WEIRTON, WV – The historic community of All Saints in Weirton, WV proudly celebrates its Centennial May 13 and 14, and its keynote speaker will be Michael Psaros, a proud and beloved son of the community.
He is the Greek-American community’s emerging prominent leader. He is co-Founder and co-Managing Partner of KPS Capital Partners (KPS) – LP, and a member of its Investment Committee.
KPS is the manager of KPS Special Situations Funds, a family of private equity funds with approximately $5.6 billion of assets under management, focused on making controlling equity investments in companies across a diverse range of manufacturing industries.
Psaros is a faithful Churchman par excellence, a philanthropist, a true Hellene, and a proud American.
In an interview with The National Herald, he said that “when I was 12 or 13 years old, his Eminence Archbishop Iakovos of blessed memory came to All Saints for an official visit. I cannot tell you what a major event this was for the All Saints community.Despite my age, I was selected to deliver the keynote speech.Back then, all parishioners spoke Greek.My Yiayia (who didn’t speak English) – the poet, Evyenia Loufakis – wrote the speech. The Sunday event was on Father’s Day.
She wrote a speech that blended extraordinary thoughts and reflections on what it means to be a father, followed by thoughts recognizing our ‘metanastes pateres, pou eirthan edo horis glossa, horis chrima, horos ekpaideysi, ma me pisti, agape, kai elpitha.’ I am turning 50 in June, only two weeks after the Centennial Celebration.Approximately 40 years after I gave a keynote speech for Archbishop Iakovos, His Eminence, Geron Archbishop Demetrios is going to visit, and I am giving the keynote speech, on Mother’s Day. It is either God’s will, or at least, poetry.”
Regarding the Centennial, Psaros said that “I am overcome with emotion for what this event means for our past, present, and future. All Saints is a beacon of Orthodoxy in the Ohio Valley, and an example to all of the Churches in the Holy Archdiocese. Our parishioners are exemplars of devotion, faith, philotimo, respect, hard work, tenacity, and optimism.Against all odds, the parish continues to grow, to thrive, and inspire.”
Speaking about memories this celebration brings to his mind, Psaros said “similar to most Greek-Americans, I remember growing up in two worlds. One was American and English-speaking, and the other was Greek. I was born in West Virginia and so were my parents, and yet everyone referred to all non-ethnic Americans as ‘Americani.’I knew we were different. We knew we were different. We took pride in being different. When I walked into my grandparents’ homes, I could just have easily been teleported to Chios. The difference was that startling.
“Most of my memories of All Saints center on the old Church Hall. Whether it was the coffee hour after church or the epic March 25th celebrations with the accompanying pomp and pageantry, the wearing of foustanelles and the recitation of heroic poetry, it was that sense of belonging, and sense of family was truly transformational.
“If I could have one moment back in my life, it would be the following:growing up, our parish had an annual Greek Picnic at the Serbian Picnic Grounds (owned by the Serbian Orthodox Church). I can still smell the lambs on the spit, hear the bouzoukia, and feel the energy – ‘kefi.’All Saints welcomed the entire Weirton community to share in our culture that day. At the time, my pappou was in his mid-80s, but still worked 10 hours a day as a barber. He was the best dancer I have ever seen.As a teenager, at the picnic, he would ask me to bring him double-doubles, or in Greek “diplocambana.” After a few drinks, he would take to the dance floor, stretch out his arms to the sky, and dance. He was majestic. A true man’s man. I would watch him dance with such pride, accompanied by three generations of our family. There is nothing I would not give to have that moment back.”
WEIRTON
When we asked him “how do you feel today that the small boy, Michael Psaros, has become a prominent businessman, Churchman, and eminent member of the Greek-American community and returns to the All Saints parish, your beloved parish, as a keynote speaker at its centennial celebration,” he said “I thank you for those accolades, but the wonderful thing is in Weirton, I am just Mike the Barber’s grandson and George and Mary Ann’s son.My success is the result of the love, very real discipline, great expectations, respect and philotimo I learned from my family and the All Saints community, who raised me with a fundamental understanding that I am an American of Hellenic descent. This has grounded me. This has provided me with confidence.This has provided me with dignity. My family and the All Saints community taught me the value system, traditions, and respect present in every Greek family, along with accompanying obligations and expectations.I carry that value system with me every day.
“When I was asked to give the keynote speech, I was honored and humbled. I feel the weight of the giants of our community who fell asleep in the Lord. While they will be with us in spirit, I would like to provide them with a voice. I have given many speeches all over the world on professional, Orthodox, and Hellenic matters, but this will be the most important speech I have ever given. This is about my family. This is about the place where my heart resides. I am not going to give a speech, but rather an exhortation about the future as a respectful son of All Saints and the Church.
“This celebration is not just about the past 100 years, but rather setting the stage for the next 100 years. I am going to speak about the future. It would be too easy and a disservice to our children to only focuses on the past.”
Speaking about the uniqueness of the parish of All Saints, Psaros said “this centennial is a triumphant human interest story, not just another 100th parish anniversary. Weirton is a steel town, and there is a magic in every steel town.People who grow up in a steel town have a special pride, a mental toughness, a confidence, an assertiveness, that all comes from being a steelworker. I am an industrialist, and I can assure you that there is nothing as breathtaking to behold as an integrated blast furnace steel mill. It takes a special person to walk through those mill gates every day. Please understand the working conditions, even in a modern mill are brutal – the dirt, dust, graphite, grease, and heat. However, it takes thousands of people working as a team to make steel. Therefore, despite the robust individuality of the steelworker, there is also an extraordinary sense of place, family, and community.These steel town values form the core of the culture of Weirton and All Saints.
“When [Ernest] Weir created Weirton Steel over 100 years ago, the mill was a magnet for Eastern and Southern European immigrants, who came by the thousands. In Greece, new immigrants, mostly men, would send for their family members. Weirton is very much an immigrant town. I am amazed that anywhere I travel in the Holy Archdiocese, there is someone who had a family member that worked in the mill as far back as the 1920s and 1930s, and whose family subsequently moved away. When I was growing up in the 1970s and early 1980s, Weirton had about 20,000 residents and the mill employed 10,000 people. Tragically, the steel industry has suffered three great cataclysms, and a result of the third, Weirton Steel no longer exists. Another company now owns and operates the Tin Mill that employs around 800-900 people, but primary steelmaking has ceased. The Mill’s assets and real estate have been sold to a developer who intends to level and then redevelop the former steel mill site.Across the Ohio River in Weirton’s sister community, the same sized Wheeling-Pittsburgh steel company also closed. The steel mill closures resulted in the material loss of employment, a reduced tax base, and the exodus of young people seeking opportunity elsewhere, placing the town under stress.
“Despite the circumstances of the Community, All Saints remains a beacon of Orthodoxy in the Ohio Valley. The Parish, despite all odds, continues to thrive. Two years ago, All Saints completed an expansion, or annex to the existing Church structure at a cost of over $600,000.That amount was raised quickly in a community where substantially all the parishioners rely on social security or a fixed pension as their primary source of income.To put this in perspective, it would be like a parish in New York raising $6 million in 90-120 days. Amazingly, the color of the brick and mortar were identically matched to the original. The parish added a new entrance, an industrial sized elevator, a new pangari, handicapped equipped bathroom, and bride’s room. In addition, the Church’s commercial kitchen has been replaced over the past few years at great expense, along with many other improvements. With great pride, the All Saints community hosts the town’s summer highlight – its food festival – whereby thousands of people come to share in our food, our culture and our Church. The tenacity, the tharos, and pride and that the All Saints Community takes in our Orthodox Church and Hellenic traditions should be an inspiration to the entire Holy Archdiocese, the Greek American community and the global Greek Diaspora.
“Please note that All Saints, a small Parish in West Virginia, has produced the Treasurer of the Holy Archdiocese, and the next Supreme President of AHEPA.”
How do his children feel about Psaros’ home parish? “My children and my wife are amazed by how I refer to Weirton as ‘home,’ considering I have lived in New York since 1989 and my family’s deep commitment to the Church of Our Savior in Rye, NY. They are taken aback by the intergenerational nature and familial character of the Weirton community. I am asked ‘Dad, how does everyone know who your parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins are, including the people who have passed away?’That is the All Saints community.”
FAMILY
Speaking with much love and respect about his parents and grandparents, Psaros said “all four of my grandparents are immigrants. My mother’s parents immigrated from the village of Olympi in Chios. My father’s family immigrated from Kos and Halikarnassos (Bodrum) in Asia Minor. My grandfather’s family was destroyed in the Asia Minor genocide.My grandmother’s family stopped in Kos for a number of years on their way to the United States. My parents were born in West Virginia and so was I. But despite being a second generation Greek-American, I didn’t learn English until I started school. Since both of my parents worked, my grandparents took care of me and only spoke to me in Greek. My mother’s mother and my father’s father are the two giants in my life. My Yiayia Evyenia taught me the power of language, and I do not mean just how read and write, but the power of language, how it can be poetic and lyrical. Words mattered to her. As a child, she would read to me in the only textbook she knew – the Iliad and the Odyssey. In addition, and most importantly, she taught me how speak in public.My grandfather, a refugee of the First World War and the Genocide in Asia Minor, was an eyewitness to the horrors of the 20th Century.When he spoke, I would listen with an undivided attention. He had no time for me to be a little boy or a young man, after all, he was an orphan and had no childhood.From age of three or four, he began lecturing me on history, cultures, foreign affairs, comparative religion, and politics.He was a master teacher, and I was a respectful and eager student. Yiayia and Papou also taught me how to vegetable garden. The garden is one of my passions. When I smell the dirt, I think of them. In my garden, I have a stainless steel sign on a post that reads ‘Evgenia’s Garden – may hermemory be eternal.’
“When Yiayia fell asleep in the Lord, I purchased her home – my soul was in that home. After a quarter of a century, I donated her house to the Weirton Christian Center, where it was christened ‘Evgeniya’s House of Hope.’ To this day, she continues to help the poor and less fortunate through the house that she loved.My parents are the hardest working and most selfless people that I know. They embody the word philotimo.My mother was a middle-school chorus teacher.My father was one of the senior executives at Weirton Steel. They sacrificed everything for my brother and me.And it’s the little things a son remembers.For example, my dad would come home from a brutal 12-hour day in the mill, covered head to toe in grease, and then sit down with me for hours to help me with math. As an ‘engineer’s engineer,’ this was his forte and passion. My mom, who in her own very quiet way, demanded excellence of her sons on one hand, while also providing unconditional love, encouragement and support of a mother.They are my heroes.”
NO HELLENISM WITHOUT ORTHODOXY
Asked how are we doing today as a church and a community in the United States, Psaros said, “I want to be very clear about something, and this is very important for me to say on the record, there is no such thing as Hellenism without Orthodoxy.I can only view Hellenism through the glorious prism of our Church. You cannot separate the two. I have no respect for so-called ‘secular’ Hellenes. They are breathing with one lung. Secular Greeks should understand that after the fall of Constantinople and the accompanying 400 years of enslavement and bondage of the Greeks and Balkan Christians by the Ottoman Turks, it was the Church that maintained our identity, our customs, our culture, our language, and our religion.Secular Greeks should learn from the example of our Church’s Martyrs and Saints over the millennia, who went to their deaths, because they were unwilling to deny their faith. Secular should observe, even as Christianity is being liquidated in the Middle East, Christians refuse to deny their faith despite torture, deprivation, humiliation and even martyrdom. Secular Greeks should recognize that when their parents or grandparents immigrated, they didn’t build community centers to play basketball or reflect on the grandeur of the Athenian Republic 3,000 years ago over coffee, they built Orthodox Churches.
I am in awe of the success of the Greek-American community in North America and the Greek Diaspora worldwide. By every measure, including education, income level, professional achievement, advancement and overall success, the Greek-American community has succeeded and is succeeding. The Greek American community has also survived the transition from the immigrant generation to the post-immigrant generation. Very few ethnic groups have managed this transition as successfully.Many of our families and communities are in the third to fifth generations.While a challenge, it is remarkable that our traditions, our culture and our faith continue to thrive.In our family, the children of my brother and cousins are the fourth generation.I am humbled by, and take great pride in how hard my brother and my cousins work to ensure their children are raised with our faith and traditions.
“As an Archon, Ostiarios, of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, and a member of the Executive Board of the Order of St. Andrew, first called of the Apostles, I ask for our communities to support and pray for His All Holiness, Bartholomew, Archbishop of Constantinople and New Rome and Ecumenical Patriarch, who is now under siege from many forces. There is a new Sultan in Constantinople, who subsequent to the attempted coup, released real criminals from his prisons, in order to make room for thousands journalists, political opponents, judges, teachers, clerics, military personnel and civil servants. This Sultan has suspended all freedoms and has absolute control over the second largest military inside NATO.This Sultan is doing everything he can to turn Hagia Sophia into a mosque, abandoning all pretense of the Turkish Republic being a secular state. His All Holiness just celebrated the 25th anniversary of his enthronement. The Greek-American community must be vocal advocates and protectors of our Mother Church in the in Washington and in our statehouses.
“The Holy Archdiocese of North America is a treasure. It is the only institution that binds that community together. It is our rock – sacred, holy, and eternal. There is no ethnic or secular organization that approaches the primacy of the Church in the life of our community. Our Church is currently challenged by all of the same forces confronting all religions in the United States, led by the rabidly secular media and so-called ‘elites.’ This aggressive denigration of religion in the United States has negatively impacted our church and all churches in respect of membership and active participation. The only way to strengthen our church is for the faithful to become actively and passionately involved with their local parishes and metropolises. We all have a responsibility to build and strengthen the Church for generations to come.”
Where should we place our priorities in order to avoid an “expiration date?”
Psaros said “the first priority of our church is to retain the faith and commitment of our youth. Studies indicate that during the college and immediate post-collegiate years, young people ‘fall away’ – not just our Church, but religion in general. Through every means possible, we must make the church relevant for young people today. The second priority of our church should be reestablishing its relationship with those who are unchurched. There is a war against organized religion of all kinds in the United States. The church must find a way to attract the Orthodox faithful who have fallen away. Third, the Ancient Church is a jewel, and that jewel is being discovered every day by converts. Our church must welcome converts with enthusiasm and open arms, especially given the overwhelming majority of ‘mixed’ marriages today.
“On the last Salutation Services to the Virgin, I offered the ‘KethosEmen,’ while the ‘Aspile’ was offered by a man who was raised in the Jewish Faith. Central to these priorities is the creation of a communications and outreach strategy using all forms of 21st century communication. Finally, we must establish the financial foundation of the church.For example, Leadership 100 should have five to ten times as many members. People who have the resources have a profound moral obligation to respond and support the church.”
The post Michael Psaros, All Saints’ Prominent and Beloved Son appeared first on The National Herald.