Skywatch Friday-The flag

 

Blue, like the sky and the clouds, blue like the sea and the foam.

Celebrating our National Day, October 28, and being thankful for our freedom.

Thanks for stoping by! See you all next week!

Marathon: 2500 years

In the year 490 B.C. the Persian army invaded Greece. On the fennel plane of Marathon to the North East of Athens, the outnumbered by 3 to 1 Athenian army faced and won the barbarian legions of Asia, in a battle that British philosopher John Stuart Mill would famously suggest that " even as an event in British history, is more important than the Battle of Hastings".

To announce their victory, the Greeks dispatched a herald, named Pheidippides. He run the 42,195 kms ( 26 miles and 385 yards), and gave the one word message : "Nenikikamen" (We have won!). He then collapsed.

"So, when Persia was dust, all cried, "To Acropolis!
Run, Pheidippides, one race more! the meed is thy due!
Athens is saved, thank Pan, go shout!" He flung down his shield
Ran like fire once more: and the space 'twixt the fennel-field
And Athens was stubble again, a field which a fire runs through,
Till in he broke: "Rejoice, we conquer!" Like wine through clay,
Joy in his blood bursting his heart, - the bliss!"
Robert Browning ( 1812-1889)


 
This first major victory of the West against the East that would reach new heroic hights ten years later in Thermopylae and Salamis, was so important to the Greeks that the father of tragic poetry Aeschylus himself, upon his death around 456 BC, asked that his epitaph commemorated his participation in the Greek victory at Marathon rather than his success as a playwright:

Αἰσχύλον Εὐφορίωνος Ἀθηναῖον τόδε κεύθει

μνῆμα καταφθίμενον πυροφόροιο Γέλας·

ἀλκὴν δ' εὐδόκιμον Μαραθώνιον ἄλσος ἂν εἴποι

καὶ βαθυχαιτήεις Μῆδος ἐπιστάμενος

 which means:

"Beneath this stone lies Aeschylus, son of Euphorion, the Athenian,

who perished in the wheat-bearing land of Gela;

of his noble prowess the grove of Marathon can speak,

or the long-haired Persian who knows it well".

On the plane of Marathon still stands the toom honouring the 192 dead Athenian soldiers. 
On the tomb this epigram composed by the poet Simonides was written:

"Ελλήνων προμαχούντες Αθηναίοι Μαραθώνι
χρυσοφόρων Μήδων εστόρεσαν δύναμιν"

which means


"The Athenians, as defenders of the Hellenes, in Marathon
destroyed the might of the golden-dressed Medes".

This year marks 2500 years since the battle of Marathon, the victory of right  against wrong, of humanity and civilisation of Europe against the vulgarity of gold and slavery of the East.

Thankful Thursday-Freedom

October 28, 1940

October 28, 1940: Italy invades Greece

The Leaders

The Women

The Art

Today, 70 years after the invasion of  Greece by Italy, followed by the Germans, 

I am thankful for

FREEDOM

 I am thankful for my late grand father and my husband's late grand father who fought in the war, in the Cavalry and the Artillery, and for my father in law who fought and was wounded in the war against the communist rebellion that followed (1945-1949).


October 28, 2010

70 years later, the government bans military parades...for financial reasons, they say...some say following orders to further attack our morale. But we march on...

...and say "OXI"~"NO!"

 "Protect our Nation, flag of the Cross"

And to you all, my dear friends, I say, protect your freedom, your Nations' freedom, your people's freedom. Believe that there is no one mighter than God, and to no one else do we owe our allegience.


With Thanks to all of you, and to Lynn for hosting and for your prayers.

The persecuted church

Dear friends,

Very often I see pages of Christian sisters supporting the cause of Christians around the world who are being discriminated upon because of their faith. Today I bring to you one such case that you may or may not be aware of.

(CNN)- Patriarch Bartholomew is the living embodiment of one of the world's oldest institutions -- the Greek Orthodox Church in Constantinople.

But he could be the last to hold the title in what is modern-day Istanbul, in secular but Muslim majority Turkey.

CNN's "World's Untold Stories" examines the dwindling Greek Orthodox community in Turkey and how they are faring.

There has been a patriarch in Constantinople for 14 centuries, ever since it was the capital of Byzantium and the Eastern Roman Empire, ruling over the Eastern Mediterranean and much of the Middle East.

To this day, Orthodox Christians around the world recite prayers to the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, the "first among equals." Some describe him as the equivalent of the "pope" for the world's Orthodox Christians. But Bartholomew, who is now 70, may become the last in a line of some 270 bishops in Constantinople.

The Turkish government refuses to recognize Bartholomew's title as "Ecumenical Patriarch."

Twenty-five years ago, the Turkish government shut the seminary where Greek Orthodox clergy traditionally trained. Greeks who do not hold Turkish passports are barred from becoming clerics.

Instead of being the spiritual leader of his faith, Bartholomew has become a symbol of the dwindling community of ethnic Greeks still living in modern-day Istanbul. There are only around 2,000 ethnic Greeks left in Istanbul. The last members of this community are gradually dying out, but they cling tenaciously to the churches and schools their ancestors built in what was once the capital of a Greek empire.

 Watch and listen to part 1, part 2 and part 3. Persecution is much closer that you can imagine...

Royal wedding photos

Hello dear friends,

As promised, I am posting some photos from the royal wedding we hosted on the island of Spetsai, Greece a week ago.  

The Greek Royal Family. L to R, Crown Prince Paul, Theodora, Nicolas (the groom), Alexia, Queen Anne-Marie, Philip, King Constanine. Behind them, a protrait of his grandfather, Constantine, who liberated a great part of Greece from the Turkish  occupation.

The male members of the Greek royal family arrived by boat,

the "Afroessa", a present of the King to Queen Anne-Marie for her 60th birthday.

The Afroessa

From L to R: Crown prince Paul, Prince Philip, H.M. King Constantine of the Hellenes and Prince Nicolas.

 Queen Margrete of Denmark, sister of Queen Anne-Marie, and Queen Sofia of Spain, sister of King Constantine.

Crown Prince Paul with his wife, nee Marie-Chantal Miller, and their children.

Princess Alexia, her husband Carlos Morales and their children.

The groom, his mother and father arrive in church.

Q.Anne-Marie and P.Nicolaos

King Constantine and Prince Nicolaos arrive at the monastery church, following the island's bishop and clergy.

Inside the church of St. Nicolaos

The King and Queen

Nicolaos and Tatiana

Wearing the crowns

Notice in the photo above that the "koumbari", the best men, are supposed to hold something in their hands. They were in fact holding two crowns, exact replicas of those used in the wedding of the groom's parents.

However, these were photoshopped out of the photo, so as not to stir anti-royalist emnities.

Husband and Wife

In his speech King Constantine addressing his son, concluded: 

"The advice I gave to your brother in law, Carlos, when he married Alexia, I give to you, now:

"To keep your marriage brimming, 

with love in the loving cup, 

whenever you are wrong, admit it, 

whenever you are right, shut up".

Royal wedding in Greece

Prince Nikolaos of Greece and Tatiana Blatnik

 After 46 years, a royal wedding will be taking place in Greece on Wednesday. Prince Nikolaos, 41, the second son of King Constantine of Greece, the groom of the previous royal wedding to Princess Anne-Marie of Denmark, will wed Miss Tatiana Blatnik, PR for fashion house DVF. The wedding will be taking place on the island of Spetsai, a stronghold of the Greek navy during the Greek Revolution of 1821, just to the South of Athens, near the Peloponnesian coast, what a friend calls " the Southampton of Greece".Thus the portrait of the couple, created by a local artist, Dina Theodoropoulos, a wedding present from the municipality of Spetsai to the couple. 

Discussion of the Greek royal family is a taboo in Greek politics and journalism. A great part of the last four decades has been spent cursing them for every possible evil. They kept mostly silent. one must admit, that the ex-king is not particularly brilliant politically, that is why he has been tricked by the late President of the Republic Karamanlis into not returning to Greece after the fall of the 1967-1974 military dictatorship and ask for a referendum that Karamanlis skillfully masterminded. But little by little the Greek royal family has been making a come back to the public scene.

I think one of the most powerful moments in my mind was when King Constantine was allowed just a few hours stay to burry his mother at the royal palace of Tatoi. Who could do that to a person, let alone a former head of state? Upon landing from London the King kneeled and kissed the Greek soil. I shall always remeber that scene. I cannot hide either that I feel a strong satisfaction knowing that some mighty powerful people have been and will be bending their knees to his sister, the Queen of Spain, and will bend over backwards to secure an invitation. It may not amount to a return of the king, but it is a sweet revenge...

Crown Prince Paul on the other hand, is not very brilliant either, and his wife, Marie-Chantal is too distant and too lofty to be loved by the people. If the Greek royal family were ever to return to Greece, Prince Nikolaos and his bride who has charmed almost everyone during her stays in Greece, would be its best bet. It is not a coincidence that Tatiana has been offered kisses, posies and good wishes everywhere she went, and accepted them with grace and understanding, very much like her mother-in-law, nearly five decades ago. Let's hope that Wednesday's bain de foule will be a success for the new Princely couple. May their life together sail with all good winds and be long and fruitful.

March 25th 1821-Freedom or Death

Following countless uprisings, and rivers of Greek blood, the revolution of 1821 brought about the new, tiny Greek state.

These are two of my favorite heroes of the Greek Revolution.

Theodore Kolokotronis

Bouboulina
In their undying memory.







"Let those who feel
heavy the cupreous hand of fear
be under slavery;
freedom needs
virtue and mettle.

It (and the myth conceals mind of truth)
gave winds to Icarus
and even if he fell,
the one who had winds and drowned,
by sinking beneath the sea,

but he fell from high
and died as a free man.

If you become a dishonorable fatling
of an oppressor,
consider as horrible the grave."
Andreas Kalvos (1792-1869)
ΖΗΤΩ Η ΕΛΛΑΔΑ-ΖΗΤΩ Η ΕΛΕΥΘΕΡΙΑ

New Statue of Alexander the Great found in Alexandria, Egypt

The statuette discovered at a depth of 10 meters in the subsoil of the gardens of Salalat in Alexandria is depicting Alexander the Great, says archaeologist Kalliopi Papacosta. It's 80 cm high and it is made in pure Parian marble. The naked young man is standing, with right leg bent. He bears a striking similarity to the image of Alexander the Great as represented in the (later) famous mosaic of Pompeii depicting Alexander the Great defeating king Darius of Persia in the battle of Issus.

Mrs. Papakosta is a member of the Greek Alexandrian Culture Research Institute, excavating for the past 14 years in the region. Mrs. Papakosta was assistant and associate of the Egyptian archaeologist Faouzi El Facharani, who sought the tomb of Alexander the Great among the so-called Tombs of alabastron in Alexandria.

May 29 1453: Asia sets foot on Europe

" To surrender the city to you is not of me or any other of its citizens;
common opinion have we all to die without counting our lives".

Constantinos Paleologos, by the grace of God Emperor of the Romans, +May 29, 1453 defending the ramparts of Constantinople against the invading Ottomans of Muhammad Khan II.

"…Crashing aside the Christians at Varna in 1444 they secured possession of Walachia, Moldavia, Transylvania, the territory now called Bulgaria and Romania, then in 1453 they put again under siege Constantinople which on May 29 fell into the hands of Mehmet II and by the way: do you know who was Mehmet II? A guy who, by virtue of the Islamic Fratricide Law which authorized a sultan to murder members of his immediate family, had ascended the throne by strangling his three year-old brother. Do you know the chronicle that about the fall of Constantinople the scribe Phrantzes has left us to refresh the memory of the oblivious or rather of the hypocrites?

Perhaps not. It would not be Politically Correct to know the details of the fall of Constantinople. Its inhabitants who at daybreak, while Mehmet II is shelling Theodosius’ walls, take refuge in the cathedral of St. Sophia and here start to sing psalms. To invoke divine mercy. The patriarch who by candlelight celebrates his last Mass and in order to lessen the panic thunders: “Fear not, my brothers and sisters! Tomorrow you’ll be in the Kingdom of Heaven and your names will survive till the end of time!”. The children who cry in terror, their mothers who give them heart repeating: “Hush, baby, hush! We die for our faith in Jesus Christ! We die for our Emperor Constantine XI, for our homeland!”. The Ottoman troops who beating their drums step over the breaches in the fallen walls, overwhelm the Genovese and Venetian and Spanish defenders, hack them on to death with scimitars, then burst into the cathedral and behead even newborn babies. They amuse themselves by snuffing out the candles with their little severed heads... It lasted from the dawn to the afternoon that massacre. It abated only when the Grand Vizier mounted the pulpit of St. Sophia and said to the slaughterers: “Rest. Now this temple belongs to Allah” Meanwhile the city burns, the soldiery crucify and hang and impale, the Janissaries rape and butcher the nuns (four thousand in a few hours) or put the survivors in chains to sell them at the market of Ankara. And the servants prepare the Victory Feast. The feast during which (in defiance of the Prophet) Mehmet II got drunk on the wines of Cyprus and, having a soft spot for young boys, sent for the firstborn of the Greek Orthodox Grand Duke Notaras. A fourteen year-old adolescent known for his beauty. In front of everyone he raped him, and after the rape he sent for his family. His parents, his grandparents, his uncles, his aunts and cousins. In front of him he beheaded them. One by one. He also had all the altars destroyed, all the bells melted down, all the churches turned into mosques or bazaars. Oh, yes. That’s how Constantinople became Istanbul. But Doudou of the UN and the teachers in our schools don’t want to hear about it."
(+Orianna Fallaci, The Force of Reason)

Old maps and paintings and a digital recreation of the City, accompanied by a song about the Red Apple Tree of folk tales.



"Ethnic" by Michalis Rakintzis. Watch the half-moon turn into a cross, and the church of St. Sophia (The Wisdom of God) now a mosque, become a church again.



"You'll come like a lighting", from the "Marble King" collection (1998) by Stamatis Spanoudakis at the Herod Atticus Theater, below the Acropolis of Athens.

"...A dove came down from heavens:
Stop the Cherubic, and lower the Sacred Vessels,
Priests, take the Sacramental
and you candles blow out...
For it is the will of God the City should fall to the Turks...

Our Lady was disturbed and the icons tearful.
Hush, Our Lady and you, icons weep not,
With the passing of years and in time she 'll be yours again".