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Member Update– Bulletin

Ενημέρωση Μελών, Φίλων, και Συνεργατών του Συνδέσμου

Bulletin 143   January, 2017

Μ Η Ν Υ Μ Α*  

Αυτό το χρόνο να ευγνωμονείς

• Τους φίλους σου που σε συγχωρούν.  Τους εχθρούς σου, που σε κάνουν προσεκτικό.
• Τις δυσκολίες, που σε κάνουν αγωνιστικό.
• Τις ανάγκες, που σε κάνουν ταπεινό.
• Τις κακουχίες, που σε κάνουν δυνατό.
• Τις απογοητεύσεις, που σε κάνουν καρτερικό. Ετσι, στο τέλος της χρονιάς θα φτάσεις να είσαι καλύτερος και ευτυχέστερος.

*Μήνυμα που λάβαμε για τον νέο χρόνο από τον Ι.Ν. Αγίας Κυριακής, Αμφιθέας-Παλαιού Φαλήρου, Αττικής. Με θερμές ευχές, το μοιραζόμαστε με τους αγαπητούς αναγνώστες μας.

GREEK COMMUNITY MOURNS THE LOSS OF SPIRITUAL LEADER & EDUCATOR REV. DEMETRIOS CONSTANTELOS

Dear Members of the Hellenic Link:

     The Reverend Professor Father Demetrios Constantelos has left us for eternity.  He succumbed to illness on January 11, 2017.  We were so informed directly by his persoal ecclesiastic and academic associates:                                                                                                 

     Father George Liacopoulos of Holy Trinity Church. Egg Harbor NJ related the sad news: “It is with a heavy heart that I write to inform you that our beloved Father Demetrios fell asleep in the Lord. He had been battling various lung infections and, unfortunately, his lung tissue was severely damaged and he could not survive….”

     Dr. Tom Papademetriou, Professor of Greek History and Director of the Center of Interdisciplinary Hellenic Studies, Stockton University, announced our common loss with this message:

  “ It is with great sadness that I write to tell you that our beloved Rev. Dr. Demetrios Costantelos, Charles Cooper Townsend Sr. Distinguished Professor Emeritus of History and Religious Studies and Distinguished Scholar in residence passed away last evening. Professor Constantelos died in peace, surrounded by his loving children. He touched the lives of so many of us, and his loss will be deeply felt, at Stockton, Holy Trinity, and around the world.”

Professor Constantelos was an extraordinary and special person, a man of deep faith and conviction who tirelessly worked to enlighten the world around him. He was the founder and foundation of our Stockton Hellenic Studies program of which he was so proud. We will continue to honor his mission and memory for as long as Stockton exists.

     It is only appropriate to summon Socrates from the Apology at this moment who said, “But if death is the journey to another place, and there, as men say, all the dead abide, what good, O my friends and judges, can be greater than this?”

     As Socrates suggests, Fr. Demetrios will then be able to ask questions and strive for answers from all who came before, in his continued search for truth and wisdom—just as he did while he was here on this earth with us—and his questions will be answered.

     Αιωνία η μνήμη Αυτού! May his memory be eternal! »

Tom

Tom Papademetriou, PhD. Professor of Historical Studies, Endowed Professor of Greek History, Director, Dean C. and Zoe S. Pappas Interdisciplinary Center for Hellenic Studies, Stockton University.

The Reverend Demetrios Constantelos has been a towering personage of  a Christian intellectual for some 50 years and his legacy remains a great challenge for those lamenting his loss and wishing to follow in his footsteps. It will certainly take quite some time for his biographers to assess properly his diverse contributions to the Church, to the Greek Nation, to American Education and the world community.

For us in the Hellenic Link, we express our feelings about him plainly as we came to know him from the 70s continually untill the very day he entered hospital for the last time a few weeks ago. From those days, even prior to our formal incorporation as Association, he proved himself our Mentor, Co-Founder, fountain of inspiration, guide in planning unprecedented cultural and educational activities, and Co-Worker in carrying them out. We admired him as Presbyter of the Church for his dedicated and effective missionary stewardship, especially in the State of New Jersey, which tirelessly traversed continually trying as good shepherd to bring together scattered compatriots of ours, as well as non – Orthodox Christians into three thriving Greek Orthodox communities, which he established serially with the blessing of our Holy Greek Orthodox Archdiocese. We very much admired his opposition on theological as well as historical grounds to the imprudent dehellenization of the Church and his ardent defense for the preservation of  the Hellenic Heritage, including the use of our precious Hellenic Language. And, of course, we knew him as University Teacher and  Scholar who illuminated the world– with his published research and oral presentations before international scientific gatherings– on Byzantium and its role in ushering into the foreground of History the 1000-year era of socially applied Orthodox Christianity that led eventually to the cultural transformation of both East and West. As academic leader, he startled us and everyone with his accomplishment: after starting “from scratch,” in a span of a few years, he developed the program of Hellenic Studies at Stockton University (formerly Richard Stockton College of New Jersey) to a  sophisticated interdisciplinary Center of Hellenic Studies, as the present Director of the Center Professor Tom Papademetriou is in a position to know and corroborate above. It is indeed phenomenal that in a climate of universal academic frugality,which has even touched  awesome institutions of Hellenic research and learning, such as Cambridge and Sorbonne universities, this institute, the academic feat of the late Fr. Professor Constantelos, operates  with 6 endowed professorships and offering a rich, many-faceted system of Hellenic Education, still dynamically evolving. To provide a clearer picture of the richness, the broad scope, and the depth of the educational offerings of its program, we cite  below the Catalogue of Courses exemplifying the current curricula of the Center.

INTERDISCIPLINARY CENTER FOR HELLENIC STUDIES –STOCKTON U.                                COURSE CATALOGUE

LANGUAGE COURSES

BEGINNING LATIN I                                                  INTERMEDIATE BIBLICAL GREEK                                                                                                                                   BEGINNING LATIN II                                                THE GREEK TRAGEDIANS                                                                                                                                                     ELEMENTARY MODERN GREEK I                       HOMER                                                                                                       ELEMENTARY MODERN GREEK II                     GREEK NOVEL                                                                                           BEGINNITNG ANCIENT GREEK I                         OVID AND THE METAMORPHOSIS                                                                                                                   BEGINNING ANCIENT GREEK II                         THE NOVELS OF NIKOS KAZANTZAKIS                                                                                        CONVERSATIONAL MODERN GREEK            SOPHOCLES, SHAKESPEARE AND SHAW                                                                                                 EUROPEAN LITERATURE I                                    ADVANCED LATIN I                                                                                                      CLASSICAL NOVEL                                                  ADVANCED LATIN II                                                                                                                                   CLASSICAL COMEDY                                        ROMAN LITERATURE: THE GOLDEN AGE                                                                                                                              GREECE IN 20^TH CENTURY LITERATURE         TOPICS IN CLASSICS – GREEK                                                                                           INTERMEDIATE LATIN I                                         TOPICS IN CLASSICS – ROMAN                                                                                                                   INTERMEDIATE LATIN II                                       ADVANCED  ANCIENT GREEK I                                                                                                                    INTERMEDIATE ANCIENT GREEK I                   ADVANCED ANCIENT GREEK II                                                                                                     INTERMEDIATE ANCIENT GREEK II

LITERATURE COURSES

THE BIBLE AS LITERATURE                                 THE CONCEPT OF THE HERO                                                                                                                 GREEK LITERATURE IN CONTEXT                    FICTIONAL ROME: JULIUS CAESAR                                                                                                                                LITERATURE AND THE BIBLE                        ROMAN LITERATURE: THE GOLDEN AGE

HISTORY COURSES

HISTORYOF EARLY CHRISTIANITY                  THE BRONZE AGE OF GREECE                                                                                                            SOUTHEASTERN EUROPE SINCE 1453               EASTERN EUROPEAN HISTORY                                                                                         MEDITERRANEAN HISTORY                                ANCIENT ISRAEL                                                                                                           NATION BUILDING: MODERN GREECE           HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN THOUGHT I                                                                                                              MODERN MIDDLE EAST HISTORY                     HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN THOUGHT II                                                                                                    MODERN HELLENISM SINCE 1453                      EASTERN CHRISTIANITY                                                                                                                    THE ANCIENT ROMAN WORLD                          TRAVEL IN ANTIQUITY                                                                                               THE WORLD OF ANCIENT GREECE                  SEX AND GENDER IN ANTIQUITY                                                                                                         FALL OF ROME/RISE OF BYZANTIUM           THE AGE OF CONSTANTINE THE GREAT                                                                                      IMPERIAL  BYZANTIUM                                        NATIONALISM IN ANTIQUITY                                                                                                   ANCIENT MEDITERRANEAN HISTORY            THE AGE OF JUSTINIAN                                                                                                             HISTORY OF ANCIENT EGYPT                            EMPIRE TO NATION-STATE: TURKEY                                                                                     OTTOMAN HISTORY, 1299-1923                           ANCIENT HISTORIOGRAPHY                                                                                                      ISLAM AND EASTERN CHRISTIANITY

ARTV COURSES

ART HISTORY I                                                          INTRODUTION TO ART HISTORY                                                                                                                                                        ART HISTORY II                                                        ANCIENT ART AND ARCHITECTURE                                                                                                                                                 ANCIENT ART                                                  ANCIENT GREEK ART AND ARCHITECTURE                                                                                                                                                               ART IN THE SHADOW OF ROME:               ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE MEDITERRANEAN                                                                                    BYZANTINE ART AND ARCHITECTURE                               WORLD

GAH COURSES

JEWS, CHRISTIANS, MULSIMS : THE THREE ABRAHAMIC FAITHS ON PILGRIMAGE

PHILOSOPHY COU ‘vstewagn kai anSynd;esmoyt;a m;elh toyRSES

ANCIENT GREEK PHILOSOPHY                       HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN THOUGHT II PLATO’S DIALOGUES                                          EASTERN CHRISTIANITY                                         PLATO AND ARISTOTLE                                    MODERN ISSUES IN RELIGIOUS STUDIES                                                               PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION: HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN THOUGHT I                                 MAJOR THINKERS/MAJOR THEMES

Αγαπητά  μέλη του Συνδέσμου και αναγνώστες,

Με ευγνωμοσύνη και ταπείνωση καυχώμαστε ότι ευτυχήσαμε που  έζησε, δίδαξε, και έδρασε ανάμεσά μας ο μακαριστός  Πατήρ Δημήτριος Κωνσταντέλος. Η όλη σταδιοδρομία του τον ανέδειξε σύγχρονο Απόστολο του Χριστού μαζί και Εθναπόστολο της τάξης Κοσμά του Αιτωλού και των άξιων ιεραρχών και πνευματικών οδηγών του Γένους μας. Ας είναι η ιερή μνήμη του αιώνια!  Η πάντοτε φιλοσοφημένη  διδαχή του  και γεμάτη από αγάπη ζωή του ας κατευθύνει την πορεία μας στον δρόμο που εκείνος άνοιξε και άφησε πίσω του σαν υπόδειγμα και παράκληση, όσοι πιστοί να ακολουθήσουμε!

Costas Efthymiou

How Greece’s Troubled Economy Could Turn Around in 2017

Nicholas Economides

Updated: Jan 03, 2017 8:48 PM Eastern

Violating the terms of its bailout program, the Greek government recently announced that it will distribute a sizeable “Christmas gift” to Greek pensioners even though this requires additional borrowing from the EU since the Greek budget is not balanced and Greece cannot borrow from money markets. The move has prompted the EU finance ministers to freeze implementation of debt restructuring. Greece is at the brink again.

This is the modern-day Greek economic tragedy. But unlike the three-acts ancient Greek tragedies, we’ve seen many acts and often the horrible events happen on stage. Of the main actors, the Greek government repeatedly threatens with suicide elections; the IMF tries to apply the same rules to all countries irrespective of development level; the EU bureaucrats paint a rosy picture with no grounding in reality or economics, and German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble keeps reading the same austerity rulebook no matter what the circumstances. Even worse, there is practically no dialogue among the actors – they deliver their monologues past one an other, each trying to please a different chorus. How did we get here (again)? Is there hope? And, more importantly,  how does it end?

After two large bailouts in 2010 and 2012 from the EU and the IMF, and after a negotiated  “haircut” of €100 billion off its bonds, Greece was on the way to recovery in 2014. It had reversed the 2010 15-plus percent deficit and achieved a small primary surplus (before paying interest), reached growth after four years of recession, and even issued new bonds. However, the fiscal consolidation did not happen through spending cuts but rather through large increases in taxation, resulting in a multi-year recession. With Greeks having lost 25% of their income, and unemployment at 25%, disaffected voters brought to power a tiny, radical left party in early 2015.

Following a defiant stance in early 2015, which resulted in closed banks, capital controls, reversal of growth and exclusion from money markets, the present radical left Greek government signed an onerous agreement. The agreement provided Greece a new loan of €87 billion, yet required that Greece achieve a 3.5% of GDP surplus (through more austerity) for a number of years. This target was clearly not feasible, and the Bank of Greece proposed a surplus of 1.5% to 2% of GDP. The IMF agreed with this target, and has asked the EU to restructure Greek debt obligations consistent with this target as well as for implementation of structural reforms that would make the Greek economy competitive. However, the EU has insisted on the 3.5% surplus target and painted an unrealistically rosy picture of the Greek economy to make this target appear feasible, while not pressing Greece on reforms.

Greece’s choice was a no-brainer: side with the IMF, have less austerity, have immediate and deep debt restructuring, and implement reforms that will make Greece more competitive and bring it out of the crisis. Instead, the Greek government sided with the EU, accepted higher austerity and less debt restructuring. Why? The Greek government wants to avoid reforming and shrinking the State because civil servants are its main block of voters. Compounding this error, the Greek government has now violated the fiscal agreement and reverted to the defiant tactics of the first half of 2015. But there’s still hope.

The solution to the Greek crisis is obvious and has been obvious for some time: make reforms, cut state expenditure, cut taxes, simplify investment procedures, open markets to competition, and proceed with privatizations. The present Greek government has failed in all of these dimensions.

Fortunately, for Greece, a pro-reforms consensus is emerging. All opposition parties — with the exception of the Communist and the Nazi parties — are now pro-reform. Additionally, a reformist politician, Kyriakos Mistotakis, has been elected leader of the main opposition party, center-right New Democracy, which presently has a large lead in polls. He has advocated a strictly reformist agenda.

There are two additional factors that make reforms more likely to succeed now. First, the IMF fully supports the reforms and is willing to battle with the Europeans for debt restructuring, less austerity, and more reforms. Second, many Greeks, having tried everything else, now realize reforms as the only eventual way out of the crisis.

Reforms and fiscal discipline are the only way for Greece to survive and begin to prospect in the European Union. The alternative, Grexit, would plunge Greece to poverty and hyperinflation leading to a crisis a-la-Venezuela in Europe.

Nicholas Economides is a professor of economics at the NYU Stern School of Business and has advised the Greek government and Bank of Greece.

Από τις Εκδηλώσεις του Εορτασμού των Τριών Ιεραρχών και των Ελληνικών Γραμμάτων

ΣΥΛΛΟΓΟΣ ΕΛΛΗΝΩΝ ΕΚΠΑΙΔΕΥΤΙΚΩΝ                                         «Ο ΠΡΟΜΗΘΕΥΣ»

P.O. Box 5852, Woosley Station, L.I.C..,NY 11105- Tel. (201) 768-0161                                                Website: www.greekteachersprometheus.org- Email:Dtrianta@aol.com                                                                    

Πρόσκληση

Αγαπητοί Ομογενείς και Εκπαιδευτικοί,

Προσκαλείστε στη Φιλολογική Εκδήλωση για τον εορτασμό των Τριών Ιεραρχών και των Ελληνικών Γραμμάτων, με θέμα το έργο του μεγάλου μας πεζογράφου

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Ομιλία:

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ως Γνήσιος Εκφραστής της Ελληνικής

Πολιτιστικής Ετερότητας»

πό τον καθηγητή Χριστόφορο Τριπουλά

Εισααγωγή: Γεώργιος Καζούλης,

Θεολόγος, Σχολείο Αγίου Δημητρίου

Κυριακή 5 Φεβρουαρίου, 1:00 μ.μ.

Βιβλιοθήκη του Λυκείου του Αγίου Δημητρίου στην Αστόρια

Απονομή βεβαιώσεων παρακολούθησης σε εκπαιδευτικούς

του Παιδαγωγικού Προγράμματος από τη συντονίστρια

Εκπαίδευσης στο Ελληνικό Προξενείο

Δρα Θάλεια Χατζηγιάννογλου.

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Διοργανωτική Επιτροπή

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Δρ. Ιωάννης Αντωνόπουλος, Δρ. Γεώργιος Μελικόκης, Μερόπη Κυριάκου, Σοφία Κυριάκου,

Γεώργιος Κανελλόπουλος και Δημοσθένης Τριανταφύλλου.

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 A NON PROFIT CULTURAL AND SCIENTIFIC ASSOCIATION

 OF  HELLENES AND  PHILHELLENES INCORPORATED IN DELAWARE

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