PATRIARCHATE AND CLASSIC EDUCATION IN ISTANBUL






                                  From the vandalisms in Istanbul in 1955


On the anniversary of the memory of the persecution of the Greeks in Istanbul on 
6 -7/9/1955, I went in the 4th and 5th of September 2017 at the << Philio Haidemenou>> Foundation in N. Philadelphia and to meet also the President of the federation of associations Konstantinopoliton Nikolao Ouzounoglou, and to try to persuade him to join his voice in order the Patriarch to accept the reconstruction of the older church in Istanbul the Ayia Irini,in a new beginning to Interfaith and Philosophical unity in our region. On the first day I saw photos as documentaries of that period, like Greek and Turkish newspapers where was described in details the organized vandalisms and the different reasonings from each side                     
My mind went at the time I was a student in Domokos high school in 1955, when we were shouting - Cyprus is Greek and it belongs to Greece and .....- maybe were some episodes against the Turkish Cypriots I thought..something that came to confirm the first speaker, the Mayor of New Philadelphia and Nea Halkidona, Aristides Vassilopoulos 
with a wonderful little greeting.

        
              Mr Aristides Vassilopoulos

Seeing the workload of Mr. Ouzounoglou as the cordinator of the speakers, and the presence of important state men such as Education Minister mr Gavroglou and Mr Koumoutsakos from the opposition party, I decided to try to meet him alone.
The president and professor at Metsovio polytechnic
Mr Uzounoglou, who is also responsible for many issues of relief for the persecuted citizens of the Byzantine capital ,who with their presence in Athens, added Culture and Development to our Homeland. He accepted me at the Constantinopolitan building in Ambelokipoi and gave me some time for a while, rather cautiously ,maybe he did not like a post on the F.B I had done for the same event, and I was referred to the biological ties of blood between Byzadines and Othomans.

                                       Mr. Uzounoglou with Patriarch Bartholomew 

Once l was looking for the Patriarchate asking around,  I went higher in a building probably a school, wrapped up with tall fences with spiny circles on the top, like an army camp, I do not know if it was the same building.
Having my Turkish friend Erdogan with me was limited to collecting only negative glances from the locals.
In the church of holy Eyagelistria I had gone to meet the father Dositheos Anagnostopoulos I saw the same fences and similar glances

                                          The holly eyaggelistria church in kortolus

Returning from Iconium I had come to meet Father Doitheos in the same Church as we had arranged, and he wasn't there, as I was leaving I saw a citizen to urinate at the wall of the
church !! 

Immediately I remembered at the beginning of my overstatement after 1997 when I visited the mosque in Trikala ,someone from this area told me that he remembered when he was a little boy and they used the mosque as tualet until the European Union and the Municipality have protected it.
To Mr Ouzounoglou I sent the following message in response to his proposal.

<<Mr President, I was very pleased to have met you and I saw the anguish, your offers and your Byzantine goals. Thank you if you understand my own <<particularity>>, which makes me to be almost impossible to serve another idea beyond the trial to approach even "coexistence" with Islam and Jewish. IT IS FAR FROM MY POSSIBILITY to think of another orientation!!!
I am convinced that the Turkish society having its own <<historical memories>> can only be hostile to Byzantine literacy,
I will give you an idea that maybe will give a common orientation to both SO hostile societies !!.
CLASSICAL ANCIENT HELLENIC EDUCATION ... We have forgotten our pre-Christ differences ... and perhaps have some hopes of approaching and attending Muslim students in the school, for which you told me that it is waiting for a renovation and that it belongs to our Patriarchate.
Somewhere I heard something very important, "Turkey must support the Patriarchate in Istanbul because it links it to Western civilization" that could be done with Turkish society ,if the Patriarchate took the face of modern Western civilization, which is the view of classical era.
I would suggest to our Patriarch to think that the girls' school would be a model of classical education, to inaugurate it with the Grand Mufti, and to become a new principle that will serve reconciliation, because the science and education are common and joining .
And the students to wear on their heads a wreath with flowers as they wore in ancient Greece and that will emphasize the beauty of their youth too. I had the opportunity to see some girls in Istanbul on my last trip to wear something similar, and I felt very very positive.!!
                            
                   Ancient Greek wreaths in the hair of young girls

This may also help the modern Muslims of the city who are many, to register their daughters, to become the school as it should be, without fences and contempt, because education is common and started from those holy places with their great fathers of education Thales from Miletus, and Democritus from Thrace
It has accumulated so much hatred between the two peoples !! and our two Religions !!
by rotating and cultivating on both sides the harsh memories of persecutions, that there is no view of peace between us, although we have a serious biological affinity.


Allow me to explain why I go into proposals and difficult national and religious paths !!! On the Holly Monday of 1997, in a confessional, public and unique speech, I felt to be led and controlled by the spirit of Jesus
, that as it was leaving left the Below Image that remained for a while in my brain during the day and while I was talking to my wife


By saying this around me as you understand, most believed that I had escaped to a religious delusion, (very logical) though my brain was working good ,creating nice and swift lyric expressions, and poetry that you can find in my poor translation into English, at Amazon bookstore, with the name. panos paliokostas

P.S. There I was forced by the system to put a price on it, in order to complete my suspension.
Now I hang  it up in my site free in my poor English,and in Greek language too, better<< combed >>I hope ... than the first edition
There, perhaps some of you will make me the honor to read it and to understand my positions.                       THANK YOU  


                                                       
                                                             The cover of my book