THE GREEK AUSTRALIAN The oldest circulating Greek newspaper outside VEMA Greece AUGUST 2010 Tel. (02) 9559 7022 Fax: (02) 9559 7033 E-mail:
[email protected] MOTIVATION Discussing child and adolescent motivation strategies PAGE 3/19 HISTORIC PILGRIMAGE A Commanding Position John Stavridis, 41, reached a big milestone for himself and Sydney’s Greek community. He TO PONTUS took command of HMAS Arunta, a warship in the frontline of Australia’s naval defence. When Pontian Greeks left Turkey in 1922-23, they took the few painted by the Evangelist Luke, is the cradle of Pon- nothing with them but the scars from the deaths of tens of tic Greek religious belief and national identity, and a point of PAGE 2/18 thousands of their number during their forceful eviction and reference for all Pontians. Its construction began in AD 385. forced labour, carried out over the previous seven years by Under a 1930 agreement between Greek Prime Minister the Young Turks and Kemalist forces. The deaths were Eleftherios Venizelos and Turkish leader Ismet Inonu, Turkey recognised by the Greek parliament as a genocide in 1994. allowed the legendary icon, the monastery’s chalice from On August 15, the feast of the Dormition of the Virgin Emperor Manuel Komnenos, and its Holy Bible to be trans- Mary, thousands of their descendants from several coun- ported to Greece, after two aged monks revealed the crypt tries made the pilgrimage to the Panagia Soumela in which they hid the objects in 1922. They are now at the monastery in the Turkish region of Trebizond for the first new Panagia Soumela Monastery on Mt Vermio, southwest liturgy in 88 years, conducted by Ecumenical Patriarch of the town of Veria in Macedonia, where thousands of pil- Vartholomeos in a highly moving atmosphere.