GreekNewsBlog: johnmetaxas.com

ARCHIVES
Vol. 1, #10
APRIL 17-20, 2006

THURSDAY, APRIL 20, 2006

We wish our readers a Happy Easter, Kalo Pascha, and thank you all for your support and feedback in our initial weeks of full launch. We will not publish during the Easter weekend and will be back with our next issue on Monday, April 24.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 19, 2006

GUEST COMMENTARY BY DR. CHRISTOS IOANNIDES
As we make our way through Holy Week towards Easter, in this week's guest commentary, my friend and colleague, Dr. Christos Ioannides, Director of the Queens College Center for Byzantine and Modern Greek studies, writes about the unique Orthodox conception of Easter and relates how the modern media debate about some recent controversial works of film and literature would have been better served if the Orthodox point of view were included. -- John Metaxas

Greek Orthodox and Western Views of the Passion and Easter,
Pascha: Where is the Holy Grail?

By Dr. Christos P. Ioannides

Dr. Ioannides

This coming Sunday, Greek and Eastern Orthodox around the world will celebrate Easter, known in Greek as Pascha, which in turn originates from the Jewish Pesach, Passover. Earlier, this past Sunday, Catholics, Protestants and other western Christian denominations celebrated their Easter while Jews all over celebrated Passover.

For the Greek Orthodox, Catholics, and Protestants, when we celebrate Easter, we follow the steps of Jesus Christ, from His triumphant entry to Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, to the Last Supper, what the Greeks call the “Mystical Supper” (Mysticos Deipnos)—there is a difference between the terms “last” and “mystical.” Finally, there is the Passion (Pathos) and the Resurrection (Anastasis). to continue, click here...

TUESDAY, APRIL 18, 2006
GREEK-AMERICAN POLITICAL UPDATE

Two Greek-Americans vie to become 2nd generation to serve in Congress
Sarbanes and Bilirakis hold fundraising events

John Sarbanes, an attorney in Maryland and the son of five-term U.S. Sen. Paul Sarbanes, is running for Congress in his state's 3rd Congressional district. The elder Sarbanes plans to retire at the end of his current term. The younger Sarbanes has scheduled a fundraiser in New York on May 3rd.

Gus Bilirakis, currently a fourth term state legislator in the Florida House of Representatives, is running for Congress in Florida's 9th U.S. Congressional District. He is vying to succeed his father, U.S. Representative Michael Bilirakis, who is retiring at the end of this term. The American Hellenic Institute held a fundraiser for Bilirakis in Washington last month.

Momentum seen shifting in California race

A recent poll in the California Democratic gubernatorial primary shows state Controller Steve Westly pulling ahead, turning an 8-point deficit in February into an 11-point lead over Treasurer Phil Angelides, according to a new Field Poll.

An Angelides campaign spokesman attributed the poll shift to "Westly outspending us 2-1 on the air."

A Westly consultant says the latest poll numbers suggest Angelides now has "a very serious decision to make -- and that's whether to go negative in television ads."

Westly surges to 11-point lead in poll

SF Gate: Momentum shifting

Some bets on the governor's race

MONDAY, APRIL 17, 2006
PBS TO AIR DOCUMENTARY ABOUT ARMENIAN GENOCIDE TONIGHT
PBS is airing a one-hour documentary tonight titled: "The Armenian Genocide." It details the horrors of the first genocide of the 20th Century in which Ottoman Turks massacred some one-and-a-half million Armenians. But the real significance is that the film includes some of the first public statements ever by Turkish academics admitting that the genocide occurred. For years the Turkish government has denied the genocide and has actively worked to suppress information about it.

The broadcast has generated its share of controversy, however, because PBS decided to follow it with another program that includes a panel discussion in which two participants deny that the genocide occurred. This has raised howls of protest from Armenian groups and several PBS affiliates are not airing the second program.

WSJ: Armenia, Revisited: Amid Protests, PBS Slates Film and Panel Show
Washington Post: PBS Panel on Armenian Genocide Stirs Protest

Six years ago while I was at CNN Financial News, I learned of a campaign by the Turkish government to make Microsoft change the entry in its online encyclopedia to remove the word "genocide" from its description of the slaughters of the Armenians, or else implicitly face closure of its substantial business in Turkey. Not feeling it was appropriate for me to do the story, as my grandfather had been born a Greek in Turkey and had managed to escape to America, I asked my friend and colleague, the late Steve Young, if he would be interested in reporting on it. Steve pounced on the opportunity. He interviewed the academics who had felt pressured to change their scholarship, and did, in my view, a very balanced report. He even debated with me what number to use in describing the number of people massacred. Trying to err on the safe side, he settled on 600,000, even though he had other information that indicated it was much more. I miss Steve. He was a true journalist, a veteran of the old CBS News. In doing this report, Steve told a story that needed to be told.

CLICK HERE TO SEE THE VIDEO OF STEVE YOUNG'S REPORT ON THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE AND MICROSOFT.

For those of you who have looked at my website's archives, you will find a full report on last year's 90th anniversary of the genocide. With the encouragement of my news director at WCBS Newsradio, Tim Scheld, I did an interview with a 94-year-old survivor of the genocide, Rahan Kachian, excerpts of which we put on the air.
Click here to listen to her chilling account of the day Turks and Kurds arrived in her village on horseback and began killling Armenians.

See and hear my full report on the 90th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide.

GREEK ORTHODOX CHRISTIANS CELEBRATE HOLY WEEK LEADING UP TO EASTER NEXT SUNDAY
A NOTE TO OUR NON-GREEK READERS:
Yesterday, Palm Sunday in the Eastern or Greek Orthodox tradition, marks the beginning of our Holy Week in which we re-live the last days of Christ's ministry, His death on the cross, and His resurrection on Easter Sunday. The week culminates with the beautiful candlelight "Anastasi" or resurrection service at midnight on Sunday morning, in which the flame of eternal life is passed from candle to candle in the congregation until all have received it.

This year the Orthodox church is celebrating Easter one week later than the Western churches, which celebrated it yesterday. The difference is because of differing interpretations of a complicated formula for figuring the date of Easter that includes, as I understand it, the vernal equinox, the phases of the moon, and in the case of the Orthodox Christians, the requirement that the Jewish Passover have passed. Every several years, the formulas coincide and all Christians celebrate Easter on the same date.

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