Monash University has awarded $112,000 to assist a team of six in identifying and preserving premodern Greek manuscripts.
The university has enlisted the help of four researchers, a project coordinator, and a database manager, with the hope to create a new searchable national digital archive.
Professor Guy Geltner is a medieval scholar at Monash and is leading the search for manuscripts.
He calls on Victorians to hand over their manuscripts, “family heirlooms” or “very private collections”, to help the team “learn about the wealth of cultural heritage” of Victoria’s migrants.
Examples of manuscripts range from marriage licenses to anything with text.
Professor Guy Geltner is leading the search for manuscripts across Victoria (Right: Getty Images) (Left: via Monash University)
His goal is to “reach out to diverse communities, organisations, and individuals who may be in possession of liturgical, literary, personal or other rare texts, and learn more about the stories of their legacy and heritage, how they got here from East Asia to Europe and the Americas, and, of course, how they can illuminate the past and present of such cultures”.
The team hopes to make contact with members and organisations of the Greek Orthodox community in Melbourne and regional Victoria.
“We’ll offer them an opportunity for experts to look at what they have, not from a financial perspective, but from a scholarly perspective,” he says.
He hopes to identify transcripts pre-dating the 17th century and has designated 1600 as the cut-off year for eligible transcripts.
Lazaros and Leontios Stefanidis are currently representing Greece in the shot-put events at the Paralympic Games in Tokyo.
It marks their Paralympic debut and pins the pair, as the current competition’s only father and son duo, against each other.
“I am proud that I will compete with my father at the Paralympics and that we will go together to the Games. I feel blessed that we will be together,” Leontios, 22, is quoted in World Para Athletics.
He says his father Lazaros inspired him to get into athletics.
“[He taught me to] never give up because the human strengths can reach unknown barriers and you can reach points that you never imagined,” he says.
“So you always have to try and you will be awarded with good results.”
His father Lazaros, 64, is the founder of the AS Lazaros Stefanidis O Makedonas athletics club in Thessaloniki.
Lazaros has competed in three World Para Athletics Championships before qualifying for the Paralympics and says it isn’t the first time he’s been pinned against his son.
“I finished fourth in the Europeans and my son finished fifth,” he says.
Leontios Stefanidis won the men's shot put F20 with a 14.57m throw!
❗️ Shot put was the last event in the morning session. We are back again at 3:30pm!
— #ParaAthletics #Tokyo2020 (@ParaAthletics) April 16, 2021
“There is no better feeling to compete together with your child.”
“He has been with us [in competitions] since he was a baby.”
“He has trained since he was 12 in all throw disciplines, but he chose shot put and I hope he will stay healthy and be a very successful Paralympic athlete.”
“I believe we will see extraordinary things at the Paralympics.”
“I have seen all his path developing as an athlete, so I feel very special.”
You can watch Leontios and Lazaros in the men’s shot-put F20 and F33 events on 31 Aug and 4 Sep, respectively.
He told the Athens-Macedonian news agency that he’s satisfied with his performance and is onto his next at the Paris Paralympics in three years’ time.
“I am very satisfied. Despite the fact that we had some difficulties and that I faced some injuries, in the end, we were vindicated,” he told the Athens-Macedonian news agency.
“This medal gives me great strength. I sincerely feel great emotion and pride,” he said.
Bakochristos won bronze in the same event five years prior at the Rio de Janeiro Paralympics (Right: Φωτογραφία Αρχείου via Lifo.gr) (Left: Reuters / PILAR OLIVARES)
He snatched his first bronze medal in the same event at the Rio de Janeiro Paralympics in 2016.
He also twice won bronze at the World Para Powerlifting Championships in 2017 and 2019.
Being born into a Greek family, it would be difficult not to have some form of contact with the world of football. Such was the case for the young Sofia Sakalis, whose father is from the West Macedonian city of Kozani, while her grandfather from her mother’s side hails from Halkidiki.
From early on, she began to play with her dad and her relationship with the round goddess only got stronger from there. “I would always wake up early with my dad to watch the soccer games,” Sakalis tells The Greek Herald.
She points out that the Greek mentality has always been a part of her personal style of play: “I’ve had that passion instilled in me from a very young age and during the games I always want to win. I think that does kind of trace back to my Greek roots. It’s something I’ve always had with me and I hope to continue like that on my footballing journey.”
Playing at South Melbourne, Sakalis fully comprehends the Greek mentality of football. Source: By The White Line
The aspiring midfielder was transferred to Perth Glory a few weeks ago and as she says, she’s making her final preparations before leaving Melbourne behind her. But what are her thoughts as she gets ready for her first season away from home?
“I haven’t moved there yet; I’m required to be there in October for our pre-season. Right now, I’m preparing and training hard to make sure I’m fit. This is a new opportunity for me, I think it’s a new chapter in my footballing journey that will enable me to become the player I want to be. I’m really looking forward to it!” she says excitedly.
The current trend in women’s football that has seen many Australian players joining high profile European clubs gives young players like Sakalis the chance to look even further ahead and aspire for greatness.
When asked about this, the talented player stressed the importance of the rapid evolution of the women’s game and shared her own personal goal for her career.
“It’s been amazing seeing all the Matildas slowly move overseas and more particular to Europe because that’s just the place you want to be to be right now. It’s improving a lot, so definitely one of my personal long-term goals is to play in Europe.
I think, if I had to choose, to play for a club like Manchester City or Arsenal in the English Premier League would be a dream come true. But, even anywhere in Europe like Spain, Italy, even Greece would be an amazing experience to start off with.”
Sofia is looking at the next chapter in her career at Perth Glory. Source: By The White Line
At the same time as her dreams in football, Sofia is also going after an entirely different goal: a bachelor’s degree in physiotherapy. A field which, as she says, brings together her two great loves for football and medicine.
“From a very young age, my parents have always instilled in me the importance of maintaining a balance between sport and getting an education. So, even though I really want to go far in soccer, I’ve always known that I need to keep up my studies and I really want to do well so that, when I complete my football career, I have something to fall back on.
“Physiotherapy’s something that kind of intertwines my passions because it’s so relevant to football in the aspect of the physical health of the athletes and the human body so I’m really enjoying it so far.”
Sakalis, who says her dream is to one day play in the Olympics, points out how proud she is of her Greek heritage, while expressing her deep gratitude for all those who support her in her career: “I’ve been to Greece four times and I love how I’m able to communicate with the locals when I’m there! I want to thank the Greek community all over Australia for all their support and for following my football journey over the years. I’m truly grateful and their support never goes unnoticed and whenever I play, I also play for the Greek community and I hope to make them proud.”
Next season will see her play in the W-League with the colours of Perth Glory, yet at only 19 years of age, the journey of this aspiring Greek Aussie in the world of football is far from over! Definitely one worth keeping an eye on!
Dimitris Pikionis was an artist born in Piraeus on January 26, 1887. He was the man responsible for reshaping the area surrounding the Acropolis and the Filopappou Hill, creating a more inviting area for both locals and tourists.
Pikionis was said to have been influenced by a number of different and multicultural art schools, from the traditional Byzantine that was found in the villages of Chios, all the way to the simplistic style of Japan. Those influences can be found within his many works.
Here are the five most important things you need to know about one Greece’s greatest architectural figures:
Dimitris Pikionis in a photograph taken by Professor Pavlos Mylonas around 1956. Photo: Dimitris Pikionis Archive – Benaki Museum Neohellenic Architecture Archives.
1. Two of his cousins held high positions within the Greek society. They were the poet Lambros Porfyras and the co-founder of one of the nation’s greatest publications To Vima, Georgios Syriotis.
2. Even though he was an architect, Pikionis’ true passion lied in painting. He had taken courses in Munich and Paris to pursue a career down this path and even attended classes at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts.
3. Between the years of 1935 and 1937, he co-published a magazine titled “Trito Mati” (“Third Eye”) alongside his good friend and fellow architect Nikos Hatzikyriakos-Gkikas.
4. Some of his greatest works, including the reshaping of the area outside the Acropolis leading to the Filopappou Hill, were the creation of an elementary school at the Pefkakia area of Lykavittos, a playground in Filothei, heavily influenced by Japanese architecture and the study on the Fortetza Stronghold in Rethymno.
Aghios Dimitrios Loumbardiaris: south-facing side. A sketch by D. Pikionis. Photo: Dimitris Pikionis Archive – Benaki Museum Neohellenic Architecture Archives.
5. Ware Professor of Architecture at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation at Columbia University, New York, Kenneth Frampton used these words to describe the work of Pikionis in his anthology of the Greek artist’s creations:
“Somewhere in the sweep of this breaking wave came a point that lay beyond history, wherein the architect arrived at a dematerialized mode of expression that was at once Greek and anti-Greek; Greek in the sense that it was of the place, integrated into the mythos, the landscape, the climate and the way of life; anti-Greek in that much of its inspiration lay elsewhere, remote in space and time, in other far-flung islands, in Honshu and in the archaic pre-Hellenic Aegean under a timeless sun.”
Chair of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Bob Menendez, flew into Athens on Thursday.
The US Senator met with Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis where they discussed developments, the crisis in Afghanistan, as well as the relations and defense cooperation between the two countries.
“We are really looking forward to the completion of the US-Greece Defence Partnership Act of 2021, which I believe will be a milestone legislation that will further cement the progress we have made in our bilateral relations,” Mitsotakis said during the meeting.
It is a real pleasure to welcome the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee @SenatorMenendez to Athens, a very good friend of Greece, but also someone who has placed the strategic importance of the Eastern Mediterranean at the center of US foreign policy. pic.twitter.com/46WfOLV4nf
“We discussed our common goal for stability in the Eastern Mediterranean and I expressed that we look forward to the completion of the US-Greece Defense & Interparliamentary Partnership Act, a milestone that will further cement the progress we have made in our bilateral relations,” he went on to write on his Twitter account.
Menendez later attended the ‘Greece 2021’ Committee event at the Acropolis Museum and told an audience that he has and “will stand by Greece through all times”.
“Greece is on the cusp of a great and exciting future,” he said.
“We have come so far in such a short time … and there are no limits to what we can do together.”
About 300 public hospital workers in Greece have held a five-hour strike against mandatory COVID-19 vaccinations for public and private sector health care workers.
The workers rallied outside the health ministry in Athens on Thursday to protest against the government’s decision to suspend public and private health care workers who don’t receive at least one dose of the vaccine by September 1.
Health workers take part in a rally in Athens, Thursday, Aug. 26, 2021 (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis)
The Panhellenic Federation of Public Hospital Employees (POEDIN) is Greece’s public hospital workers’ union and says while it supports the vaccines, it opposes making them mandatory.
“We will not leave defenseless the health care and social care workers who have a personal right to vaccination,” the union said.
“Patients are not at risk of catching the coronavirus from health care workers.”
“Hospitals are filling up again with patients suffering from the coronavirus which they caught in the community.”
Health Minister Vassilis Kikilias says the protestors of the measure were “small minorities” who advocate for issues related to the national health system.
“They are in the opposite direction of the majority of Greek society, which wants to protect public health,” he said.
August 27 marks the celebration of St Fanourios – a martyr known for helping the faithful find lost items, whether they be physical objects or metaphorical ones, such as hope.
Traditionally, on the eve of the St Fanourios’ feast day, a fanouropita is baked and taken to church for blessing at the Great Vespers, the evening service, in honour of the saint.
At the conclusion of the service, the fanouropites are shared among those in attendance. According to tradition, at least nine people should have a piece of the delicious and nistisimo cake.
Some faithful believe baking the cake will help them find something they have lost.
The traditional cake features nuts and raisins and is topped with sesame seeds or powdered sugar, depending on which version of the recipe has been passed down in your family and followed for generations.
The recipe below and its variations can be enjoyed any time of the year, adding seasonal fruits or a variety of nuts, if preferred, especially during periods of fasting.
Recipe by Eleni’s Kitchen and Bar:
Ingredients:
300 grams caster sugar.
380 grams freshly squeeze orange juice.
380 grams vegetable oil.
1 tsp baking soda.
1.5 tsp cinnamon.
1/2 tsp cloves.
60mL of cognac.
1/2 kilograms of self raising flour.
140 grams walnuts, roughly chopped.
80 grams dried fruits (sultanas, raisins).
1. Preheat oven to 160C fan forced. Grease pan with butter.
2. Beat the sugar, vegetable oil and half of the fresh orange juice in a large bowl, until the sugar melts.
3. In a separate bowl, combine the remaining orange juice with the baking soda, cinnamon, cloves and Cognac. Whisk until the baking soda froths.
4. Add the baking soda mixture to the bowl with the sugar and whisk thoroughly.
5. Add the flour, walnuts, and dried fruits. Mix until all of the ingredients are completely combined.
6. Transfer to pan and bake for 40 minutes.
7. Dust with icing sugar once cooled and present with mint leaves.
I recently had an article on COVID-19 placed on Facebook. I was surprised at the amount of negative feedback it attracted from people with strong anti-vaccine viewpoint. It’s the first time in my career I’ve seen such a push back to my medical advice.
People are anxious about the new vaccines and I get that. It is a new technology. The nature of the beast. There are rare but major side effects. Where is the long-term safety data?
Genuine community concerns are also being whipped up by a polarising political fear campaign by anti-vaxxer conspiracy websites. On top of this, there is mixed messaging by government and authorities, fueling vaccine hesitancy.
This all comes at a time of a much more contagious and equally virulent Delta variant – now circulating through all of Sydney and New South Wales (NSW) and spreading to the rest of Australia. And not just affecting older people. Half the new cases in NSW are now under 19 – and half of those are under 9 years.
COVID-19 is a particularly nasty, and mainly respiratory, illness. It has been likened to glue getting stuck in your throat and then spreading to your lungs. In that context the Delta variant is described as a super glue.
The disease is usually more serious in the unvaccinated and older people or those in poor health. It attacks the lungs, thus suffocating its victims. If you suffer serious Covid disease, you could end up on a ventilator for up to 5 or 6 weeks – if an ICU bed is available. Alone with the dedicated medical staff.
90% of people in Sydney ICU are unvaccinated. The other 10% have had only one jab – not fully vaccinated. So, for now in Australia, this has become a pandemic of the un-vaccinated.
Simple humanity requires us to ask, who is behind the anti vaxxers and conspiracy theorists and is there any truth in what they are saying?
The anti-vaxxers use methods that are particularly misleading. They hide behind fake science and made-up experts – but a simple Google search, both the website and “the expert”, are discredited or very outdated.
Dr Costas Costa is advocating for people to get vaccinated. Photo supplied.
While the majority of Australians are trying to do the right thing and follow the science, there is still a large number of undecided or vaccine hesitant in the community – including within the health professions.
They are easy prey of the radical anti-vaxxers who are emboldened, again via social media, including aggressive street demonstrations.
The anti-vaxxers claim you “don’t need the experimental vaccine”* because there is medical treatment if you catch COVID-19. The truth is we do NOT have a direct treatment for any virus – and that includes Covid-19. Viruses have no cell wall and are thus unaffected by antibiotics.
Hydroxy-chloroquine has been discredited. In southern states of US, authorities are inundated with calls about accidental poisoning with the anti-parasitic drug, Imervectin, where people are convinced to take it as prevention. Monoclonal antibodies are now available. These may be effective albeit untested on Delta, and are high cost.
Doctors currently support COVID-19 infected cases with fluids and aspirin, or dexamethasone to treat massive post viral inflammatory changes. If you get very sick, you get put on a ventilator (if there is a free bed). The rest is up to your body. Or you are advised to stay home and wait it out in isolation.
On Tuesday, a 30-year-old woman positive for COVID was found dead at home.
The best treatment we have for COVID-19 is prevention- and the best prevention is the vaccine (together with other preventive measures – such as masking, isolation of contacts, periodic lockdowns, good ventilation, and purpose-built quarantine centres).
Although people worry about the new vaccines being “too strong”, the fact is that all respiratory vaccine products display waning immunity, added to the problem of immune evasion by new variants such as Delta. Especially in older age groups it can fall to below 50%.
In Israel, the US and in parts of Europe they are now starting on the third jab -only 6 months after the second, to increase vaccine effect back to 90%. A sad and dangerous situation for all of us, when you consider high risk groups in poor countries are yet to receive their first jab and that we have to have another jab!
So, the question being pondered by the unvaccinated is who are you going to trust in making a complex health decision where the ultimate price may be your life, the life of a loved one – or loss of lifestyle due to the new case numbers remaining high?
Big Pharma that is profiteering? The government whose very survival now tied to high vaccination numbers. The anti-vaxxer extremists? The GP with a fridge full of AZ? No wonder Australians now increasingly turn to their community leaders and the respected independent experts.
It is of course everyone’s right to refuse the vaccine – and we know from studies that 10% of the population will absolutely refuse any vaccine.
If you choose to stay unvaccinated then you should logically self-isolate indefinitely at home – for your own safety and the safety of others. Logic would say stay away from airlines/ airports, from indoor sports events, theatres, restaurants and public transport. But the unvaccinated could justifiably argue, so should the vaccinated – as vaccine effect can fall to 50%
At least, we could ask you to please stop circulating those anti-vaxxer videos on social media or at least do a Google search and avoid re-posting anything from a discredited anti science and anti-vaxxer conspiracy source. Otherwise, you are doing yourself and your friends a great disservice.
The medical advice is to get vaccinated – because it will protect you somewhat, and reduce the spread of the disease somewhat, and get back to normal life, somewhat. But we need to be straight with people. Vaccination won’t fix everything. It won’t stop you catching or passing on the virus to others.
It won’t even guarantee you not getting very sick or even dying of COVID-19. But it should reduce your risk of serious illness or death. And for the public health system, it will mean you are 10 times less likely to get hospitalised. And 50% less likely to pass it on. Together with the other public health measures with which we now very familiar, these imperfect vaccines offer us some protection and chance of some return to normality.
For now, the simple message should be that vaccination is a part of the way forward. We have to pass through that door. But what lays beyond is yet to be written. The only thing we are sure of is that it will not look like what we had before. But we need to get through that door.
The ancient Greeks had a saying: He whom the Gods would destroy, they first make crazy.
To us, in the mainstream medical profession, refusing the vaccine without good medical reason, is crazy.
In the end, it’s your choice. But who in their right mind wants to live (or die) alone?
Dr Con Costa OAM is a GP and Public Health Physician based in Sydney. He has no shares in Pfizer, Az, CSL or any undeclared private interest in vaccination or pandemic response.
*On Tuesday, it was announced that the US FDA has fully approved the Pfizer vaccine as a preventive treatment for COVID-19 in over 16-year-olds.
Westmead Hospital has been forced to enact disaster management plans, buckling under the strain of surging COVID-19 numbers in NSW.
In a note to colleagues last night seen by Nine News, Acting General Manager, Jenelle Matic, said the hospital was “no longer operating in a business-as-usual environment.”
The facility put a 24-hour pause on accepting any new coronavirus patients as it is already managing about 1,500 in the community and 121 in the wards.
57-year-old courier, John Pelekanos, told Nine News he knows the pressure Westmead Hospital is under better than most after two stints inside the facility with COVID-19.
“Beds were full, there were machines all over the place and the second time I left from [my house] I was in the car park for about four or five hours before I could see a doctor,” Mr Pelekanos told Nine News.
Although COVID-19 patients are now being sent away from the hospital to others as far away as Wollongong and the Northern Beaches, NSW Health Minister, Brad Hazzard, insisted at a press conference on Wednesday the health system is not overwhelmed.
“I want to assure the community that we have been working as a health system on this since January and February last year and ensuring we have stepped up the number of available ICU beds, and staff working in those intensive care units, ventilators, but Westmead Hospital is typical of the sorts of pressures you’d expect when you got a major hospital in the middle of the epicentre of the virus outbreak,” Mr Hazzard said.
For Mr Pelekanos, his hospital experience has seen him switch from a ‘vaccine sceptic to a believer.’
“‘Uh it can’t happen to me,’ but you know what? It can happen to you, your mother, your father, your brother, your sister, your uncle. It can be dire,” he said.
