit were westernized and received support from the west.
In order to maintain Turkey as a western ally, the Greeks and the Armenians were repeatedly sacrificed. Erdogan should not make us forget the previous eras when Turkey was repeatedly praised as a democracy despite its history of genocide and external acts of aggression. There really was a no win situation here.
Even so, Kilicdaroglu was the greater threat over the long term. Erdogan will probably continue to be a threat, but there will be advantages in the fact that he is unstable and unlikely to fully repair the breach with the west and Russia. Throughout his long tenure, Erdogan nearly started wars with Israel, Russia, and the United States.
This at least gives us hope that a final breach with the west is possible. A Kemalist restoration would make Turkey invincible. It would have shown that Turkey had strayed for twenty years but came back again because westernization had been too entrenched. No, the defeat of Kemalism is a good thing and the elections may show over the long term that the Turkey the west supported for decades is not coming back.
On this basis, the Turkish election results are good news.
Dodgers.
As a Greek Orthodox Christian, I wish to condemn the anti Roman Catholic policies of the Dodgers baseball organization and to express solidarity as a fellow Christian with the Roman Catholic community. The decision of the Dodgers to re invite the bogus “nuns” to participate in “pride” night is in fact a cowardly and despicable decision that reflects poorly on the ethics of the Dodgers organization. In a democratic society such as ours (which appears to be crumbling) civility is an important factor for good relations of communities of different faiths (and no faiths).
Permitting a group of men to ridicule the Roman Catholic Church at a baseball game is an attack on civility and the very concept of tolerance. Contrary to the propaganda put fourth by the LGBT activists, tolerance is not their goal. These activists are profoundly aggressive, obnoxious and highly intolerant of anyone they disagree with. Indeed, holding a night for a “pride” event is in itself highly questionable. Trans activists have made very clear that they desire to groom children and to impose their
views in public schools and elsewhere even at the expense of what parents wish to teach their children.
As a believing Christian, I have become disturbed by the increasing numbers of boys and girls who have been subject to taking hormone pills and puberty blockers. Many teenage girls have undergone mastectomies only to regret it later. There are serious moral implications in sports franchises celebrating the trans ideology and the wicked flag that the LGBT activists display.
The deliberate and willful ridicule of the Roman Catholic Church that the Dodgers organization now officially endorses is not a display of tolerance or courage. It is a display of moral cowardice and an abdication of moral responsibility for American society. The Roman Catholic is not liked by the official establishment (media, entertainment industry) and there is a good deal of anti Christian sentiment among these institutions, of which the Roman Catholic Church is clearly the favorite target of the establishment. It is cowardice to attack an institution that is out of favor with powerful politicians and political and social activists. The Dodgers organization is merely piling on by joining the legion of anti Catholic bullies.
The officials of the Dodgers organization who reversed their decision and will permit the trans radicals to mock the Roman Catholic Church have no moral backbone or principals. Last century in America, the eugenics movement was once popular and resulted in thousands of Americans being sterilized without their consent. The Roman Catholic Bishops played a decisive and leading role in stopping that abomination.
The trans movement today which is targeting children will one day be looked upon with horror as the eugenics movement is today. The Dodgers and Major League Baseball will be judged harshly by history. As a Greek Orthodox Christian, I stand with the Roman Catholic community and condemn the Dodgers and Major League Baseball for promoting religious hatred and bigotry.
Theodore Karakostas
Boston, Ma
former baseball fan
June is going to be “pride month”. Baseball teams are going to have “pride” nights. The Los Angeles Dodgers are among them. The Dodgers invited a group of “trans” men who dress up like Roman Catholic nuns and mock Catholicism, and Eastern Christianity by extension.
When the Roman Catholic Church and its institutions protested, the Dodgers disinvited the trans “nuns”. There was no real apology from the Dodgers whose disrespect for the sacred was apparent by its public statement. After the LGBT activists complained, the cowards in the Dodgers organization re invited the lunatic group and even apologized for disinviting them.
This demonstrates two things. The trans activists have become powerful enough to exert their influence over professional sports and corporations. The second point is that the people who run sports franchises, corporations, and the media have no soul or consciences. The trans activists have taken control.
Orthodox Christians must stand in solidarity with the Roman Catholics. The cultural war we are in must not be lost. Orthodox Christians must join the fight.
The following letter is in response to the May 16 news report, “What Turkey’s Presidential election could mean for the US and Europe”. The report totally ignores Turkey’s aggressive designs toward Greece, ongoing occupation of the Republic of Cyprus, and support for the murderous and genocidal regime in Azerbaijan which has committed war crimes and crimes against humanity against ethnic Armenians.The elections in Turkey are not the casual elections of a normal democratic country.
They are the elections in a country dominated by extreme right fascist-Islamist, and fascist-racist parties. The top two contenders for the Presidency in Turkey are both extremists bent on war toward neighboring Greece. President Erdogan has repeatedly threatened to invade the Greek islands. His opponent, Kemal Kiridaloglu has considered war monger Erdogan to have been too soft on Greece. NPR’s coverage of Turkey is typical of western media outlets who are soft on Turkey and completely indifferent to the victims of Turkish aggression and expansionism.
The Greek islands that both candidates in Turkey’s elections openly covet are populated one hundred percent by ethnic Greeks. Turkish demands that Greece either demilitarize the islands (totally unmentioned in this bogus news report) or face invasion are threats to commit genocide. Turkey’s Azerbaijani allies have demonstrated very effectively what Turkish leaders are capable of. The western alliance as a whole is complicit in the massacres and ethnic cleansing of Armenians because they have not condemned Turkish atrocities and they continue to treat Turkey like a normal country.
Greeks can expect the same in the event that Turkey invades the Greek islands. Both Turkish leaders are psychopaths who crave a greater Turkey. The major difference between them is that Erdogan is a fanatical jihadist (his regimes longs standing support for ISIS and Al quada is another fact completely unmentioned in the news report) whereas Kiridaloglu is an old line supporter of the Turkish Republic’s founder Mustafa Kemal. Kemal was the murderous dictator who slaughtered every Greek and Armenian in Anatolia in order to achieve a racially pure state.
Your coverage of events in Turkey is condemnable.
Theodore Karakostas
Boston
On the face of it, the Turkish elections were a no win situation for Greece and Turkey. The two top candidates are fanatical extremists. President Erdogan dreams of the revival of the Ottoman Empire and had threatened to invade the Greek islands.
His challenger, Kemal Kilicdaroglu is a fanatical remnant of the Kemalist regime. His Republican People’s Party was founded by mass murderer Mustafa Kemal and was also led by Bukent Ecevit who ordered the invasions of Cyprus in 1974. Kilicdaroglu has criticized Erdogan for not invading and seizing the Greek islands.
The western media has demonstrated its traditional anti Greek bias by failing to note how extreme Kilicdaroglu is. If this man wins the run of election, Turkey could revert back to the Kemalist era. This means the restoration of warm ties between Turkey and the west.
Even under Erdogan, the west failed to back Greece and Cyprus so the situation is uncertain. It appears Erdogan manly be the lesser of two evils at this point. A restoration of Kemalist rule is the equivalent of a Nazi return in Germany.
Time will tell what will happen but Greece must prepare for the worst no matter who wins the elections in Turkey. Greece has to reverse its stance on Ukraine and adopt a neutral stance. Greece must improve relations with Russia
Greece’s blindly pro western stance has not been beneficial. The Turkish threat subsided after Greeks provided Turkey with aid following a devastating earthquake. Greece for the short term may be better off with Erdogan. Over the long term, it is hard to say what could happen.
May 4, 2023
by Theodore Karakostas
In the year 988 AD, Emperor Basil II of Constantinople of the reigning Macedonian Dynasty performed a deed that can be considered splendid not only in the earthly realms of politics and diplomacy, but in the spiritual and heavenly realms as well. Emperor Basil had once intended to become a monk, but accepted his destiny to become the Emperor of Christendom in the God protected City of Constantinople and arranged for the baptism of holy Rus whose culture and civilization began in Kiev. It it a fact that what Constantinople is for the Greeks, Kiev is for both Russia and Ukraine.
Those of us of Hellenic ancestry have felt the enormous pain of losing Hagia Sophia three times. First in 1453, after the fall of Constantinople, then in 1922 when Greece was denied Constantinople by the Western powers, and in 2020 when the world sat silently as the Turkish government made Saint Justinian’s Church a Mosque. The Kiev Caves Lavra are in Kiev what Hagia Sophia is to Constantinople. The Kiev Caves Lavra is more than just a Monastery. Within its sacred walls reside two hundred monks and three hundred seminarians.
A wave of repression has been undertaken by the Kiev government against the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC). There is a rival “Orthodox Church of Ukraine” (OCU). The situation is not unlike Greece in which the “Orthodox Church of Greece” peacefully coexists with the various Old Calendar-traditionalist Churches. Democracy and the right to religious freedom and freedom of conscience dictate that individuals should be free to worship where they like. The Ukrainian government has for several years forcibly seized Churches belonging to the UOC and given them to the OCU. It has also attempted to force the UOC to rename itself and pressure has effectively been imposed to subsequently ban the UOC outright.
Orthodox Churches throughout the world have raised their voices in protest against the persecution of the Kiev Caves Lavra. Only a few bishops in Greece and Cyprus have raised their voices. This is particularly disturbing considering that Kiev carries on the great spiritual heritage of Constantinople. It is important to recall that until 2018, the Ecumenical Patriarchate and the Greek Churches had refused to recognize schismatic entities in Ukraine that later became the OCU. They had recognized only the UOC which is the inheritor of the Church that was established by Prince Vladimir of Kiev when he accepted the Christian faith from Emperor Basil II of Constantinople.
Thanks for reading Hellenic News of America
For moral and spiritual reasons, as well as historic reasons the Greek Churches must raise their voices to protest the injustices against not just the monks of the Kiev Caves Lavra, but against the Ukrainian Orthodox Church as a whole. Another prominent reason why my conscience dictates that I must write about the present horrors inflicted on Orthodox Christians in Ukraine is because of the past silence of the world to the injustices of Greek Orthodoxy in Asia Minor and Constantinople. It should be remembered that the world was indifferent to the Greek Orthodox in 1922 when the Turks burned the City of Smyrna and slaughtered the Greek and Armenian Christians.
After the 1955 pogroms in Constantinople and the subsequent ethnic cleansing of Greeks from the heavenly city, the Western world was not only indifferent but bullied Greece into appeasing the Turkish aggressors. It is in memory of the destroyed Greek Churches of Constantinople and Turkish-occupied Cyprus (where the Turks have destroyed or Islamicized over five hundred Churches and Monasteries) that I lament the seizure and destruction of Churches and holy sites belonging to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
Since when do holy and pious Greek bishops remain silent on issues pertaining to our Orthodox faith? Patriarch (Saint) Gregory V gave his life by refusing to expose to the Sultan the plans for the liberation of Greece. Metropolitan (Saint) Chrysostom of Smyrna defied death and the Turks by announcing he would never leave Smyrna and his flock. He was butchered but gained martyrdom and eternal glory in the kingdom of God. Archbishop Chrysanthos of Athens refused to cooperate with the Germans in 1941 and openly defied them. Archbishop Damaskinos of Athens risked his life under Nazi occupation
to rescue thousands of Greek Jews.
In September 1955, Archbishop Spyridon of Athens resisted government pressure not to offend the Americans when denounced the anti-Greek pogroms in Constantinople and the silence of America and NATO. In our own lifetime, Archbishop Christodoulos of blessed memory condemned the bombing of Orthodox Serbia and called the faithful to the streets of Athens and Thessaloniki to protest plans to diminish the influence of Orthodoxy in Greece. When any religious group is oppressed (Jews, Roman Catholics, Muslims) we would be called upon by the gospel to raise our voices.
How then can it be that Church leaders in Constantinople, Athens, and Nicosia have remained silent when our own brothers in the Orthodox faith suffer and are being oppressed. The tradition of Greek Orthodoxy demands that the Patriarch and the bishops raise their voices. This too is part of the spiritual inheritance of Constantinople as can be seen by the examples of Saint John Chrysostom and other Patriarchs. The Greek Churches must speak!
There are two excellent horror films currently playing in theaters. The first is “The Pope’s Exorcist” which is a fictionalized story of a real life Vatican Exorcist. A very good horror film. I am a fan of horror films as the genre takes Christianity seriously and Exorcism movies serve as a warning about evil and the devil.
The greatest of these films is William Friedkin’s 1973 masterpiece “The Exorcist”.This film is nowhere near as good but it is a serious look at the nature of evil. Of course, the Christian faith looks good. One thing cannot be denied, horror cinema does not go woke.
A second film is “Evil Dead Rising”, a reboot of Sam Raimi’s “Evil Dead” films. Unlike the remake of the 1982 original ten years ago, this is quite good. It is scary and suspenseful with likable characters.
The original Evil Dead spawned two sequels “Evil Dead 2 Dead by Dawn” and “Army of Darkness” along with the aforementioned 2013 remake, and a television series,”Ash vs Evil Dead”. The trilogy and the series featured the great Bruce Campbell as the hero.
Campbell does not appear in this one, but the film manages to stand on its own. This film plays tribute to the Campbell films while standing out as an entirely fresh concept. Only criticism is one of the demons too closely resembles a demon from the 2018 masterpiece “Hereditary”.
Also, the opening and concluding parts of the film are thankfully brief. They did not go with the rest of the film which is a great horror film. This film successfully resisted the temptation to go woke.
The hero of the film is a woman but the film did not beat the audience with that fact, unlike “Terminator Dark Fate”.This is an excellent horror film that successfully keeps the Evil Dead franchise alive. A straight forward horror film returning to its roots and no politics!
“The Pope’s Exorcist” revives the exorcism genre which began to decline in recent years. Horror cinema is alive and well and thankfully not woke. A great way to escape the turmoil of the world for a couple of hours.
The following is in response to the inaccurate and propagandistic article “The end of days for Russia’s Church in Ukraine”. I am a Greek Orthodoxunder the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. I am neither Russian nor Ukrainian but I have a knowledge of Orthodox theology and ecclesiology. There is no such thing as “Russia’s Church”. The Eastern Orthodox Church is Jesus Christ’s Church. The real and legitimate Church is the Ukrainian Orthodox Church under Metropolitan Onuphry who happens to be under the “omophorion” of the Patriarchate of Moscow.
The so called “Orthodox Church of Ukraine” is a fake Church established by politicians and the American government using Patriarch Bartholomewof Constantinople whose Patriarchate in Turkey faces extinction and needs western support. Orthodox Christians believe that the Orthodox Church is the true Church of Christ. Adherents of every religion naturally believe theirs is the true faith.
By creating the “Orthodox Church of Ukraine”, Ukrainian officials and American officials have made a mockery of the Orthodox Church and are in effect saying that the Orthodox Church is make believe and has no more significance than a political party or NGO. Orthodox Christians find this offensive as they are outraged by the persecution of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church by a variety of Neo-Nazis and other fascist extremists. The Ukrainian government has created a sectarian conflict when it should be working to create national unity.
I am a Greek American under the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Turkey. Does that make me pro Turkish? Roman Catholics throughout the world are under the spiritual authority of the Pope of Rome. When Mussolini was in power in Rome, and when the Nazis occupied Rome did that bring into question the loyalty of Roman Catholics throughout the world during the Second World War?
Western politicians, diplomats, and journalists have made very clear that freedom of religion is under threat.We believe Jesus Christ is the head
of the Church, and the Church will always survive despite two thousand years of persecution. Millions of Orthodox Christians worldwide take encouragement from the bishops, priests, monastics, and faithful of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (the real one) who are confessors at a time of persecution and martyrdom.
Everyone wants an end to the immoral war in Ukraine. Targeting a specific community for persecution because the government does not like its religious choices is fascism. Politico seems to ignore the sinister implications of targeting a community because of its religion, while ignoring the Neo Nazi Azov battalions in eastern Ukraine. Angry mobs targeting Ukrainian Orthodox Churches openly display the swastika and other symbols of hate.
Your coverage of the Church issue in Ukraine is contemptible and deplorable. But, Orthodox Christians look to Christ for relief! In the long term, Christ’s (not Russia’s) Church will be the one to prevail. That thing that the Ukrainian government and the State Department created with Patriarch Bartholomew will not even exist in a few years. The Churches they have stolen from the legitimate Church are empty.
The “Orthodox Church of Ukraine”is a caricature of an Orthodox Church. Its mysteries are devoid of grace and its clergy are unordained
lunatics.
Theodore Karakostas
