KAZAMIAS 2026

Whereas in years past I relied on gossip, innuendo, smut and leftover cracked lamb bones from the Paschal Feast to acquire such oracular powers as might pierce the veil of the future, this year I adopted a different approach. I was gifted by a State Member of Parliament an Aboriginal oracle, a modern divination deck purportedly inspired by ancient Aboriginal spirituality, Dreamtime stories, ancestors, bush medicine and animal totems, promising guidance, self-exploration and healing through connection to Country and ancestral wisdom. According to the explanatory caption on the back, the deck offers clarity and affirmation for life’s challenges. Unfortunately, the deck was compulsorily acquired by my son on unjust terms to construct a maquette of the now-defunct East–West Link. I therefore resorted to the singular powers of Theia Thekla of Brunswick, who, after brewing me a cup of her top-shelf, only-for-guests Oasis Griffiths Greek Coffee, swirled the dregs, overturned the cup and revealed to me the Master Plan.

JANUARY

- Inspired by the historic success of George Calombaris’ Hellenic Republic, several intrepid Greek restaurateurs resolve to open an eatery titled Consulate-General of the Hellenic Republic. Its doors are usually closed, the phone unanswered and the menu indecipherable. Reservations are required three months in advance, only for one to be informed by a scowling waiter that whatever you ordered is unavailable. Despite negligible foot traffic and zero social-media presence, the restaurant becomes wildly profitable through the proprietors’ successful acquisition of free dinners from patrons.

- The Greek Orthodox Community of Melbourne and Victoria foils a terrorist plot when the remnants of the online Left-Deviationist Opposition attempt to infiltrate the Greek Centre to discuss the implications of Comrade Trotsky’s January 1925 speech to the Plenum of the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party. They reach as far as Sulbing Café before being apprehended while infusing dangerous doctrine into bubble tea.

- Heidelberg United Soccer Club is summoned before Football Australasia and formally censured for breathing.

- Someone who cannot be criticised does something worth critiquing. As critique is deemed criticism, the relevant social-media post is deleted. The author is nevertheless apprehended by the Eye of Sauron for failing to critique the critiquers.

- The renegade artist formerly known as Papa-Redhill challenges his schismatic Kievan overlord to ritual combat using wet touloumbes on the Rye foreshore. Within seconds, Papa-Redhills’ touloumba collapses that of the Kievan Vladika, proving the superiority of the Hellenic Sisterhood over the Kievan Rus. His followers proclaim a miracle and erect the victorious touloumba as both sundial and object of veneration.

- A panygyri takes place in Melbourne. Souvlakia and loukoumades are sold and Anagenisi Band pumps out the latest and not-so-latest tracks.

FEBRUARY

- World Greek Language Day is commemorated by people who no longer speak Greek at five separate ceremonies across the city, as none of the organisers are on speaking terms. Community photographer Kostas Deves attends all five, then takes the rest of the year off.

- A community leader excluded from the stage at all five ceremonies organises his own World Greek Language Day event, where he is the sole VIP permitted on stage. The stage resigns in protest.

- Greek Members of Parliament travel east to Melbourne to enjoy a taxpayer-funded holiday during Greek National Day festivities, including official visits to Vanilla, Nikos Cakes and Melissa Thornbury. Following a star, they instead arrive at the flagpole of Sveta Petka Church in Epping and gaze upon a stolen star-symbol. The President of Pan-Mac declines to rescue them. An official protest is lodged with no one in particular.

- Pauline Hanson is revealed to be of Greek origin, a descendant of Paulos Hansonidis, introducer of fish and chips to Ipswich. She collapses under the weight of her internal contradictions. Bob Katter dies laughing.

- A panygyri takes place in Melbourne. Souvlakia and loukoumades are sold and Anagenisi Band pumps out the latest and not-so-latest tracks.

MARCH

- Sakis Zafiropoulos relaunches his “Speak Greek in March” campaign. The Victorian Committee for the Greek National Day March sues for trademark infringement after it emerges that the word “March” was trademarked by a former president. In obiter dicta, the presiding judge observes that it is remarkable no one has yet trademarked the word “Greek.”

- The Hellenic Lawyers Conglomerate of Australasia and the Pacific Islands (excluding those claimed by China) promptly trademarks the word “Hellenic.” The Consulate-General rebrands as the Consulate-General of the Romaic Republic before agreeing to pay an annual licence fee of one stamped document.

- The Greek Patriotic Club holds its AGM to determine which of the seventeen constitutions unilaterally adopted by its former president is valid. The matter is resolved via the customary procedure of pin-the-innuendo-on-the-donkey.

- A panygyri takes place in Melbourne. Souvlakia and loukoumades are sold and Anagenisi Band pumps out the latest and not-so-latest tracks.

APRIL

- A public school threatens to discontinue its Modern Greek program. Pharos mobilises the three interested parents and successfully saves it until next month. Numerous articles and photographs appear in the paper.

- A Greek-Australian “youth initiative” is launched with great fanfare. Eligibility is limited to persons over thirty-five with twenty years’ committee experience.

- A major community organisation launches a bold new vision statement promising renewal, transparency and youth engagement. The executive committee remains unchanged since 1994.

- The General Secratariat of Greeks Abroad in Athens announces funding for diaspora initiatives. The application deadline is retroactively set for the previous month.

- Anthony Albanese fondly recalls the first time he ate a souvlaki at a Greek panygyri.

The abovementioned was a panygyri where souvlakia and loukoumades were sold and Anagenisi Band pumped out the latest and not-so-latest tracks.

- The Victorian Government introduces a Greek Panygyri Levy to address budget shortfalls. On legal advice, all events are rebranded as Hellenic, thereby avoiding the levy but not the licence fee charged by the Hellenic Lawyers Conglomerate.

MAY

- The missing statue of Venizelos is located outside Santa’s Christmas Kingdom in Darebin, painted red and wearing a Santa hat. The proprietors apologise, citing mistaken identity, but refuse to return it as it now forms part of an installation featuring a sleigh and nine moustachioed reindeer named Manousos.

- Geoffrey Robertson and Amal Clooney are briefed to commence proceedings in the International Court of Justice. The real Battle of Crete begins.

- Someone extremely important is removed from the guest list of an exclusive community soirée. As the event is closed-circle, no one notices. The uninvited party edits himself into the official photo using ChatGPT.

- A panygyri takes place in Melbourne. Souvlakia and loukoumades are sold and Anagenisi Band pumps out the latest and not-so-latest tracks. Manasis Dance Group is not invited.

JUNE – AUGUST

- Nothing happens because everyone is in Greece.

SEPTEMBER

- Recently returned from the motherland, the President of the Panimian Federation of Tootgarook posts a photograph with the Greek Minister for Bad Design. After receiving only four likes, the Vice-President convenes a non-compliant extraordinary general meeting, deposes him and assumes control of the Federation’s bank account and four investment properties.

- The new President is photographed fleeing the Trak Centre, having spent Federation funds on a prime table for himself and his koumbara to see octogenarian Greek crooner Giorgos Roubinis, when the koumbara’s two admirers fight over who has the larger infrastructure grant.

- A panygyri takes place in Melbourne. Souvlakia and loukoumades are sold and Anagenisi Band pumps out the latest and not-so-latest tracks. Manasis Dance Group is not invited.

OCTOBER

- Someone paints the façade of the embattled Brunswick church in rainbow colours. The proposal to close Staley Street is quietly abandoned.

- In Coburg, Council approves a tower reaching heavenward in front of Ypapanti Church. Following an IBAC investigation, union officials’ tongues are tied and construction halts. Father Leo is seen outside the church holding the Book of Genesis open, smiling: “I told you so.”

- Dean Kotsianis paints a wall in his Yitonia.

- A panygyri takes place in Melbourne. Souvlakia and loukoumades are sold and Anagenisi Band pumps out the latest and not-so-latest tracks.

NOVEMBER

- Meni Valle releases her latest cookbook, Pethera. The pages are blank, as no self-respecting pethera divulges her secrets.

- Jim Claven launches "Brisbanians Behaving Badly: The ANZACS on Imia" and secures funding for a documentary adaptation, directed by Dean Kalimniou and performed entirely through mime and shadow puppetry. It screens at Watergardens to a capacity audience of three and a half.

- Anthony Albanese calls a snap election after Adelaide multimillionaire Gerry Karidis offers to secure supply via a loan from a third-tier Pakistani lender. Albo agrees enthusiastically and wins comfortably.

- Dean Kotsianis paints another wall in someone else's Yitonia.

- A panygyri takes place in Melbourne. Souvlakia and loukoumades are sold and Anagenisi Band pumps out the latest and not-so-latest tracks.

DECEMBER

- Following her electoral defeat, Liberal leader Sussan Ley resigns and is replaced by George Kapiniaris, who immediately adopts “Tsiki Tsiki to Katsiki,” as sung by Delta Goodrem, as party anthem.

- George Kapiniaris resigns the next day after it is determined that his surname contains too many syllables for him to qualify for the leadership.

- Bill Papastergiadis enters negotiations with Santa Claus for a Strategic Framework Agreement on equitable multicultural present distribution. Talks collapse over chimney-access exemptions under heritage overlays.

- The Melbourne Greek Christmas Pageant is cancelled when three committees assert ownership of the baby Jesus figurine. An interim administrator is appointed and the figurine placed in protective custody at the Hellenic Museum.

- A prominent community leader posts a Christmas message calling for unity, reflection and renewal. The comments section erupts into a 312-reply argument over font selection.

- Dean Kotsianis is arrested after attempting to paint a Greek themed mural in the Great Wall of China.

- A panygyri takes place in Melbourne. Souvlakia and loukoumades are sold and Anagenisi Band pumps out the latest and not-so-latest tracks. Manasis Dance Group announces it has “chosen not to participate.”

- As the year ends, consensus emerges that 2027 will finally be the year things change. A committee is formed to investigate.

DEAN KALIMNIOU

kalymnios@hotmail.com

First published in NKEE on Saturday 3 January 2026

GENDER, AGENCY AND THE NATIVITY ICON

Among the many images that have shaped the sacred imagination of the Orthodox world, none appears more deceptively familiar than the icon of the Nativity. It enters our homes each December with comforting inevitability and seems to present an uncomplicated tableau of divine incarnation. Yet when examined through the optic of feminist theology, the Nativity icon reveals itself as an intricate field of contested meaning. It is a visual locus where tensions of gender, authority and embodied holiness are negotiated across centuries of artistic and theological tradition. As Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza has argued, Christian iconography frequently encodes patriarchal patterns within familiar sacred narratives, patterns that become perceptible only when the viewer approaches the image with critical attentiveness. The Nativity icon is no exception.

A central insight of feminist theology is that women within Christian tradition are often present yet structurally muted. The Nativity icon both conforms to and disrupts this pattern. In its canonical form, the icon places the Theotokos at the centre of the composition. Her reclining body, inscribed within the hollow of the cave, forms the focal point toward which all other narrative fragments converge. Although the image contains angels, shepherds, midwives, Magi and Joseph, the eye repeatedly returns to the serene figure of Panagia. Her centrality is not incidental. It constitutes a visual proclamation of her agency within the mystery of the Incarnation and signals, as Schüssler Fiorenza would suggest, a space in which women’s bodies are recognised as bearers of salvation history rather than passive conduits of divine will. Her silence functions as a mode of knowing, a chosen stillness that counters the kyriarchal silencing historically imposed upon women.

This Marian centrality becomes more pronounced when set against the long history of male anxiety surrounding the virgin birth. The Protoevangelion of James records early Christian unease before the scandalous assertion of a virgin mother. Joseph, reduced in many icons to a marginal and troubled figure, embodies this anxiety. He appears seated at a distance from mother and child, withdrawn in contemplation. In Greek iconographic tradition, he is confronted by an elderly shepherd whose distorted posture suggests an unsettling presence. Although Orthodox theology hesitates to identify this figure explicitly as the Devil, popular Eastern interpretation often does. The whispered accusation Joseph cannot silence is that Panagia’s virginity is an illusion. His diverted gaze registers the fragility of patriarchal certainty when confronted by female autonomy.

The Nativity icon thus visualises dynamics analysed by feminist theologians such as Rosemary Radford Ruether in her critique of patriarchal suspicion toward women’s bodies. Ruether observes that whenever women become sites of divine action, male structures of authority respond with doubt, control or moral testing. Joseph, immobilised by uncertainty, embodies this response. Joseph’s disquiet contrasts sharply with Panagia’s composure. She reclines with a dignity bordering on the regal, refusing to yield to destabilising doubt. The juxtaposition constitutes a theological claim. Panagia, not Joseph, becomes the stabilising centre of the Incarnation. She embodies, as Kyriaki Karidoyanes-FitzGerald notes, the capacity of the female body to bear divine grace without surrendering agency or integrity. Her posture evokes the hesychastic tradition, locating contemplative authority, so often coded as male, within a woman whose silence shapes the icon’s entire theological space.

The Protoevangelion deepens this reading through the episode of Salome and the midwife, a narrative largely absent from Western imagination yet retained in Eastern iconography and many versions of the Nativity icon. Positioned discreetly, they bathe the newborn Christ. Rather than being merely domestic ornamentation, their presence asserts, against male minimisation, the indispensable role of women in sacred events. The midwife serves as witness and facilitator of the Incarnation, while Salome articulates anxieties projected onto Panagia’s body. Her doubt, expressed through a demand for physical verification, reflects the epistemological violence enacted whenever women’s testimony is distrusted. Her burned hand, healed upon touching the Christ Child, becomes a sign of restored trust in women’s embodied knowledge and questioning models a feminist hermeneutics of suspicion, demonstrating that critical engagement may itself be faithful.

For feminist theology, this episode is pivotal. Schüssler Fiorenza has demonstrated that early Christian texts preserve submerged traditions affirming women’s authority in revelation, later obscured through patriarchal redaction. Salome and the midwife thus function as iconographic survivals of a female apostolicity. They serve, attend and verify, their authority emerging through embodied experience, care and mutual recognition rather than through hierarchty. The icon therefore resists interpretation as a male-centred drama.

Panagia nonetheless remains the axis around which the icon turns. She is rarely depicted gazing directly at the Christ Child, yet her contemplative posture radiates profound inwardness. Feminist interpreters note that this interiority conveys theological dignity, in contrast to later Western sentimentalisation. In older icons, Panagia appears reflective, occasionally distant. This distance in no way diminishes her. Instead, it affirms her role as the one who receives and interprets the Word. Karidoyanes-FitzGerald argues that her stance invites recognition of the complexity of women’s spiritual and intellectual lives. Panagia does not merely bear the Word. She sustains it within a world that persistently seeks to misunderstand her.

The Nativity icon’s structure reinforces this reading. Orthodox iconography collapses temporally distinct events into a single visual field, forming a theological tapestry. Feminist analysis recognises this as an invitation to view the Nativity as a constellation of relationships rather than a linear narrative governed by male authority. The midwives at the margin, the Theotokos at the centre and Joseph at the periphery create a symbolic geometry that locates female authority at the heart of Incarnation, relegating male uncertainty to its edges.

The cave itself carries feminist resonance. It functions as a cosmic womb from which light emerges, a space of darkness transfigured through the Theotokos’s body. Symbolic imagery of this nature aligns with Ruether’s emphasis on regenerative symbolism associated with the female body across religious cosmologies. Consequently, the icon situates Incarnation within a visual grammar of female generativity.

Above, the Magi approach in procession, their depiction shaped partly by Venetian influence upon the Cretan School. Regal and authoritative, their power nonetheless yields to that of the Theotokos, seated in quiet majesty within the cave. Feminist analysis renders this inversion significant. Male authority travels great distances to honour a child borne by a woman. The visual hierarchy subtly displaces patriarchal ordering.

Modern feminist theology also attends to the icon’s historical permeability. Post-Byzantine softness reflects Italian influence following the fall of Constantinople. Icons are not sealed artifacts but living sites where cultural and gendered meanings converge. This dynamism complicates claims that icons merely transmit static patriarchal norms.

At the centre of a feminist reading of the icon stands the question of agency. The Nativity confers upon Panagia an authority that exceeds patriarchal frameworks: she consents to divine initiative and becomes its interpretive ground. Around her, Joseph’s uncertainty, the midwives’ labour, the Magi’s homage and the angels’ proclamation find coherence. Schüssler Fiorenza’s notion of a discipleship of equals is rendered here in visual form, as the icon articulates an economy of salvation structured through relational participation. As an object of veneration, the icon presents this configuration to the worshipper and gradually reshapes the imagination of authority through contemplative encounter. The agency disclosed here does not recede with the narrative but remains suspended within the icon, awaiting recognition each time it is contemplated. What emerges is a theological anthropology in which receptivity, discernment and embodied consent are revealed as authoritative forms of participation in divine life.

Ultimately, feminist interpretation restores depth long present yet intermittently obscured. It reveals the icon as a space where holiness honours a woman’s body and affirms female authority. Through Panagia, Salome, the midwife and the choreography of gesture and gaze, the Nativity discloses an Incarnation carried by women’s endurance, discernment and strength. Beneath the stillness of the familiar Christmas image lies a drama of gendered holiness, quietly reshaping the world.

DEAN KALIMNIOU

kalymnios@hotmail.com

First published in NKEE on Saturday 20 December 2025