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NEW YORK – The Holy and Sacred Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate elected unanimously today the Very Reverend Archimandrite Nathanael Symeonides as Metropolitan of Chicago. Immediately following the election, His Eminence Archbishop Demetrios of America stated: “I express my wholehearted congratulations on the election of Very Reverend Archimandrite Nathanael Symeonides as Metropolitan of Chicago, wishing the abundant blessing of God on the sacred ministry the Church has entrusted him with. The newly-elected Metropolitan has served as Deacon, Priest and Director of the Department of Inter-Orthodox, Ecumenical and Inter-Religious Relations for a number of years, and I am certain that he...

Researchers think Plutarch’s De Facie tells the tale of Greek sailors making the treacherous transatlantic crossing. They dug into the science to show how it could have happened. The story of the European settlement of North America usually features a few main characters: red-headed Norsemen who sailed across an icy sea to set up temporary outposts, Spanish conquistadors, white-collared English separatists, French trappers, and Dutch colonists. Now a team of Greek scholars proposes another—and much earlier—wave of European migration: the Hellenistic Greeks, in triremes powered by sail and oar in the first century CE, nearly a millennium before the Vikings.These...

Biblical scholars have discovered the first-known original Greek copy of an ancient forbidden Christian text that purportedly describes Jesus’ secret teachings to his “brother” James, an early leader of the Church. Geoffrey Smith and Brent Landau, religious studies scholars at The University of Texas at Austin, located the rare text in Oxford University archives earlier this year. The experts found several fifth- or sixth-century A.D. Greek fragments of the First Apocalypse of James, one of the books from an ancient collection known as the Nag Hammadi library. Previously, the text was thought to be preserved only via translations in the...

The Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, the spiritual center of Orthodox Christianity which is based in Turkey, is unable to train clergy and potential successors for the position of patriarch. The reason is that the Halki Seminary, the only school for training the leadership of Orthodox Christianity, was forcibly closed down by the Turkish government in 1971. It has been waiting to re-open its doors ever since.The closing of the Halki seminary, which was founded in 1844 on the island of Halki (Heybeliada), has made it very difficult for the Ecumenical Patriarchate to survive. The Allard K. Lowenstein International Human Rights...

Sept. 6, 1955 started just like any other day for the Greeks, Armenians, and Jews of ‎Istanbul—or Constantinople. ‎‎”I resided in Cengelkoy with my wife and two children back then,” wrote Apostolos Nikolaidis ‎in the book I Nihta ton Kristallon. ‎”Just as protests were starting in Taksim, I left my shop in Karakoy and went home.”Nikolaidis did not know that a horrid ethnic cleansing campaign was on the way. Just like Nikolaidis, ‎thousands of non-Muslims in Istanbul were not yet aware of the intent of their own state to ‎destroy their private property, businesses, and places of worship, to terrorize...

Caption -- Borobudur: hardly Chinese The author is former foreign secretary of India sibalkanwal@gmail.com The West has built a lot of myths about China which others, including in India, have accepted without challenge. That China was for centuries the dominant power in Asia and is now on the way to recovering that lost status is one such myth. This historical distortion is serving to legitimize China's hegemonic ambitions, as if China has the right to recover its natural position in Asia and any resistance amounts to denying the Chinese their due. This explains why even when China is aggressive...

The 3,700-year-old Babylonian tablet Plimpton 322 at the Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Columbia University in New York. Credit: UNSW/Andrew Kelly ================================================================================ UNSW Sydney scientists have discovered the purpose of a famous 3700-year old Babylonian clay tablet, revealing it is the world's oldest and most accurate trigonometric table, possibly used by ancient mathematical scribes to calculate how to construct palaces and temples and build canals. The new research shows the Babylonians beat the Greeks to the invention of trigonometry - the study of triangles - by more than 1000 years, and reveals an ancient mathematical sophistication that had been...

The cargo ship named M/V ACT was carrying steel from the southern port of İskenderun to İzmit in the northwest when the Greek coast guard called on the ship to divert its course to Rhodes, Turkey-based Deniz Haber Ajansı reported. Turk said the Hellenic Coast Guard opened fire after the Turkish-flagged ship refused to comply with instructions to dock at the port of Rhodes for an inspection. The Greek coast guard confirmed the incident, saying it approached the vessel and asked the captain to dock at Rhodes after the authority received an anonymous call saying drugs were being transported.The captain...

Yannis Vasilis Yaylalı, an ethnic Greek peace activist born in Samsun, was recently arrested by Turkish police in the Kurdish city of Şırnak, where he had been living since 2012. Yannis Vasilis YaylalıMeral Geylani, his partner and fellow activist, told the Armenian Weekly that four lawsuits have been filed against Yaylalı. Three of them are for “discouraging the public from military service” and one is for “publicly disrespecting Mustafa Kemal Ataturk” through his articles and social media posts about the 1914-1923 massacre of Pontian (Pontic) Greeks by Turkey.“On April 22, the day he posted his article about the commemoration of...

Today, 167 journalists languish in Turkish jails, a figure reported by Turkey’s Platform for Independent Journalism (P24). Many TV stations, news agencies, newspapers, magazines, radio stations and publishing houses have also been shut down under state of emergency decrees since last year’s abortive coup.But pressures against the media is not a recent phenomenon in Turkey. It would not be an overstatement to say that since Turkey’s 1923 founding, violent as well as non-violent attacks against newspapers and journalists have been the norm in the country.Many Turks – including journalists – have recently been trying to get away from the pressures...

In her political writings, Soti Triantafyllou styles herself as a champion of secular Enlightenment values which she sees as being under threat in Europe from intolerant outsiders and the cultural relativism of the multi-culti left. Her enemies denounce her ideas as thinly disguised racism." data-caption="In her political writings, Soti Triantafyllou styles herself as a champion of secular Enlightenment values which she sees as being under threat in Europe from intolerant outsiders and the cultural relativism of the multi-culti left. Her enemies denounce her ideas as thinly disguised racism." In her political writings, Soti Triantafyllou styles herself as a champion...

The "Sub tuum praesidium" was originally used in an ancient Coptic liturgy As we pray for the success of Pope Francis’ trip to Egypt this weekend, a perfect prayer to use is the oldest known Marian prayer, which in fact, traces back to the pope’s host country.The oldest known Marian prayer is found on an ancient Egyptian papyrus dating from around the year 250. Today known in the Church as the Sub tuum praesidium, the prayer is believed to have been part of the Coptic Vespers liturgy during the Christmas season. Read more: Saint Mark: Father of Coptic Christianity    The original prayer was...

April 24 marked the 102nd anniversary of the 1915 Armenian Genocide. Armenians around the world – as well those in the international community who care about human rights – remembered the 1.5 million victims of the genocide and paid homage to their legacy. The Armenian Genocide began on April 24, 1915, when the Ottoman Turkish government ordered the deportation of approximately 250 Armenian intellectuals.In the meantime, Turkey has been in a period of political turmoil – particularly following last year’s abortive coup. Since then, the mass dismissal of academics from universities seems to have become the norm in Turkey. According...

A Greek appeals court ruled on Tuesday against Ankara’s request to extradite three of eight Turkish soldiers who fled across the border to Greece after last year’s failed coup attempt.In January, Greece’s top court had blocked the extradition of all eight men, who Turkey alleges were involved in efforts to overthrow the government. Ankara then filed a second extradition request.The court is expected to rule in the coming weeks on the five cases remaining from the second requestThe three majors, three captains and two sergeant-majors landed a helicopter in Greece on July 16 and sought asylum, saying they feared for...

Being a celebrity is often associated with having a certain lifestyle. Fame often brings fortune, privileges, and opportunities—whether they are career-related or not. Celebrities are thought to have an “easier” life, in which they get special treatment wherever they go—well, except for celebrities in Turkey who are Armenian, Greek, Kurdish, Jewish, or members of any other ethnic or religious minority. Sometimes, even being associated with them is considered unacceptable.Ayhan Işık, for example, was the most beloved Turkish leading actor in the 1950’s and 1960’s. He was also a movie producer, director, script writer, singer, and painter. He was nicknamed by...

Tension is running high between Greece and Turkey. The cause? Turkish Chief of the General Staff Gen. Hulusi Akar paid a visit to Imia, a pair of two small, uninhabited Greek islets in the Aegean Sea, on January 29. He was accompanied by the commanders of the Turkish land, naval and air forces.Imia – which Turkey calls “Kardak” – was a subject of yet another crisis in 1996 that brought Greece and Turkey to the brink of war. Although armed conflict was ultimately averted, Turkey still claims that the islands are Turkish, even though the islands in the Aegean are...

This population decline of Greeks in Turkey has not been due to natural causes but rather the result of state-sponsored attacks and pressure. The current Greek population in Turkey is estimated at fewer than 2,000.  But this population decline was not due to natural causes; the Greek community has become nearly extinct due to many state-sponsored attacks and pressure.The largest attacks took place during the last years of the Ottoman Empire with pogroms and discrimination continuing until the present day.In 2007, the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) announced that “the Ottoman campaign against Christian minorities of the Empire between...

Archaeologists from the University of Gothenburg have begun exploring a previously unknown ancient city at a village called Vlochós, five hours north of Athens. The archaeological remains are scattered on and around the Strongilovoúni hill on the great Thessalian plains and can be dated to several historical periods

And that is how real sponges arrived in fancy bath stores and were sold in beautiful packaging “Give me a word and I will show you that it comes from Greek.” —Mr. Portokalis, character in “My Big, Fat, Greek Wedding” Having experienced the excruciating ear pain from failure to equalize the pressure change underwater, I am in awe of any scuba diver who goes underwater to explore the depths of our oceans or, as is the case of pearl divers, to find exquisite pearls that adorn rare and expensive jewels. There are submersibles that operate at depths of 6,500 feet...

ATHENS, Greece – Greek riot police used tear gas and stun grenades Tuesday in Athens to disperse about 3,000 left-wing marchers protesting a visit by President Barack Obama after they tried to enter an area off-limits to demonstrators.