VEMA [email protected] AUGUST 2008 Tel

THE GREEK AUSTRALIAN The oldest circulating Greek newspaper outside Greece email: VEMA [email protected] AUGUST 2008 Tel. (02) 9559 7022 Fax: (02) 9559 7033 In this issue... Our Primate’s View THE ‘UNDERMINING’ OF THE SYNODAL INSTITUTION - ‘MEANS’ AND MANIPULATIONS’ (Part 4) PAGES 4/22 - 5/23 Vassilis Polymeros and Dimitrios Mougios Pharmacy Guild President Kosmas Sclavos, awarded university honour PAGE 18/36 Greece’s first 2008 medals Greek athletes won their first medals at the ongoing 2008 won in the women’s sailing. The three-woman crew featured Beijing Olympic Games over the weekend, with one big Sofia Bekatorou, the skipper, along with Sofia Papadopoulou hopeful, Chryssopigi Devetzi winning a bronze medal in the and Virginia Kravarioti. women’s triple jump on Sunday after jumping 15.23 meters in The gold medal was won by the British crew and the silver her second attempt. medal by the Dutch team. The gold medal was won by Francois Bangot-Etonet of Finally, rowers Vassilis Polymeros and Dimitrios Mougios on Cameroon with 15.39 meters and second place by Russia’s Sunday did one better by picking up the silver medal in the Tatiana Lebedeva of Russia with 15.32. men’s lightweight double sculls finals, behind rowers from Meanwhile, Greece’s first medal, a third-place showing, was Britain. Was it St Brendan Who Discovered America? ST ANDREW’S GREEK ORTHODOX PAGES 8/26 - 9/27 THEOLOGICAL COLLEGE VISITS PERTH The Trial HSC Examination Period Staying focussed as the Higher School Certificate approaches PAGE 15/33 PAGE 6/24 The Greek Australian VEMA AUGUST 2008 2/20 TO BHMA August 20, 1911 First around-the-world telegram sent On this day in 1911, a dispatcher in the New York Times office sends the first telegram around the world via commer- cial service. Exactly 66 years later, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) sends a differ- ent kind of message - a phonograph record containing information about Earth for extraterrestrial beings - shoot- ing into space aboard the unmanned spacecraft Voyager II. A photographic exhibition of the Byzantine August 29, 2005 Hurricane Katrina slams Churches of Constantinople into Gulf Coast Hurricane Katrina makes landfall near From Saturday 13 September - Sunday 21 September 2008 New Orleans, Louisiana, as a Category 4 hurricane on this day in 2005. Despite The exhibition is being curated by Dr Ken vides an opportunity for visitors to see in Constantinople. being only the third most powerful Parry, Senior Research Fellow in the photographs of some of these other His email is: [email protected] storm of the 2005 hurricane season, Department of Ancient History at churches and monuments. Dr Parry would Katrina was the worst natural disaster Macquarie University, and lecturer in very much like to hear from readers who *** For more information on the Open Day in the history of the United States. After Byzantine History and Early Christianity might have old photographs of the of St Andrew’s Greek Orthodox Theological College, turn briefly coming ashore in southern at St Andrew’s Greek Orthodox Theolo- Byzantine churches and other monuments to pages 10/28 and 11/29 Florida on August 25 as a Category 1 gical College. He is an hurricane, Katrina gained strength internationally renowned scho- before slamming into the Gulf Coast on lar of Byzantine culture and ci- August 29. In addition to bringing dev- vilization and among his publi- astation to the New Orleans area, the cations are The Blackwell hurricane caused damage along the Dictionary of Eastern Christia- coasts of Mississippi and Alabama, as nity (1999) and The Blackwell well as other parts of Louisiana. Companion to Eastern Christia- nity (2007). September 2, 1969 First ATM The photographic exhibition being held from Saturday 13 On this day in 1969, America's first September until Sunday 21 automatic teller machine (ATM) makes September 2008 at St Andrew’s its public debut, dispensing cash to cus- Greek Orthodox Theological tomers at Chemical Bank in Rockville College (242 Cleveland Street, Center, New York. ATMs went on to Redfern), consists of photo- revolutionize the banking industry, graphs taken by Dr Parry during eliminating the need to visit a bank to research visits to Turkey. He is conduct basic financial transactions. directing a research project By the 1980s, these money machines called ‘The City of Constantine’ had become widely popular and han- which will result in a book of dled many of the functions previously sources and documents relating performed by human tellers, such as to Byzantine Constantinople. check deposits and money transfers between accounts. Today, ATMs are as The object of the project is to indispensable to most people as cell provide detailed information phones and e-mail. about the history of Constanti- nople from its dedication in 330 September 7, 1813 to its capture by the Ottoman USA nicknamed Uncle Sam Turks in 1453. A variety of On this day in 1813, the United States Greek and other sources are gets its nickname, Uncle Sam. The being consulted for the project. name is linked to Samuel Wilson, a The exhibition of 30 colour meat packer from Troy, New York, who photographs was first shown at supplied barrels of beef to the United Macquarie University in 2006 States Army during the War of 1812. and a catalogue of the exhibition Wilson (1766-1854) stamped the bar- will be available. rels with "U.S." for United States, but soldiers began referring to the grub as Many of the surviving By- "Uncle Sam's." The local newspaper zantine churches of Constanti- picked up on the story and Uncle Sam nople are still relatively un- eventually gained widespread accept- known. Apart from the Great ance as the nickname for the U.S. fed- Church of Hagia Sophia, Hagia eral government. Irene and the Church of Our Saviour in Chora, most visitors to the city do not see other churches which are either being renovated or still being used as mosques. The exhibition pro- AUGUST 2008 The Greek Australian VEMA TO BHMA 3/21 Editorial China and us, then and now By Nikos Konstandaras - KATHIMERINI Since the first century AD, Romans had been buying silk had set out from China but failed to reach western Asia, and were crazy about this wonderful fabric, constantly and despite the considerable trade between them. In all the It is said that when Marco Polo was dying, in 1324, the trawling their empire for gold in order to buy raw silk, for time since then, China remained unknown to the West. It priest who was administering his last rites implored him to which they paid its weight in gold. At that time, between grew and declined and grew again in its own secluded retract the “fables” that he had told regarding the those two great civilizations stood a third, that of the world, far from the eyes of Westerners. That is why no one wonderful world he had discovered in his travels to China Parthians. This martial and fratricidal people (who were could believe Marco Polo. In our days too, Mao Zedong’s and Central Asia. also enormously tolerant of other peoples and religions) victory – after the humiliation of British colonialism and “I did not describe even half of what I saw,” the merchant grew rich off the taxes they levied on the great caravans Japanese occupation – meant that China remained isolated adventurer replied. traveling across their territory, from the Euphrates to India. from the rest of the world. China, a great civilization which developed far from the In 106 BC the Chinese had sent ambassadors to the And suddenly, the Olympic Games of 2008 are the Greco-Roman world and independent of the roots of Parthian king, Mithridates II, and the two peoples historical moment in which China, this perpetually Western civilization, has always been a mysterious and developed warm relations for many years. Together they introverted giant, opened its doors and its heart to the exotic country. That is why Marco Polo’s tales were controlled the silk trade. world. Watching the Beijing Games opening ceremony – questioned, and why there is still doubt as to whether he The Greeks and Romans knew neither what the fabric the vision of Zhang Yimou executed perfectly by was an actual witness to what he described. Some who was made of nor where it came from. thousands of his compatriots, all of them children of Mao heard his tales could not believe that there was an When the rich Roman Crassus (unprovoked and in still ruled by his party – I felt something of the awe that the unknown urbanized civilization that was greater than pursuit of glory and further wealth) invaded Parthia in 53 first visitors to this forbidden world must have felt, a theirs, while others expected to hear even taller tales BC, with an army of some 42,000, he suffered the worst combination of wonder and fear. regarding headless men with eyes in their chests and other defeat Rome had ever suffered. When other generals Today, for the first time, China and the other civilizations such wonders of ignorance that had always been thought invaded in later years, they too suffered either defeat or the are becoming one. China is revealing itself by embracing to exist beyond the great mountains of central Asia. campaign ended in stalemate. Each time, the effort to cut the Olympic Games, one of the most powerful symbols of And yet China and the Greco-Roman world were in out the middlemen resulted in fewer supplies and higher Greek civilization. Today we are all witness to the moment indirect but continual contact more than a thousand years silk prices.

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