Greek Community of Alexandria

Author: Athanasios Koutoupas

  • 21 Killed in Church Bomb Attack in Egypt’s Tanta

    21 Killed in Church Bomb Attack in Egypt’s Tanta

    A bomb exploded Sunday at St. George’s church in Egypt’s Al Gharbeyya governorate, killing and injuring dozens.

    The explosion in Tanta left 21 dead and 42 injured, according to state-owned Al-Ahram newspaper. According to preliminary reports in state media, a bomb had been placed inside the church underneath a seat.

    In response to the attack, an emergency room has been set up by Egypt’s security departments. Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi also issued an order for military hospitals to treat all those injured.

    Meanwhile, Egypt’s Al-Azhar, the highest Sunni Islamic authority in Egypt, issued a strongly worded statement condemning the attack.

    This is the second attack to strike Tanta in less than 10 days. On 31 March, at least 16 people were injured when a bomb exploded outside a police training centre.

    The explosion comes as Coptic Christians started celebrations for Palm Sunday.

    This is the second church bombing to strike Egypt in six months. In December, dozens were killed after a bomb struck a chap connected to St Mark’s Coptic Orthodox Cathedral in Cairo. ISIS claimed responsibility for the December 2016 attack.

    The story is still developing.

    (egyptianstreets.com)

  • Jesus’s tomb unveiled after $4m restoration

    Jesus’s tomb unveiled after $4m restoration

    The restored tomb in which Jesus’s body is believed to have been interred after his crucifixion will be officially unveiled at a ceremony at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem’s Old City on Wednesday.

    A team of Greek scientists and restorers has completed the nine-month renovation project, which focused on a small structure above the burial chamber, known as the Edicule. It is the most sacred monument in Christianity.

    “If the intervention hadn’t happened now, there is a very great risk that there could have been a collapse,” Bonnie Burnham of the World Monuments Fund, which had oversight of the project, told Associated Press. “This is a complete transformation of the monument.”

    The delicate restoration was carried out by a team of about 50 experts from the National Technical University of Athens, which had previously worked on the Acropolis in the Greek capital and the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul. The conservators worked mainly at night in order to allow pilgrims continued access to the shrine.

    In October, a marble slab covering the rock-carved tomb was lifted for the first time in more than two centuries, allowing restoration workers to examine the original rock shelf or “burial bed” on which Jesus’s body is thought to have rested. A small window has been cut into marble slabs to allow pilgrims a glimpse of the rock.

    The team also repaired and stabilised the shrine with titanium bolts and mortar, and cleaned thick layers of candle soot and pigeon droppings. The work involved the use of radar, laser scanners and drones.

    Wednesday’s ceremony to mark the completion of the restoration will be in the presence of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, the spiritual leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians, and a representative of Pope Francis.

    The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, in the heart of the Christian quarter of the walled Old City, covers the assumed site of Jesus’s crucifixion, burial and resurrection. It is a huge attraction for pilgrims and tourists from all over the world, many weeping and clutching precious mementos or photographs of loved ones and forming long queues for the shrine.

    Six denominations – Latin (Roman Catholic), Greek Orthodox, Armenian Apostolic, Syrian Orthodox, Ethiopian Orthodox and Copts – share custodianship of the cavernous church. Bitter disputes over territories and responsibilities have erupted in the past, sometimes involving physical altercations. Disputes between the denominations have held up restoration work for decades.

    In a sign of the distrust between the different denominations, the keys to the church have been held by a Muslim family since the 12th century.

    The shrine has been rebuilt four times in its history, most recently in 1810 after a fire. The structure had been held in place for almost 70 years by iron girders erected on the instructions of a British governor who ruled Palestine in the Mandate era. They have now been removed.

    The $4m (£3.2m) cost of the restoration came from contributions from the six denominations which share custody of the church, King Abdullah of Jordan, the Palestinian Authority, and Mica Ertegun, the widow of Atlantic Records co-founder Ahmet Ertegun, who gave $1.3m.

    (www.theguardian.com)

  • Parthenon Marbles resurgence

    Parthenon Marbles resurgence

    In recent developments for the return of the Parthenon Marbles, the Athens government has made a desirable offer; to loan, on a recurring and long-term basis, rare archaeological treasures from Greek museums in exchange for the return of the Marbles from the British Museum.

    The request has been made as a symbolic act in the fight against anti-democratic forces that appear to be on the rise and seeking “the dissolution of Europe”.

    “The reunification of the Parthenon Marbles will be a symbolic act that will highlight the fight against the forces that undermine the values and foundations of the European case against those seeking the dissolution of Europe,” said Lydia Koniordou, the Greek Minister of Culture and Sport.
    “The Parthenon monument represents a symbol of Western civilisation. It is the emblem of democracy, dialogue and freedom of thought.”

    Greece has a number of art works dating back to antiquity, including the ‘golden mask of Agamemnon’ and the statue of Zeus/Poseidon, which if loaned to Britain would likely draw great interest.

    In an official statement the International Association for the Reunification of the Parthenon Sculptures (IARPS) said the Greek government had clearly made the offer in the “true spirit of compromise”.

    “Greece and its supporters will not rest until all the known surviving sculptural elements from the Parthenon are reunited in the Acropolis Museum in full view of the monument which they once adorned,” the IARPS said.

    Andrew George, chairman of the British Association for the Reunification of the Parthenon Sculptures, said agreeing to return the sculptures on these terms would only help the UK to rebuild its reputation in the region following the controversial Brexit vote.

    “Britain has nothing to lose but a deeply damaged reputation – having clung on for over 200 years to such important artefacts which were stolen from the Greeks when they could do nothing to stop it – and has much to gain at the very time Britain’s reputation needs enhancing amongst those countries it wants to do a deal with,” Mr George said.

    The Marbles were taken from Greece more than 200 years ago by Lord Elgin, when the country was still part of the Ottoman Empire, where they once adorned the Parthenon temple built by the world’s first democracy some 2,500 years ago.

    (neoskosmos.com)

  • The Greek refugees who fled to the Middle East in WW2

    The Greek refugees who fled to the Middle East in WW2

    The influx of more than a million refugees and migrants to the Greek islands in the past year has stirred up difficult memories for a dwindling group who followed the same route during World War Two, but in reverse.

    As German and Italian troops occupied Greece, tens of thousands of people fled by sea to refugee camps in the Middle East.

    At the end of the war, they began heading home. Most made it back safely, but for some the journey ended in tragedy.

    “An event like this is hard to forget,” says Eleni Karavelatzi. “It leaves you seared with scars and makes you bitter forever.”

    Eleni Karavelatzi was 12 months old when in 1942 her family fled the Nazi occupation of Kastelorizo, a Greek island 2km (1.5 miles) from the Turkish coast.

    They sailed first to Cyprus and then to a refugee camp in Gaza known as El Nuseirat. They stayed there until the end of the war.

    In September 1945, a British vessel, the SS Empire Patrol, left the Egyptian city of Port Said carrying Eleni’s family and 500 other Greek refugees.

    Within hours, fire broke out onboard. Thirty-three passengers died, including 14 children.

    From her garden on Kastelorizo, Eleni can now see the EU border agency ship searching for new migrants and reminisces about what happened in 1945.

    “My parents told me that I was tied with a rope and lowered on to a raft. But as they were letting me down, my father saw that it was full and ordered me back. As soon as I was brought up, a woman jumped on the dinghy. It capsized and all the children drowned.”

    Among the victims were Eleni’s three cousins, whose names are carved on a monument a short distance from where she lives.

    To the east of the monument lives Kastelorizo’s only other survivor, Maria Chroni, who lives with her granddaughter.

    Maria Chroni, who was born in 1937, clung for life on a piece of wreckage.

    “I found myself at sea holding on to a wooden plank.”

    “How it happened, I can’t remember. I only know I that I stayed in this position for 10 hours. Then my father rescued me and lifted me into the charred boat.”

    From Aleppo to Egypt and beyond

    Other Greek refugees had fled the Nazi occupation to Syria. They were mainly from the island of Chios, a few kilometres off the Turkey coast.

    “The Germans were here and we were hungry. I was three back then,” remembers Marianthi Andreadi. “So we left for Turkey illegally and from there we took the train to Al Nayrab camp in Aleppo (Syria).”

    Marianthi remembers some of the faces that stood out on her journey. “I was surrounded by older women. And there was this moment that stays with me when we were on the Turkish border and the guard yells ‘Gel Burda! Gel Burda!’ (come here).”

    “We ran away quickly. I fell down. And eventually he let us go. But I never forgot this.”

    Greek archives reveal Al Nayrab camp was less a permanent settlement than a meeting point, says Iakovos Michailidis, professor of history at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. “People were brought here for short periods of time before being sent to various parts of the Middle East, or even Africa.”

    Ioannis Stekas travelled first to the Middle East and then into Africa.

    He explains how his father sold their properties to send him and his brother abroad with their mother, Chrisanthi.

    “He was planning to follow us with my 10-year-old sister. But shortly afterwards the Germans banned migration towards Turkey.”

    In her diary, written down by Ioannis, his mother writes: “We went to Cesme (in Turkey) and stayed there for a month, then headed to Izmir, before travelling for three days by train to Aleppo.” Ioannis’s older brother Kostas was at that point drafted into the army by the Allies.

    Ioannis, aged six, carried on with his mother on their long journey via Egypt to Dar es Salaam on the coast of Tanzania before continuing across land to Elisabethville, now Lubumbashi in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

    “After 40 days we left Aleppo by train and in two days we arrived in Egypt, at the Suez Canal,” Ioannis’s diary says. “We stayed there for a while in tents.”

    “After Egypt we took a cargo ship and crossed the Red Sea to Aden, a British colony. We stayed two days inside the ship as they were bringing food supplies for the rest of the journey.

    “When we left Aden, there were hot air balloons to prevent enemies from bombing civilians. No-one knew where they were taking us. After a 10-day journey we arrived in Dar Es Salaam.”

    Stamatis’s story

    Stamatis Michaliades, was just six when he fled famine during the German occupation of Chios in 1942.

    He left with his father and brother while others in the family stayed on the island. The boys and their father crossed to Turkey and from there to the Moses Wells refugee camp in the Egyptian desert, where they waited for the war to end.

    Past and present

    While Greece’s returned refugees feel a bond with the new wave of displaced people, age makes it difficult for them to meet.

    But they hear new stories from Greek TV and Marianthi Andreadi believes that despite her country’s financial problems “we’re doing what we can”.

    From their balconies, the former evacuees watched Syrian refugees coming off packed fishing boats. “It’s like a mirror to the past,” says Maria Chroni. “The hardest thing is having to witness the arrival of children.”

    Eleni points out that the Greek evacuees made it back home and life returned to normal. She is not sure if the same will happen to the Greece’s new refugees any time soon.

    (www.bbc.com)