Τετάρτη 29 Νοεμβρίου 2017

Greek Church ignores donors and victims


Here is the article in Greek with some attachment in Greek, however the following article is informative enough.
 
Source
Church of Lesvos angers locals as it spends €100K earthquake donations in repair of churches
150,000 Australian dollars in donations were sent to Lesvos as aid for the victims of 6.4R earthquake last June. The local Metropolis decided, however, to spend the money in bricks for churches repair and not for humans in need. The outrage of the local community is big.

Diaspora Greeks in Australia generously open their wallets and responded to the donations call by the Metropolis of Australia for the victims of 6.4R earthquake in Lesvos last June. Many of the diaspora Greeks were originally from the island of Lesvos. The pictures of the devastated village of Vrisa touched them deep in their heart.

A couple of weeks later, the donations totaling 150,000 Australian Dollars, approximately 100,000 euros, were transferred to the Metropolis of Mytilini. However, the local Metropolis decided to not allocate the aid to the earthquake victims who lost their homes but to spend the donations for the repair of churches.

Rumors started to circulate on the island, local newspapers reported about the 150,000 AUD, the local Metropolis remained silent. Anger rose. Again and again the local media reported about the issue, some even posted the Metropolis of Australia call for donations for the earthquake victims.

The local church remained silent and so did the archbishops of Athens.

“Instead of allocating the aid to earthquake victims, the church is using the funds to reconstruct 23 damaged churches and chapels on the island,” athensnewsagency reported adding that on Friday, the Ephorate of Antiquities on Lesvos announced it had signed a contract with a construction company to support the Agios Nikolaos church in Plomari, which “was near collapse”.

Local media lesvosnews published a letter by the local Metropolis to the Metropolis of Australia thanking for the donations that will be used to repair the 23 earthquake-hit churches and 4 churches of the Metropolis of Mytiline. The letter is dated 13. October.

In its donation call, the Metropolis of Australia had urged the Greek-Orthodox to make a donation for the earth-quake “victims including the refugees.

Lesvosnews notes that apart from the two churches in Vrisa, no other church the Metropolis of Mytilene lists has suffered any damage. “And furthermore, the church repairs can be conducted with relevant funds from the Infrastructure Ministry.”

State broadcaster ERT published a letter by the cultural association of Vrisa residents of Athens to Metropolitan Iacovos of Mytilini. The Vrisa Association was asking for funds from the Australian gift to provide home heating for earthquake victims. The need is for “165 dehumidifiers and 70 portable heaters, totalling around 24,000 euros, as the Vrisa residents who lost their homes live in buildings only meant for the summer and have no heating,” the association said.

“Please, inform us if you intend to subsidise the purchase of these heating appliances using the funds sent by Greeks of Australia, as the purchase must be completed the soonest possible, with winter coming on,” the association’s letter concluded, attaching a list of the beneficiaries,” the Association letter adds.

So far neither the local Metropolis nor the Archbishop of Athens have responded to the letter.

The Greek-Australian donors are not happy about the relocation of the the donations for a holy purpose other than originally planned. “The call was clearly to collect donations for the earthquake victims, the people, who still suffer not being able to live in appropriate housing” a member of the Greek-Australian association told SBC Radio.

According to another local Lesvos media, Empros, the 150,000 AUD were sent on July 25th.

In July, the Pope donated 30,000 euros aiming to be spent to rebuild the school of Vrisa and another 20,000 euros for the repair of churches.

PS Apparently, the problem lies in the Greek semantics, where “earhquake-hit” (σεισμοπαθείς) is a noun used only in plural. The Metropolis of Australia wrote “earthquake-hit” in the sense of “humans”, the Church of Mytilene understood “earthquake-hit” in the sense of “bricks.”

Σάββατο 21 Οκτωβρίου 2017

Religious fanatics protest Pessoa’s “The Hour of the Devil” in Thessaloniki

Source

A group of some fifty people gathered outside the Aristoteleion Theater in downtown Thessaloniki on Wednesday evening in an effort to hinder the performance of play “The Hour of the Devil” by Portuguese author Fernando Pessoa. The religious fanatics and nationalists claimed the play is a “blasphemy” against Orthodoxy.
Holding Greek flags, banners reading “Orthodoxy or Death”, icons and even a wooden Jesus on the Cross, the fanatics claimed they were members of an organization using the name “Sacred Band” with reference to military troops in Ancient Greece and during the independence struggle against the Ottoman Empire.

They chanted slogans in favor of Orthodoxy and the Greek nation, sang the National Anthem and religious hymns. One of their main slogans was “Masons, get out of Greece.”
 “It is satanism a woman told me,” one of the protesters told reporters. Protesters claimed the play was showing Virgin Marycoupling the devil.
It was interesting to see among the protesters the self-proclaimed “Father” Kleomenis who called the play “blasphemy.” (Blogger's Note: Kleomenis is an Old Calendarist priest or Genuine Orthodox Christian priest. The official Church of Greece which is New Calendarist, announced that he isn't a member of them, but that's obvious.)

Kleomenis gained publicity a couple of months ago when he vandalized the Holocaust Memorial in Larissa. The Greek Church distanced from him saying he was not a priest, the prosecutor filed charges against the hate-preacher.

At some point they tried to approach the theater building. They were pushed back by police forces deployed outside the theater.

Well-known actor and protagonist Giorgos Hraniotis told local media “it is more than funny to see people protesting the play by Fernando Pessoa, it has nothing to do with satanism or similar practices.” He described the protest as “practices from the Middle Ages.”

“It is the first time I hear Pessoa was a blasphemist,” the play director said.

Members of the theater group said they have been receiving threats.

According to media, the para-religious, nationalist “Sacred Band” had attacked the Gay Pride in Thessaloniki earlier this year. Local media speak also of “nationalists organizations” and some call them “Christian-Talibans”.

Protesters did not reach their goal, the performance started as scheduled.

Nationalists website wrote about the play that it is “art in the service of the industry of darkness.”

The group plans to launch another protest today.

It is not the first time para-religious and nationalists groups protest outside theaters when they mind the plays insult the “sacred Greek ethics.”

Παρασκευή 20 Οκτωβρίου 2017

Why did he do the exact opposite?

The prime minister who cultivated the mentality, that salaries are a human right and shouldn't be connected with productivity, ability, talent and knowledge. The prime minister who employed supernumerary public servants. The prime minister who funded 'problematic enterprises'. The prime minister, who lent money, never checked if they were invested and never asked them back. This prime minister had written an article telling following:

If Capitalism Can't, Can Socialism?

Andreas Papandreou has been Prime Minister of Greece since October, 1981. He is also the former Chairman of the Economics Department at the University of California, Berkeley.
In the following comments, excerpted from a longer discussion held in Athens with NPQ Publisher Stanley Sheinbaum and Editor Nathan Gardels, Papandreou offers some surprising observations on the virtues of capitalism and the limits of socialism.

Capitalism's Contradiction Is Socialism's

As a socialist, I am very familiar with the classical Marxist view that capitalism develops social structures, such as the private ownership of production, which hold back the advance of technology and productivity and necessitate social revolution. For Marx, this was the key contradiction of capitalism and the basis of the argument that socialism was historically inevitable. But quite the opposite seems to be true. The capitalist system shows impressive dynamism and changes the perceptions long held by Marxists about the waning future of capitalism.
Capitalism, far more than socialism, has produced new inventions from microelectronics to superconductors that are improving productivity in leaps and bounds. Paradoxically, Marx's prediction is more relevant to the Soviet Union and the Eastern bloc than to the capitalist West. Centralized planning, strict party control and bureaucracy have in fact held back technological change.
Now, the Eastern bloc is going through changes that approach the dimensions of a revolution. Gorbachev is undoubtedly a long-awaited reformer. He is a very impressive personality with the huge task of decentralizing the Soviet economy and introducing the market as much as possible. His reforms are a recognition that there are aspects of the capitalist structure which can be ignored only at a cost.
One of these aspects, which I am prepared to accept myself, is that the consumer side of die economy is best organized by some kind of market mechanism. A price system can clearly allocate goods more effectively to the consumer than any kind of planning. Yet, I still believe that the downsides of capitalism, such as unemployment, are best tempered by planning on the capital accumulation and investment side of the economy.
So, I would have to give a new interpretation to capitalism's problems than Marx did. Capitalism is in a deep crisis not because it is blocked from development, but because of the self-destruction caused by its dynamism. On a global scale, capitalism has to be held responsible for the more nefarious ills of human existence. Inequality in the distribution of income is growing. Technological change is causing the worst kind of inequality - the permanent unemployment of millions of workers. Even in the rich countries, a large proportion of citizens live at the margin of society. Inequality has also grown between the advanced nations and the Third World countries.
The dangerous and unplanned exploitation by free enterprise of this self-contained ecosystem we call the planet Earth has produced pollution that is not only dangerous to human life, but to all forms of life. It is exhausting what this planet has to offer for humanity's long-run survival.
The buildup of weapons, in particular nuclear weapons between the superpowers, is not the result of just a bad president or secretary general but part and parcel of the system. Elaborating on this point, I think Gorbachev realizes the problem from his side. His peace initiative is part and parcel of the internal reforms. He knows he cannot improve the Soviet standard of living without the reduction of spending on nuclear arms and the military in general. It is not only a question of Gorbachev being a man of peace. Believe me, Gorbachev is a man of peace. But for him, arms reductions are also a matter of dire necessity for the socialist system.
Technological revolutions go hand in hand with periods of crisis. While I don't think the problems I've noted will be solved in the near future, capitalism's perennial crises tend to resolve themselves and move on. My emphasis in the course of things is primarily on the dangers of survival. Environmentalism, peace and citizen participation in all processes of managing the crises are the values which

socialists share. That is our role. In Greece, we place key emphasis on empowering our citizens through a structure of decentralized planning.
Redundant Keynes

When John Maynard Keynes developed the theory of "effective demand" in 1936, he provided the solution to the problems of unemployment and underconsumption within national boundaries. If consumer purchasing power was stimulated either by tax cuts or government priming the pump, that would get industry going again to supply the surge in consumer demand, and thus increase employment.
But the new international division of labor has changed all that If we stimulate consumer purchasing power here in Greece, we create jobs in Italy and Germany. Since we are members of the European Common Market and can't protect ourselves, our consumers buy Italian shoes of the best German cars, and cause a balance of payments problem for Greece. Today a Keynesian would run Greece into bankruptcy within a couple of years!
The United States has the same problem. For whatever reason, the product basket of American goods is not as appealing to the American consumer as the basket produced by Japan. Despite the steep devaluation of the dollar, the US trade deficit has not budged. Perception is very important. In Greece, we don't even think of buying an American radio or tape recorder. We look elsewhere, usually to Japan.
To keep up today, a country would have to produce goods that not only have a domestic market, but an international market. Without minimal global economic coordination Keynesian stimulation is like banging your head against the waft.
Europe as a whole recognizes this problem and realizes it must pull together to form an effective competitive unit, particularly in the new high-value added technologies. But everyone delivers well-documented speeches. Then decisions cannot be taken or strategies realized because the EEC, Mrs. Thatcher in particular, is not prepared to make the necessary investments.
Despite the general agreement to have a united European market by 1992, the EEC is headed for big trouble. Europe cannot be a global economic challenger unless it decides to invest what is required. The resources at its disposal, particularly the Value-Added Tax levels, are not anywhere near sufficient to meet the goal of being a united world class competitor. If we do not have a significant transfer of resources and technology from the north to the poorer south of Europe, then we shall not

have a convergence but a divergence in the European standard of living. This contains explosive dangers for the future. We may end up just creating one great unified market for Japanese goods.
Profits and Productivity

Among socialists, the notion of the welfare state has undergone some changes as we confront the realities of implementation.
We Greek socialists won our first election in October 1981. A friend in the business community came to me six months later and said, "We are facing a problem. Now that you have won, our employees are not interested in maintaining internal discipline in production."
If Greece wants a welfare state with health care, education and secure pensions, we must, at the same time, keep in mind the struggle for rising productivity. If we are to survive in this new international division of labor and production in which national competitiveness has become so fierce, we have no alternative. Unless this attitude is adopted by the working and middle classes, the consequences can be quite severe.
This does not mean we have an anti-labor attitude. But it does mean that without a very positive commitment of the labor force to improving productivity, we lose the battle.
As a mixed economy, Greece also needs more investment capital. We have experienced a "capital strike" from investors for over thirteen years. This was true even during the time of the colonels who gave investors everything they wanted. The reasons are varied; for example, Greek firms are traditionally highly debt-leveraged with equity levels of only 20%. We need to change that and we, a socialist government, are proposing the creation of a stock market.
Greece also has an overgrown public sector. Those who work in the public sector are the privileged workers of Greece. The dream of the average Greek is to be a salaried employee of the government. They have the highest salaries, pensions, medical care and good vacations.
We socialists didn't create this situation, the dictatorship of the colonels did. When we came to power, 90% of all services, from the airlines to banking and electricity, were government owned. Now we have approximately double the personnel required to produce the necessary government services.
Our situation is just like America's. You are stifling private enterprise because the public sector is overgrown. In Greece, our financial resources for investment are squeezed by the budget deficits of the public sector. It may take 10 or 15 years, but our difficult task as socialists is to get this sector under control and increase its productivity.
We are also paying more attention to the concerns of foreign businessmen as we try to attract foreign investment. Businessmen, of course, make many complaints against socialism. But, as a result of our experience since 1981, there are two complaints that I believe.
First, it is important for business to have the right to hire and fire workers. Businessmen say if they don't have this right, workers are not concerned about performing and productivity goes down as a result. This complaint obviously conflicts with the socialist notion of secure employment and is a delicate matter of policy. But I also must accept that there is something to the businessmen's concern.
Businessmen also complain that reinvested profits be tax free. I must give credence to this argument because our other policies have failed to produce new investors. We have been offering up to a 50% subsidy for foreign businessmen to establish operations in Greece. But we've had very few takers. A well known German financier told me bluntly, "We're not interested in subsidies. We are interested in profits."
The issue is profit, and it is an 'issue of the Greek economy's survival. Workers understand that. If Greece can't attract the foreign investment to finance our participation 'in the technological revolution, we are basically condemned to being a tourist country. Our young people will emigrate and we will have an old population here tending hotels.
Source

Κυριακή 15 Οκτωβρίου 2017

Ásatrú, the Old Norse pagan religion is the fastest growing religion in Iceland


The old Nose paganism is doing great in Iceland. According to figures from Statistics Iceland 3,583 people belonged to Ásatrúarfélagið, the pagan association, on January 1. The membership has grown by 244% since 2007, making paganism the fastest growing religion in Iceland over the past decade.
Pagans making a comeback after a millennium
The figures show that the share of Pagans in Iceland now tops 1% of the population for the first time for nearly a millennium. In the year 1000 Christianity was adopted as the national religion of Iceland by the Viking age commonwealth parliament, Althingi at Þingvellir. While it was still permissible to observe the old religion in private, the old pagan ways quickly receded in the face of Christianity. Now, 1000 years later the old Norse paganism Ásatrú is making a comeback.
Read more: Heathens against hate: Exclusive interview with the high priest of the Icelandic Pagan Association
On January 1 Ásatrúarfélagið had 3,583 members, up from 1,040 members one decade ago. At the same time as pagans have seen their numbers swell, the State Lutheran Church has seen its membership decline from 252,411 to 236,481, a drop of 6.3%. In 2007 82% of Icelanders belonged to the State Lutheran Church, but only 69.9% on January 1 2017.
While most of those who have left the State Lutheran Church have either joined other Christian churches or registered as not belonging to any particular religious denomination, Ásatrú has been growing rapidly. This despite the fact that the pagan association engages in no proselytizing or recruiting of new members.
No missionary work
Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson, the high priest of Ásatrúarfélagið, told the local newspaper Morgunblaðið that he believes the reason is simply that more and more people are learning about what the association does and seeing their ceremonies.
"We hold more ceremonies each year, and I think more people are seeing first hand what it is that we do, and people like it. We don't engage in any kind of missionary work, but we do encourage people to come and join us if they are interested." Hilmar adds that all of their feasts are open to the general public.
Construction of new temple begins this spring
Ásatrúarfélagið has been working on a new temple in the southern slope of Öskjuhlíðin hill just outside downtown Reykjavík for two years, or since March 2015 when a ceremony was held to consecrate the ground where the temple will rise. Last year a ceremony was held to thank Mother Nature for the timber for the temple.
The actual construction work on the first stage of the temple a 400 square meter (4,300 sq ft) dome which will house 250 people, is scheduled to begin later this year. The temple is expected to be opened to the public in March 2018.

Source

Δευτέρα 25 Σεπτεμβρίου 2017

Yahweh saves no-one for free!

The Archbishop of Cyprus wants to build a compound. However the Bureau of Archaeology, as by every construction site, has to inspect the site if there are any ancient monuments.  They found ancient monuments and ordered the construction to stop. The Archbishop says that the Bureau had to ask him, if he accepted. He doesn't permit anybody, no state authorities to enter the real estates which belong to the Church. The officials should learn that the fact they are just that, does not authorise them to do what they want, meaning to enforce the law. They should respect. "Whom did they ask when they decided that the place was an archaelogical site? These cannot be done?" Officials in his opinion do have weird hobbies, they go around on strolls and apply laws just for fun and they do not ask anybody if one wants to participate in this event. They official should probably ask: "May we enforce some laws we just came in the mood to do so, just for the fun of the matter, do you concede or should be go a little further and try to find other people who are in the mood if we keep being the mood as well?". That 's probably the appropriate way to play "enforcing the laws". The Archbishop asks if "we have democracy and state or not?" Elected parliaments that vote for laws and officials that go around applying them, are a sign of total anarchy. So because there is a State and there is Democracy in Cyprus, the Archbishop orders the whole paperwork should go back to the ministerial council and he orders them to declassify his estate. Otherwise he will take a tractor and demolish everything the archaelogists restored. He will not accept the whole matter and further procedures by the Bureau of Archaelogy will be as he said in English "trespassing".
And finally the Archbishop concluded:"God saves no-one for free".
The comedian presenting the interview of the Archbishop cannot do much to satirise him as he is laughable by himself. The Archbishop wants people to think that he talks the words of a God who created the World out of nothing.


Τετάρτη 13 Σεπτεμβρίου 2017

Devious and malign monotheistic attacks against Ethnic Religions

An idiotic statement: "To followers, [the Norse gods] are the big tough white guys who, when they see a woman they want, grab her by the hair & pull her in the cave. It's seen as this ultra-male, super muscular religion, which is antithetical to Christianity & Judaism... It's a comic book religion in a lot of ways".
That is a prejudiced, stupid, childish, pseudo-intellectual and false statement. This statement is attributed to a person working for a civil rights organisation. This organisation is against hate groups that attack people with immutable characteristics, however it seems that as one can always convert back to an Abrahamic religion, it is fair to hate followers of Ethnic religions.
The average person is not specifically interested in Ethnic religions and perceives Ethnic Gods through commercials of films, video and computer games, cartoons and similar articles of entertainment. A person interested in Ethnic Religions will read books about that subject and watch documentaries. The quality of these media differ, because their authors or producers are seldom free from the influence of the monotheistic culture.
Mythologies and comic books have nothing to do with one another. Mythologies use art to transport life wisdom, whereas comic books just illustrate messianic desires. What myths are is explained here, what comic books are, everybody knows.
There is the problem of people pretending to be Polytheists, in order to infiltrate groups and guide them to certain political parties or to other non-ethnic religions. Many of these people write books that are full of lies and mistakes, so they can try to proselytise some people to their views and in parallel give the chance to monotheists to feel cleverer and more educated.
Many books are written by professors or doctorates, who choose the facts they want to publish and evaluate them as it suits their beliefs. When they are addressing to common people, they preach like common fanatics.

Πέμπτη 31 Αυγούστου 2017

Why Greeks are Leaving Christianity

In Greece, a country of almost eleven million people, 98% (Aristokles' Remark: 95% define themselves this way, but do not accept obligatory dogmas) of which are Orthodox Christians, there is a re-Hellenization movement with growing momentum. Within Greece, and outside her boarders across the diaspora Greeks are returning to their ethnic ancestral traditions. Why are Greeks doing this? The modern Greek identity is tied tightly with Orthodoxy, the dominate faith of Greeks. For those with the curiosity and mind to question the status quo, have come to a striking truth. Orthodoxy is an inauthentic Greek identity. Orthodoxy is incompatible with Hellenism.

One cannot be a Greek (Hellene) and be a Christian, the two are opposites and have been historically at odds with one another. Going back to late antiquity, with the rise of Christianity, the clash between the new religion and the establish cultural force of the time, Hellenism, was clear. The “church fathers” wrote that the Greek religion was a deplorable religion, were the Gods of the Greeks are actually evil demons. The church fathers despised Hellenism as is evident in Eusebius’ Preparation for the Gospel (313 CE), which attempts to show the superiority of Christianity over Hellenism. With regards to identity, in the Preparation for the Gospel, Eusebius reveals a new identity for Christians by asking “Are we [Christians] Greeks or Barbarians?” He also defends Christians from pagan attacks of apostatizing from their ancestral gods. (1) We see that by becoming Christian, you no longer can be a Hellene (Greek).

Why does becoming a Christian kill a Hellene’s identity? By rejecting the ancestral Gods and accepting the Christian religion, there is a cultural exchange that takes place, which changes an individual’s identity. One function of religion is to transmit a groups history, ethics, beliefs and whole worldview. By becoming Christian, the worldview of a person who was Hellene fundamentally changes. They reject their ethnic history, myths, practices in exchange for a foreign one. Christianity grew out of Judaism.

The Torah of the Jews is preserved as the Old Testament in Christianity. The history of the Jews within the Old Testament then becomes an adopted history for Christian converts. Their native ethnic history and identity is erased and replaced with a Jewish narrative. The Bible replaces Homer, Jesus overthrows Olympus. Being Greek or Hellene no longer is an option in the Roman and later Byzantine Empire, the Greek identity is then effectively dies out in public view, going underground with occasional resurgences throughout history.

What Christianity did to Greek identity on the spiritual level, Rome did on the political level. When Rome eventually conquered Greece and the Hellenistic kingdoms, the Greeks would slowly see their identity change dramatically. No longer did they have their kingdoms, and political independence. With becoming part of the Roman structure, the Greek, their identity as a people eventually became Roman.

A similar way of explaining this is with the United States of America. A Greek born in the United States has citizenship to the country and grows up with an American identity. This individual might be raised with a Greek cultural upbringing, learning the language and so on. He or she does not live in Greece, has no understanding of a fully Greek identity based on a national level. This same thing can be said of the Greeks whom the Romans conquered. They spoke Greek, worshiped their gods and retained their culture (Greek culture dominated the Roman Empire), but they lost their sovereignty, they were absorbed into a larger political body of the Roman Empire, they became Romans.

Moving along in history, when the Empire splits between the Latin west and Greek east. The western half declines, but the eastern portion of the Empire flourished. The capital of the Empire was moved from Rome to Constantinople in 330 CE by Emperor Constantine. Later scholars would rename the eastern Roman Empire the Byzantine Empire, due to its Greek character. However, the people themselves who lived in the Empire identified themselves as “Romaioi”, Roman. (2) Greek or Hellene identity no longer existed. To be a Hellene was by this point synonymous with paganism.

The Roman identity persisted for centuries. Constantinople would fall to the Ottomans in 1453 CE, ending the Byzantium Empire. The Ottomans recognized and grouped their subjects into millets. The Rum millet or “Roman nation” was the designated name for the Orthodox Christian community in the Ottoman Empire. There was no Greek millet. Greek identity would not return until the rise of an intendent Greek state. However Roman identity persisted as late as the early twentieth century. Peter Charanis (1908 -1985) professor of Byzantine History at Rutgers University tells us that in 1912, as a child on the island of Lemnos, the island became occupied by the Greek navy. Peter, along with other children went to see the Greek soldiers, these “Hellenes”. One soldier asks the children ‘‘What are you looking at?’’ ‘‘At Hellenes,’’ they replied. ‘‘Are you not Hellenes yourselves?’’ the solider responded. The children answered, ‘‘No, we are Romans.” (3)

Greeks today are heirs of the Roman/Byzantine world and Orthodox Christianity, rather than anything resembling classical Greece. This creates a false sense of ethnic identity and for those aware of history, an existential crisis. What does it mean to be Greek? How is Orthodox Christianity reconciled with Hellenism? How do you unite these two to
create a Greek identity?

Trying to reconciling Orthodoxy (religious education) with Hellenism (Greek education/paideia), Rev. Dr. Demetrios J. Constantelos says that, “Tradition is what preserves the unity of a people and secures their identity. When a people forget their heritage, they lose their memory and disappear from history.” (4) Disagreeing with Rev. Constantelos, many Greeks in Greece and within the diaspora, have come to the conclusion that Orthodoxy is hostile and incompatible with Hellenism. If tradition preserves the unity of a people and secure their identity, we can safely argue thus far that the Greeks lost their identity centuries ago to Rome and later more so to Christianity. Greeks today carry little with them that is Hellenic.
To truly be Greek, a Hellene, there must be a rejection of the foreign Orthodox tradition to embrace Hellenism, the ethnic and native religious tradition fully. It is impossible to fully embrace Hellenism as a worldview (encompassing religion, education, and philosophy) while remaining an Orthodox Christian because the worldviews are opposed to each other.

In Greece, there are efforts being made by some people to re-Hellenize themselves and have organized officially. One organization, The Supreme Council of Ethnikoi Hellenes (Ypato Symboulio Ellinon Ethnikon – YSEE) was founded in 1997. Their goal is to protect and restore the polytheistic, ethnic Hellenic religion, tradition and way of life.(5) I interviewed several members of the community based in New York on what motivated them to be a part of this movement, re-Hellenizing themselves. Through compiling the stories of these members, who are active in either leadership or consistent attendance, a pattern or process was identified.

Curiosity: Between childhood and early adulthood, many of the people I spoke with shared that they had a curiosity about religion and or history in general. This curiosity grows and develops into questions about Christianity, their birth religion.

Investigation/research: The questions they have lead them to research and investigate matters of history and religion. They might have read the bible themselves, and then compare it with Greek history. They uncover history which was never taught to them, which is contradictory to established knowledge that was taught to them from their parents, school, and or Church. From their research, they conclude that Christianity and Hellenism are juxtaposed.

Identity Crisis: What comes about from the revelation that Christianity and Hellenism are incompatible is an identity crisis. What is an authentic Greek identity? Is it Christian as they were raised to believe, or is it Hellenism?

Identity Change: The conclusion these individuals come to is that Christianity is not a valid option as a Greek, the individual returns to Hellenism to resolve the identity crisis.

What are these people uncovering through their research that causes the crisis of identity?

I can provide one example for the purposes of this post, I may do subsequent posts on this. We learn of the hostility between Christianity and Hellenism through an attempt to bring Plato back to public consciousness. Demetrios Kydones (1323-1397) the mentor of the future Byzantine Emperor Manuel Palaiologos (1350-1425), wrote to Manuel telling him that Plato must be brought back to life, and that there is a desire for Plato’s voice once more. Kydones requested from Manuel that a manuscript of Plato which was held by the monks of Athos be given to him.

To the monks, Plato was considered a corpse, there was nothing living about the philosopher or his teachings. When Kydones received the manuscript, it was in horrible condition, it was soaked, torn, and stained. (6) The monks did not put much effort in preserving the manuscript. The monks had little love for Plato. He was seen occasionally by the monks as the ‘Greek Satan’, whose name was enough to make them spit on the ground and recite prayers. (7)

As a Greek of today, when reading this small piece of history is enough to start more research. It also is a sampling of cultural identity, where the monks, who would be seen as Greeks today, view Plato as a Satanic figure. In the modern Greek ethos, there is a level of reverence of ancient culture, but a superseding placement for Christianity that overrides the ancient but is taught as still retaining continuity. Upon learning that there is no continuity in a natural progression from one form to another, that instead there is hostility, the individual faces a crisis.

It is clear that for many Greeks, when they investigate their religion and history, what they have been taught by their community does not stand up to facts. By uncovering the hostile history between Christianity and Hellenism along with the foreignness of the Christian religion, they are bond to eventually opt for an ethnic tradition, native to their land and people.

Citations

1. The Tertullian Project. “Eusebius of Caesarea: Praeparatio Evangelica (Preparation for TheGospel). Tr. E.H. Gifford (1903) — Book 1.” The Tertullian Project, www.tertullian.org/fathers/eusebius_pe_01_book1.htm.

2. Kaldellis, Anthony. Hellenism in Byzantium: The Transformations of Greek Identity and the Reception of the Classical Tradition. Cambridge UP, 2011, page 42.

3. Ibid.

4. Greek Orthodox Metropolis of New Jersey. “Orthodoxy and Hellenism.” www.nj.goarch.org/resources/orthhellenism.htm.

5. Supreme Council of Ethnikoi Hellenes. “Supreme Council of Ethnikoi Hellenes.” About YSEE, www.ysee.gr/index-eng.php?type=english&f=about.

6. Siniossoglou, Niketas, Radical Platonism in Byzantine, Cambridge Univerisity Press, 2016. page 1-2

7. Siniossoglou, Niketas, Radical Platonism in Byzantine, Cambridge Univerisity Press, 2016. page 1


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Τετάρτη 16 Αυγούστου 2017

Para-religious fetishism: The Holy boiled chestnut


Source
The rushed canonization of Father Paisios may have helped his fans feel vindicated for idolizing a priest once known for his homely utterances but who in recent years became more famous for outrageous prophecies, including a devastating war between Russia and Turkey that will benefit Greece and allow it to retake Istanbul (Constantinople). But the honors that are being bestowed on him now by the heads of the Church of Greece should be a matter of great concern.

The road of piety is so full of zigs and zags, and some exhibitions of faith are so unbelievable (bordering on self-ridicule) that we can never sure whether we are hearing actual news or whether we are the victims of media and social media trolls.

The most recent development is that after the holy man’s flip-flops, his cap and his glasses, we now have his blessed chestnut, which was recently put on display at the Church of Aghios Dimitrios in Agrinio, central Greece.

Such a move can only be described as para-religious fetishism.

According to the official statement that came with the display, this particular chestnut had been “given by a group of students along with others to Saint Paisios in October 1990 to be blessed.” It is this phrase, “along with others,” that should be read as a prophecy – it won’t be long before other blessed chestnuts pop up in other places too. More holy flip-flops and sacred caps will also inevitably appear.

After all, it was observed a long time ago that in times of deep crisis and when there is a general sense of insecurity, irrationalism in its most extreme form becomes the dominant religion, regardless of what idols people worship.

Saint Paisios is the patron saint of our country’s front pages, our very own Nostradamus. He was also a typically nationalist saint as he said things that so many people want to hear: the government in Skopje will collapse and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia will fall apart, Turkey will sink and so on.

However, since so many top political and church officials have stated in the past that “God is Greek,” what else could a humble servant of Greek origins be than a foot soldier for Greek Christianity?

There has been no confirmation of rumors, however, that Kokkini Milia (Red Apple Tree), a mythical land where the Turks were to have been banished to from Constantinople by the late Byzantine Emperor Constantine Palaiologos, has been found and now renamed Red Chestnut Tree. We have to keep watching the loud front pages – and the oh-so silent church hierarchy.

The problem is that these very newspapers which complain about this kind of fetishism, stand up for the worship of icons, bones and relics. Kathimerini is a conservative newspaper and conservatives do their best to maintain this way of thinking. Theologically there is no difference if a monk is full of the grace of the Holy Spirit and his bones and clothes are full of it, why not his glasses, or slippers or whatever he touched? All politicians go to such happenings, because this is how they expect to be voted, even those of the radical left.

Κυριακή 13 Αυγούστου 2017

Shameless: Daddy, the best man for the job!


Source
The new president of Thessaloniki's urban transport company (OASTh), Stelios Pappas, is the necessary experience and knowledge to lead the company, State Minister Alekos Flambouraris said in a statement on Friday.

"The selection of Stelios Pappas for the management of OASTh is a decision purely political. It is a person who has the relevant know-how and experience to be appointed in such a position," he said.
"Having worked as an economist for more than 30 years and served as president of the Economic Chamber of Greece in the past, it is clear it is a choice for battle, for a fighter of the Left who has more than 55 years of continuous presence in movements and is fighting for a better society. That's the kind of man you need to put inside the scoundrels' nest," he added.
His comment came in response to the accusations of nepotism leveled against the government by the opposition over the appointment, as Stelios Pappas is the father of Digital Policy Minister Nikos Pappas.
Nikos Pappas and the prime minister of Greece, Alexis Tsipras, were friends since they were 19 years old and members of the youth of The Coalition of the Left, of Movements and of Ecology. After appointing many of his friends at least as advisors, if they had no qualities, the prime minister is appointing the close relatives of his friends.
So the father of the prime minister's best friend is thought to be the man for the job. Well, every communist seems to think that. They have been trained to be arrogant, wise-guys, rude, paranoic and fanatic and it seems that now they believe their own lies.
55 years of presence in movements means demonstrating, graffities, distribution  of leaflets and propaganda for the Communist party. Communists used to infiltrate all kind of clubs and associations in order to conceal their propaganda.
The question is what is meant he is an economist for 30 years, as he is a marxist and marxism has failed everywhere. Other articles mention something about private sector. Private sector in Greece are shops, kiosks, private schools, gyms, bars and restaurants. Everything else is state, or the owners act as apparatchiks of the State. There are few exceptions and they get fewer and fewer.
The question is who is responsible for the scoundrel's nests. Since 1981 the centre-left party of PASOK encouraged people to think they have a right for everything they want. The people who voted for Pasok were either the left wing of Center Union party or the United Democratic Left, the latter acting as a substitute and political front of the banned Communist Party. For thirty years there were strikes and demonstrations, whenever syndicalists got bored, as they worked only when they were on strike, and people could have longer weekends as the strike were on tuesdays and thursdays, so with an extra one or two days off, one had a week for himself.
This kind of solution is called homeopathy. One inaugurates a marxist to solve the problems caused by the marxistic way of thinking.

Πέμπτη 3 Αυγούστου 2017

The Greeks really do have near-mythical origins, ancient DNA reveals


Ever since the days of Homer, Greeks have long idealized their Mycenaean “ancestors” in epic poems and classic tragedies that glorify the exploits of Odysseus, King Agamemnon, and other heroes who went in and out of favour with the Greek gods. Although these Mycenaeans were fictitious, scholars have debated whether today’s Greeks descend from the actual Mycenaeans, who created a famous civilization that dominated mainland Greece and the Aegean Sea from about 1600 B.C.E. to 1200 B.C.E., or whether the ancient Mycenaeans simply vanished from the region.

Now, ancient DNA suggests that living Greeks are indeed the descendants of Mycenaeans, with only a small proportion of DNA from later migrations to Greece. And the Mycenaeans themselves were closely related to the earlier Minoans, the study reveals, another great civilization that flourished on the island of Crete from 2600 B.C.E. to 1400 B.C.E. (named for the mythical King Minos).

The ancient DNA comes from the teeth of 19 people, including 10 Minoans from Crete dating to 2900 B.C.E. to 1700 BCE, four Mycenaeans from the archaeological site at Mycenae and other cemeteries on the Greek mainland dating from 1700 B.C.E. to 1200 B.C.E., and five people from other early farming or Bronze Age (5400 B.C.E. to 1340 B.C.E.) cultures in Greece and Turkey. By comparing 1.2 million letters of genetic code across these genomes to those of 334 other ancient people from around the world and 30 modern Greeks, the researchers were able to plot how the individuals were related to each other.

The ancient Mycenaeans and Minoans were most closely related to each other, and they both got three-quarters of their DNA from early farmers who lived in Greece and southwestern Anatolia, which is now part of Turkey, the team reports today in Nature. Both cultures additionally inherited DNA from people from the eastern Caucasus, near modern-day Iran, suggesting an early migration of people from the east after the early farmers settled there but before Mycenaeans split from Minoans.

The Mycenaeans did have an important difference: They had some DNA—4% to 16%—from northern ancestors who came from Eastern Europe or Siberia. This suggests that a second wave of people from the Eurasian steppe came to mainland Greece by way of Eastern Europe or Armenia, but didn’t reach Crete, says Iosif Lazaridis, a population geneticist at Harvard University who co-led the study.

Not surprisingly, the Minoans and Mycenaeans looked alike, both carrying genes for brown hair and brown eyes. Artists in both cultures painted dark-haired, dark-eyed people on frescoes and pottery who resemble each other, although the two cultures spoke and wrote different languages. The Mycenaeans were more militaristic, with art replete with spears and images of war, whereas Minoan art showed few signs of warfare, Lazaridis says. Because the Minoans script used hieroglyphics, some archaeologists thought they were partly Egyptian, which turns out to be false.

The continuity between the Mycenaeans and living people is “particularly striking given that the Aegean has been a crossroads of civilizations for thousands of years,” says co-author George Stamatoyannopoulos of the University of Washington in Seattle. This suggests that the major components of the Greeks’ ancestry were already in place in the Bronze Age, after the migration of the earliest farmers from Anatolia set the template for the genetic makeup of Greeks and, in fact, most Europeans. “The spread of farming populations was the decisive moment when the major elements of the Greek population were already provided,” says archaeologist Colin Renfrew of the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom, who was not involved in the work.

The results also show it is possible to get ancient DNA from the hot, dry landscape of the eastern Mediterranean, Renfrew says. He and others now have hope for getting DNA from groups such as the mysterious Hittites who came to ancient Anatolia sometime before 2000 B.C.E. and who may have been the source of Caucasian ancestry in Mycenaeans and early Indo-European languages in the region. Archaeologist Kristian Kristiansen of the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, who was not involved in the work, agrees. “The results have now opened up the next chapter in the genetic history of western Eurasia—that of the Bronze Age Mediterranean.”

Source

Κυριακή 23 Ιουλίου 2017

An interview about the historically continuous Hellenic Ethnic Religion


Hercules Invictus Interviews
Vlassis Rassias
Founder of the
Supreme Council of Ethnikoi Hellenes: YSEE
Mount Olympus Presents:
Hercules: Geetings Vlassis! I am greatly honored to be interviewing you. Your dedication to the aboriginal spirituality of our ancestors is sincere, long-standing and praiseworthy.

Vlassis: Greetings Hercules. Thank you for your good words.

Hercules: What first drew you to Olympian spirituality?

Vlassis: Long ago, in 1976, at the age of 17, I read in the newspapers that a Christian Orthodox monk from Mt Athos drove all the way to Athens and attacked with a sledgehammer the replica of a naked statue of God Zeus that was standing right after the entrance of the Ministry of Education. I still remember his full name! (* See Note Below) This horrible incident made me henceforth see with a completely different angle the mutilated statues in our museums. I now knew that the sledgehammers of similar ancient fanatics and not "earthquakes" were the main reason for all that mutilation of beauty in the sacred art of my ancestors.

Hercules: What other Paths did you explore before finding and committing to your deepest resonance?

Vlassis: For almost a decade, I also explored the spirituality of the native people of the Americas, the "First Nations" as they define themselves. And in the mid-eighties I received from a Mohawk old man that brilliant response to my question raised on how I could become perfect partaker of the native wisdom: "In the language that you are dreaming in, there you'll definitely find the truth that you seek". Since then, I focused mainly in the Hellenic spiritual path.

Hercules: How and when did your personal mission become clear?

Vlassis: Well, I do not believe in "personal" missions other than only being an honest part of a link in the long historical chain that brings Hellenism from the farthest past to the present, and from the present to the future. This notion became quite clear to me in the first years of the nineties, when I met some people that informed me about the unbroken historical continuity of our Tradition and Religion from the times of the persecution by the Christians up to our present times. I recently made known this unknown continuity via my latest bookYour Glory and your Despair, a historical narrative. The title comes from a Friedrich Hoelderlin's quote.

Hercules: What were some of your initial steps? Was the YSEE your first organizational vehicle?

Vlassis: I started alone, in the late eighties, expecting no more than to speak the truth of my ancestors via editorials in various magazines. I admit that what I expected then, was only to to speak the truth of my ancestors, having against ten millions incensed Christian Orthodox Greeks. Quite soon, to my pleasant surprise, I found out that I was not alone on this path. By 1991 I had already gathered around me a number of like-minded people and we proceeded with the publication of Diipetes, the first ever Greek journal that openly preached the restoration of the Hellenic Ethnic Religion. It soon reached a circulation of 2.000 and after some years, in June of 1997, we founded YSEE, the Supreme Council of Hellenes (Ypato Symboulio Ellinon Ethnikon).

Hercules: Can you provide us with an overview of the YSEE, along with its Mission and goals?

Vlassis: YSEE aims for the moral and physical protection and restoration of the Polytheistic, Ethnic Hellenic Religion, Tradition and way of life in (modern) Greek society where it is still being oppressed due to its institutionalized intolerance and theocracy. After 20 years of activity in the (modern) Greek reality with more than 330 interventions (letters and press releases) and many protests for the protection of the Hellenic tradition, for the human rights and for the religious tolerance, more than 800 seminars, tactical celebrations of the ancient festivals, public rituals and educational events, YSEE is the front line of the movement for the protection of the Ancient Hellenic Heritage and the return to the ancient ways.

Hercules: What differentiates the YSEE from other Olympian spiritual expressions?

Vlassis: Considering ourselves the contemporary phase of the historically continuous Hellenic Ethnic Religion, we are broad and catholic. We embrace all forms of spiritual expression compatible with the verified forms of the past, including the forms of the Middle-ages or the Renaissance, e.g. the Plethonists, the followers of Georgios Gemistos - Plethon. In the same way, we embrace all the philosophical Schools from the Ionians to the last days of the Academia of Athens. We only reject neopagan inventions, travesties of our rituals, magic, UFO theories and other by-products of the monotheist world.

Hercules: Can you please share some of the highlights of the YSEE's history?

Vlassis: Well, they are many. Indicatively I'll mention the organization in Athens of the 7th World Congress of Ethnic Religions in 2004, its Memorandum, dated May the 7th, 2006, to the President of the Hellenic Democracy, the President of the Hellenic Parliament, the Prime Minister of the Hellenic Republic, and three relative Ministers, on the necessity for the the protection of the Hellenic Ethnic Religion as living part of the National Heritage of Greece and, of course, the recognition of our Religion as such, by the official authorities of the Greek Ministry of Education and Religious Matters a few months ago. To their credit, they gave us official permission for a place of worship in Athens, thus promoting the Hellenic Ethnic Religion to the status of a “known religion” in Greece, according to article 13 of the Constitution. The Hellenic Ethnic Religion is now under the protection of the law, to the same degree as the other 5 – 6 non-Christian religions that are already classified as “known religions” in our country, and we can henceforth register our children at the Registry Office as belonging to the Hellenic Ethnic Religion, and also perform Hellenic wedding rituals with full legal value.

Hercules: Congratulations! The recognition of Olympianism as a valid religion in modern Greece is truly historic. Where is the YSEE now in terms of its evolution?

Vlassis: In the last few years, YSEE has been trying to obtain recognition as a statutory corporation of religious character according to recent Law 4301/2014. So far its appeal signed by hundreds of Ethnikoi Hellenes has been rejected by both the Court of First Instance and the Court of Appeal and now the case is taken to the Supreme Court. The “justification” given for the rejections directly insults the intelligence and knowledge of history of the average educated person. The purely cultural and religious terms “Ethnic Religion” and “Ethnikoi Hellenes” "create “confusion"” (so they claim) "in the minds of the public" !

Hercules: What challenges remain?

Vlassis: To win the case of recognition as a statutory corporation of religious character either at the Supreme Court, or at the European Court of Human Rights if needed, and, of course, in a near or far future, to have the Hellenic Ethnic Religion recognized by the Greek Parliament as aliving part of the National Heritage of Greece. We recently supported the similar appeal of Romuva, the legal body of the Ancient Baltic Religion for state recognition by the Seimas (Parliament) of the Lithuanian Republic, as part of the Lithuanian historical, spiritual and social heritage.

Hercules: What is your vision for the YSEE's growth and development?

Vlassis: So far, we have chapters and nuclei in many areas of Greece, and most importantly in the United States (Astoria, New York) and Cyprus. We'll continue spreading in new geographical areas and growing both in numbers and in quality of membership. For us, the later is the most important. The quality of our members. If we content ourselves with the numerical growth, and not persist in the spiritual growth, especially via Arete (virtue), sooner or later we'll face all the pathology of the monotheistic world inside YSEE. In the past, but thank the Gods on a small scale, we have seen this happening, so now we are more rigorous in our wider targeting.

Hercules: What role do you see the YSEE playing in the overall history of Olympianism?

Vlassis: YSEE is the body that opened the gates for the re-emergence of the Hellenic Ethnic Religion to the contemporary world. Re-emergence not as a product of romantic reverie, but as a historically continuous Religion that returned back after centuries of persecutions and an obscurity due to necessity, to stay, thrive and prosper at the lands that it thrived and prospered in the good old times when Hellenism was unimpeded, offering its spiritual light to all civilized people.

Hercules: Do you welcome interaction or form relationships with other groups?

Vlassis: Yes, we do welcome any kind of co-operation with other groups from all around the world, even with groups of other Ethnic Traditions. The only prerequisite for a co-operation is the other side to recognize the Hellenic Ethnic Religion as a historically continuous and inherited Religion that has full knowledge of its past and that it rightfully demands a future of dignity and self-determination.

Hercules: How can folks learn more about the YSEE?

Vlassis: The ones that know Greek may visit our webpage www.ysee.gr. Unfortunately, for the time being, its English section does not contain many texts. However, we plan to publish the English translation of our informative book Theology and Praxis in the near future.

Hercules: How can those who find resonance with the YSEE get involved?

Vlassis: They can become members, or just friends of our organization and spread the word to more people. What we actually all try to do is to bring back a healthy form of humanity that once existed, but for centuries now was purposely construed as a remote heathen past or as only an archaeological exhibit.

Hercules: Thank you Vlassis! As a human being, as a Lemnian and as an Ellinas I am proud of your accomplishment and am greatly honored that you granted this interview. I wish you great success in all of your endeavors and may Olympus continue to bestow many Blessings on you and the YSEE!

Vlassis: You are welcome. May the Gods always shine on you.

Πέμπτη 6 Ιουλίου 2017

Papa-Kleomenis vandalises sculpture

"The so-called "priest kleomenis" attacks with a hammer the sculpture Crisis of the Greek sculptor Tasos Nyfadopoulos. Tasos Nyfadopoulos speaks about the action of "priest kleomenis" in this video. Crisis sculpture is the first sculpture in public space addressing socioeconomic crisis worldwide. Sculptor Tasos Nyfadopoulos unveiled the artwork back in April 2015."


Σάββατο 1 Ιουλίου 2017

Don't let good deeds be localised

This is a Norwegian woman, who visited Crete and likes taking walks in nature. So one day she saw the road she was walking on full of rubbish, so she decided to collect them as she thought it is a pity to let such a beautiful sight wasted. A local man saw her doing it, helped her to bring the rubbish to the nearest bin and asked why she was doing this. He then made it viral in the Internet.


A similar thing happened with an american singer Willow Smith daughter of an actor Will Smith. She went with a yacht to Antipaxos. Antipaxos is the smaller of the Paxoi islands part of the Ionian Islands in Western Greece, between the bigger islands of Corfu and Lefkada.





The singer said she saw dead seagulls and plastic litter on the three beaches she sailed to. Not only seagulls, but other wild animals too eat plastic and die painfully as they cannot digest it. So as she posted in the Instagram she wanted to do her small deed as a human being, as humans are responsible for all the plastic, to protect wildlife from such a fate.





The place in Crete wasn't know, so nobody was bothered, the island however was named, so consequently one knew the responsible mayor.
The mayor of Paxoi phoned in a show and said that there are more 100 beaches in both islands and she chose to go to the most inaccessable at the north west of Antipaxos. Well, plastic was there, seagulls were dying, wildlife is dying, he has to forgive these species for going to remote places, they don't deserve to die painfully. However he chose to present it as if it was a conspiracy against him. The Adriatic Sea, he said, has many floating rubish islands and so the beaches of these islands, which are on the Ionian island, can be full of rubbish any moment. One the map one can see that the Ionian Sea is not part of the Adriatic. He said that this happens to the beaches facing the Adriatic. These litter-islands do have weird habits and preferences.



Then he said that it is impossible that the rubbish from three beaches could fill 22 bags. He says that every second or third day he circumnavigates the island personally and has never gathered more than 6 or 7 bags litter from all of them. Well maybe he had bad luck and a big litter-island just arrived from the Adriatic Sea.  In the photo below one can estimate the number of bags. If one is willing to believe that they are full with litter collected from the beaches and not the boats litter.


After saying that the girl sailed to the remotest beaches at the northwest of Antipaxos, he then said that he couldn't recognise the beaches, although he has lived all his life in Paxos. He didn't say, he couldn't recognise the beaches, althought he circumnavigates both islands more than twice a week. So what does that mean, the beaches are not at Paxoi at all? 
Who could be after the mayor of Paxoi and why? Are the worlds secret societies after the area's unknown riches? Is the mayor the last obstacle to their plans?





Σάββατο 10 Ιουνίου 2017

Did the Greek Orthodox Church retain the Greek language?

Christians want to proselytize so they are not always frank as they should be. For them truth is the Truth of Yahweh, as with rest of the words love, peace, justice, faith, hope, reason, knowledge, science and all the other terms they use. So they tell people what they want to hear and if they are proselytised, then they will learn to accept the other facts they don't like little by little.
One lie the Greek Orthodox Christians keep repeating is that it is the accomplishment of the Church that Greeks speak greek today, so every Greek should keep believing the doctrines of the Eastern Orthodox Church; they say 'respect', but in the end it comes to total submittance to their faith.
The Eastern Church uses Greek, because it was dominant in the eastern part of the Roman Empire. The Catholics always used latin and the other orthodox churches use the language of their followers. However the most striking example of the Greek Church's indifference to Hellenic Civilisation is the fact that the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, an eparchy of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, stopped using Greek as a language on its homepage. Everything is only in English. Of course this won't stop them from repeating it all the time.

Source

Κυριακή 28 Μαΐου 2017

Orthodox priest against miarophagia

Miarophagia is when someone is eating packed food, as the packages have barcodes and the www. sign. So someone brought cakes to him, and he throws them away. He uses the internet thought, world wide web, and a camera. His cows seem to like them though.


Orthodox Priest against devilATM and devilcards


Today the  priest shows his Taekwondo skills against an ATM.


Orthodox Priest against Satanic Telecommunication Tower





Armed with a sling the new David fights against the new Goliath, a telecommunication tower.




Of course that tower was brought by Hebrew Zionists and not by any greek bureau. The antennas are the horns of Satan and each of them has thousands of demons. Those who can't see them do not have the grace of Yahweh, but the priest sees them, like wasps they are flying around the antennas. The exorcism doesn't bring the expected results, so the rest must be repelled by stones. The first demon was hit on his ear, the second was hit on the head and fell on the ground. Sometimes he announces that he misses, probably the stone gets through the tower without hitting anything. He challenges all Hebrews to fight him if they dare. He says he needs warriors to help for the struggle against all evil; he doesn't say who will provide the slings. However the demons remain.
And then comes the truth. Christian love is not the stupid love that everybody fathoms. Christian love is about destroying everything that sends people to hell; electronic cards, mobile phones, money... . At the end after another exorcism and some spiting the video ends without announcing if there was any success or not.

Σάββατο 27 Μαΐου 2017

Now Islamists want all statues removed, everywhere


Source

Following the removal of Lady Justice’s statue from Supreme Court premises, now Islamist groups want demolition of statues installed across Bangladesh.
Hundreds under Bangladesh Khelafat Andolan marched in Dhaka today chanting slogans of such demand and thanking the government for taking down Lady Justice.
Mufti Fakhrul Islam, youth affairs secretary of the Islamist platform, came up with the demand while talking to reporters near national mosque Baitul Mukarram after Juma prayers.
“We initially demanded for removal of the murti (sculpture) at SC premises as it’s located very close to the National Eidgah where we offer Eid prayers,” he said.
He thanked Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina for “fulfilling her oath of removing the statue”.
“We hope the prime minister will take steps to remove all statues across the Muslim-majority country,” he said.
The statue of Lady Justice was taken down in the late hours of last night, a month after Islamist group Hefazat-e-Islam demanded its removal from the Supreme Court premises.
Earlier on April 11, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at a meeting with the Alem and Ulema from Qawmi madrasas said she personally did not like the statue on the SC premises either.
Later on April 17, Hasina told her cabinet colleagues that she had asked the CJ either to remove the statue or reinstall it at another place so that it cannot be seen from the National Eidgah.
The removal sparked a wave of protest in the social media. This morning, protests broke out at Dhaka University, where police used tear gas shells and water cannons to quell protesters.

Greek goddess statue removed in Bangladesh after Islamist outcry

Source

26 May 2017
Workers have begun to dismantle the statue of a Greek goddess from Bangladesh's Supreme Court complex, after an outcry from Islamists.
The sculpture of Themis - the goddess of justice - wearing a sari was less than six months old, but Islamist groups demanded its removal by Friday.
They claimed it hurt the religious sentiments of Muslims and it prompted mass protests in the capital, Dhaka.
PM Sheikh Hasina agreed to its removal, but secular groups opposed it.
Activists from an Islamist group participate in a protest calling for the removal of a statue in front of the Supreme Court, in Dhaka on March 3, 2017.
Workers came with equipment and a crane at midnight to uproot the controversial statue, the BBC's Bangla service reported.
The statue is being removed to maintain peace, said its creator Mrinal Haque.
Analysts say this is a sign of the rising tension between Islamic conservatism and liberal values in Bangladesh.
Protesters have long asserted that the figure, which held the familiar sword and scales of justice in her hands, amounted to idolatry.
In February, conservative Islamist group Hefazat-e-Islam led protests and threatened to spread the demonstrations across the country if the statue was not removed.
Many of those protesting will have been followers of Hefazat-e-Islam, but observers have also pointed to increasing conservatism among the general public.
The tension between such forces and secular voices has been one of the defining themes in Bangladesh over the last few years.

Πέμπτη 25 Μαΐου 2017

The Fall of a Syrian Pagan

Source

The Fall of a Syrian Pagan
Jason Pitzl-Waters —  March 21, 2013 — 85 Comments

Earlier this week I pointed to the fact that modern Paganism is now a global phenomenon. That we aren’t simply a small religious movement isolated to North America and the UK, and that we will increasingly be affected by issues we thought relegated to “over there.” Things that “aren’t our problem.” When I wrote that piece I knew that “Yana,” a Syrian Pagan, and friend of Pagan Newswire Collective Managing Editor Cara Schulz, had been killed, but it wasn’t my story to tell, my obituary to write. Today, at PNC-Minnesota, Cara tells the story of her death, learned through another Middle Eastern source that she considers reliable.

    “What happened to her is so ugly I’m struggling to … I can’t even finish that sentence.  I’ll just tell you what I have learned, and although I trust this source, there is no way for me to independently confirm this.  Some time in late June, Yana’s brother, who had become radicalized, informed the rebels that his sister was a Pagan.  They took her, tortured her, then her brother publicly denounced her as a whore and a witch.  After that, she was drug out onto the street, raped, and killed.

    What I remember about Yana is she was always joking, always smiling.  She injected joy into everything she did, from talking about the Gods she honored to showing off her latest hair style.  She had more hair combs than anyone I’ve ever known.  She wanted to come to America and eat bacon.  She was fascinated and repelled by the thought of bacon so I would tell her about putting it in chocolate and on maple ice cream.  She was nervous about getting married.  Her father doted on her and she worried a husband might not be so kind or forgiving of her free spirit.  She told me younger men like to show how manly they are so she thought about telling her parents to find an older man for her to marry.  It was hard to see her become less exuberant as the fighting started, and then drew closer.  To see fear creep in and hear from her less often.   How sad she was that she never left her home anymore because it wasn’t safe.”

In January, Schulz wrote about how the small and isolated number of modern Pagans in places like Syria and Egypt were falling silent as fighting and political turmoil reached new heights.


    “The situation in Syria appears to be more grave, according to the last messages I received from the five Pagans I chat with regularly. They spoke of the fighting and how places looked like Beirut, buildings just shells of themselves, rubble blocking the streets. They detailed neighbors going missing. Islamic fundamentalist patrols that monitor behavior and took violent action against people who violated rules and customs. They debated fleeing, worried about being outed as a Pagan, and started destroying or burying altars. Three began attending local mosques to show their devotion to Islam.

    Yana dropped off first.  I last heard from her in June of 2012.  Bayan, another Syrian Pagan, also hadn’t heard from her but said fighting in her area was intense.  He said he had seen patrols targeting young women and men, beating them and he said it was rumored they were raping them.  He thought perhaps she fled to a safer area or was silent to avoid detection.”

These aren’t Christians or Muslims accused of sorcery, these aren’t dissidents accused of heresy, these are our people. These are modern Pagans, people interested in reviving their own culture’s pre-Christian past, people who were, and are, deeply curious about what their Western cousins were doing, what we were thinking. These were our people killed in this conflict “over there.” Our people in hiding, on the run, pretending to be (the right kind of) Muslims, trying to survive. The situation brings to mind a classic chant often used as public Pagan rituals by Morning Feather and Will Shepardson.

    “We are an old people, we are a new people, we are the same people, stronger than before.”

To my mind, the chant was about continuity, about solidarity. That modern Pagans were diverse, that we came from different sources, but that we were a movement who were now coming together to be stronger, to declare ourselves to the world. It’s time that our movement claimed the full responsibility for our success. We have been working a global spell for the last fifty years, telling everyone that the Witches, the Pagans, the Heathens, the old ways, were back, that everyone who felt that connection should embrace it, should return to the old gods, should join us in becoming a movement of people who were stronger than when we fell before. The spell has worked, now we must embrace what it has brought us, however imperfect, or inconvenient, or painful some of it may be. When you try to change the dominant religious paradigms of the world, people will die, they will be placed in danger by mobs who want power, who fear change, who want to establish never-ending towers of dominance. This is not hyperbole, because far from the (relative) privilege and safety of the West, there are people who heard our chants, our calls, and are now hiding and dying as a result.

What can we do? What should we do? We start by engaging with the world, by re-doubling our interfaith efforts, by supporting the organizations that are sending people to speak for us. Beyond that, we can support Doctors Without Borders, who have a long and positive track-record of helping people in war-stricken lands (there’s an option to earmark for Syria), and we can educate ourselves on all those issues “over there.” This self-education doesn’t mean we all have to agree on how we should respond, but we can at least start from a place of awareness when we do have these conversations. Finally, we can pray, do magic, and do ritual, for all Pagans across the world endangered because of who they are, because of where they are, realizing that such workings are the prelude, not the end-point, of action.

Δευτέρα 22 Μαΐου 2017

THE HELLENIC ETHNIC RELIGION SUPPORTS THE REQUEST OF ROMUVA RELIGION TO BE IDENTIFIED BY LITHUANIAN PARLIAMENT AS TRADITIONAL

 Source
To:
The Parliament of Lithuanian Republic
Gedimino ave. 53,
LT-01109 Vilnius,
Lithuania
The Ministry of Justice
Gedimino ave. 30,
LT-01104 Vilnius,
Lithuania
Athens, Greece, May the 20th, 2017
Dear Sirs,
We, the legal body of the Hellenic Ethnic Religion, herewith express our full support to the appeal of Romuva, the legal body of the Ancient Baltic Religion for state recognition by the Parliament (Seimas) of the Lithuanian Republic, as part of the Lithuanian historical, spiritual and social heritage.
The fundamental principles of Romuva faith are fostering the high moral principles of respect to ancestors and ancestral values, peaceful social life, harmony between the nature and the humanity, the protection of all forms of life, and, as all the ethnic religions of Old Europe do, a life of what, us the Hellenes, call Arete (Virtue).
Just as the Hellenic Ethnic Religion, Romuva is by no means a “neo-pagan movement” or a “new religious movement”. It belongs to the category of religions that the Religious Studies of the last 150 years name “ethnic” and “indigenous”, as it consistently refers to the recorded in the historical sources ancient Lithuanian traditions and, most importantly, to the living tradition of the indigenous religion, values and symbols, carried forward from generation to generation through the customs, songs, folklore and polyphonic ritual singing – sutartines. Romuva promotes the ancient Baltic Religion, cherishing in our days the traditional culture of the ancient Baltic ethnii as a spiritual, cultural and social heritage.
Sincerely yours,
Vlassis G. Rassias
General Secretary – The Supreme Council of Ethnikoi Hellenes (YSEE)

Κυριακή 21 Μαΐου 2017

Greek Christian Doctors obey the Christian Sharia not the Greek Law!

On the Greek island of Samos, in the only hospital St. Panteleimon, the whole team of anaesthesiologists announced to the management of the hospital, that they will not attend to abortions, unless they are harmfull to the health of the pregnant women. The reason was their ethics. They think they have the right to impose their ethics on other people. If they are against it, they should keep children they cannot feed, dress and educate, when they get pregnant. Or hand their children over to Christian orphanages where rapings remain mostly unreported and when they never make it to the courtroom. Probably they will do it in the form of little monks.
As this caused an uproar in the media, the local archbishop made an announcement, so that everybody should understand who is behind that bright idea. The local theocrat said that the law of God Yahweh is above all human laws. So the Eastern Orthodox Christian has to exceed, not disobey-that is what he said-, the human laws, if they do not conform to the laws of the God Yahweh.
Usually when such matters occur, the internet is flooded with posts from mutants writing that 90 per cent of the Greeks are Eastern Orthodox Christians, so the theocratic laws have to obeyed by everyone. Of course they do not want to comply to the Western Values of Human Rights, that just want the money, because the Crusaders sacked Constantinople in 1204 AD and if that had not happened, the Eastern Roman Empire would be still the greatest, most advance empire up to today and for ever.


Source
YSEE announcement

Κυριακή 7 Μαΐου 2017

Atheists propose Heroic Cults, even if they don't realise it!

The Abrahamic religions are the exceptions to the rule of what makes out religions and not the norm. However because two of them have conquered the world through force and mutation, many think that all religions were like those two.
Many atheists have rejected only their monotheistic religion, but they remain politically and culturally monotheists. So they act accordingly with the same intolerance to other views and keep to their faith. Not only do they believe in one way or the other in millenial political theories, but also they are prone to believe conspiracy and pseudoscientific theories and have a pseudophilosophical way of thinking. Even those who swear to experimentally proven science, they expect miracles and even immortality through science.
All of them are adamant that there are absolutely no gods and that all priests are abhorrent.
One atheist had proposed, that instead of equinoxes and solstices, birthdays of great people should be celebrated. However he never said how. Let us think how such an idea would evolve. One should present and make clear who these celebrated people were and what did they achieve and how much their work and achievements influenced their field and our culture. Something like museums, which means temple of the Muses, the goddesses of arts and science by the way. Won't these museums need personnel? Decent people who know and understand what these famous people achieved and are capable of imparting their knowledge? Won't the celebrations follow a pattern? Won't people representing some authorities take part? Won't all these things need money? If his descendants create a private museum with all things this personality used, will they be allowed to accept donations or not?
This is what was happening with the ancient religions. Knowledge about persons and their acts can be acquired by books. All classes of people, however, have a need of celebrating and all forms of celebration all over the world have things in common.