The
Daily Gyro
Updated
Daily on
Greek Time
November 28, 2005
After back-to-back-to-back late night Greek events on Thanksgiving weekend, it’s
admittedly a struggle to stay awake while writing this installment of TDG on an
early Sunday evening. While were still scratching our heads wondering where
everyone between the ages of 25-35 was at the Laconian on Friday night, we
would like to recognize the philoxenia of the hosts of Saturday night’s
Thankful to be Greek House Party in Baltimore. We’ll have more to say on this
in this week’s feature, but for those of you who missed out, it was a great
time, and we certainly encourage others to follow suit during this holiday
season and in the months to come.
While Greek-Americans were celebrating Thanksgiving, news in the rest of the
Hellenic world continued, and here’s just a sample of what you may have missed
while shopping at the mall or passed out on the couch watching football this
weekend.
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The decision a few years back to stagger the Summer and Winter Olympics two
years apart makes the world overlook the Winter Olympics even more. Didn’t we
just have an Olympics last year? The torch for next year’s Winter Games in
Torino, Italy was lit on Sunday in an anticlimactic, almost cooking-show
fashion, having to use the back-up flame that was lit the day before due to
overcast skies at Ancient Olympia preventing the usual solar-powered ignition.
The standard protocol for this lighting ceremony, which was also practiced at
Saturday’s back-up flame lighting, is for a Greek soap opera actress to dress
up like a high priestess, pray to the sun god, Apollo, and have the sun’s rays
bounce off a concave mirror to light the flame. It’s this prayer that earns the
ceremony a boycott from the Greek Orthodox Church, which is typically ever
present at almost any other official event in Greece.
A church spokesman, Father Pavlos Ioannou, puts it rather matter-of-factly --
“The church objects to the invocation of a nonexistent god, Apollo,” but has no
objection to the rest of the ceremony. This year’s high priestess Theodora
Siarkou retorted and clarified by stating, “I don’t believe in the 12 gods of
ancient Greece, I am an Orthodox Christian… Effectively, the invocation is a
call on a higher power — whether you want to name it God, Christ, Apollo, Zeus,
Buddha or Allah — that inspires and moves humankind to improve itself.” Hold
on, wasn’t it the Greek Gods, specifically Zeus that punished Prometheus for
giving mankind fire? Can they really be held up as the torchbearers for
progress?
While the torch will travel through Greece for the next 10 days, it’s the
Italian leg of the relay that’s a lot more unique. The torch will be taken on
its first day in Italy to the Vatican to be blessed by Pope Benedict XVI. The
relay will feature 10,000 torchbearers, gondolas, and a Ferrari sports car.
Incidentally, Ferrari and Fiat engineers designed the torch. It will be
interesting to see how many miles to the gallon of fuel each torch will get.
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Staying on the subject of the Greek Orthodox Church and the Vatican, efforts to
improve relations between the two churches is said to be the cause of a
knock-out, drag out fight between two groups of Greek Orthodox monks on Mount
Athos last Thursday. A group of rebel Esphigmenou monks, which opposes
reconciliation between the two churches was held up in their monastery which is
being blockaded and claim that rival monks tried to break down the door with
pickaxes and crowbars. Who knew life on Mount Athos could be so exciting?
-
A recent survey of men from the area of Maritsa in Northern Greece who have
married mail-order brides from Bulgaria show that they have successful and
satisfying marriages. According to Greek agency ANA-MPA, "Most of the Bulgarian
wives take care of the daily chores, work in the garden and quickly adapt.”
We’re glad to see that their definition of a successful and satisfying marriage
is held to such a high standard. Regardless of anyone’s thoughts on these
unions, these mail-order arrangements are considered to be a cure for the fact
that there are two unmarried men per every unmarried woman in Greece and that
it is even worse for men in their early 20s. So next time any of the guys out
there think they have it bad in their hometowns, think of this story, and
remember that it’s probably not that bad.
Other Servings of The Daily Gyro
06/30/2010
08/31/2009
08/03/2009
03/25/2009
08/28/2008
08/27/2008
08/13/2008
04/02/2008
03/25/2008
08/30/2007
08/14/2007
03/05/2007
02/14/2007
01/22/2007
11/06/2006
10/02/2006
09/18/2006
09/04/2006
09/01/2006
08/14/2006
07/13/2006
07/10/2006
06/25/2006
06/05/2006
05/03/2006
04/04/2006
03/22/2006
02/21/2006
01/30/2006
01/17/2006
01/11/2006
01/09/2006
01/05/2006
01/04/2006
12/12/2005
11/28/2005
11/16/2005
10/31/2005
10/17/2005
10/03/2005
09/12/2005
09/02/2005
08/29/2005
08/10/2005
07/27/2005
07/13/2005
07/06/2005
06/27/2005
06/13/2005
05/23/2005
05/16/2005
05/06/2005
05/02/2005
04/25/2005
04/18/2005
04/13/2005
04/08/2005
04/06/2005
04/04/2005
04/01/2005
03/30/2005
03/28/2005
03/25/2005
03/23/2005
Read
past feature articles.
