NEW YORK – Ethel Bouzalas, the woman identified as the mistress of Fr. George Passias according to various sources, including a videotape of their affair, and which resulted in the Archdiocese banning Passias, who was the priest at the St. Spyridon Church in the Upper Manhattan neighborhood of Washington Heights, from pastoral duties, took $30,000 from the parish before she left, according to documents obtained by The National Herald.

Bishop Andonios of Phasiane, the Archdiocesan Chancellor, emailed Bouzalas urging her to return the money or else the parish will report her to the police.

“On Thursday evening [Oct. 8],” Bishop Andonios wrote, “I had the opportunity to meet with the members of the Parish Council and was informed that you voluntarily told [Parish Council President] Steve [Papadatos] that you took $30,000 in cash, which you felt you were entitled to since it represented funds which you and your husband had given the School to cover expenses.

“Ethel, if indeed these funds were ‘lent’ to the School, then I will be the first to pressure the community to repay you, but before doing so, I need to ask that some backup documentation please be presented. Otherwise, there are those who will accuse you of stealing these funds, which will only compound what has already appeared in the press.

Clearly, this was not your intent since of your own volition you shared that you had taken the monies. Moreover, in my office you stated that of all the accusations (including misuse of funds) that had been made, only the one about your relationship with Father [Passias] was true.”

Andonios also wrote that “I am sure you appreciate that the Parish Council has a fiduciary responsibility and unless this issue is resolved, they will have no option other than to report it to the authorities. Let’s please try to resolve this amicably and before it goes any further.”

Andonios also recommended that Bouzalas seek help and offered the Archdiocese to assume the cost: “We would urge you to seek immediate professional help and, if you wish, we can assist you with locating a counselor and covering the cost. We also strongly encourage you to seek spiritual counseling and are here to help with that as soon as you are ready. In the meanwhile, I will keep you in my prayers.

May our loving Lord bless and lift you up during this most difficult time in your life.”

Papadatos told TNH last week that there are no financial improprieties at St. Spyridon. Bouzalas did not respond to TNH’s request for comment.

The post EXCLUSIVE: Passias’ Mistress Took 30K appeared first on The National Herald.

HONOLULU, HI – A couple of weeks ago while speaking at a campaign rally in New Hampshire, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump called on a man in the crowd who said: “we all know there’s a problem in the United States, it’s called Muslims, and our president, well, we know he’s not even an American…” The man went on to say there are secret Muslim training camps in the United States and wanted to know what Trump would do about them.

When Trump summarily dismissed the man by saying “there’s a lot of bad stuff…we’re looking into it,” and then moved to another questioner, he was criticized for not having corrected the man on two counts: that President Obama is American-born, and that he is Christian, not Muslim. “It’s the first time I ever got in trouble for not saying something,” Trump later quipped.

Those two hypotheses, that Obama was born in a foreign country (namely, Kenya) and that he is really a Muslim – the religion of his father, Barack Obama Sr. – are the main components of the “birther” movement, which can be traced back to its principal if unintentional creator, Andy Martin.

The attorney and perennial presidential candidate, whose mother’s family is from the Greek town Tsaritsani, near Larissa, has been widely deemed the father of Obama birtherism by the New York Times, Washington Post, and other major media outlets. In an interview with The National Herald, remotely from his current Honolulu, HI location – where he is investigating Honolulu’s port’s vulnerability to terrorist attack – Martin set the record straight about his views on President Obama’s religion, real father, and birthplace, and on the latter point challenged Donald Trump to produce evidence to the contrary he had said he was obtaining.

BORN IN THE USA

To clarify any confusion and to disassociate himself from a movement he says has spiraled into being short on facts and long on innuendo, Martin recently issued his “2015 Birther Bible,” a letter clearly explaining his positions.
“Greetings from Honolulu, the birthplace of President Barack Obama,” he begins, and explains that there is absolutely no credible evidence that Obama was born in Kenya or anywhere else outside the United States, and he does not want to be associated with such speculation.

In that letter, he also states that U.S. Senator Ted Cruz’ claim that Hillary Clinton was the originator of the birther movement is false. “I like Ted Cruz,” Martin writes, but unless he has evidence that she actually made such comments – he acknowledges that her campaign ran a photo of Obama wearing a turban while visiting Kenya in 2006, but nothing beyond that – then she should not be attributed to founding birtherism. It was Martin’s 2008 lawsuit for access to Obama’s birth certificate, he reminds, that started the movement.

SCHOLARLY RESEARCH

Martin describes his work as scholarly research, to which he is faithfully dedicated and interest in which stemmed from his mother’s example. “My mother was one of the first women from a Greek immigrant family to graduate from an Ivy League university (MA, Cornell), and she also graduated from the University of New Hampshire (BA) and the University of Illinois (PhD) and studied at Oxford University, England (where I started on the road to becoming a scholarly researcher),” he told TNH.

For this reason, Martin has walked away from the birther movement, because he does not want to be associated with the “hucksters who lie about Obama.”

“I am a political opponent of Obama,” Martin discloses. “But I have no intention or desire to lie about the facts of his origins or life. And, a decade after I first started writing about Obama, all of my factual assertions have been proven correct, and even my theories have received growing acceptance for their potential veracity. Two of such theories have to do with Obama’s religion and who his father really is.

NEITHER MUSLIM NOR CHRISTIAN

“I am adamant that President Obama was born in Hawaii,” Martin told TNH. But he believes that “the overall historical record on Obama’s religious practices is so conflicted and convoluted, reasonable people can disagree and choose to believe he is either a Muslim or a Christian.
Personally, Martin says “I do not believe that in practice Obama is either a Muslim or Christian. He grew up in an atheistic home. His mother was not a believer, and neither were his grandparents. There is no evidence that Obama was ever baptized, even at Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s church. Like Orthodox Christians, the United Church of Christ (Wright’s church) maintains baptismal records and none have ever been released by Obama.”

OBAMA’S REAL FATHER

Although Martin bases his contention that Obama is really American-born on the facts, he admits that perhaps his most dramatic accusation – that the president’s real father is not in fact Kenyan-born Muslim Barack Obama Sr., but rather Frank Marshall Davis, a journalist, poet, and labor rights activist who, like Obama’s mother, Ann Dunham, was born in Kansas and died in Hawaii – is still just a theory.
Martin says that while some conservatives have embraced his theory, others flatly deny it because if true, it would completely remove any speculation that Obama was foreign-born or has any lineal ties to Islam. “Others have followed in my footsteps with their own versions supporting my original research,” Martin tells TNH, “But for diehard Obama opponents, the possibility that both his father and mother could be American is a pill they are unlikely to ever swallow. I want to underscore that the Davis theory remains just a theory.”

TRUMPING TRUMP

Martin in his letter makes mention of the attention Trump drew in 2011 when he, too, called on Obama to release his birth certificate. Now Martin, in turn, asks Trump to release evidence Trump says he was gathering via a team of investigators he says he sent to Honolulu to determine if in fact Obama was born there.

If Martin were Trump’s campaign manager, TNH asked, what advice would he give to him? “Well, Trump is a difficult person to advise,” Martin began. “But given his past statements [about birtherism] his current standard response “I’m not discussing that any longer” may be the best place for him.”

END OF BIRTHERISM?

TNH pointed out that based on federal immigration law, even if Obama really were born in Kenya, that would not preclude him from being president because the widely-held interpretation is that he would still have been eligible because his mother was American-born – as if the reason Cruz, himself a current GOP presidential candidate, who was born in Canada, is eligible.

Martin agrees, and says “I do not believe any modern court would find either Obama or Cruz ineligible. Today, I believe most people (and certainly the courts) would say if you are born in the United States, or of an American parent who is temporarily outside the states, you are eligible to be president.” He reemphasized: “there is not a scintilla of evidence Obama was born outside the United States.”

MYSTERY MAN

Whatever evidence unfolds about Obama’s religion and paternity, Martin has concluded that our current president’s past largely remains a mystery. He told TNH that secrecy laws prohibit the ability to identify and interview those at Columbia or Harvard Universities so they can shed some light on Obama’s college and law school years.

Martin predicts that upon leaving the White House, Obama will “discover” – Martin thinks Obama already knows – that Franklin Marshall Davis is his real father. “We humans find it difficult to live a lie, and the internal urge to confess is a part of our DNA. I can’t prove Davis is the father, but I have a visceral belief in my theory that he is. Time will tell whether I was right about Obama, once again.”

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NEW YORK – Alex Prodes, a 53-year-old former Greek Orthodox priest (who asked to be returned to the status of layman), lives on his Social Security disability income, two years ago tried to kill himself.

The divorced father of two – he sees his children only twice a year – referring to his failed suicide attempt asked his doctor: “why didn’t I die?”

Prodes didn’t want to live anymore. He says that in 1979, 17 years old and the leader of the altar boys at the Evangelismos Church in Easton, PA, Prodes was sexually abused by Archimandrite Stanley Adamakis, and it was that abuse that led to Prodes’ emotional downfall, culminating in the act of trying to take his own life.

SERIAL PEDOPHILE

Adamakis had a history of homosexuality and pedophilia, about which TNH reported extensively. The Archdiocese was then headed by Archbishop Iakovos and his Chancellor, Rev. George Bakopoulos, was in charge of appointments and transfers. Adamakis was sent from parish to parish, sexually molesting young boys virtually  wherever he went.

Adamakis, who began his life in the church as an altar boy at the Annunciation Cathedral in Boston, MA, later served as Iakovos’ driver when the latter was the Cathedral’s priest.

Soon after Adamakis was ordained a celibate (unmarried) priest, he engaged in pedophilia. First in New England, and then Easton, where he abused Prodes, his brother, and a first cousin of theirs.

Additional incidents followed at parishes in New Mexico and California, and as we reported in 2007, the Archdiocese paid over $1 million to the victims in an out-of-court settlement. One of Adamakis’ victims was related to him.

Adamakis spent seven years in jail in California, but continued the abuse after his release.

He was found dead at age 61 on July 20, 2003, in the parking lot of the Panorama City, CA apartment complex in which he lived, shot to death with an assault rifle by his 24-year-old lover, Tu Luong Hua, who was subsequently convicted of first degree murder.

ABUSE, AND DEATH THREATS

In a four-hour interview with TNH, Prodes detailed the abuse he suffered at Adamakis’ hands. He brought along several supporting documents, including a handwritten note by his victim cousin, John Bednar, then-14, detailing his own abuse.

Prodes also provided a copy of an extensive letter dated December 29, 1979, written by his mother, Aspasia, to then-Bishop Maximos of Pittsburgh, which describes Adamakis’ acts toward her two sons and Bednar.

Prodes began studying to be a priest at the Hellenic College and Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology (HCHC), and then went to St. Tikhon’s Seminary in South Canaan, PA  to complete his studies.

“I felt God’s calling” from age 11, when he served as an altar boy, Prodes told TNH. Then Adamakis arrived to the parish, with his “money, custom black Trans-Am, and hair fixed nice,” and modeled himself after Iakovos, whom Adamakis called his spiritual father, Prodes said.

“My dad was the parish president and Adamakis became very close to our family. He came to the house often; he invited us to his house. He started giving us gifts and money. He let me use his car. He took us to dinner; he was trying to endear himself to us, especially me, as the head of the altar boys. I was 17, my brother was 14, and our  cousin was 14,” he continued.

“I had a lot of respect for him, but then he started to shock me,” Prodes said, relaying how Adamakis, during confession, asked Prodes whether he had sex with girls, and encouraging him to describe the sexual acts in specific detail.

Then, Prodes says, Adamakis became more aggressive, probing Prodes both in and out of confession as to whether he thought about other men sexually, and whether he sexually pleasured himself, and/or watched pornography.

“I come from a good family, I was naive,” Prodes says. “I didn’t have any experience with homosexuals let along with a homosexual priest. I was confused; I didn’t know what to make out of that. I thought maybe this is normal. Maybe this is what the confessor asks because I had not been to confession before.”

Then, Adamakis “started to get closer and closer, He started to give me hugs, kisses on the cheek. He brought us over to his house, where he had a lot of homosexual pornographic movies and magazines. One day, I told him I would to tell my mom and dad. We were in all in his house: me, my brother, and my cousin. He took out a gun and threatened to kill us and my parents if I said anything. I was scared I didn’t say anything. He grabbed me he put the gun to my head.

“One day after Liturgy, he and I were in the altar and I was putting some things on the Holy Table. He came up behind me and…I was shocked, I didn’t know what to do. I was afraid.”

Prodes and Bednar went to Adamakis’ house one day to interview him about a project Prodes had for school about theological differences between Orthodox and Catholics. After the interview, Prodes went downstairs, leaving Adamakis and Bednar alone upstairs. Adamakis came on to Bednar, but the latter pushed him away and then, a few hours later, wrote the letter – now in TNH’s possession – about what transpired.

Aspasia Prodes found the letter, asked Prodes what was going on, at which point “I started crying and told her everything.”  That’s when she wrote the letter to Maximos.

THE COVER-UP

“Maximos called me into his office,” Prodes relays. He asked me about it, and I told him everything. He didn’t say much. The only thing he said was: ‘don’t worry, Alex, we are going to take care of it. I am going to remove him.’ He said ‘please don’t go to the police, let the Church, let me, let the Archdiocese take care of the issue.’

Other clergy told him the same thing. “My parents are so spiritual and so obedient. They are church people. They were convinced that the Archdiocese would resolve the issue. But they didn’t do anything; they simply transferred Adamakis to another parish.”

RECOURSE

Both the Pittsburgh Diocese and the Archdiocese told the Prodes family not to go to the police, promising instead to resolve the issue themselves. At that point, they transferred Adamakis to New Mexico.

The Prodes brothers and Bednar have now asked for $2.4 million in damages, but the Archdiocese refused because the statute of limitations has expired and there is no one at the Archdiocese now who can substantiate the allegations. Now-retired Metropolitan Maximos is unable to testify due to illness.

Instead, the Archdiocese has offered to pay up to $10,000 per person for a year of counseling.

The Prodes brothers and the Archdiocese’s Executive Director of Administration, Jerry Dimitriou, have all given sworn depositions.

Prodes told TNH of other sexual assaults against him, by HCHC officials, when he studied there. At press time, TNH had not verified those allegations.
AN OPEN BOOK

After graduating from St. Tikhon’s, Prodes was ordained a priest. He divorced 11 years ago, stating that the abuse he suffered caused him to turn to gambling as an outlet. “I was destroyed physically and mentally. Two years ago, I attempted suicide by swallowing 60 sleeping pills. I wanted to put an end to my misery.” Subsequently, Prodes went for psychiatric treatment.

But why did Prodes take so long to come forward? “A lot of factors. The community, my family, my name, my parents, my children, my wife – it was just an embarrassment. It was not easy. I have been wrestling with it ever since it happened.

“Even though it has taken this long, 37 I finally said I don’t care what the consequences are for me. What else can I suffer? I have lost everything. I want my story to be known. I want to have healing, closure. They destroyed my life. I want to see justice done. They all protect each other. That close-knit community of homosexuals who cover for one another.”

Prodes maintains that he is by no means a homosexual. “I hate it, I have nothing to do with homosexuality and have never had a homosexual activity [outside of the abuse he endured], ever.”

Prodes says if he had to do it all over again, he never would have become a priest. At HCHC, “I saw all the corruption, homosexuality, alcohol, drugs, sex, and rapes (he mentioned specific females’ names and male students who are now priests).

His return to the status of layman was at his own request.

“Because of the sexual and other abuses I experienced, and my doctors, psychiatrists, and psychologists agree, that my actions were a result of being abused. I have made many mistakes and poor judgments as a result of being abused by clergy in many ways. The wounds go so deep and are not healed even to this day. They have caused my physical, mental, and spiritual problems. I still continue to suffer terribly. I was mentally not responsible for my actions. I was not being treated medically, psychologically, or spiritually at the time. It was only afterwards that I sought medical, psychological, and spiritual help to deal with my trauma,” he said.

There were implications at one time that he was involved with a 16-year-old girl from his parish in Oak Lawn, IL, but Prodes insists that there was nothing inappropriate about it. He was having problems with his wife at the time, he says, but his interaction with the girl – via Internet chats – was innocent. “I was never charged or arrested. In fact, I have never been arrested for anything in my life,” he told TNH.

“Are you telling the truth about all of this?” we asked? “Yes,” Prodes replied. “I’m an open book.”

The post Ex-Clergyman, Sexually Abused at 17 by His Priest, Attempted Suicide – UPDATED appeared first on The National Herald.

NEW YORK – From the days of Aristotle, Greeks have known catharsis is good for the soul. Actress Anthoula Katsimatides reminded modern Greeks and their friends of its power on October 3, evoking laughter and tears in her one-woman-show “What Will People Think?” at United Solo 2015, the world’s largest festival of solo acts. All a Greek-American needs to know for background is the title.

In Greek, English or Gringlish, it stings: “Ti Tha Pi O Kosmos?” The non-Greeks in the audience at Manhattan’s Theater Row cultural complex were properly briefed about such matters throughout the show, however, benefitting from skills Katsimatides polished when she worked for former New York Governor George Pataki. The other things non-Greeks needed to grasp were her larger-than-life father, Antonios, and the tiny island where he was born. Like everyone with roots there, she worships Nisyros, which she calls Gilligan’s Island. “It’s volcanic – it can blow any time and everyone on the island is nuts” – but she adores them all.

And the love that prevailed in her family, blended as it was with frustration when she was growing up that she made grist for her strong comedic mill, was palpable in the theater. Her mother, Calliope, bore and raised four children, George, John, Anthoula herself, and Michael (Mikey) – but Antonios ruled the roost.

“There were lots of rules,” she said, especially to be the best at anything you ever do. Second place was not a place you wanted to be. “What’s this thing, A minus?” her father would ask. Females, of course, had a few more rules, especially the requirement be a “kalo koritsi – a good girl.”

That meant, among other things, no boyfriends. Greek women were their father’s property – a deal sealed by grammar and their middle names – she was Anthoula Antoniou Katsimatidi – “say that three times fast. You can’t,” she said. Ideally, they did not leave the house until they are married off, at which point they become their husband’s property.

Battles over the rules probably paved the way to her political work. Katsimatides told of how she begged at 19 to go to Nisyros on her own, only to be slammed by “Ti tha pi o kosmos?” But by then the sharp-witted Katsimatides – she is a serial valedictorian – learned a thing or two and turned the weapon on her dad: “What would people say if it seems that Antonios Katsimatides doesn’t care enough about Nisyros to send his daughter there?” she asked.

She was on her way, and then she had the time of her life, including her first romance: Vassili. It seems every Greek-American girl had a Vassili, or a NIkiforo, or a Spiro, never to be forgotten. Brothers tended not to remember the names of the girls who stole their hearts.

But then her father heard about the strolls and motorcycle rides. “Katsika! – you goat!” he roared over the phone. Painful as it was then, she laughs about it now.

Later in life, she realized the significance of the birthday she shared with her father that made them both Capricorns. “He’s a goat, too!”

The high expectations were accompanied by pride and love. When Katsimatides was crowned Miss AHEPA in 1992 “my father was so proud you could see the light beam from his eyes.”

But great love only heightens pain when tragedy strikes. First there was the phone call that informed her about Mikey’s death. “I don’t know how I survived that year,” she said, notwithstanding the help she received from therapists and suicide survivor groups. “But I did,” she continued.

By the end of the day on September 11, 2001, her brother John, an employee with Cantor Fitzgerald, was also gone. He had helped her get through “that year.” The man she calls the Greek John Travolta eased her pain by taking her dancing – one of her talents that she did not develop. Acting, however, turned from an interest, to kind of therapy, to a full-blown profession.

Before the completion of the transition, she was devoted to the work she did with Lower Manhattan Development Corporation (LMDC) as a liaison to families who lost relatives on 9/11. The next dose of pain was no more bearable for coming in more conventional form.

Her father, despite a heroic comeback from a potentially crippling injury, succumbed to a staph infection he picked up in the hospital. Katsimatides mourned him too, once again, as with her brothers, hearing posthumous praise, but there were some surprises.

When a man she met learned about her father’s passing, he couldn’t contain himself, pouring out his appreciation for Antonios’ generosity. In time, she heard many testimonials, but this first was the most touching. “I worked for him. He gave me my first job – he made the down payment on our house!”

The thrilling performance – Katsimatides did not skip a beat, despite her personal pain – became incandescent when she shifted to an entirely different persona, a woman drowning in obligations of the family way – the female version on Zorba’s “full catastrophe.”

Pregnant again, the woman went on and on about her frustration and regrets over not sharing the more glamorous parts of Katsimatides’ life. “And who met the Pope last week,” she moaned – It wasn’t me! “The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence,” she noted about the person she actually knows. “All the characters are real,” she told TNH. “The names are changed to protect the innocent” – “and the guilty,” one man added.

Because Katsimatides sold out the house on October 3, the festival invited her to do an encore performance at 9 PM on October 17. Tickets are available at telecharge.com.

The post Anthoula Katsimatides, Encore on Oct. 17 appeared first on The National Herald.

NEW YORK – Tom Bouzalas, the husband of Rev. George Passias’ mistress, Ethel, with whom Passias conducted an affair and whom he impregnated, all of which resulted in the Archdiocese banning Passias from the priesthood, in an exclusive interview with The National Herald discusses the whole sordid mess, including details of the affair and issues pertaining to the finances of the St. Spyridon Greek Orthodox Church in the Upper Manhattan neighborhood of Washington Heights, where Passias served as priest and Ethel Bouzalas, by Passias’ appointment, parish treasurer.

Ethel also revealed her thoughts in an October 8 email to Archdiocesan Chancellor, Bishop Andonios of Phasiane.

Bouzalas told TNH he was the one who notified the Archdiocese, specifically, Bishop Andonios of Phasiane, about the affair, and requested Passias’ removal from the priesthood.

“My wife and I have been estranged for the past 17 years,” he said, also indicating that via email, he received extremely graphic photographs and videos of Passias and Bouzalas together.

His comments to TNH follow:

“Up until now I have stayed quiet. I’ve received, read, heard, and seen so much in the past two weeks, and further back, even.

“You want to know what really happened? Well here are the facts:

“I emailed Bishop Andonios and informed him of the affair between Fr. Passias and my wife, and that I wanted Fr. Passias removed from the priesthood.

I received extremely graphic photographs and videos, and even though I haven’t read everything that’s been printed about Passias, he has a serious problem, beyond just a cake or foot fetish.”

Bouzalas described how Passias would fly up from Fort Myers, FL “just to say hello and see my wife,” and how he “sat outside my home for hours waiting for my wife to get home.”

Passias would speak badly of his own wife to him, Bouzalas said, “what a terrible wife and disciplinarian she is, where even his youngest daughter had to lock herself in the bathroom until Father George would get home.

Passias would “text my wife at all hours of the night,” Bouzalas added, and during vacation, would spend late hours with her, would pick her up and drive her to work everyday, and “bruised and manhandled her.”

Nonetheless, Passias was in denial. “I never wanted to believe what was taking place. I believed my wife was safe; I was wrong.

“Since my wife and I have been estranged for the past 17 years, to use the word ‘cheating’ to describe the affair would be inaccurate,” he says. “But what people saw on that videotape is not representative of her, but rather of Fr. George’s obsession with her.

“He would call her a Peruvian Princess and Empress, right in front of me. Well, Ethel is neither of those things, but she is a beautiful Peruvian woman whom any man would be lucky to have. She is passionate, warm, gentle, understanding, but despite her beauty, is extremely insecure.

“Father is an older man who knew better, but nonetheless was undeterred in his pursuit of my wife. He wanted to baptize her, and wanted her to become Principal of the St. Spyridon School so that there would be a reason for her to work by his side. He wanted her to join the Parish Council. He wanted her to be in a position of prominence. He would always get his way.”

Bouzalas said that his wife, because of her kindness and naiveté, believed in him, and did everything for him.

Bouzalas became sick this summer and was hospitalized since the end of June, and that is particularly when his wife “fell victim to Fr. George and his sickness. He made sure to isolate her and plant seeds in her mind, because he enjoyed controlling her.”

In fact, Bouzalas adds, “Fr. George became crazy with jealousy when my wife was attending to me.” Although they are estranged, the Bouzalases are “best friends,” he says, and “she made sure I received the best care and was attended to by the best doctors.”

IN HER DEFENSE

The press belittles Ethel Bouzalas, her husband says, but he comes to her defense and notes her accomplishments.

Regarding the St. Spyridon School, he describes how before she got there, nine years ago, “the textbooks they had were from 1969.” There was hardly any furniture in the classrooms, and the entire school was a glorified babysitting center.

“Ethel and I were the School’s greatest benefactors,” he says, including $40,000 which he gave up front and expected back at the end of her tenure.
“It was our money,” he says. “We didn’t donate the money to the school and she easily could have walked out with it at any time, and no one would have stopped her. There was nothing devious about any of this – except what Fr. Passias has done.”

Passias is “a coward and a liar, who probably lied to his wife and family about my wife, probably portraying it as if she was the one who came on to him,” Bouzalas says. “He is the consummate deceiver.

“As for me,” Bouzalas concluded, “I am lucky for my wife, even if we were together a short time, and for my three beautiful sons. And Ethel will always be my best friend.”

ETHEL’S EMAIL

Ethel, in an October 8 e-mail to Archdiocesan Chancellor Bishop Andonios of Phasiane, thanked him for his kindness and concern, and asked him whether Fr. Passias had done similar things to other women. “I am not going to dare ask if Father George has done something like this before, although it seems as though he has.”

Bouzalas wrote about the St. Spyridon School’s finances, where Passias served as priest and she as the School Principal. In response to an email by Bishop Andonios to her, requesting that she return $30,000 she took from the parish upon leaving, Bouzalas’ response in the email was that she and her husband lent the money to the School.

The entire email follows:

“Good afternoon, your Grace, once again thank you for your kindness and concern.

I have a wonderful little sister who has been a tremendous source of comfort to me. I am not going to dare ask if Father George has done something like this before although it seems as if though he has. Why should I doubt it? I’ve been left to bear the brunt of the scandal while he has safely hidden himself away.

“My sister says that I’ve been used and victimized for my money and that I am probably not the first victim who has fallen. I’m hurt like I’ve never been hurt. I live in my memories and just try to exist each and every day. Emotionally I am in a downward spiral. My eldest son loves Father and now I have to tell him the truth. It is too hard to bear.

“Please do not feel bad about asking me about the monies. They are monies that were never and have never been reported to the General Assembly. That was never a tradition there at St. Spyridon, even before my time.

“I inherited how the School Board ran the finances of the school (During Sophie George’s time). Tuition for St. Spyridon was $300 a month and most single mothers pay from $300 to $320 a month. Today, tuition is $400 a month with about 30 families paying $320 or $350 because of hardship. The School only ever had enough for payroll, which is why they could not afford a principal, and I was appointed. School tuitions were collected and deposited in the bank. It was always reported to the School Board that I was always putting money into the School in the thousands (to be clear, the first two years) hefty amounts of cash were given by [my husband] Tom and were put into the school for books and payroll and the one thing that the General assembly was told was that I was the schools greatest benefactor always bringing in tons of supplies because the children nor the school could afford it.

“After Putting in excess of $300,000 in the School of the Holy Cross in Brooklyn, Tom would not donate to the school of St. Spyridon. Tom felt that my taking over the principalship was enough and always lent money with the understanding that he was not donating, but if others wanted to they could go ahead and do so. He felt that people took his kindness for granted. Tom kept tally. When I had mentioned about the amounts to be recorded at a meeting years ago at the School Board, jokingly, I was told that there was no need to receipt the money and that I wasn’t going anywhere and that my word was good (obviously, that was a different time and a different mindset).

“All of us were friends on the Council and [due to my meticulousness] I think I would make everyone fall asleep by the time I was done with my Treasurer’s Report. I was always scared of making mistakes and if you ask anyone of them they will tell you with all sincerity, I would hope (even though now they must hate me) that I was always scared and very honest when it came to monies.

“About a year and a half ago, I opened an account in TD Bank, it was a money market account. I told Father that I had money in my safe at the school. He advised me to look into a bank that would make money for the $65,000 that I had in my safe. That money has no background, meaning its primary source was me. There are no records of where that money came from because $30,000 from the years 2009 to 2013 belonged to me and the rest of the monies were from selling the candies that I would buy for the School to raise money for payroll. The Council is aware that there are times that cash transactions are made with no recordings. I was under the assumption that Father George told [Parish Council President] Steve Papadatos about the $65,000 in the bank. In any case, a total of $40,000 is an accumulation of what is owed to Tom.

“Tom never gave monies in check form, always in cash, as he deals in real estate and deals with a lot of cash transactions. As I said to Steve earlier, if it would please the Council, I will gladly return the $30,000 that is accounted for and I will ask that the total of what is owed to Tom and I be removed from TD bank, where it should rightfully come from.

“The school has no way to account for those monies other than that Tom allowed for me to keep the money there until such time as I should step down from the School.

“Your Grace, I told Steve earlier that had all gone well this year, I could have easily pocketed my monies and no one have been the wiser. I knew my monies were safe both in the safe and in the bank. I did it to raise my personnel’s morale. They get paid very little and would get excited to see so much money.

“The breakdown is as follows:

2009 $10,000: books and materials and payroll.

2010 $10,000: Books and materials and furniture and payroll.

2011 $5,000: Instructional materials and Payroll.

2012 $5,000: Supplies and Payroll.

2013 $5,000: Supplies and Payroll

2014 $5,000: Supplies and Payroll

“It is not major monies, we are talking about but nonetheless ours. I hope your Grace and The Parish Council will take what I am asking for under consideration. I have been hurt enough, my family has been hurt enough, my brothers and sisters on the Parish Council have been hurt enough. Tom always made me promise that I would not gift his money to the School because he had done enough at Holy Cross. I am including Tom in this email.

“Sincerely, Ethel Bouzalas.”

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WASHINGTON, D.C. – In less than a year, the United States will celebrate its 240th birthday. The Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) of 1965 – which replaced the nation’s country-of-origin preferences for immigrants with admission based on skills and family relationships – just celebrated its 50th last week.

Yet in this country so often referred to as “a nation of immigrants,” there isn’t a bona fide museum to celebrate the American people – all American people.

But the Coalition for the National Museum of the American People seeks to change all of that. And its Director, Sam Eskinazi, explained to us that among the archives could be a room devoted to foreign language publications, such as The National Herald. On October 3, the date of the INA’s 50th anniversary, the Coalition sent the a letter to President Obama proposing a National Museum of the American People (NMAP), to be established in Washington, DC. ExcerpAsks Obama to Establish a Museum of the American People.

Excerpts from the letter are included here:

“On October 3rd, 1965, the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 opened the door to millions of new Americans and their descendants. To help build on the legacy of that landmark law, we urge you to create a bipartisan commission to study establishment of the National Museum of the American People. “The museum will relate the history of the making of the American People, a story which embodies our original national motto: E Pluribus Unum (out of many, one). This museum will celebrate every group from every land who have become Americans – “We the People.” It will show how people from every place on earth helped make this country the world’s economic, military, scientific and cultural leader.

“The museum will showcase how, when, why and from where we arrived in this land, our movements across the plains and mountains of the country, what each group encountered and how each helped to transform our nation.

“The narrative begins in the prehistoric period and progresses through waves of migration and immigration until today. We expect it to be the best storytelling museum in the world as it depicts one of the world’s greatest stories.

“The National Museum of the American People will become a lasting cultural legacy. All Americans will come to learn the story of their own ethnic, national or minority groups, and to learn about all of the others. Foreign visitors will come to better understand our incredibly diverse nation.

“We seek no appropriated funds to plan, design, build or operate the museum. We envision a commission like the one that led to the creation of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. We look forward to working with you to realize the National Museum of the American People.”

Eskinazi was previously the Holocaust Museum’s Director of Public Information.
THE VISION According to the Coalition’s website nmap2015.com, the proposal, still a work in progress, would tell our nation’s story in four chapters: Chapter I — The First Peoples Come: Prehistoric period – 1607 Chapter II — The Nation Takes Form: 1607 – 1820 Chapter III — The Great In–Gathering: 1820 – 1924 Chapter IV — And Still They Come: 1924 – present. But considering all the various ethnic groups that have settled in the United States, we asked Eskinazi, how big must this museum be to do justice to all of them? “We will do justice to all of the stories in the manner of how the museum will tell the story,” he explains. “For most Americans, their story will begin in the third chapter. And as the groups came in, especially in that major period of immigration at the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries, their stories will be told. “The museum will use modern technology and electronic graphics as well as other tools at the disposal of the museum designers to help tell these stories in a dramatic, inclusive way. Greek-Americans will certainly see their stories about when they came, why they left, where they settled and where they moved on to. It will also highlight some of their major accomplishments. Walking through the museum will be like walking through a documentary film about the making of the American People.

“The British and other Western Europeans come in the second chapter and into the third. And at the end of the third chapter large numbers come from Southern and Eastern Europe. All of these stories will be told. Greek-Americans are clearly one of the significant groups whose story will be told here. Would the Museum consider devoting space to differences in American culture based on geography (such as, contrasting the cultures of New Yorkers, Hawaiians, and Oklahomans? The Coalition now seeks the creation of a Presidential Commission to study the Museum’s development. Questions like that one will be considered, and besides the Museum itself, Eskinazi points out, “there would be special exhibition spaces where temporary exhibits could be displayed.” The next step, he says, is that U.S. Senator Brian Schatz (D-HI) is leading the way toward introducing such a resolution in Congress. In the previous Congress, Eskinazi says, there were 48 bipartisan cosponsors supporting such a commission.

HONORING TNH

“We envision that there would be a library and archive associated with the Museum, including links on the Museum’s website” to honor ethnic literature, media, television shows, movies, and the like. Among those, the oldest foreign language publication in the United States, The National Herald. Eskinazi concludes by reemphasizing some of the main points included in the letter to President Obama, which was signed by an array of historians and 46 ethnic organizations, including AHEPA and the American Hellenic Institute, both of which Eskinazi refers to as longtime supporters of this cause.

“The Museum will facilitate learning about our history nationwide. Everyone will come to learn their own stories and will learn about all of the others. Foreign visitors, including those from Greece, will learn how their countrymen contributed to the United States. The Museum will be the embodiment of our original national motto: E Pluribus Unum and will show that we are all Americans.

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NEW YORK – On one of the most beautiful days of the year, the future looked bright to the leaders of the Order of AHEPA who were given an private tour of the construction site for the St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox National Shrine at the World Trade Center on October 10.

A fundraising campaign is underway to meet AHEPA’s pledge of $500,000 to the resurrection of the beloved St. Nicholas Church at Ground Zero and its transformation into not only a national shrine but a beacon on Orthodoxy in the New World.

Congressman Gus Bilirakis (R-FL), who made a special trip to be present, reflected the thoughts of those present. “It’s beautiful…It’s inspiring and I am blessed to be here. I can’t wait for the Church to be finished and I am grateful we will have the opportunity to share our faith with the rest of the world,” he said.

Andrew Veniopoulos, who is the project assistant working with the Archdiocese’s Executive Director of Administration Jerry Dimitriou and with Fr. Alexander Karloutsos, Protopresbyter of the Ecumenical Patriarchate “on anything that’s needed for St. Nicholas,” conducted the tour.

He explained that the Archdiocese put together a committee of architects to review designs and said Santiago Calatrava, who was chosen, impressed on all levels, but especially with his unique idea for a church that glows in the dark. The Churches outer translucent outer shell will come from Mount Pentelicon, the source of the Parthenon’s marble.

“It’s magnificent,” said Greek-American comedian and Ahepan Basile, adding “It will stand out When see it from the 9/11 memorial park…I think that it is outstanding and beautiful,” and he congratulated everyone involved.

Veniopoulos added that “wherever you are on the site you will see the church because it will be above the tree line” – St. Nicholas will indeed be a church on a hill. Liberty Park, 20 above the surrounding area, will rest on a 350-foot living wall of greenery that will face the September 11 memorial, a magnificent setting for Holy Week and Resurrection Services reminiscent of the atriums that were integral parts of Constantinople’s churches.

Standing where the four doors of the narthex will be located, Veniopoulos began his presentation with a description of the underground Vehicle Security Center upon which the Church will sit.

The Church, which has an exterior footprint of 4500 sq. feet – the old St. Nicholas was 1600 – and a usable interior space of about 2200 sq. feet, will have seating for approximately 150 people and standing room for 50 more.

The Narthex and the two stories above it will have windows facing the memorial park. The non-denominational bereavement center will be on the second floor, and there will be facilities for the parish on the floor above that.

The Church is seeking additional office space offsite and nearby for the parish and the shrine. There will be an executive director, a secretary, security personnel, a pastor and an assistant priest.

St. Nicholas will be open from 8 AM to midnight every day. “Similar to St. Patrick’s Cathedral. It will be a functioning parish but tourists will also be coming through the Church” – perhaps up to one million of the ten million people per year who will visit Ground Zero Veniopoulos said.” 20,000 will be working there daily.

He said there is a budget for staffing and maintenance in place for the first five years, and he noted money is also being raised for the endowment for the parish’s long-term financial security.

Dimitriou has told TNH that hard construction costs are budgeted at $35 million and that that there are $37.7 million in pledges to date.

In addition to the parishioners who return, including Veniopoulos, who grew up attending St. Nicholas and now lives in Midtown Manhattan, the parish will reach out to Orthodox Christians in what has recently become a major residential neighborhood.

Construction began in August and is now at a critical phase. The pipes and ducts of the HVAC system which was donated by Peter J. Pappas were visible as the very lowest level of what is being built. Everything has to be done right now said Veniopoulos, because the cramped interstitial space that will soon be covered by a slab of concrete will be difficult to access later.

He said the target for completion is summer of 2017. Extremely good luck with the weather puts an Easter 2017 if the realm of possibility, be he noted, “You don’t want to pour concrete in the dead of winter.”

The Archdiocese has entered into an agreement with Gallagher and Associates, the noted museum planning and design firm,” Veniopoulos said. “Their interactive display are amazing. They are working with the Archbishop, Bishop Andonios of Phasiane and Father Alex” to enhance the experience of Orthodox and non-Orthodox visitors alike through things like cell phone aps that provide information about icons, the Orthodox Church and the history of the parish.

The Ahepans were impressed with the renderings of the Church’s exterior, but it is more difficult to imagine what the inside will look like. “There was a meeting just this week at Calatrava’s office about where everything goes, the iconostasis and other elements,” and iconographers are being contacted.

“Obviously the exterior has a modern feel, but the interior, which will also feature Pentelic marble, is going to be a Byzantine Church is all aspects,” Veniopoulos said.

The seeds for the special tour were planted at Ahepa’s Congressional Banquet earlier this year when Fr. Karloutsos was talking to National Sons of Pericles Advisor Jimmy Kokotas about questions of members across the country about the project’s progress

“Father Alex had just given a tour to Philoptochos and he said if AHEPA would like a tour he would set one up” Kokotas said.

Past AHEPA Supreme President and current Chairman of the Board Nicholas Karacostas, who is also chairman of AHEPA’s fundraising effort, told TNH he and Executive Director Basil Mossaides coordinated tour planning with Father Karloutsos. “It’s a privilege to get this tour and to see the progress that’s being made.”

Mossaides told TNH the pledge for $500,000 was made at the 2014 national convention, but the leadership hopes to raise $1 million.

The post Special Tour of St. Nicholas Site Impresses AHEPA Leaders appeared first on The National Herald.

NEW YORK – The Holy Eparchial Synod of the Archdiocese of America on October 13 made a unanimous decision to defrock George Passias  due to the sexual scandal he is embroiled in with Ethel Bouzalas.

More information to follow as it becomes available.

The post Holy Eparchial Synod Defrocks Passias in Unanimous Vote appeared first on The National Herald.

NYC GREEK FILM FESTIVAL THROUGH OCT. 20

NEW YORK – Anthony Quinn was born one hundred years ago. The man who comes to mind when people think of the quintessential Greek. The birth took place not in Greece, but in Chihuahua, Mexico, and not in a Greek immigrant community, but to parents of Mexican and Irish stock.

Records list him as Antonio Rodolfo Quinn Oaxaca. In Hollywood, he was Anthony Quinn, but the world knows him as Zorba the Greek.

On September 25 his life and work were commemorated with a special screening in Manhattan of the beautifully restored Zorba the Greek presented by the National Hellenic Society (NHS), the Hellenic American Chamber of Commerce and the NYC Greek Film Festival in association with the Anthony Quinn Foundation.

The celebration of the centenary of Quinn’s birth was graced by Katherine Benvin Quinn, who was his personal assistant and became his third wife in 1997. She has devoted herself to the perpetuation of her husband’s memory through the Foundation and was accompanied at the screening by one of their two children, Antonia Patricia Rose Quinn.

The movie again moved guests regardless of how many times they had seen it. They nodded in assent when Quinn’s daughter noted later that every time she views it, more of the depth director Michael Cakoyannis film and Nikos Kazantzakis’ novel is revealed.

While Alan Bates’ work as Zorba’s charge leaves much to be desired, Quinn’s performance was incandescent. Katherine Quinn noted during Q & A that her husband and Cakoyannis battled over the role, but the director later conceded that the actor’s intuition was on the money.

It will come as a surprise to no one that Walter Lassally won the Academy Award for Best Cinematography. The opening shots of Crete are breathtaking, and the rest pulls the audience into a fascinating, long-gone world. Irene Pappas’ portrayal of “The widow” is spellbinding.

The audience was greeted by attorney Art Dimopoulos, NHS’ Executive Director, and James DeMetro, the Executive Director of the NYC Greek Film Festival that runs from October 2 to 25.

The Best of the NYC Greek Film Festival will be presented in Boston Nov. 3-5 and Katherine Quinn will be present at a free screening of Zorba . For more information visit www.nycgreekfilmfestival.com.

Dr. Apostolos Pappas, biochemist and cinephile, moderated the Q&A that followed the screening and shared his encyclopedic knowledge of the live and work of Quinn with the audience.

In a parallel universe, where Quinn had taken the role of the Don Vito Corleone in The Godfather – he was among those considered for the role – was offered to him here, is he considered the archetypal Italian? Highly doubtful, because what others feel about him, Quinn felt about himself: Greekness resonates deep in his soul.

Renaissance Man is as good a label as passionate man for Quinn, but the pull of art, which fascinated him his entire life – drawings and paintings were interspersed with stills from his movies on the big screen during the tribute – drew him into the orbit of Frank Lloyd Wright, who was his architecture teacher and then his friend.

Wright encouraged Quinn when roles came, and when he was offered $800 a week to appear in a film, Wright said to him: “Take it, you’ll never make that much with me,” Katherine Quinn said.

Quinn’s personal life was as volatile and passionate as the characters he played in films and Katherine Quinn confirmed that “the characters he played represent so many of his qualities,” emphasizing his humanity, his love of people, and his passionate relationships with women.

Quinn is said to have portrayed more than 20 ethnic groups in his movies, but his many turns as a Greek, besides Zorba, including in The Guns of Navarone and as Aristotle Onassis in The Last Tycoon, stand out. He also played opposite Irene Pappas seven times.

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God chooses good people to do great things. Chris P. Tomaras has left a legacy of great things. He fell asleep in the Lord on October 14.

Chris Tomaras will be remembered for his love of Hellenism, entrepreneurial ingenuity, profound faith, and neverending generosity. His determination and perseverance led to a career as a successful businessman as owner of Kronos Foods and Tomaras Investments. Devoted to his family, friends, and those in need, his many acts of kindness demonstrated his spirit of philanthropy and deep love for all.

He was a devoted Greek Orthodox Christian, putting his faith into practice. Tomaras was a benefactor of many churches and Greek Orthodox institutions, including the Saint Iakovos Retreat Center of the Metropolis of Chicago. He was an active member of Leadership 100 and a dedicated Archon of the Order of Saint Andrew of the Ecumenical Patriarchate.

Born in Piraeus, Greece, Chris Tomaras personified Hellenism, while embracing the ideals of his adopted country, the United States. As Vice President of the World Council of Hellenes in the Americas (SAE), he inspired Greek-Americans of all ages to be proud of their culture and heritage, creating programs for Greek youth and sponsoring special cultural events. Tomaras’ generosity spanned across the Diaspora, improving the lives of many Greeks.

It was Tomaras’ passion for education that led him to establish the PanHellenic Scholarship Foundation (PHSF). Ever mindful of the importance of a college education, he founded the PHSF so that Greek-American undergraduates would have the financial resources they would need to complete their education. His vision and generosity have ensured that more than 300 deserving students received scholarships exceeding $2 million.

Tomaras served as leader of a number of civic, community and business organizations, including President of the PanMessenian Federation of USA and Canada. He was a member of the Board of Trustees of Anatolia College and the founding member of the American Foundation of Hellenic Studies at Georgia State University. He received countless awards, such as the Ellis Island Medal of Honor, and an Honorary Doctor of Humanities from Hellenic College-Holy Cross School of Theology.

The passing of Chris P. Tomaras leaves a great void in our hearts and in our community, yet it motivates us to continue his good deeds. We will lead by his example, mindful of his accomplishments and the words of wisdom he has shared with us.

Our Lord welcomes this good and faithful servant into His Kingdom. We pray for his immortal soul. May the memory of Chris P. Tomaras be ever eternal.

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HOUSTON, TX – My Yiayia came to America when I was about eight years old. She was the only grandparent I ever met. My paternal grandmother had died long before I was born; my paternal grandfather lived in Greece and died before we could ever meet; my maternal grandfather died when he was just 43, and he left my Yiayia a young widow with seven children. She wore black from the day he died until the day she died – almost 50 years later.

One Mother’s Day, the older, employed, grandchildren chipped in and bought Yiayia a black housecoat (only in New York can one find a store that caters to Greek, Italian, Jewish and Puerto Rican widowed grandmothers). It had teensy white polka dots – I mean you had to go right up to her to notice them, and even then, they looked like flecks of dandruff. She refused to wear the housecoat. It wasn’t black. It would be disrespectful to Pappou’s memory.

I’m embarrassed to admit that when I first met my Yiayia, she scared the daylights out of me. She was tiny – I was probably already taller than she was. And she was completely swathed in black: black dress, black hose, black shoes, black kerchief. A long, thin white braid hung down her back, punctuating the unrelieved blackness of her frame. Milky blue eyes stared out from the wrinkles that etched her face, and her hands, dotted with liver spots, lay in her lap. She used to sit quietly, watching us play, and twiddle her thumbs. I don’t think I’d ever seen someone actually do that.  The really scary part, though, was her “smile.” Yiayia had two teeth – that’s it – set on a diagonal so that when she smiled, she looked like a Jack-o’-Lantern.

Obviously, Yiayia wasn’t the grandmother I had seen on TV or read about in the Dick and Jane books at school. No pies cooling on the window sill when I got home from school. No special tea parties or shopping sprees. I was too young and clueless to ask her about life in Greece or what her transatlantic flight was like. Imagine that. She left a village that had no indoor plumbing or electricity and boarded an airplane for America. Alone. Now that’s courage. On my first flight, I traveled with my cousin, we spoke both English and Greek, and I dug my nails into the arm of a total stranger upon takeoff and landing. I’m sure Yiayia just sat twiddling the whole way.

Yiayia lived with my Theia Sevasti, my Theio Miltiadi, and my cousin Tom. They had more room, and they lived on the first floor. She used to sit under a tree outside their apartment and watch us play. We never asked her to throw us a ball or hold the end of a jump rope. It wasn’t like that. She just watched us – perhaps remembering her own children playing in the horafia-fields, perhaps just enjoying the grandchildren she never imagined she would see.

When the ice cream man jingled by, she would eat a vanilla cup, savoring every spoonful as we inhaled our treats. If we started arguing among ourselves, she would gently remind us to be nice to one another. But she never ratted us out to our parents. She wasn’t our babysitter. She was our guardian angel.

Our Jewish friends had their bubbas. Our Puerto Rican friends had their abuelitas. We had our Yiayia.

AWAY TO “GREECE”

Then, she died. The younger children were shuttled off to my oldest sister’s house. We weren’t told anything and we couldn’t ask questions, but we knew something was definitely wrong. The grownups were acting weird. Everyone was in black. Everyone was crying. When we could go home, we weren’t allowed to watch TV or listen to the radio. We were surrounded by strangers who nodded knowingly at us and pinched our cheeks until we lost all feeling in our faces.
This went on forever – actually, 40 days. Then things, kind of went back to normal. Except that Yiayia wasn’t there anymore, and we didn’t know why. “She went back to Greece,” the grownups said. That can’t be right. She would never leave without saying good-bye. Without a kiss on the forehead. Dino, the oldest of the youngest grandchildren, wise at 12 and the boss of all of us, said that Yiayia had died. We didn’t quite understand, but it made more sense than her mysterious return to Greece.

Twenty-five years later, my Theio Epaminonda, the youngest of my mother’s siblings, died of a heart attack. I flew from Houston back to New York for his funeral. One evening, we were all sitting around the dining room table in my mother’s apartment, and one of my uncles wondered who was going to call their brother, Theio Spiro, in Greece to tell him that his baby brother had died.

When my Theio Yianni died, my cousins and I were in Athens and had the dubious honor of telling Theio Spiro the news. To say he went nuts is an understatement.  The keening and wailing and rending of garments – he left Euripides in the dust!

So now, the grownups were trying to figure out who would draw the short straw and make the call to Athens. Well, not exactly all the grown-ups. The cousins, all adults now, were thinking something else completely.  I knew it was going to be Tom. It had to be Tom. We had all waited patiently, but he had earned this moment. After all, Yiayia had lived with him.

“Theio Spiro?” he asked. “What about Yiayia? Who’s going to tell Yiayia?”

We held our breaths.

“Yiayia? “Vre, trellos papas se vaptise-a crazy priest baptized you.” Yiayia died.”

“She did? Then who’s been cashing those checks I’ve been sending for Christmas and Mother’s Day?”

No one moved. We didn’t dare look at one another. But then we couldn’t hold it any longer. We had waited for 25 years! We burst out laughing as the “grownups” realized how preposterous they had been all those years ago. In their efforts to protect us from the truth, they constructed a clumsy, unrealistic story about our Yiayia that, under different circumstances, could have backfired. We could have all felt abandoned, resentful that she had come and gone from our lives so suddenly. But that didn’t happen. In her short time with us, in her quiet way, she made us all feel special.

So, even if we didn’t really understand what it meant to die, we definitely understood what it meant to be loved. By our Yiayia. By our well-intentioned, ridiculous parents!

Happy Grandparents Day to all the Yiayiades and Pappoudes out there, including the ones who went back to Greece.

The post Grandparent Tales: “A Crazy Priest Baptized You!” or “Yiayia Went to Greece” appeared first on The National Herald.

NEW YORK – If you can still excite young people, you never grow old. And advertising’s legendary George Lois is still on fire. He is a creative force at his son Luke’s firm, Good Karma Creative, and he is still writing books that are must-reads, especially for young communications and advertising professionals.

City College of New York (CCNY) President Lisa Coico hosted a special book signing and reception on October 5 for Lois to celebrate his career and his new book, Lois Logos – The Creative Punch of Big Idea Branding

The students who filled the event space of Shepard Hall were there not only because their professors told them to attend, but also because they were fascinated by the man and eager to buy his book.

After the featured speaker and the guests enjoyed becoming acquainted during the reception, a simple video that flashed some of Lois’ most famous logos and other works was shown, accompanied by Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue.

The classic musical evocation of Manhattan was the perfect introduction for the quintessential New Yorker and the crowd was mesmerized – evidence of the enduring power of Lois’ work.

President Coico was unable to attend, and so Professor Ed Keller welcomed the guests on her behalf. Always “on,” Lois called out in the midst of Keller’s long recitation of people to acknowledge: “when do you thank me?”

After the burst of laughter, CCNY Provost Dr. Maurizio Trevisan introduced Lois by calling “one of the most prolific advertising communicators of our time…Running his own marketing agency, George is renowned for dozens of marketing miracles that triggered innovative change in American culture… George popularized brands and made them household name.”

He cited a few: MTV, USA Today, Jiffy Lube.

In 2008, the Museum of Modern Art installed 38 of his Esquire covers in its permanent collection, but Greek-Americans know Lois best for his spectacularly successful Greek tourism campaign with non-Greek celebrities declaring – “I’m going home…to Greece”

After touching on what causes designs and campaigns to fail, Lois said the way he approaches creating, he focused on logos, “is controversial, therefore revolutionary.”

He said he considers himself a communicator, however, not a designer, because I create big ideas, not designs, and shared some of the thinking he elaborated upon in his famous book “What’s the Big Idea?”

“A logo should contain an essential idea” with a design “that communicates personality. It must have blood running through it…a quickly recognizable face,” he said.

The face’s bone structure, however, must consist of a solid marketing idea, and “the design must explain the idea.”

He challenged the students in the room to dive deeply into their projects. “If you can’t get meaning into everything you design, there is no meaning in your work.”

He said that “great graphic design is not the arrangement of lives and shape…It is the transformation of a big idea into an unforgettable image.”

He continued: “the mystical blendings of copy, concept and art, dramatized by a unique image in synergy with words… that can communicate in a nanosecond, always ignites an immediate intellectual and visceral human response.”

Lois said “The result should be – must be – a creative image that catches people’s eyes, enters their minds, warms their hearts, and causes them to act.”

After seizing the attention of the aspiring professionals, he reached out the developing human being in each of them too.

“A truly great graphic and verbal communicator reflects, understands and adapts to the culture, anticipates the culture, criticizes changes in the culture, and helps to change it…”

He  concluded by saying aspiring to the communicators  “our mission in life cannot be to sedate, but to awaken, disturb , communicate and command, to instigate and even to provoke… Now more than even we must speak truth to power, whatever the cost.”

Lois’ words are credible. He went through life putting his money where his mouth was, regardless of who was in the room. Some of the stories will soon become better known.

Keller, who teaches in the advertising and PR program at CCNY and met Lois as a 25 year old at his first job in advertising,  told TNH he and Lois are working on a book that will feature “The back stories of the great campaigns George was involved with, and the movers and shaker of the past 60 years.”

Guests also learned of Lois’ deepening relationship with CCNY, which is near his beloved alma mater, the High School of Music and Art. He announced he will deposit his archives at CCNY, where he aslo serves as an advisor.

As some guests got their books signed, other chatted with Lois’ wife, Rosie, a designer,  and his grandson and namesake George, who is a filmmaker.

The post Ad Legend Lois Sets Young Minds Afire appeared first on The National Herald.

NEW YORK – Composer and violinist Elektra Kurtis and Ensemble Elektra have released their latest CD, “Bridges from the East,” which is inspired by her belief that although the sources of the diverse music they present are separated geographically,  it is all connected by human spirit, emotion, ethics, and expression.

The new CD comes straight out of the composer’s Greek heritage,  and her life experiences in distinct parts of the world as a member of a family of Greek refugees from Egypt that settled in Poland, and as a musician in her adopted home of New York.

The piece reflect the sound of Eastern Europe and North Africa, cultures Kurtis relates to the most, and the ensemble has been presenting the CD’s selection at venues throughout New York, including Kosciuszko Foundation and the  Goddard Riverside Community Center in Harlem.

The latter was hosted by Kevin Nathaniel, curator of the Afro Roots Tuesdays free music series.

With the 14th anniversary of the terrible day approaching, Kourtis began the Harlem concert with “2002” – symbolizing the first full year of rebuilding after 9/11.

2002, with its poignant string quartet-like opening, reflected Kourtis classical training – audiences will recognize bits of Bartok, Stravinsky, and Bach in her music.

Each of the musicians had multiple moments to shine, including Lefteris Bournias, Reggie Nicholson, Brad Jones, and Curtis Stewart, Kourtis’ son.

During all her concerts, Kourtis weaves commentary into the musical presentation. She intrigued the Harlem audience with her description of rebetika as “the Greek blues,” and talked about the essence of the unique Greek character – the manga.

“Café in Old Square,” from her 2019 CD “Cutting Through,” evokes the cafés that are found in all cities where people can gather and talk, she said. An agitated beginning mirrors the storm and stress of daily life for the working poor and rushed middle classes everywhere.

The piece illustrates the psychological dimension of Kourtis’ work.

She calls “Café” a layer cake because every instrument can interchange the four melody lines.

“Each time we play the piece it sounds different because the musicians pick different lines…just like in every discussion we change our tone or point of view reflecting our mood that day.”

The shifts within Kourtis’ pieces are intriguing, again reflecting her life and heritage. The song “Waves” from the CD “Aphrodite’s’ Smile”, was inspired by watching waves come and go on the beach in Naxos.

There is a subtle change in the rhythm – the beat remains the classic modern Greek 5/4 – from a more Hellenic flavor to a Calypso form. Marengue-style strings add more ethnic flavoring.

“Tsamiko”  – a longtime favorite of Kourtis’ Greek fans – is a unique rendition of the traditional Greek dance tune accented by jazzy chords.

Kourtis was delighted to tell the audience that “9 For Curtis” was one of her first compositions, inspired by her son. The lilting melody and catchy beat capture the spirit of Curtis, who now towers over her, when he was a baby.

Some of her compositions aim at the soul, not just the ears, and “Her goal is to integrate all the musical traditions and styles she has experienced throughout her life,” according to a release.

She accomplishes that both through the mastery of the techniques of composition and her passion for music and the world’s cultures.

Bournias’ sometimes soulful, sometimes wild contribution on clarinet enhances the Greek feel of some of her songs – but there is more: gypsy frenzy, African drum beats with rising and falling volumes and variations in velocity, and other elements.

The dancing in the aisles that broke out was inevitable – and the Hellenes in the seats were thrilled.

The post Ensemble Elektra’s Musical Bridges appeared first on The National Herald.

NEW YORK – “Eternal be his memory” of Dr. Antoine Harovas” said His Eminence Archbishop. Demetrios during a
prayer service in Dr. Antoine Harovas’ memory. The wake was held September 28 at the Archdiocesan Cathedral.

Demetrios – who had just returned from officiating at the funeral of John Tavlaridis, Dean of the St. Sophia Cathedral in
Washington, DC – emphasized all that Dr. Harovas did in life, what he created and offered, and that is the foundation to
keep his memory alive among all who knew him.

As Demetrios chanted the memorial, his voice trembled with emotion, as he turned to the family and friends of
Harovas, who gathered to pay homage to husband, father, friend, and physician.

Demetrios also spoke of Harvoas’ round-the-clock availability and the work he did on the Cathedral’s Board.
“He was an exemplary scientist and physician, but also a wonderful servant of the Greek Orthodox Church.”

Though Harovas’ death was sudden, Demetrios noted, he died in peace and with his family by his side.

Frs. Alex Karloutsos and John Vlahos, and Deacon Panteleimon Papadopoulos assisted the archbishop in the service.

Demetrios read a letter from Patriarch Bartholomew, who was a personal friend of the deceased.

Harvoas immigrated to the United States, coming from the Voio province in Western Macedonia.
He was one of the most renowned cardiologists in New York City and worked at Roosevelt Hospital. He acquired his
specialty at Columbia (now New York) Presbyterian Hospital. He was noted for his ethics, generosity and compassion.
Dr. Harovas is survived by his wife, Euterpe, children Anna and Michael Xylas, Lea and John Bendo, and Stephanie and
Bryan Ferro, and grandchildren Alexander, Evan, Alexa, Nicholas, Andrew, and Sophia

The post Dr. Harovas Remembered at Cathedral appeared first on The National Herald.

NEW YORK –The real word can be tough to take. “When the Dodgers left Brooklyn I gave up baseball,” says Constantine (Gus) Cristo, the author of Superhero, a novel about the “real” man behind the comic book character.
But Cristo is not a quitter – and neither was his book’s main character. Cristo turned to basketball, and skill and perseverance earned him a full college scholarship. He later became a restructuring guru, a kind of superman of the corporate world.
“I’m a turnaround guy. I need something there to fix,” said Cristo, and so does his superhero.
The actual and fictional men had a deep need to be useful – and being heroes was the result, not the motivation behind their actions.
But heroes can be disappointing – especially to themselves.
In Cristo’s book, being superhuman is not what it is cracked up to be, hence an elderly Nick Petrakis finds it hard to forgive himself “one moment of emotional weakness,” according to the blurb. “Nick confesses his gifts to a stranger who recreates his story as an indestructible comic book character,” it continues, causing his life to tumble out of control – and sapping his usefulness.
Although Cristo’s story reads like Greek tragedy, it offers a chance at redemption. Along the way, the author provides his readers with an exciting ride, and he makes them care deeply about his characters.
It is not action-adventure story, like the Superman movies, but more a crime drama – disturbing at times. It is a journey deep into human nature and psychology – with a touch of Greek history to inspire, because – yes, Cristo’s Superhero was raised by good Middle American parents, but they were born in Greece, conveying values Cristo believes grounded Petrakis’ potentially volatile character.
Cristo’s passionate Hellenism came late in his life. His wife Debora, who is actually French-English, “Became more Greek that I am.”
They have two sons and she scolds him for not knowing enough Greek to teach them. Eventually, they all found their way back to Hellenism, but Cristo seemed to show them how to be Renaissance men first.
When they lived in Tulsa, OK, he operated a video production subsidiary. As in the book, the accidental can change lives dramatically.
One day after the video production chapter in Cristo’s life closed, he found his sons exploring the abandoned equipment. They made films together and Paul, a musical prodigy, is a working film score composer in L.A. Alex, two years younger, is thriving on the business end of the film industry, but the creative life calls strongly: he is an author, jazz guitarist and inventor.
Eventually the parents followed the Children to California, but Cristo’s roots are in New York.
His mother Efstathia was born in Manhattan but was sent to Lemnos when she was two – her parents were previously displaced from Imbros to Lemnos after the Asia Minor Disaster – and she didn’t return to America until she was 17.
Cristo’s father Pavlos was born on the shores of the Sea of Marmara but when the latter’s father was off on his adventures – he fought for the recovery of Macedonia with the future martyr, Metropolitan Chrysostomos of Smyrna, and later became his bodyguard, – more Superman motifs – Cristo’s father became the man of the house.
He later served in the Greek army during the Asia Minor campaign that turned into a disaster, but would never answer Cristo’s questions about the harrowing experience. He served as a medic “Because he said he was not going to kill any Turks – his father took care of that for the both of them,” Cristo said.
That kind of humanitarianism is another Superman element, and the themes of displacement, and absent fathers, and children cut off from their families are also part of his story.
The family ended up in Thessaloniki and one day his grandmother put a gold coin in his father’s pocket and told him “go to America and send us money so we don’t starve.”
He entered the U.S. in South Carolina and tracked down an uncle in New York who worked at a restaurant.
“He taught himself to read and write and became an American citizen and met my mom at a Panlemnian picnic.”
The strength of both his parents’ characters are reflected in Petrakis, but fathers, although often absent, are a powerful presence in the book.
Cristo’s father began as cobbler with a shoe repair shop, and then became a successful restaurateur in an industrial area in Jersey City, but his thinking was advanced. Cristo told TNH “my father said you beat donkeys, not children” and he always told his son he was the smartest person he’d ever met – unlike parents who make sport of putting down their children.
His mother never understood why she and her brother were left behind for 15 years in Lemnos, but the courage that came of playing with the unexploded WWII bombs on the beach of Lemnos may have made its way to the book, whose hero feared neither bullets nor bombs.
BIRTH OF GREEK SUPERMAN
Cristo got the idea for the book when one of the Superman movies came out. “It just sprang into my head ‘I wonder what it would be like if Superman was a real person. It would seem to me his life would be absolutely miserable” – and that was the inspiration for writing the book he said.
Cristo’s earlier book, titled In the Beginning There Was Me, was “self-therapy” for him.
“I just decided to write…I asked what if God were to go on a rant and He just started talking…I just took all the stuff that was banging around in my head” – Cristo was a trained engineer and he studied quantum physics but determined those could not lead to a job – and wrote in into that book.
The author of Superman is listed as Soledad Samson, but that pen name resulted from a mistake. “I like alliteration,” Constantine Cristo said, but he believed Soledad was a word related to “sun.”
Rather, it means solitude, but even that reflects Nick Petrakis’ life.
Samson just flowed from Soledad – he never made the connection with the superman-like Old Testament figure – who also wrecked his life in one moment of weakness.
The more deeply one looks at Cristo’s Superman, the more one finds.
Along with writing, Hellenism became a passion, but Cristo would not have believed it in his youth.
“I was an athlete and I was absolutely furious I had to go to Greek school twice a week. My cousin and I revolted…Now I regret not speaking Greek.”
His path to advocate of Hellenism included a mentor – George Koulaxes who was part of the team that built the Saturn V rocket that took humanity to the moon.
“He would tell me things about Hellenism that were so incredible that he turned me into a militant. To me, the only thing that can save the world from the destruction we are heading towards is Hellenism. We must reintroduce Hellenism t the world.”
That’s why he started the non-profit organization, The Protognosis Institute – Republic Of Plato – especially to inspire the youth of the community. “The Greek diaspora has been going for 3000 years and that is the foundation – and the Orthodox Church,” for a better future.
The name stems from the profound respect he developed from Plato after his youngest son showed him The Republic. “It could have been written six months ago,” Cristo said of its wisdom.

The post Gus Cristo Pens a Superman Story With a Greek Twist appeared first on The National Herald.

United Airlines has announced that beginning on May 25, 2016 it will schedule direct flights from Newark, NJ to Athens on a daily basis, Greek Travel Pages (GTP) reported.

The flights, between Newark’s Liberty Airport and Athens’ Venizelos airport, will operate using Boeing 767-300 aircraft.

The daily flight is scheduled as follows: to depart Newark at 5:40PM Eastern Time and arrive in Athens at 10:40AM, Greek time, the following morning. The flight from Athens to Newark would leave Venizelos at 12:30PM Greek time and arrive at Liberty at 4:30PM, Eastern Time, the same day.

This flight route is scheduled to run through October 5, 2016.

“United continues to add routes where our customers want to travel, when they want to travel,” said United’s VP of Network Brian Znotins, GTP reported.

The post United Will Have Daily N.Y. Area to Athens Flights 2016, May-Oct. appeared first on The National Herald.

NEW YORK – Philanthropic aid has flowed to needy people in Greece from within and from the Diaspora, but the leader in the efforts to help Greece and its people to survive and move forward is the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF).

On October 15 the Hellenic American Chamber of Commerce (HACC), which presented SNF Co-President Andreas Dracopoulos with its person of the Year Award the following evening,  hosted a screening of a the documentary “OUT HERE (Edo Exo)” depicting  the Foundation’s contributions to the cause of Greek recovery on multiple levels.

SNF Director of Programs and Strategic Initiatives Stelios Vasilakis made a presentation and participated in a Q&A after the film, and the evening concluded with a catered reception.

Vasilakis summed up SNF’s efforts:  “We try to help those most in need who are affected by the crisis,” adding the crucial caveat “our role is not to replace the State, but to complement it.”

Nancy Papaioannou, the president of HACC and of Atlantic Bank, told the audience “on behalf of the officers, the Board, and the members, I feel priviledged to welcome you,” and said Dracopoulos was “recognized for his distinguished and inspired leadership, especially in regard to his support of relief efforts during the crisis that has afflicted our beloved Greece.”

SNF’s Program and Public Affairs Officer Amalia Delicari introduced the movie. After thanking Papaioannou, HACC, and the guests she provided an overview of SNF and its work. “It is an international foundation that to date has made more than 3000 grants of more than 1.5 billion euro” in over 100 countries. “As part of our founders wishes, much of our work focuses on Greece,” she said.

As the toll on Greece’s people became severe, she said,  “In 2012 the Board felt compelled to act, and acted in a significant way with an initiative of $100 million euro…to programs addressing shelter, hunger, medical care, and educational opportunities, among others.”

The documentary, which is as moving and inspiring as it was informative, was created after the completion of those activities at the initiative of SNF employees. “We wanted to show the program’s achievement by presenting the beneficiaries directly,”  Ioanna Kiosse, who works in Athens and was very involved in the film, told TNH. Avion Films was the producer.

“Our efforts did not end with the completion of this initiative,” Delicari said. “In October 2013 an initiative of 100 million euro was begun to combat youth unemployment and in July of 2105…the Foundation’s Board approved another 100 million euro program, to be implemented within a year, which will continue to provide relief support in Greece.

The movie included information not only about the recipient organizations and the money they received, but also about extraordinary programs like the Mobile Medical Units  that bring comprehensive medical  care to 34 remote islands.

It was also emphasized that SNF seeks partners that prioritize both effectiveness and the dignity of the people it helps, especially the schoolchildren who receive food aid.

The expressions of appreciation from parents of children whose futures are being protected were especially touching, and viewers also heard from leaders and employees of the organizations that are providing vital relief, as well as SNF employees who shared their admiration for the people involved in the groups they carefully vet.

Vasilakis noted that while SNF always emphasized resourcefulness and cooperation of its grant recipients with other groups to make the most of the grants. In Greece, such cooperation is also valuable as model behavior that can stimulate further changes in mindsets that will enable Greece to move forward socially and economically.

It was also noted that groups SNF supports are also part of the phenomenon of the rise of volunteerism in Greece that is important for maintaining social solidarity.

One of the most striking initiatives involves Organization Earth, which provides basic farming and business knowledge to Greeks of all backgrounds who have returned to the countryside.

The segment on the assistance provided the Benaki Museum emphasized the importance of the cultural dimension, noting, “Culture is not a luxury, but a necessity,” for a healthy society and its future.

The Center for Talented Youth program of John’s Hopkins University enhances the education of Greece’s most gifted  students, and SNF’s youth unemployment initiatives provides young adults with very valuable mentoring, coaching, and networking tips.

Vasilakis explained that unlike similar foundations, SNFs’ grant application process is open to all organizations that meet 501 c 3 criteria and that they can apply on line.  SNF does not burden them with demands for lengthy reports that take time away from their philanthropic efforts.

SNF asks two basic questions: 1) does the project offer valuable service to society by helping other people, 2) are those involved the right people , morally, ethically and pragmatically.

Organizations around the world that meet 501 c 3 criteria are asked to submit short summaries of their projects and receive timely assessments. Only then are those likely to receive grants asked for more substantial documentation.

The For more information visit: www.snf.org.

The post Documentary “OUT HERE (Edo Exo)” Spotlights Efforts of SNF in Greece appeared first on The National Herald.

KEENE, NH – Republican Presidential frontrunner Donald Trump went to Keene, NH to make a campaign speech, and left with a blessing by a Greek Orthodox priest.

Emmanuel Lemelson, who earned a MDiv at the Hellenic College Holy Cross School of Theology in Brookline, MA, gave the invocation at Trump’s rally.

Lemelson, who in addition to being a priest has a strong business background, including as a hedge fund manager, continued speaking beyond his opening prayer. “New Hampshire has the greatest motto,” he said: “Live Free, or Die.” Then, segueing into Trump’s views on abortion, Lemelson continued: “But first, one must live. Donald’s comments, regarding the sanctity of life, cannot be overlooked.” He condemned abortion as generally being an attack on human sexuality, marriage, and the institution of family. “Whether by surgical or chemical means, abortion is the taking of an innocent life and an affront to the Christian belief.”

He said “Donald’s beliefs are very much in harmony with those of the Church.”

Lemelson also condemned Planned Parenthood, for performing “900 abortions per day, but not having a single mammogram machine.” He explained that group’s monetary incentive to continue performing abortions, and, combining his business and theological realms, Lemelson said: “management, if not grounded in the fear of God, will always respond to monetary incentives.”

Then, speaking to Trump’s qualifications, Lemelson said: “When I was 17, I read (Trump’s book) The Art of the Deal, and it left an impression of an intelligent, capable leader.” He said brilliant business leaders can effect lasting and positive change in America.

When combining Trump’s commitment to the sanctity of life and his unquestionable business credentials, Lemelson concluded, “it is impossible to overlook the legitimacy of his candidacy.”

As for Trump, he gave a one-hour speech, providing more detail to his policies than is usually captured in much smaller news segments, and blasted Republican rival Marco Rubio as being “disloyal” for running against his mentor, Jeb Bush, who is also in the race. That Bush and Rubio continue to refer to one another as “my dear friend” when they really “hate each other,” Trump said, is “political bull****.”

The post Trump Blessed by Greek Orthodox Priest appeared first on The National Herald.

Translated from the original Greek.

NEW YORK – Ethel Bouzalas, the mistress of Fr. George Passias, who was defrocked on October 13 by the Holy Eparchial Synod for carrying on an affair with her (they are both married), is four months pregnant, Archdiocesan Chancellor Bishop Andonios of Phasiane told TNH, although he is not sure who as to the child’s paternity.

Bishop Andonios first learned about the affair from Bouzalas’ husband, Tom. He said that according to Bouzalas, Passias was pressuring her to abort the child, but Passias denies that. She also said she believed Passias would marry her, but Passias denies that as well.

Furthermore, Andonios said, without mentioning specific names, of financial irregularities at the St. Spyridon Greek Orthodox Church in Washington Heights (Upper Manhattan), where Passias was priest and Bouzalas was school principal and parish treasurer.

“The whole issue is very sad,” Andonios said. “It was difficult to digest that something like this was going on. It was unbelievable it was going on for eight years, something they both denied many times.” Ultimately, both admitted to the affair.

“It was a very short email,” Andonios said, about the communication Tom Bouzalas sent him. “he wrote, ‘my wife is cheating on me with Fr. George.’ I was in Italy for my niece’s wedding. I think it was Monday, Sept. 7. I replied to him that I am returning tomorrow, please call me and come to the Archdiocese on Thursday to talk, and bring me whatever proof you have, because it is a very serious issue and I must take the proper actions. I didn’t know that the man was in the hospital. On Friday (September 11), I received an e-mail from Fr. George requesting permission to go with his presbytera to see their spiritual father for serious issues.”

Was it the Elder Ephraim? “He didn’t say whom, he simply said ‘our spiritual father.’ This is how I began to suspect something was wrong, having also received Mr. Bouzalas’ email.

HE SAID, SHE SAID

“The following week (Monday, Sept. 21), he came with his presbytera in order to tell me the whole story. He said that he can’t believe what he did, that he was blinded, and he is very sorry for the scandal he has caused to the Church. He also said that he wanted to stop the relationship but Ethel Bouzalas didn’t let him.”

Bishop Andonios says that although he has no proof that Bouzalas is pregnant, “I have no reason not to believe her. She should be about four months pregnant” at this point, he said.

As for Passias, “he told me that he doesn’t know if the child is his, and we left it there,” Andonios said. Passias did not say anything about Bouzalas having relations with other men, though, Andonios added.

Although Bouzalas says Passias pressured her into having an abortion, Andonios says Passias told him “I preached against abortions for so many years; I couldn’t tell her to have an abortion.”

Bouzalas, Andonios says, told him that she was in love with Passias, and that her marriage was not very successful even from the beginning. She got to know Passias when he was at the Holy Cross parish in Brooklyn, and she found him easy to talk to. Both told Andonios, he said, that the actual affair began after they had gone to St. Spyridon.

DEFROCKING

Andonios says he told Passias that defrockment was a possibility, but it would be up to the Synod. Passias said he preferred not to be defrocked.

After seeing the evidence for himself, Andonios contacted Archbishop Demetrios immediately. “We had gone to Chicago for the Assembly of the canonical Orthodox Bishops and I notified His Eminence there. He was very alarmed. He couldn’t believe it. He felt extremely bad, because he realized that the issue would create a scandal in the Archdiocese and to the faithful.

Andonios says that Passias is back in New York with his wife, and that he didn’t come to see Andonios again upon his return from seeing his spiritual father.

Andonios also explained that the reason he offered to have the Archdiocese pay for Bouzalas’ professional help is because “this is according to our rules. We worried for her condition, and so that she wouldn’t do any harm to herself.”
But why should the Archdiocese have to pay, we asked? “If someone feels they no longer want to exist, should we offer some help? We are not talking about big sums of money. We should help, no matter who she is.”

Andonios says that two years ago, when the New York Post first reported about the affair, Andonios did call Passias in and questioned him, but Passias denied it.

As to St. Spyridon’s finances, “we hired an accountant, and no irregularities were found.

When we reminded him that in a 2012 letter from Timothy Sherman of Cohen Greve & Company, CPA PC indicated there were quite a few irregularities, Andonios said: “I don’t remember, I’ll have to check it. Many times, accountants find something wrong, but they weren’t serious irregularities.”

1. SPYRIDON’S FUTURE

What about now? “We will bring in the accountant again to see if there is anything from the time of his last examination. They all know about the money (the $30,000 that Bouzalas took when she left the church) because she revealed it on her own. If she doesn’t return it, we are going to go to the police. She says she lent the money to the parish, but no one from the Parish Council has that same understanding.”

As for Bouzalas’ claim that the $30,000 was just a loan because her husband had given enough over the years in donations, specifically $300,000 to Holy Cross, could the Archdiocese verify that amount? “I will ask,” Andonios said. “If they paid by check, then we can verify. If it was cash, it will be harder.”

Andonios also explained why St. Spyridon borrowed $3.5 million from Alma Bank. It was to correct violations regarding residential apartment buildings the church owns on the same block: “Since Alma Bank assumed management, I know that many things have been corrected and the situation has bettered for the church – and now we have profits.

“We will do an audit of St. Spyridon again. Among the old group, there are people who didn’t do things correctly.”
Will the Archdiocese appoint a new parish council? “At this moment, I don’t see a reason to do so. They all behaved very well. They didn’t do anything wrong. Their only mistake was having complete trust in Fr. George.”

Did Andonios find it peculiar that Passias placed Bouzalas on the Parish Council and made her principal of the St. Spyridon School? “Yes, it was strange,” he acknowledged. “In some parishes, priests have created a mindset that they are in control. But that’s why we have parish councils, for checks and balances.”

So Fr. Passias was defrocked, but why aren’t other clergymen involved in inappropriate conduct defrocked as well?
“You should ask the Synod,” Andonios said. “I am not a member of the Synod. Only they know the answer.”

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NEW YORK – Andreas Dracopoulos, Co-President of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) was celebrated as the Person of the Year of the of the Hellenic American Chamber of Commerce (HACC) at its 67^th annual dinner dance that was held at Manhattan’s Pierre Hotel on October 16.

The friends of the honoree helped make the event the venerable organization’s most successful to date according to its Chairman, Clay Maitland, who served as the event’s Emcee, but the large turnout also reflected the Greek-American Community’s appreciation for SNF’s massive donations in support of the people of Greece during the economic crisis and their admiration for Dracopoulos’s philanthropic leadership.

Nancy Papaioannou, president of HACC and of Atlantic Bank, also welcomed the guests and congratulated Dracopoulos and SNF. She noted that the night before the event in the ballroom of the Pierre HACC hosted a screening of the documentary “OUT HERE (Edo Exo)” depicting the Foundation’s contributions to the cause of Greek recovery on multiple levels.

The text of Dracopoulos’ speech appears below.

HACC’s Young Professionals Annual Gala that was held in the nearby Pierre Rotunda also broke records. Co-Director George Zapantis told TNH it’s sold out event drew more than 250 to a buffet party and entertainment by the Magges band.

The guests in the ballroom danced to the music of Grigoris Maninakis and an expanded Mikrokosmos Ensemble.

Address of Andreas Dracopoulos, SNF Co-President:

Distinguished guests, It is with great honor and appreciation that I am here this evening, accepting the Hellenic-American Chamber of Commerce’s Man of the Year award. I do so on behalf of my great-uncle, the late Stavros Niarchos, whose business successes throughout his life made it possible for us to do what we have been doing for the last 20 years, contributing towards building a better society, hopefully, for all of us. I do so, also, on behalf of all of my colleagues at our Foundation whose hard work and passion has enabled us to try and fulfill our mission since our inception back in 1996.

Just a few words about who we are. We are lucky. Lucky because our founder, Stavros Niarchos, upon his passing away, endowed our Foundation with a significant endowment, giving us the opportunity and the financial means to try to do good things around the world. But, with this good luck comes responsibility, of course, for all of us to do the best we can to actually do good!

We have been engaged in global grant-making activities for close to 20 years now. We are coming of age, but we are still young and kind of restless! We have provided grants to over 3,000 organizations in 111 countries, 1.8 billion USD in total. We have been active in the areas of education, arts and culture, health and sports, and social welfare. For obvious reasons, and also due to the current on-going multi-year serious socioeconomic crisis in Greece, we do focus a lot on Greece, but at the same time we remain truly global in our day to day grant-making efforts.

We try to keep our ‘in-house’ guidelines simple. Our mission is to help, and in order to do so to the best of our abilities, we assess whether a grant proposal, any incoming proposal, adds value to society at large, and whether the persons involved in implementing it are decent, professional, ethical, capable, and efficient. If the answer to these two basic questions is ‘yes’ then our job is to challenge ourselves to ‘prove’ why we would ever decline such a proposal. This may sound a bit strange, at first, but I do believe that it keeps us committed to our mission, which is purely philanthropic.

This philosophy, at the same time, should hopefully help us avoid becoming arrogant or patronizing in any way. We do not get involved in policy making, we do not try to ‘replace’ anyone or anything, we just try to complement private and public efforts and to strengthen projects that can help our fellow human beings and improve society at large. We try to remain flexible and adjust as times and needs arounds us evolve.

Unfortunately, we cannot say ‘yes’ to all the proposals we receive, but I can tell you, that within our means we do try our best. In the last decade, it has been made clear in many places around the world that the social welfare state is facing existential challenges. Help could be found within the notion of a social welfare society where all healthy forces join together; that should become our goal. Furthermore, I would argue that it is not a matter of choice but rather a matter of necessity, necessity for a more just and efficient society, if not for survival itself.

Free markets, capitalism itself, I do believe work fine but they have to adjust to take into account the social well-being of people at large. The issues and challenges we are all facing are simply too many, too complicated, too big for any state to solve on its own, or certainly for the private sector to do so on its own, and obviously too big for philanthropy to deal with them on its own as well. All members from all sectors, including public, private, not-for-profits, supranational organizations and humanitarian institutions, have to contribute towards creating a healthy society, which is able to provide for its citizens the basic needs of life, to allow for decency, dignity, and civility, to provide an opportunity to dream, to help make dreams become reality, to hope for a better tomorrow, and to contribute in helping towards creating a fairer and healthier society, strong enough to defend itself against extremes of all kinds.

All positive forces have to collaborate towards this end. And this takes me to Greece. At the front lines of dealing with a severe socioeconomic crisis, a crisis which is now in real danger of becoming the ‘norm’, destroying dreams and real livelihoods, not only for one, but for many generations to come. The issues that Greece is dealing with are well known to all of us, given the wide media coverage in the last few years, and especially during this latest rather surreal chapter that took place in the summer, when it all came very close for Greece to exit the Euro, Europe, etc.

Apparently this was the dream and mission of some, hopefully and apparently a small minority. At the same time, apparently it came too close to becoming a reality, a reality which in my mind would take Greece to a nightmarish scenario. Hopefully this has been averted, at least for the time being, but a lot of damage has been done already. There is a Japanese proverb that says that vision with no action is day-dreaming, whereas action with no vision is a nightmare. In the case of Greece, it seems that we are in a no vision, no action state of paralysis; in an on-going nightmarish abyss.

I do hope, and actually I want to believe that there is indeed hope. But in order for Greece to come out of this extreme crisis, its governments, together with its people must realize that the every-day mentality has to change and start rebuilding the basis for efficient collaborations across the board. Greece has to show the world that as it did in the past, the country can once again lead by example.

Greece should aim for creating a true social welfare society where all the healthy forces from all sectors of the country will be allowed to take the lead to ‘clean up’ and fix a country where the majority of its proud people are suffocating, paying the price for Greece’s exploitation by some minority groups, an exploitation that has been going on for most of the country’s modern history. There is no time for day-dreaming, certainly no time for on-going nightmares. The mission is tough, but in order to avoid the abyss all healthy forces have to stand up and demand the cleaning up of the country. In the area of Philanthropy, all I would like to say is that there is no “crowding out” effect in any way. The more the merrier!

We at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation have tried to contribute as much as we can in Greece, and we continue to do so. For the last 20 years we have been actively engaging in grant making activities that hopefully have contributed to socioeconomic improvements across the board. Our three additional initiatives, in the last 3 years, of about 370m to help alleviate the effects of the crisis, together with the imminent completion of our 815m Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center, are major pieces of this effort.

The Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center, a unique public-private partnership endeavor, will be delivered and fully donated to the Greek people in 2016 and it includes the new homes for the National Library and the National Opera House of Greece, surrounded by a 40+acre green park. We are very proud of the end result but equally proud of the process of building this project over the last few years, a process that provided work to almost 13,000 workers, a project that is expected, according to an earlier study by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), which is available online at our website, to help contribute significant job opportunities and have an overall positive economic effect. Among its various conclusions the BCG study focuses on, and I quote, “The construction and operation of the SNFCC is expected to have positive impacts in the form of increased capital investments, consumption spending, job creation, attraction of complementary businesses and other enrichments to the economic, environmental and social fabric of the local communities, Athens and Greece.” End of quote; and a couple of other conclusions,

Quote “Approximately €1 billion of total economic stimulus will be derived from the upfront donation for the construction of SNFCC, with effects observed in the short- to mid-term horizon.” End of quote, and, Quote “(the) SNFCC will serve as a beacon of environmental sustainability in Greece and be the standard against which all other major infrastructure projects are measured.” End of quote. We want to believe that there are others, the known others with a lot of means, who can also step in and help, especially during this on-going severe socioeconomic crisis which is disintegrating the social fabric of the Greek society in so many ways. If not now when?

The German poet and philosopher Schiller once said: “Damned Greek, you found everything; philosophy, geometry, physics, astronomy… you left nothing for us.” The American poet and journalist William Cullen Bryant said: “We are the pupils of Greece’s great men, in all the principles of science, morals and of government.” Victor Hugo said: “it is great to descend from Greece, the land that gave the light to the world.” Voltaire, “Defend Greece because to them we owe our lights, our sciences, and all of our virtues.” For Greece and its people to be going through this now? For people around the world to feel contempt and anger towards us and at best to pity us now? We deserve better, we know better, and it all starts from our own backyard! How is it possible not to be proud carrying this heritage?

And yet it seems that we have not realized still that together with the pride that we rightly carry with us, we must also understand that we carry a huge responsibility to our ancestors, our children and to a large extent, to the whole world. The responsibility not to rest on the laurels of our ancestors, and the responsibility to work hard and in a moral way, in order to help provide our children with a better tomorrow. On this, let us not forget that the Diaspora is an extension of the motherland. In these difficult times, the burden of responsibility for Hellenism everywhere is even heavier, and I am sure that all of us are fully aware of our obligations. There is no room left for more day-dreaming, but just for quick and efficient action.

In this spirit, I would like to congratulate the Hellenic-American Chamber of Commerce for announcing that the proceeds of tonight’s event will be donated to assist the people of Greece. Thank you! In closing, a modern Greek philosopher, Emmanouil Kriaras, who passed away recently at the young age of 107, once said that true love can only be achieved by being able to constantly seek your ideals. I urge all of you to do seek your ideals, to do your best to help the ones who need you, and in doing so, to stay in love. Thank you!

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