periXscope
On victory, nudity
and ministerial tasks

Obama’s ascend and victory reminded me of the Greek National Soccer Team’s victory in Portugal four years ago. The underdog, through discipline, extraordinary effort, imagination and faith managed to achieve a step by step success that nobody would have thought it possible when the tournament started. When Obama, another underdog, let it be known that he would seek the nomination to run for president, even his most optimistic friends would not have expected that he would overcome Hillary Clinton and later an all powerful Republican machine co-chaired by a …pitbull with lipstick!

We, at NEO, did not endorse any candidate for president because – at this point at least – we don’t consider it our job to tell people whom to vote for. We could sense, however, and that became clear from the magazine’s content – not purposefully - that Obama’s candidacy brought renewed excitement and interest for the political process and for the need of change, of breaking with the status-quo – whatever that is.

I feel tempted to make another analogy now: when three years and a month ago, NEO’s first issue came out, as with Obama, our most optimistic “friends” were giving it until Christmas of that year to last! Well, here we are still and hopefully we will be for many more Christmas to come! We took a risk when we decided that a modern, aesthetically advanced, more mainstream magazine was needed in order to capture the attention and to express those Greek-Americans who are part and parcel of this society and who from every field of endeavor are not only successful, but leaders. Our intent wasn’t and it’s not to showcase rich and powerful, but people with the potential to do great things for our community and America in general. And like Obama, so far we’ve won the people’s approval to continue doing so.

At this point I consider it necessary to thank all those friends in the greater community who embraced NEO – not to the point of asphyxiation - and supported us in every way possible. Please continue to do so and help us widen this precious circle of supporters so that one day, when NEO will have come full circle, our reach will cover this land throughout. I’d like also to once more welcome and thank the people who have joined us aboard so far, becoming an active part of our team. Vasos Protopapas, the late Claude Barthe, Fotis Papagermanos, Georgia Vavas, Adrian Salescu, Katerina Georgiou, Ken Kasakhian, Irma Seferi, Maria Athanasopoulos as of recently, and many other participants whose help, insight and good will we appreciate and cherish. A big round of applause for the on and off stage actors of this in progress play…

Speaking of plays, let us move our perixscope lens to the so called Hellenic Cultural Center of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese in Astoria, New York. That place has suffered a lot and as a result makes others to suffer, including Greek Orthodoxy. And all that despite the not few good people who have tried and are still trying to make something nice out of it!

Years ago a cultural institution from Greece donated the Center some copies of ancient Hellenic statues for decorative and educational purposes. Two of them were full size. One is of Apollo and the other of Poseidon, as you can see in the adjacent photo. It seems that Apollo’s suffering came with the package, because his penis was broken! After a few months at the Center, someone, somehow, managed to break his arm, which for a series of weeks was left hanging in full view. Then someone took the initiative and amputated the arm so that the cut looked less frightening.

Alas, Apollo’s agony wasn’t to end with that! Within the Cultural Center’s premises there is a Chapel in honor of St. Kosmas the Aetolos. Better choice could not had been made for that place devoted to Hellenic civilization, because St. Kosmas was such an intelligent, progressive and ahead of his time figure that really encompassed the best the Hellenic tradition has to offer. By default though, St. Kosmas was to become the reason for Apollo’s and Poseidon’s further humiliation! Because vespers and Mass are held there regularly, some people of the cloth, giving in perhaps to visitor’s objections, decided to invest the two status, so that their genitals – remember Apollo’s is broken – would not be in view! I remember many of us laughed and felt outraged when some southern “Evangelicals” threatened to suit NBC because during the Athens Olympic opening ceremony – that I personally found ridiculous for other reasons – some of the parading deities were …topless. In a measure of equal stupidity, John Ascroft as Attorney General had ordered Justice’s exposed breasts in a painting above the podium he was speaking, to be covered!

And while I understand the mentality that led those people to suit NBC, Ascroft to tailor Justice and Janet Jackson’s half breast to monopolize the nation’s discourse, I knew something was wrong in our case. I called Christos Yannaras in Greece, perhaps the leading Orthodox philosopher internationally, and asked him if Orthodoxy is compatible with the ancient Greek nude and as I expected he said yes. Not only that, but the two are related. The ancient Greek nude statue symbolizes the fullness of truth, divested from any conventionalities, same way the Byzantine iconographer a few centuries later would use the aphaeretic technique in representing the holy images. El Greco continued the tradition by elongating his images in a way that would somehow dematerialize them.

Let us hope that the moment will come soon, when the ban in Apollo’s and Poseidon’s nudity will be lifted in the Greek Cultural Center along with the veil of Puritanism on the eyes of those who by doing so, only managed to expose their own real nudity .

In closing, I wouldn’t resist the temptation to comment on the major scandal shaking Greece for almost two months now, the business dealings of Abbot Ephraim on the Holly Mountain of Athos, that nevertheless, in times of fiscal and economic stagnation, brought hundreds of millions to his Monastery (and to some people’s pockets, it seems.)

Abbot Ephraim, instead of being prosecuted, should be hired as Minister of the Economy. This way he will still be ministering and in a way that is also very important and needed by the people this time of crisis. He might even be Prime Minister Karamanlis’ biggest surprise in the long overdue reshuffle of his government!

DEMETRIOS RHOMPOTIS

©2008 NEOCORP MEDIA

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