ON SECONDMENT

 

Widely debated in our community of late, is the news that the Greek government, through an initiative by the Minister of Education, Religion, and Sports, will send 600 clergy on a three-year secondment to Greek-speaking Patriarchates. While the government spokesperson clarified that the goal of the initiative is to provide Greek communities with priests from Greece and to support the ancient patriarchates, the Minister for Education commented further that through this act, the government is “supporting Hellenism worldwide…in all Greek-speaking Orthodox Churches around the world.”

One immediate benefit of the scheme, will be that as the wages of the priests will be paid by the Greek government, this removes financial pressure from diasporan churches. The ensuing glut of priests in such churches could also conceivably free incumbents from their parishes so that they could engage in community outreach or missionary work.

What is not defined however, is the term: “Greek-speaking Orthodox Church.” Would this include the Patriarchate of Jerusalem, which although Greek in liturgy, is primarily made up an Arabic-speaking population? How would such clergy minister to the needs of this distinct Orthodox demographic? What about the Patriarchate of Alexandria, a missionary church which, while its Patriarch is Greek, ministers to the whole continent of Africa in the languages of its people?

Quite possibly, the aim is to strengthen and assist diasporan churches in Europe, America and Australia and it is in relation to these regions that the government’s initiative has given pause for thought. Do we consider America, with its primarily third, fourth and fifth generation migrant congregation, and its English liturgies, a Greek-speaking church?

In Australia, where church services are only now beginning to switch to English, and where at least in theory, lip service is paid by the community to the importance of the Greek language, it is arguable that an infusion of clerics from Greece, if in fact this is intended, and we can only speculate at the present time, will provide the church and the community with the requisite tradition, language and practices that the Greek government obviously believes are sorely lacking.

There are a number of questions that arise from this approach, if Australian will form part of this initiative, the first relating to the way the Greek government appears to regard our institutions. Last year, we celebrated the one-hundred-year anniversary of the foundation of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese. Now, in its one hundred and first year, is it somehow being somehow suggested that we cannot make it on our own, that our existing structures and “native” personnel are not entirely adequate and assistance by means of Greek speaking priests is required? Assuming that we will be the recipient of the largesse of the Greek government, are we now to understand that one of our most important and long-lived institutions appears not to be considered by the Greek government to be soundly rooted in the fabric of the land in which it has implanted itself for a century and instead, as a “colony” that must be re-hellenised, or indeed, that cannot stand on its own two feet and requires arbitrary external intervention?

This is significant because increasingly, our dwindling congregations are becoming monolingual and Anglophonic in nature. The socio-linguistic complexity of the Australian church, coupled with the in inexorable process of assimilation and the rapid secularisation of the broader Greek-Australian community presents multi-faceted challenges for the future. It is not at all certain that these challenges can be comprehended, let alone addressed by the Greek government, at a time when we ourselves are struggling to appreciate the magnitude of the task we have before us and all the social factors that are fashioning us into an entity that defies definitions and stereotypes of language, class and creed.

Ours is a church rooted in tradition, with a singular relationship with the passage of time and the human condition. In Australia, it abides within a climate of modernity that is progressively more aggressive and inimical towards organised religion. To some extent, this discourse has been absorbed by large sections of our community. We are in dire need of people who are capable to enter into that discourse and articulate our unique perspective, if we are to have s stake in the great social movements and debates of the age. It is not known whether it is envisaged that our potential new arrivals will be possessed of the skill-set to do so, or will be able to facilitate others to do so, or indeed whether the Greek government identifies this as a priority at all.

That is not to say that we are, should the scheme commence, to expect a tidal wave of Grecian priests flooding our shores. After all, they would have to fulfil the visa requirements of this land, which are exacting and not always easy to meet. Further, their wages would be paid according to Greek law, which means that they will struggle with the cost of living in this country, the way that Greek teachers on secondment do. The task of assisting them may fall to us after all. Nonetheless, it has to be said that the Greek priests that have been already received from the motherland into our communities have been universally embraced, fully integrated and they have made positive contributions to the parishioners to whom they minister and are loved by them. Perhaps the role of the new batch of seconded priests will minister to the first generation, allowing “native” priests to minister to the subsequent generations. It is unclear how this will provide the infusion of Hellenism for those generations that the Greek government manifestly thinks is needed. We do not know, for the Key Performance Indicators for these priests, or even the Success Criteria of this initiative have not been disclosed.

The second question arising from the initiative is the manner in which it seems to be linked to education and the Greek language. This is understandable, for traditionally, it was the church and its clergy that were the guardians of Greek letters and here in Australia along with other, secular organisations, one of the key fields in which the church has always been active, has been in Greek language education. It is fair to say however, that Greek language education is collapsing. In Victoria, a state which prides itself on its large and vibrant Greek community, only 181 students chose to study Modern Greek and VCE level. Greek schools are haemorrhaging students, as other activities such as sport are given greater priority by parents. The proficiency of those enrolled is often questionable and as a community, we lack the courage to ask: what do we expect of Greek language education for our children, and are we in fact achieving it? Greek priests can and have served in our community as inspiring and charismatic teachers and many Australian-born priests today continue to make valuable contributions in this field, but the vast majority of those potential applicants for secondment are not trained in this discipline, nor would they have a grasp of the state of the Greek language among the latter generations in this country. We can only hope that, assisted by the rest of the community, they will learn quickly.

Along with the priests, who are most welcome, the Greek government should consider sending us the expert Greek teachers which as the influx of teachers from Greece in the wake of the Crisis has proven, have the potential to revitalise the teaching of the language. They are not doing this for two reasons: firstly, because the system of secondment allows only for five year appointments on Greek wages, and an extension of five years without pay, meaning that such teachers would have to be paid by the community or find other means of employment. If they do not return to Greece upon the expiration of the extended period, they are fired. It was this illogical system which completely ignores the realities on the ground of diasporan communities, that compelled gifted educators like Manos Tzimpragos to up sticks after an inspiring era of language re-genesis and return home, leaving their important work in its infancy. Secondly, whether it is because of distance, or cost, last year, no Greek teacher applied to be seconded to Australia or New Zealand. In all of Greece, only twenty-one teachers applied to be seconded to other countries around the world. At a time when the Greek government and the very people who we need to assist us, teachers, appear to have given up on Australia, how will this new initiative achieve anything different?

The point should be made for it is an important one, that the wishes or needs of Greek-Australians do not seem to have been canvassed when this decision was made. No fact-finding mission was sent here to confer with key community stakeholders, no public meetings held, no calls for submissions made. Instead, the Greek government took it upon itself to unilaterally determine what is best for us, regardless of the fact that we are Australian citizens, with our own complex, competing and often contradictory views on what our needs and priorities are, and with our own internal historical narratives and discourses. Owing to our psychological attachment to our ancestral homeland and our emotional identification with it, we sometimes neglect to remember that Greece’s interests, perceived or otherwise, and those of the Greek diasporan communities, do not always align and it is incumbent upon the party that has an interest, to further it by whichever means best it can.

One of the great things about our community, is that despite any internal debate we may have about the appropriateness of the Greek Government’s infrequent and spasmodic attempts to nurture diasporan communities, we always welcome our compatriots from overseas warmly and induct them within our community enthusiastically. We grow to love them and they grow to love us and we ought not to forget that it is the successive waves of arrivals here as a historical process that provide layers of culture and perspective that inform, challenge and ultimately enrich us. What we cannot do, is to rely on the Greek government to cover our shortcomings, to address our needs, or to plan our future. That task, is solely our own.

DEAN KALIMNIOU

kalymnios@hotmail.com

First published in NKEE on Saturday 15 February 2025

FOR THE LOVE OF HUMANITY: THE JEWISH MEDICAL RELIEF FUND IN GREECE

 Even before the close of World War II, Jewish relief organisations began to seek volunteers for post-war relief work in shattered Europe. In Australia, Jewish communities established the Jewish Relief Unit Fund which aimed to provide medical officers, pathologists, teachers, pharmacists and welfare workers for service in countries blighted by the war, under the direction of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA). It was decided, in consultation with UNRRA that the first team funded by the Jewish Relief Unit Fund would serve in Greece, provided that its members undertook to abstain from “political activity, speculation, profiteering and anything that might discredit UNRRA.” According to a contemporary article in the Australian Jewish News, the Jewish community was subsidising the team to the tune of £5,000.

The team comprised of eight members, some of whom had faced persecution in their own countries prior to the war. All were motivated by a desire to assist the afflicted. Dr Ernst Wasser had served in a children’s hospital in Berlin and was a specialist in children’s diseases before being forced to flee Nazi Germany. He ended up in Australia where his qualifications were not recognised owing to his poor knowledge of English. For him, Greece offered the opportunity to continue in his vocation.

Theodore Wolff, a manager of weaving firms in Germany, and the founder of a welfare organisation to assist impoverished Jews in Berlin also fled Nazi persecution. He went on to serve as quartermaster in an Australian internees’ camp and was Adjutant and Welfare Officer in the relief team.

Ernst Hermann, a German medical student, saw his studies interrupted by the onset of the Second World War. He managed to flee the Nazis and eventually made his way to Australia, becoming partner of an engineering firm. He served as Transport Officer to the relief team.

Victor Lambert, joined the team because had previously served as a teacher in Greece and could act as interpreter. However, upon his arrival in the country, the team soon realised that he spoke an obscure island dialect that was barely intelligible to Athenians and that his English was extremely poor. This notwithstanding, he only remained on the team for fortnight after arriving in Greece, being dismissed by UNRRA owing to what they termed his “intense political bias.” He chose to remain in Greece and it is believed that he took part in the Greek Civil War, on the side of the Greek Democratic Army.

The other members of the team were women. Elizabeth Penizek, a Czechoslovakian language teacher and physical education instructor was conducting women’s health classes and studying science at Melbourne University when she volunteered. Lorna Poynter was a surgical and general nurse as well as a midwife and operating-theatre sister Julia Caminer was a language teacher while Molly Kerr was a canteen supervisor in a government munitions family.

As the team embarked for Greece on 2 February 1946, their UNRRA liaison, Constance Duncan, wrote to UNRRA in Athens expressing her confidence in the team, basing her belief on the fact that many of them had personally suffered before and during the war and were motivated by a desire to provide succour to the suffering  Greek people. Prior to their embarkation, according to the Australian Jewish Herald, they were welcomed not only by the Sydney Jewish community with Rabbi Dr I Porush outlining the spiritual harmony between Greece and Israel, but also by the Sydney Greek community and Greek Consul-General Dr Vrisakis.

Arriving in Athens, the team was shocked by the prevailing conditions. As Elizabeth Penizek wrote:

“Our first morning in Athens was one of great surprise. We had read accounts of starving Greece and had expected to see stark poverty everywhere. However… there were shops literally bulging with all kinds of delicious foods, cake-shops displaying piles of rich cream cakes… we saw… equisite dresses, shoes, jewellery and beautiful materials displayed…. If this was poor starving Greece, why had we been sent here…? Ninety percent of the people of Athens could not afford to buy even the basis necessities… so, all the food that we saw was available only to the 10 per cent of wealthy Athenians.”

After some sightseeing, the team departed for Volos in Thessaly and were placed under the direction of American UNRRA personnel. To their dismay, the team was expected only to serve in an advisory role to local Greek authorities and noted that most of the time that advice was not heeded, owing to local interests or because villagers were unwilling to abandon traditional practices in hygiene. The practices of Greek officials also mystified them, with the governor of Volos prison seeking to assuage their concerns over the health implications of cell overcrowding by assuring them that the problem would be solved quickly, given that by the next day, many prisoners would be dead. Their campaign to stamp out malaria was frustrated by the fact that most insecticide sprayers had been arrested as suspected communists and one Greek official even confided that since Greeks had always suffered from malaria, he could not understand why they insisted they had come all that way to fight it. Lorna Poynter however, was able to advise on hospital organisation and supplies in hospitals in Larissa and Trikkala.

The Greek Civil War, by this stage raging in the countryside, also impinged upon the team’s work, affecting its members psychologically. Elizabeth Penizek lamented: “The situate is very depressing… Greece is one of the unfortunate places where the conflict between Russia and the West is being fought out…” She also commented on how the brutality they witnessed affected their own political beliefs: “Whatever our political creed, it was severely shaken in Greece. Those who had idealised Communism felt bewildered at [their].. ruthlessness… while one of the staunchest supporters of the other side was almost ready to join the communists… after… a fortnight. Whatever we attempted to do in the way of relief or rehabilitation, we were always up against the political situation.”

Lorna Poynter also saw the violent political situation as a chief hindrance in providing effective relief work: “As for the political situation, enough to mention that, with the approval of the authorities, the blood-dripping head of a so-called Communist bandit has been exhibited in the market square as a warning to all who do not fall in with the ruling class. Highwaymen belonging to right-wing organisations can levy taxes and stage hold-ups with impunity. Motor vehicles, including those working in the …campaign against malaria, are pressed by these bandits into transporting stolen goods and contraband.”

She also recorded how the War, the political instability and the vast disparity in incomes had affected the people of Greece: “The whole atmosphere was oppressive and sickening. You felt and saw the inertness of the people, who through years of war had lost all sense of civic spirit. They take it for granted that civil servants can be bribed; and I have never hear members of a nation speak so detrimentally of their fellow-countrymen as here.”

Volos in particular struck her has a town that barely belonged to the twentieth century: “The dirty square at the entrance to the town was covered with filthy Gypsy tents. Many horses and donkeys mingled with dirty half-naked children. Nobody seemed to bother about anything.”

The team also found itself stuck in the middle of disputes between competing authorities. In their attempt to organise a summer camp for the most impoverished children of the area so they could rest for a few weeks in safety, they came up against the opposition of the Nomarch, who banned the initiative, over the objections of the Bishop. In order to break the deadlock, Elizabeth Penizek announced that the British army unit nearby had endorsed the camp and promised protection. This endorsement was subsequently and luckily obtained from a British major and the team rallied Greek engineers, doctors and teachers to set up the camp, a wonderful experience for some three hundred war-shattered children.

Later in the year, the team, except for Lambert, departed for Germany to continue relief work there in displaced persons camps. In assessing their work, an UNRRA official opined positively: “The spirit underlying the team enabled them to work most effectively with the Greek people.” The contribution of the Jewish Medical Relief Fund and its team in Greece, however modest, should be appreciated and never forgotten.

DEAN KALIMNIOU

kalymnios@hotmail.com

First published in NKEE on Saturday 8 February 2025

GRECOPHONES

 

We had just completed an almighty sandcastle with crenelated ramparts with which I intended to demonstrate to my children the Siege of Amorion, when the earth began to shake. Minutes later, the castle was trampled into the sand whence it came as a horde of excited children ran across it, leaving nothing in their wake standing, as they plunged into the sea.

Their grandfather looked at them wistfully, remarking to his wife, ‘“Thalassa or Thalatta?” channelling Rose Macauley’s ‘Towers of Trebizond.’ “The latter,” she responded, as she spread her beach towel on the sand and settled down with a well-thumbed copy of Herodotus’ History, Xenophon presumably, being last season.

In the frenzied melee, our sandbucket, shovels and rakes had gone missing and I scraped the sand desultorily with my toes, seeing whether I could recover any of these implements. «Αλέξ’! Είδις καθόλ’ του μπαγκράτς;» I called out to my son. At that moment, I spied a young girl liberate our rake from the former remains of Amorion. Her father, a formidably large gentleman with piercing blue eyes, sporting a long beard and no moustache, snatched the rake from her hands and strode towards me purposefully, kicking up sand as he approached. «Αυτό δικό σου;» he asked. I responded in the affirmative, assuring him that his daughter was welcome to use it.

«Ευχαριστώ πολύ» he responded slowly and then asked: “Can I ask? I know you are Greek but I’ve never heard anyone speak like that before. Where are you from?” I explained that I was speaking in a regional dialect. He nodded in comprehension, going on to tell me that he before migrating to Australia from Turkey, he would holiday in Greece every year, which is why he had picked up some of the rudiments of the language. An hour or so later, he returned again with the rake, wishing me «Στην υγειά σου». Considering I had just been floored by a wave of unexpected force and swallowed a mouthful of bay water, this pious hope was particularly apt.

A few weeks earlier, I was traversing our local shopping strip with my parish priest. Every so often, he would be greeted by storekeepers and passerby with the greeting: «Καλημέρα πάτερ! Καλή Χρονιά!». While our area has a large Greek population, none of these well-wishers were Greek. Instead, they were Assyrians who, upon fleeing Iraq, lived in Greece for a time before migrating to Australia. They learnt the language and now seek any opportunity to practise their skills. The running joke we have is that the local Assyrian priest is more fluent in Greek than most of our Australian-born priests, even if it is a form of Greek heavily inflected with nineties colloquialisms. In seeking to maintain their connection to Greece, some of these Hellenophones have been drawn to our community in other ways: find their partners from within it and it is still a source of wonder for me when conversing with such partners, to witness them struggle for a Greek word, only to have this readily supplied by their non-Greek partner.

Matthew has been born in Australia of Jordanian parents and has never been to Greece. Yet he speaks to my children in rather coarse Greek for he is apprenticed to some Greek tradesmen and in spending time with them, has picked up more than a smattering ofour ancestral tongue. There is something inordinately endearing about having greet you cheerfully, only to exclaim: «Θέλω έναν καφέ, μωρή!» I have taught him the expression «Με όποιο δάσκαλο κάτσεις, τέτοια γράμματα θα μάθεις», but he hasn’t yet able to appreciate the reason as to why I find this amusing.

Interestingly enough, his cousins have sought fit to name their son Leandros. They know nothing of the mythological hero of this name, of his nightly swims across the Hellespont to be with his beloved Hero, nor indeed, of his untimely demise halfway through his swim, when a strong winter wind blows out Hero's light, causing him to lose his way and drown. Instead, they were strongly possessed by the desire to give their firstborn a Greek name. I express the desire that he grow to become a stronger swimmer than his namesake and caution against naming their second child Meandros, lest his meandering attitudes cause him to seek a career as a lawyer, but they smile nervously, and merciful fail to grasp the point of the jest.

Over the years, I have encountered a number of people who have limited or no connection to Greece and yet have mastered the language. Some of these people came to the language through a love of Greek music or trips to Greece and a desire to remain in contact with the people whose culture they are so enamoured of. One of my friends, of Jewish heritage, mastered Greek on his own in order to circumvent the objections of his prospective mother in law, to his union with her daughter. Ultimately, the object of his affection chose a different life partner, but he maintains his enviable fluency in Modern Greek, peppered as it is by the most fascinating expletives, all of his own invention, by which he demonstrates the immense malleability of our language.

Others come to Greek though the kindness or companionship of Greek neighbours and friends who include them from a young age in their social circle. From the elderly Australian woman I once encountered in South Melbourne who told me in Greek that she attended Saturday Greek school as a child in order to spend more time with her friends,  to Meron, a multi-lingual Ethiopian prodigy I had the honour of teaching years ago, who at the age of eleven, decided that Greek was an important community language that she would like to learn, to Shahnaz, whose parents’ nostalgic accounts of a pre-Iranian Revolution trip to Greece caused her not only to seek the company of Greeks upon her arrival in Australia but also to learn their language and, amazingly to teach it to her children, to Khalil, a Syrian Orthodox refugee who prefers to attend the Greek church and has taught himself Greek because he believes that the Greeks of Antioch form part of his national identity, to Bledi, an Albanian who has migrated to Australia and religiously attends Greek festivals and social events, there is out there a significant corpus of non-Greek, Greek speakers who exist integrated within or upon the margins of our community.

One could pose the obvious question, a timely one given the current Greek school enrolment season: If they can do it, why can’t we? But to do so is misconceived. As far back as Isocrates, it has commonly been acknowledged that there is no “us” nor “them,” when people speak your language. The very fact that a shared language exists between people creates an unparalleled intimacy which can also lead to unparalleled hurt, something that Bulgarian nationalist Grigor Parlichev who won awards for his Greek poetry understood, until his efforts were derided by Greek bigots, and indeed Albanian national poet Naim Frashëri, whose Greek works of literature are astoundingly beautiful. For along with those who embrace Greek as a matter of choice, other communities of Greek speakers exist alongside us, their origins stemming from liminal spaces within Hellenism, where identities, ethnic and cultural are fluid or contested: Grecophones of Macedonia who espouse a Slavic identity, and Greek-speaking Turkish Cypriots to name the most prominent examples.

A more apt question therefore is what we do with this seldom-recognised and unutilised linguistic capital. It remains unrecorded within Census statistics which do not acknowledge multilingualism as a phenomenon in Australia, compelling us all to declare only one language other than English spoken at home, when many of our citizens have many. We most often ignore or fail to connect with communities of Greek speakers, even when the majority of these consider Greek to be a language of prestige and we seem unable to mobilise or to utilise their goodwill in ways that would benefit and be appropriate not only for ourselves but for the broader fabric of multicultural society.

When our culture is embraced by others, partaken of, interrogated, examined and deconstructed, it emerges stronger and more viable as a result, something which a whole period of our history, the Hellenistic, attests to. Two thousand years ago, Gallo-Roman Hellenist Favorinus noted that he espoused “not only the voice but also the mind-set, life and style of the Greeks.” Consequently he maintained that he had developed an outstanding quality, that of “both resembling a Greek and being one.” In multilingual and multicultural Melbourne, we would do well to remember that we are not the only ones who can claim this privilege, albeit for now.

DEAN KALIMNIOU

kalymnios@hotmail.com

First published in NKEE on Saturday 1 February 2025