THE CHURCH'S PERSPECTIVE ON OUR HELLENIC HERITAGE AS TAUGHT IN THE COMMUNITY AFTERNOON SCHOOLS

By: Rev. Efstathios V. Mylonas, Ph.D.

At the request of His Eminence Archbishop Demetrios, I am sharing my thoughts and experiences regarding the Church's perspective on Hellenic Heritage taught in the community afternoon schools.

Indeed, the theme of our Clergy-Laity Congress "Offering our Orthodox Faith to Contemporary America" recognizes this challenging issue. We, the clergy and laity, are compelled to consider what we offer to contemporary America, particularly in the wake of our tragic experience of September 11, 2001. We should take this opportunity to embrace our precious Hellenic Heritage in our communities. This heritage humanizes us, inwardly steers our spirit and reason and guides our relations with other people in our mosaic society. It is a distinct and unique value system which has endured and transcends time and all boundaries of hatred and narrow-mindedness. Our Hellenic Heritage is an achievement that helps to broaden the horizons of the human spirit in a positive way.

This talk focuses on the tremendous achievements of the Greek spirit and provides practical suggestions that we should implement as a Greek American Church to revive our values and to remain vibrant, alive, available and open to all people. This is our first and foremost task.

As a Greek American community, our values and precious heritage are facing the threat of being assimilated and our traditions and anamneses forgotten. We are well aware of the dangers of globalization, which often result in the annihilation of individual cultures and achievements of the past and the entry into a new world order. However, without underestimating the value of other cultures and without advocating radical solutions for solving our problems in a pluralistic society, we must make a real effort to strengthen our Hellenic identity and pass its traditions to our children, who in turn, will offer it to the world. Indeed, this wonderful country of ours allows each culture to freely offer its heritage, thus enriching and strengthening the entire nation. We must realize that we are now in our third, fourth and fifth generations of Greek Americans. As such, we are at risk of forgetting who we are and what we inherited from our fathers, mothers and grandparents. Many of us find ourselves unwilling to make the necessary sacrifice either by lending financial support or by offering our time to create teaching centers focused on preserving our Hellenic Heritage.

I would like to bring to your attention a discussion that I recently heard on the Greek channel, ERT. The panelists included a Greek Orthodox Bishop from London, England. The discussion was very interesting as it focused on the history of the parish of the beautiful Cathedral of Saint Sophia in London. The parish was first established in the 17^th century. This vibrant parish vanished in approximately 1677 and was later replaced by less affluent parishioners. The second wave of Greek Orthodox faithful also vanished by the year 1877. A third wave of immigrants arrived, more educated and more affluent than the prior parishioners. Today, the Cathedral is thriving in all of its programs and the members of the Church are in continuous communication with Greece. This exchange and the visits with the motherland have strengthened the third wave of Greek Orthodox immigrants in London. They have been able to retain their identity, to speak their language and to learn and appreciate their Hellenic Heritage. The Cathedral remains the beacon of all that is inherited from Greece and transmitted to the new environment.

The panelists discussed the disappearance of the first two waves of Greek immigrants in London. The Bishop stated that there had been many Greek people with Greek names in the schools, but that they had totally lost their identity as Greeks and as a result, their Greek Orthodox faith. With respect to the third wave of immigrants, the Bishop noted that even though the students attend English schools and are eager to blend in, when their discussions focused on the Parthenon, the students proudly identified themselves as Greek.

We can learn much from this history. While we become Americans, we cannot forget our traditions, language and culture. Most importantly, we must instill this identity in our children. We can do this by our example, by establishing, supporting and bringing our children to Greek schools, by speaking to our children in our native language, by sharing our experiences and by making pilgrimages to our motherland. In so doing, our children will grow to love our Hellenic Heritage, will understand our rich and poetic Liturgical Services and will proudly proclaim that they are Greek Orthodox.

During the 18^th century, a man, whom the Church remembers as Saint Kosmas the Aitolos, hieromonk, missionary and martyr, traveled in the occupied territories of Greece. During this time, the Greeks were under the barbaric and brutal occupation of the Ottomans. There were no schools to teach the children and no priests to open the Churches. Saint Kosmas, the great missionary and teacher went from village to village, in the most dangerous, mountainous and isolated places, to teach and to urge the people to remember their language, their faith and their heritage. From a letter that he sent to his brother Chrysanthos, we know that he established ten schools to teach ancient Greek dialect and 200 grammar schools.

Saint Kosmas, who was killed by the Turks on August 24, 1779, serves as an example of determination and untold sacrifice to preserve the Greek language and paideia. Saint Kosmas made this commitment because he realized that the loss of this heritage would inevitably result in the disappearance of the Greek nation. He taught and preached that the school is the foundation for the religious and national rebirth of the Greeks and that the school is the vehicle which would guide the Greeks to re-open their Churches and re-establish their monasteries. The mystified children who attended school during the night would silently sing the familiar words that follow:

Little moon, so bright and cool,

Light me on my way to school,

Where to study I am free,

And God's word is taught to me.

How many of our children have learned and appreciate the significance of these beautiful words? It is our duty to pass this tradition to our children and to share this history with our fellow Americans. This determination is precisely what makes us so special and unique. Unfortunately, many times, it is those who have converted to our faith or those who are not Greek who truly appreciate this legacy.

My personal experience, almost 40 years ago, when with Presvytera Maria, I left Greece to assume an assignment in Toronto, Canada, was an overwhelming one. I was a young priest assigned to serve St. George's Church of over 30,000 new immigrants. These immigrants were arriving from Greece in waves searching, in this new land, for something familiar. They found that a secure place in the Church. As their children reached school age, they sought a Greek School. We established nine or ten of these Greek afternoon schools in the facilities of various Churches. Our Church supervised and organized them, teaching the young students the Greek language and the history of the Greek nation. The difficulties we faced were enormous. Everything was new. There were language barriers, limited resources and community structure. Despite these obstacles, we, clergy and laity, were determined to pass our traditions to our children. I was overwhelmed by what we accomplished in Toronto. It was a direct result of the parents' and the Church's commitment to help the children learn their ancestral language, their Hellenic Heritage and the value of these traditions in their lives.

As the years passed, I encountered many highs as well as many lows with respect to our people's eagerness to help the children learn the Greek language and Hellenic heritage. Despite the efforts in our various communities, we have yet to reach our potential. Today, we are so much better equipped to face this challenge. We are blessed with much wealth and have advanced in so many fields of human endeavor that we are now one of the most educated and wealthiest groups in America. It is natural for us to advance, to seek a better life and to offer the world our best. We have inherited these ingredients and attributes from our immigrant fathers, mothers and grandparents and we have developed them into our present day Greek American communities. As Father Nicon D. Patrinacos of blessed memory states: "Attachment to the faith of their fathers. Attachment to their particular type of family. Pursuit of knowledge and education. Nomotageia, a law abiding philosophy and practice." (1)

Our quest for excellence is sourced in a land of barren mountains and jagged coastlines, with islands stretching far out to a spectacular blue sea. There, during the first thousand years B.C., an incomparable and unsurpassable phenomenon appeared and a real happening took place: the ancient Greek civilization was born from the very soul of the inhabitants of this unique land, and it flourished.

Although the country was divided into city-states, each state with its own government and its own laws, the people, who were loyal to their city-state or polis, also identified themselves as Greeks and different from other peoples. Their achievements were so spectacular and so enduring throughout the ages that there is no human path of thought that is not trodden by the Greeks. Their arts and architecture, literature, science, philosophy and government form the very foundation of our Western civilization.

We must not underestimate this treasure. It is our legacy and we are entrusted with preserving it. We should also reach out and share it with other people and cultures.

A few years ago, I visited the parochial school at St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church in Northridge, California. St. Nicholas' school is a brilliant example of what we can accomplish to not only preserve our Hellenic Heritage, but to also offer it to other people. It was at a time when hundreds of young students were in the Church praying and chanting hymns in perfect Byzantine verse. I was astounded when I discovered that most of the students were not of Greek origin or even of the Orthodox faith.

This example illustrates that the Church is and will always be the hearth of Greek education. Our Hellenic Heritage transcends time and will always remain alive and valuable. It is not a coincidence that the books of the New Testament were written in the Greek language and that the Old Testament was translated by the seventy scholars to the Greek language. The Church Fathers appreciated the value of the Greek letters, cultivated them and adapted them in order to express the truths of Christianity. " . . . among the factors that determined the final form of the Christian tradition, Greek civilization exercised a profound influence on the Christian mind." (2)

The intellectual and artistic creations of ancient Greece had one purpose: to humanize and moralize man. The Greek spirit expressed itself through acts and deeds which time cannot erode. The Greek language has remained the most admirable instrument of expression of the Greek spirit. This language was transformed into an energy of life. Beyond a mere instrument of communication among humans, the Greek language transubstantiated the intuition or inward logos and formed and brought to fruition, thought. It served as a transition to an idea and to creativity. Thus, the ancient logos or reason became the great intellectual and spiritual treasury of the Greek nation, the foundation of Western civilization.

Today, every Greek Orthodox parish in America agonizes over the issue of the preservation of the Greek language and Hellenic Heritage. At Saint Anthony's Greek Orthodox Church in Pasadena, California, we have made some progress in this direction, knowing well that the Greek Language and Hellenic Heritage are closely connected.

First, our Greek Afternoon School is an inseparable part of the life of our Church. It teaches the Greek language as well as our religious and cultural traditions. Hellenic Heritage as a corpus is part of our curriculum. With a competent director, excellent teachers and most importantly, dedicated parents, our school has increased the number of students in three years from 25 to more than 60. We have also created programs for preschoolers as well as adults and are attracting many students of non-Greek and non-Orthodox origin.

Our school attempts to create a teaching program and an environment which are based on contemporary teaching methods and use materials which are resolute, accessible and digestible by the students within the realities of our times. We strive to teach material that provides our students with the historical, theological and philosophical values of our culture. The ultimate goal is to instill in the students a genuine love for their faith and culture. Again, as in many of our communities, this effort is being lead by the Church.

In his Second Epistle to the Corinthians, Saint Paul the Apostle to the nations wrote: "But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, to show that the transcendent power belongs to God and not to us." (4:7) Indeed, we have this treasure in earthen vessels and its transcendent power is the gift of God that was given to our ancestors, who cherished their Hellenic Heritage and Orthodox faith and transmitted it to us. We must, in turn, transmit it to our children and offer it as a gift to the world. Our task is to take these two treasures seriously and to implement them, first in our lives and then to others, with love, understanding, compassion and competence.

In the words of Paulos Palaiologos, "the Greek adventure in the New World is an epic historical reality that awaits an author, a poet of unlimited depth and sensitivity to write not a chronological story, but rather a story that will not depart from the accuracy of events, but will present the course of the most representative of the Greek antiquity and of the modern Hellenism: Odysseus and Jason." (3) They represent our immigrant forefathers who sought a better tomorrow and despite their inadequacies, brought with them their heritage and Orthodox faith into the unknown.

In conclusion, I would like to suggest the following: 1. The Church, local and national should become more resolute in implementing methods of teaching the Greek language, culture, civilization and heritage; 2. A true and serious effort to implement this goal should be made in each local parish; 3. A genuine effort should be made by the entire pleroma of the Church; 4. We should develop concrete programs to create more parochial schools, museums and academic chairs in universities and colleges throughout the country; 5. Those who study at Hellenic College/Holy Cross, the future priests and spiritual leaders of our Church, should not only understand the Greek language and Hellenic Heritage, but should also love and embrace it and make it part of their mission as priests of the Greek Orthodox Church in America.

We do not condone the abolition of the English language in our Churches. This is inappropriate and unrealistic. However, we must communicate with our people while preserving, understanding and respecting our roots, the foundation of our theology, philosophy and culture that is known as our precious Hellenic Heritage.

Footnotes:

1. Patrinacos, Nicon D. The Greek Orthodox Community and Its Contribution to

America. Greek Orthodox Church of North and South America, Department of Interchurch Relations and Social Concerns, 1976.

2. Jaeger, Werner Early Christianity and Greek Paideia. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969

3. Palaiologios, Paulos The Greeks Outside from Greece. In Greek. Athens, 1972

Other sources:

Martinos, Athanasios, ed., Religious and Ethical Encyclopedia. Vol. 7. In Greek. Athens, 1965

_______, Religious and Ethical Encyclopedia. Vol. 9. In Greek. Athens, 1966

Durant, Will, The Story of Civilization; The Life of Greece. Vol. 11. New York, 1966

Constantelos, Demetrios J., ed., Encyclicals and Documents of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North and South America: The First Fifty Years (1952 - 1972). Thessaloniki, 1976

Efthimiou, Miltiades B, Christopoulos, George A., eds. History of the Greek Orthodox Church in America. In Greek and English. New York, 1984

Papaioannou, George, The Odyssey of Hellenism in America. In Greek and English. Thessaloniki, 1985

Boarkman, John, Griffin, Jasper, Murray, Oswyn, eds., The Oxford History of the Classical World. Oxford, 1986

Diamataris, Antonis H., ed., The Greeks: The Triumphant Journey. The National Herald, New York, 2001