Greek Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, said on Thursday that Russia’s unexpected invasion of Ukraine represents the “undoing of the regime of peace and security” and has ushered in “a new cold war that no one knows how it will end.”
“We did not want this war; the West, the EU and NATO did not want it. Putin chose it and he will pay the consequences and, unfortunately, the Russian people will pay for them,” Mitsotakis told private broadcaster Alpha TV.
“The sanctions are already bringing the Russian economy to its knees and will hurt the weakest.”
Η επιλογή του Προέδρου Putin να εισβάλει σε μία δημοκρατική ανεξάρτητη χώρα μας αφορά όλους, για αυτό και υπήρξε αυτή η καθολική αντίδραση. Αναφέρομαι στον Πρόεδρο Putin και όχι στη Ρωσία, γιατί πιστεύω ακράδαντα ότι η πλειοψηφία του ρωσικού λαού δεν ήθελε αυτόν τον πόλεμο. pic.twitter.com/IXcGloE3xI
— Prime Minister GR (@PrimeministerGR) March 3, 2022
Mitsotakis then defended the decision to send military equipment to Ukraine “as morally correct and a national imperative.”
“With what moral standing could we ask for such assistance if we were in a similar situation. We had a reason to be on the right side of history,” he said.
Greek convoy from Mariupol reaches Dnipro:
Turning to refugees, Mitsotakis confirmed a convoy of cars with Ukrainians of Greek descent had already left besieged Mariupol, but stressed “this does not mean that tens of thousands of Ukrainians of Greek descent are not in danger.”
Refugees are flooding through Greece’s borders. Photo: Intime News.
“In this matter, Russia has chosen a tactic of violent bombing, which unfortunately will also mean bombing civilians,” the Greek Prime Minister said.
According to Ekathimerini, the operation to evacuate Greek citizens and staff of the Mariupol consulate (Nostos 3) left the besieged city on Wednesday but found itself under fire. It is still unclear where the attack originated from, and whether it was stray fire or deliberate.
The head of the mission, Ambassador Fragiskos Kostellenos, is expected to return to Mariupol after the convoy reaches the border of Moldova. The Consul General Manolis Androulakis has remained in the city.
In the past days, Russian commanders have been intensifying their bombardment of urban areas. Photo: AP / Vadim Ghirda.
The Greek foreign ministry has issued advisories urging Greek citizens to immediately leave Ukraine and to avoid travelling there.
Roughly 100 refugees arrived on Thursday morning at Greece’s border with Bulgaria in Promachonas as the war in Ukraine intensifies.
According to the Migration and Asylum Ministry, Greece will provide one-year protection status along with rights to work and medical care to Ukrainian refugees entering the country.
Paul Alexandrides, a West Beach local of Cypriot heritage was recently announced as Labor’s candidate to contest the upcoming state election.
Mr Alexandrides, a City of Charles Sturt councillor for twelve years and small business owner will contest the seat of Colton after he was preselected by the party.
“I am truly honoured to be pre-selected as the South Australian Labor candidate for Colton, a community I grew up in and love. I learnt about the importance and value of hard work from my parents, and the importance of family, integrity and community service,” the father of two, wrote on social media.
“I believe that being a Member of Parliament is a personal commitment, not just a job. This is my passion.”
Campaigning at Fulham Gardens Shopping Centre with Paul Alexandrides – Labor’s candidate for Colton. pic.twitter.com/nsdQwpGObp
An active member of the community, Mr Alexandrides said that he draws his passion for democracy and community service from his late father, Nick (also known as Neoklis), who migrated to Australia from Cyprus in the late 1940s at the age of 18 to build a better life for himself, his mother and sister.
“Dad met my mum, Maria, at the wharf in Melbourne. She was sitting on her suitcase alone, lost and crying. She was only 15 years-old and her parents had sent her to Australia. She got on a boat and landed in Melbourne. Dad approached her and found out she was also coming to Adelaide and offered to help her get to her destination safely.”
Nick started working around Australia and finally got employed by Australian Railways as a railway guard. In 1963 he became the first person of migrant background to be appointed President of the SA branch of the Australian Railways Union.
Nick Alexandrides became the first person of migrant background to be appointed President of the SA branch of the Australian Railways Union. Photo via National Archives of Australia
“He always made sure that he was able to help whenever he could, whether it be through a committee or through just personal activism,” Mr Alexandrides said.
“And that mindset has been passed down, not only to myself, but to my three older brothers as well. So, we all are interested in politics, democracy and advocating for those who are less fortunate than ourselves.”
Paul Alexandrides with his mother and father at the Adelaide Airport
‘It feels good to help’: Paul Alexandrides
Speaking about his journey in politics Paul Alexandrides said it started in late 2009 after an issue he had with the local council was not resolved to his satisfaction.
“I found out the local councillor wasn’t running and there was a vacant spot for an incumbent to run in. I put my hand up and nominated to run for council, which I fortunately enough won,” he said.
“In about 2012, I realized that working on behalf of a community was something that I really enjoyed doing and gaining outcomes for residents was something of a joy. I felt elated. I felt enthused every time I was able to help somebody and I could see the joy in their face when they got their outcome.”
Now Mr Alexandrides hopes to help the residents in his area to have a voice in the state Parliament.
“It’s an area I grew up in. It’s area that I love. It’s an area that I’m connected to. I believe that they’re being underrepresented and I want to help these people.”
A priority for Mr Alexandrides if elected will be to address the ambulance crisis.
“The biggest challenge for the elderly in Colton -the Greek, the Italian and the Maltese- is the ambulance system. They’re concerned about it.”
If it wins the March state election, Labor has promised to invest in health and in fixing the ramping crisis including a $120 million Adelaide headquarters for the South Australian ambulance service along with a new city-based station with 32 paramedics.
Mr Alexandrides said Opposition leader Peter Malinauskas brings hope for South Australia and a fresh perspective with a focus on multicultural communities.
“I feel there’s been some disconnection between particularly the Greek community and the Labor Party in the last 10 years. But when our parents came over to Australia from Greece, and Cyprus, they worked in factories and were supported by the Labor Party against that White Australia policy.”
“It would be nice to understand why they left Labor and get them back into the Party that actually appreciates what we have done and how we have contributed as a community.”
*The seven further candidates of Greek heritage who run in the state Election are: Tom Koutsantonis (Labor), Olivia Savvas (Labor), Andrea Michaels (Labor), Tom Antonio (SA-Best), John Alexander Photakis (Greens SA) and for the Legislative Council: Stephen Pallaras with his political Party Real Change SA and Ian Markos with SA-BEST
Theo Angelopoulos is widely regarded as the greatest Greek filmmaker, having crafted an epic vision of modern Greece and the Balkans through his cinematic odyssey across its turbulent social and political history.
Professor Vrasidas Karalis, who holds the Sir Nicholas Laurantos Chair in Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies at the University of Sydney, has now published the definitive reference work on the late filmmaker. The book, The Cinematic Language of Theo Angelopoulos(Berghahn Press, 2021), was formally unveiled at a presentation staged at the National Maritime Museum in Sydney on 23 February 2022 as part of the Greek Festival of Sydney.
In an entertaining presentation, Professor Karalis spoke about his passion for the work of Angelopoulos and his first viewing of the 1975 epic, The Travelling Players (Ο Θίασος), an epic film of startling beauty and originality which attempts to tell the story of modern Greece through the wanderings of a travelling troupe in villages performing a traditional play of Golfo, the Shepherdess and covers the turbulent history of Modern Greece from 1939 to 1952.
When a young Vrasidas went to see the film, he was interrogated by his school principal who demanded to know if he had gone to watch “that communist film”. It was an act of resistance against political cultural censorship. It was very different to what he had seen before, a film that was abstract with sublime political and philosophical illusions, blending history and myth, realism and surrealism. In one scene, two members of the now disbanded troupe visit a friend after his release from prison to mourn the death of the revolution. The friend recites lyrics by a famous anarchist poet which has the effect, according to Karalis, of questioning if the adventure of the Greek Civil War was a justified rebellion against depression or a nihilistic utopian vision of self-destruction.
Rather serendipitously, I was first drawn to Angelopoulos as a young university student when I attended a screening of The Travelling Players at the Sydney Film Festival in June 1976. I was totally overwhelmed.
For me, it was a defining moment. I had just completed my first trip to Greece two years earlier in the winter of 1973/74 and was caught up in the immediate aftermath of the Polytechnique uprising, followed by the Cyprus fiasco and the fall of the military junta and the restoration of democracy (of sorts) in Greece. In one four hour sitting I saw it all play out, replete with Angelopoulos’ mesmerizing cinematic techniques of long takes and slow camera movements (which Vrasidas aptly describes as “energetic slowness”), continuous shots and ‘breaking the fourth wall’ where an actor turns to the audience and directly engages them in powerful monologues ranging from the exodus after the Asia Minor disaster of 1922 to the ravages of the Greek Civil War.
According to Vrasidas Karalis, The Travelling Players was and still is a grand masterpiece of European cinema, arguably the best film of the 1970s decade. The film majestically describes a turbulent period of Greek history with Brecht and Aristotle juxtaposed and the concept of time suspended. The beginning is the end.
Angelopoulos himself explained his disrupted narrative technique in an interview he gave in 2010 when he said: “Time present, time past is present in time future. We, our conscience, has time, is time.”
The late Dan Georgakas, a noted Greek-American historian, film critic and social activist, observed that in one scene a group of Greek fascists marches away from a 1946 New Year’s dance in full throated song to arrive in the same place in 1952 and we see that police beating strikers in one time period finish the task in another: a powerful survey in one take of the fascist undercurrents in recent Greek and European history.
In Vrasidas Karalis’ book, we learn about Angelopoulos’ life from his birth in 1936 to his unfortunate death (by accident) in 2012 and how some quite harrowing childhood experiences, including the arrest and disappearance of his father during the tumultuous events of December 1944 in Athens. The sudden reappearance of his father much later was greeted with an eerie, almost disbelieving, silence which resonates through some of Angelopoulos’ films.
After studying in Paris Theo Angelopoulos returned to Greece and worked as a film critic for a left-wing newspaper until it was shut down by the military junta in 1967. It was then that he went behind the camera. Whilst he lived in Greece during the years of the junta he remained defiant and irreverent as ever, making the film Days of ’36 about the murder of a trade union activist shortly before the dictatorship of General Metaxas, under the nose of the fascist censors. A photo of Angelopoulos raising a fascist salute in front of shopfront images of the junta strongman Colonel Papadopoulos in Athens (taken in 1968) is telling.
Theo Angelopoulos produced a trilogy of history, a trilogy of silence, trilogy of borders and a (sadly) unfinished trilogy of modern Greece. Each confront different social, economic and cultural legacies, including Greece’s occupation and independence from Ottoman Turkey; Greece’s brushes with fascism; the advent of military dictatorship and the onslaught of the civil war; the plight of refugees in Europe and the repercussions of the Balkan wars.
Along the way we encounter Greek literature and mythology grafted onto modern Greek history and the director’s own life experiences fused into the art of the slow cinema. As Angelopoulos’ biographer and friend, Andrew Horton, reminds us, the films of Theo Angelopoulos matter.
And Angelopoulos was widely admired by many. According to Karalis, the great American director Martin Scorsese described Angelopoulos as a “masterful filmmaker” who really understands how to control the frame:
“There are sequences in his work – the wedding scene in The Suspended Step of the Stork; the rape scene in Landscape in the Mist; or any given scene in The Travelling Players – where the slightest movement, the slightest change in distance, sends reverberations through the film and through the viewer. The total effect is hypnotic, sweeping, and profoundly emotional. His sense of control is almost otherworldly.”
As Karalis showed through his presentation on the night, there are many memorable images in Angelopoulos’ films. The sheer visual poetry is simply brilliant.
There’s an extraordinary sequence in Ulysses Gaze in which a funeral barge carrying an enormous statue of a dismembered Lenin makes its way along the Danube, enhancing the mood of an “imploding world”.
In The Suspended Step of the Stork there is a scene where lovers separated across borders marry in a service conducted on opposite sides of a river. One of the actors asks “how many borders do we have to cross to get home?” Sadly, that question still resonates today.
In Landscape in the Mist, a symbolic, disembodied sculptured hand of a fallen deity is fished out of the bay in Thessaloniki and lifted by a helicopter into the sky
And then the two main protagonists of the film, young children who have been on a disrupted journey trying to locate the father that exists only in their dreams, approach a border crossing amidst the sound of gunfire. We then see them, hand in hand, running towards a tree which has emerged colourless from the mist. Is it a dream or is it real? The viewer is left to contemplate because, as with all of Angelopoulos films, there is no “The End”.
Then there is the haunting imagery in The Weeping Meadow of the tree with slaughtered animals over a lake with a sinking village.
And finally, in Eternity and a Day, a dying writer and young child approach a border. According to Vrasidas Karalis, the scene with people hanging on the border fence is probably one of the most astonishing and ominous pieces in modern cinema, a frightening depiction of the condemned struggle to escape which “stands too close to the everyday, tragic predicament of contemporary people”.
For as another critic observed, what makes us human according to Angelopoulos is found in traumatic memories, in the desire to preserve an imaginary beauty, and in eternal returns perennially frustrated.
Angelopoulos cinema is timeless. His epics of the chaos of Balkan and Eastern European dislocation (The Travelling Players, Ulysses’ Gaze, The Weeping Meadow) entail, according to Karalis, the “collapse of history” in a sea of futility and anarchy. The tragic events now unfolding in the Ukraine sadly reflect that “disintegrated and shattered reality”.
Towards the end of his presentation, Vrasidas Karalis screened an impromptu short film, Céu Inferior (Sky Below), made by Theo Angelopoulos in 2011 for the São Paulo Film Festival in Brazil as part of the theme “Mundo Invisivel” (invisibility in the modern world).
Angelopoulos captures from behind a Christian preacher proselytizing to gazing commuters in a São Paulo underground station and then films two street artists applying the final touches to graffiti on a wall with a poignant message: “the people have been deceived”. The Gaze of Lost Causes.
At the end of the presentation, an audience member asked if Vrasidas was an Angelopoulian or anti-Angelopoulian given that the late film director had created considerable controversy through his films, both amongst critics and peers. Vrasidas Karalis hastily assured the questioner that he is and always will be an Angelopoulian.
As I am.
The genius of Theo Angelopoulos lives on through this scholarly work by Vrasidas Karalis. His book takes us on an amazing cinematic and literary journey through the life and work of Theo Angelopoulos within what has been described as the “organic and borderless landscape of the Greek soul”.
The Hellenic Museum Ladies’ Society (HMLS) is celebrating International Women’s Day this year with a special event at the Museum on March 11 from 1pm to 3pm.
The event will help the Society raise funds for its Education Mission, whilst also recognising women who make significant contributions to Australian society.
On the day, attendees will hear from the Hellenic Museum CEO & Head of Curation, Sarah Craig, about the organisation’s commitment to providing transformative education programs and experiences for young people.
The Hellenic Museum’s Education Partner, Lithodomos VR, will present a virtual reality experience where people will see the wonders of Delphi and learn about the women at the centre of one of the most powerful religious institutions of the ancient world.
Entertainment, lunch and refreshments will also be available to enjoy throughout the event.
“The Hellenic Museum Ladies’ Society is delighted to be presenting this International Women’s Day event in 2022. This engaged community of women has helped to raise over $250,000 for the Hellenic Museum in the past and we look forward to welcoming new members of our HMLS Patrons program,” the Hellenic Museum’s CEO and Head of Curation, Sarah Craig, said.
“As a female-led team, the Hellenic Museum celebrates the role of women in the arts and through HMLS, provides an active avenue for like-minded people to connect over their interest in art, business, and inspiring cultural events.
“With Education Partner, Lithodomos VR, and Event Partners, Showtime Event Group, Giannarelli International and Event Sponsor Rigby Cooke Lawyers, we gather to raise funds for the Hellenic Museum Education Mission, which seeks to support students to develop into 21st century citizens through holistic humanities education.
“We know that arts, culture and history education can be life-changing. Through our unique and well-rounded programs we aspire to help address the inequality in arts experiences for students from disadvantaged backgrounds and impact their learning long term.”
FULL DETAILS:
Date and Time: 11 March 2022, 1pm-3pm.
Venue: The Hellenic Museum (280 William Street, Melbourne VIC 3000, Australia)
Education Partner: Lithodomos VR
Event Partner: Showtime Event Group and Flowers Vasette
Event Sponsor: Rigby Cooke Lawyers
Media Sponsor: Greek Media Group
Media Sponsor: The Greek Herald
Performer: Stephanie Stamopoulos, Cellist
Any questions regarding this event or the Hellenic Museum Ladies’ Society can be directed to Maria Halkias, Development & Partnerships Manager at the Hellenic Museum: maria.halkias@hellenic.org.au
It is one hundred years since the destruction and uprooting of Asia Minor Hellenism from its ancestral homes. For thousands of years the Hellenism of the East, from the years of Homer and the pre-Socratic philosophers, from the time of Thales and Anaxagoras, from the sixth century BC, in dozens of cities of Ionia, Ephesus, Miletus, Klazomenae, Halicarnassus, Colophon and Phocaea (to refer to some of them), numerous poets and historians, mathematicians and geographers developed and cultivated philosophy, poetry, theogony and the sciences. It was later, during the Roman conquest, that the East was first referred as “Asia” and Hellenism as Asia Minor Hellenism (until then the place names took the tribal name of the people who inhabited a particular region).
Later, it was Hellenism that essentially accepted, developed Christianity, and transmitted it to the rest of the world. Apostle Paul relied on this Hellenism of the East for the spread of the new religion, as this is attested by his dozens of letters to the inhabitants of these cities. In this region of our East (Anatolia), over and above the unbridled fanaticism, finally and despite the crimes against the Greek culture and the followers of the Greek Religion, the Hellene was reconciled with Christ.
In Anatolia, the ancient Greek civilization was comprehended and accepted by the fathers of the Christian Church, especially by those who studied and highlighted the importance of Greek culture. Basil the Great explicitly mentions in his writings that it is impossible to understand Christianity if one has not studied the concepts of ancient Greek civilization. In the Hellenic Anatolia appeared the first frescoes of the Christian churches, which had among the Saints of Christianity, in halos and Plato and Aristotle and other poets and philosophers of Greek Antiquity, as their saints.
There in Caesarea and Cappadocia hundreds of Greek villages emerged and for hundreds of years maintained their Greekness and their Christian Faith. In the cities and towns of Asia Minor, the Greeks there set up their schools and girls’ schools, they built ecclesiastical schools in the Greek language, temples and schools of the Nation, they erected monasteries of culture and learning, they occupied positions of prestige and influence, they emerged as teachers of the Greek Nation, hierarchs, frontrunners and martyrs of the Nation.
Many who got rich as merchants and industrialists, benefited their towns and villages, built beautiful temples and schools, built orphanages and geriatric hospitals, cultivated the Greek letters, published newspapers and books, recorded, and maintained the ancient Greek literature. In Ionia, Cappadocia, the East, Anatolia Asia Minor (whatever we want to call them), flourished and operated for hundreds of years a Hellenism, essentially more cosmopolitan, more influential, more robust than the rest of the Hellenism of Western Greece, beyond the Aegean.
Smyrna, at the end of the 19th century, was the Paris of the East, the small Athens of Greek antiquity. Wide open boulevards, well-structured roads, rich districts that ascended the hills that erotically enclosed the city, wonderful buildings, obvious wealth and nobility, rich neighborhoods of Greeks, Armenians, and Jews. A bride of the Eastern Aegean, who had opposite her the other bride of the western Aegean, Thessaloniki. Similar cities in geographical gifts, in nobility, in taste, in cosmopolitan character.
With the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923, hundreds of thousands of Christians, in their overwhelming majority, Greeks, and Muslim Turks were compelled to leave the villages and towns where they lived, to expatriate, in order to define the borders of a modern post-Ottoman Turkey. It was the largest population exchange that had taken place until then in the history of the peoples of the planet.
More than a million Greeks were forced to evacuate the villages where they had buried their parents and ancestors, the neighborhoods, and their homes, where their grandparents had grown up. Hundreds of thousands of Greeks took in their few suitcases and makeshift parcels, everything they could carry, there they placed the icons of the Saints of their faith; there they placed some photographs of their own; hid there the few valuables they had; they worshipped for the last time the ancestral tombs, they lit the last candle to the Holy Protector of the area and they were led with arabades, and on foot to the nearby ports of Asia Minor, as refugees in Greece.
And in November 1919, the Greek army appeared there in the port of this “Greek-occupied” city of Smyrna, over 80,000 initially, then numerically larger. The Battalions of the Evzones and the Cavalry, the Army of the Archipelagos, Macedonia and the Cretans landed. Paraded through the streets of Smyrna and the Greeks poured out with the Greek flags, with songs and tears of unspeakable joy to welcome them as liberators and brothers. Similar feelings were felt by the rest of Hellenism in Lycaonia, Cappadocia, Lycia, on Pergamos and Proussa, up to the shores of the Bosporus. The Turks were numb, humiliated, rightly restless, despite the reassuring encouragements of the Greek officers. The Greek Army in the first almost two years made sure to consolidate its presence only in areas where the Greek element was demographically abundant. It proceeded internally towards the Aidinio and then to the north up to Proussa, in order to protect Pergamos, Kydonies and Smyrna.
Initially the goal was not the dismemberment and conquest of Turkey. Venizelos and Metaxas insisted that the Greek Army should not be removed from the sea and the supply centers, especially Smyrna, to stay only in areas where a solid Hellenism lived, not to expand into the interior of Turkey, the Far Anatolia, so as not to find themselves among foreign populations without support and supplies. From July 1921, with the synod in Kioutachia, the Greek officers did exactly the opposite. They undertook expansionist action to defeat the Turks, to exterminate them, to occupy Ankara, which was the main supply center of Kemal Pasha and to end their conquest struggle (in the next article we will refer to the painful points there that were the causes of the Disaster).
This is the period when the facts had changed. From July 1921, when the famous Campaign of Ankara or Sagarios began (as it was called) aiming at the capture of Ankara by Greek troops until September 1921, the Greek Army defeated the Turkish soldiers and irregular Tsetes along the entire length of Ionia.
They defeated them at Aidini, also outside Proussa, further south and east. The Turkish troops were constantly retreating in defeat, were regrouping, and attacking again. They used to lose the battle and after days they used to re-appear with new attacks. The Greek Army passed through the Salty Desert victoriously, passed through Sagarios and the terrible hills of Cale Groto, defeating the constantly retreating Turks, until they reached 80 kilometers from Ankara. There the Greek Generals realized that despite their victories, they had found themselves with huge losses and desertions, far away from the supply centers and could no longer even advance, but also worse, that they could not win this War.
Thus, from September 1921 until August 1922, the Greek Army remained inactive, without any strategy, without any attack. On the other hand, Kemal, having the support of the Russians, but also of the French and Italians and knowing that he had won the war, did not attack. He let the apple ripen and rot on the tree to fall on his own. And when every diplomatic effort by Greece and England to reach a diplomatic agreement, Kemal rightly refused, unless the Greek Army first abandoned Asia Minor, he began in August 1922 his attack against the Greek Army.
This resulted in the disorderly retreat of the Greeks and the destruction of Asia Minor Hellenism.
Next week we will describe the causes of the disaster and the week after next we will refer to the consequences of this disaster for Greece and the Hellenes.
*Professor Anastasios M. Tamis taught at Universities in Australia and abroad, was the creator and founding director of the Dardalis Archives of the Hellenic Diaspora and is currently the President of the Australian Institute of Macedonian Studies (AIMS).
A new Metro station at Pitt Street is set to be named after Captain Reginald Saunders, the first indigenous Australian to serve as a commissioned army officer in Korea and WWII.
The Daily Telegraph has reported that the name decision comes after NSW Transport Minister, David Elliott, personally intervened in a departmental push to use the name ‘Gadigal Railway Station’ instead.
Mr Elliott moved to overturn the proposed name in a bid to honour Captain Saunders, who is considered a local ‘hero.’
Australia’s First Indigenous Officer, Captain Reginald Saunders. Photo: Australian War Memorial.
Captain Saunders has a strong connection to the Greek island of Crete during WWII. He was supported by the Tzangarakis family from the village of Labini in Rethymno prefecture. He evaded capture on Crete for almost one year until he finally escaped to Egypt.
On May 2016, the 42nd Street Memorial plaque was unveiled in Chania, Crete, to commemorate the Battle of 42nd Street, which Captain Reginald Saunders fought in alongside the Maori Battalion.
Minister Elliott believes the new station should include a plaque of this life story, as well as images of the Captain.
Transport for NSW formally proposed the alternative name to ‘Gadigal Railway Station’ on February 21. If it is approved by the Geographical Names Board, it will be advertised for public comment.
By Georgia Pandelios, Accredited Practising Dietitian and Owner at Nutrition Prescription.
We often recommend the traditional Mediterranean diet for various medical issues such as type 2 diabetes, infertility, heart disease, inflammatory diseases, depression and general healthy eating for the prevention of diseases like dementia or bowel cancer – because of how wonderfully nutritious it is.
It is rich in antioxidants, which work to reduce inflammation in the body, has a good balance of healthy fats – making it great for improving cholesterol levels and overall heart health, and it is especially rich in fibre which has been shown to help us mentally through the gut-brain axis, whilst also helping to make us feel fuller from meals.
Whilst us Greeks take pride in the Greek roots of the Mediterranean dietary pattern, this diet really encompasses the eating patterns of people bordering the Mediterranean Sea, which also includes Spain, Italy, Morocco, even Libya. Although our languages and cultures differ, our dinner tables have many, many similarities. It is a diet rich in grains, fruits, vegetables, seafood, extra virgin olive oil, and flavour.
It is the latter that makes it so sustainable, because to be frank, if a diet is unappealing or too hard to follow – you won’t stick to it, at least not for long – regardless of your reasons for starting it.
What foods to include in the Mediterranean diet:
Plenty of fruits and vegetables. Let the vegetables star in your dishes, with meats taking a back seat. The perfect example are kolokithokeftedes (zucchini fritters). Others include yemista or dolmades – you can have these with mince or orfana (without meat).
Extra virgin olive oil. On everything.
Legumes and pulses. I love revithokeftedes (chickpea patties), I make a large batch and freeze half so I save time in food-prep later in the week.
Fish and seafood. Try a variety of seafood, like baked calamari stuffed with rice, fish soup or saganaki prawns.
Breads or cereals that are wholegrain.
Nuts and seeds. A great source of healthy fats and fibre – be mindful of portions if trying to lose weight.
Eggs, dairy, and lean meats. These include chicken, turkey and offal.
Small amounts of red meats and wine.
Flavour – onions, garlic, herbs and spices elevate a simple dish into a mouth-watering edible piece of art. For example, tiropsomo, a bread baked with feta cheese. Without the mint and dill, it would simply be cheese bread but with these herbs, it has a complex palate that stimulates your taste buds and smell receptors at the same time – making it that much more enjoyable.
Plenty of fruits and vegetables. Let the vegetables star in your dishes, with meats taking a back seat. The perfect example are kolokithokeftedes (zucchini fritters). Others include yemista or dolmades – you can have these with mince or orfana (without meat).
Extra virgin olive oil. On everything.
Legumes and pulses. I love revithokeftedes (chickpea patties), I make a large batch and freeze half so I save time in food-prep later in the week.
Fish and seafood. Try a variety of seafood, like baked calamari stuffed with rice, fish soup or saganaki prawns.
Breads or cereals that are wholegrain.
Nuts and seeds. A great source of healthy fats and fibre – be mindful of portions if trying to lose weight.
Eggs, dairy, and lean meats. These include chicken, turkey and offal.
Small amounts of red meats and wine.
Flavour – onions, garlic, herbs and spices elevate a simple dish into a mouth-watering edible piece of art. For example, tiropsomo, a bread baked with feta cheese. Without the mint and dill, it would simply be cheese bread but with these herbs, it has a complex palate that stimulates your taste buds and smell receptors at the same time – making it that much more enjoyable.
The Mediterranean diet includes a assortment of eating behaviours or habits – not just recipes. Some of these eating behaviours involve how often we eat things like meats and sweets, sharing meals with others, eating at the table, and eating slowly – to enjoy the meal and the company.
Although not always practical, gathering or ‘foraging’ for our foods is another component. For many of us this includes learning to fish from a young age, tending to a family vegetable garden, picking fruit from Pappou’s orange tree, even picking and cleaning beans with Yiayia and her sharp little knife (yes, the one she uses to pick leafy greens with).
In my opinion, this way of eating is far superior than any other diet. It meets our needs nutritionally in a healthful and practical sense. A bigger discussion for another day, is how sustainable it is for our environment too. Following the Mediterranean-style diet teaches us how to take eating and make it a positive experience for the whole family.
Three-generation family with two small children preparing food.
If you need help aligning your diet with the Mediterranean dietary pattern, contact Nutrition Prescription for a nutrition assessment with tailored nutrition recommendations. You can book through www.nutritionprescription.com.au or email info@nutritionprescription.com.au.
Nutrition Prescription accredited practising dietitians offer nutrition consultations that are specially designed for the whole family – from infants to adults and elderly, through to highly specialised fertility-preconception, paediatric, sports nutrition and food reaction services. We can assist with all your nutrition needs, including complex and chronic conditions – in English, Greek and Portuguese.
Disclaimer: The information in this article is generalised and is not intended to replace medical or dietetic advice, nor directly manage any medical conditions. For personalised advice, please speak with your doctor or contact us via info@nutritionprescription.com.au to make an appointment with one of our Dietitians.
Ms Tsikaris has practised law for 32 years and was admitted to the Victorian Bar in 2005. She has significant experience in personal injury, public and product liability, and insurance litigation, advising both plaintiffs and defendants.
Ms Tsikaris served as senior legal adviser for medical panels providing expert legal guidance to medical professionals.
— Judicial College of Victoria (@JudicialCollege) March 1, 2022
She replaces Judge Philip Misso, who retired on 31 December 2021 and was appointed as a reserve judge of the court on 1 February 2022.
Attorney-General Jaclyn Symes has congratulated Ms Tsikaris, as well as three other judges, on their appointments.
“These new judges bring broad and extensive experience from their respective legal careers and will be excellent additions to the County Court of Victoria,” the Attorney-General said.
Christina’s potato salad (patatosalata) is a zingy, tasty no-mayo salad bursting with Mediterranean flavours including olive oil, lemon and herbs. Perfect for cookouts, potlucks, a summer side dish or picnics.
INGREDIENTS 6-8 potatos 1/2 onion, diced finely 3 garlic cloves, diced finely 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil Juice of 2 lemons Splash of vinegar eg. Red wine vinegar or apple cider vinegar Salt and pepper to taste Plenty of Fresh herbs, chopped. Parsley, mint, dill and chives work well.
Soak chopped onions in bowl of lightly salted water for 10 minutes then drain. Combine with garlic, oil, lemon juice, vinegar, salt and pepper. Mix well.
Peel and Dice potatos evenly into 3 cm cubes. Place in large pot of salted boiling water. Boil on medium heat 12-15 minutes. Keep an eye on potatos after 10 minute mark, they over-cook easily. Use fork to test a piece. It’s ready when it crumbles with slight resistance when halved with a fork. Do not over boil.
Top up pot with cold water then immediately drain potatos in colander. Allow to rest 5 minutes.
Place potatos in a large bowl. Add oil mixture and gently combine, being careful to not mash up the potatos.
Cover and refrigerate 1 hour to allow potatos to fuse with the wet mixture.
Remove then add fresh herbs, combine gently. Add salt only if required. Serve at room temperature.
*Keep up with Christina’s culinary adventures by following Pieces of Greece on Instagramor Facebook
The supporters of The Hellenic Initiative (THI) around the world responded strongly to its call to come to the aid of the people of Greece who were affected by the devastating fires of the summer of 2021.
Mobilising through the press, social media platforms, and especially its New Leaders young professionals group, $600,000 was raised by the global non-profit organisation that brings together Diaspora Greeks and Philhellenes to address current crises and invest in the future of Greece.
“After the Mati fires in 2019, thanks to the generous support of over 548 donors, The Hellenic Initiative was able to raise over $200,000. Last year our friends and supporters came through once again – 4200 donors donated $600,000 and we can’t thank them enough,” Andrew N. Liveris, THI Board Chairman, said.
The Hellenic Initiative raises $600,000 for Greek wildfire relief.
THI has since identified partners and projects that meet the needs of people on the ground today, strengthens Greece’s capacity to fight fires tomorrow, and heals the wounded Earth.
THI’s Venture Impact Awards (VIA) support not-for-profits and for-profits that are also focused on giving back. After the 2021 fires, THI was able to recruit one of the 2020 VIA winners – Apiceuticals, pioneers in turning the output of bees into exceptional skincare products – to help a community badly hurt by the fires.
Beekeepers in several regions in Greece lost their livelihood, but now THI is helping nearly 2 out of 3 beekeepers affected by the wildfires in Laconia and 1 out of 4 in Evia. Apiceuticals is responsible for: the purchase and delivery of 550 THI-branded beehives – 100 of which have already been delivered, bee breeding and queen rearing, training and logistics.
Beekeeping was impacted. Photo: Small Business Trends.
True to THI’s goal of not only assisting people today but helping them build a brighter future, these bee farmers could hit revenues of roughly $200,000 in the first year and double this number in year 2.
When possible, THI also helps the Greek state and municipalities build capacity for better serving their communities and responding to crises.
In partnership with the Greek authorities and the Greek Fire Service, THI identified a need to purchase pickup trucks suitable for transporting firefighting commando teams during emergencies. THI is in the process of ordering five of them, with delivery expected later this year.
The devasting fires that regularly ravage Greece threaten lives and upend families, and in their wake they also leave a scarred Earth that not only wounds the spirit of a community but also increases other dangers, like flooding. The lost trees must be replaced.
Flames rise as a wildfire burns in the village of Limni, on the island of Evia, Greece, August 6, 2021. Photo: Reuters / Nicolas Economou.
As part of THI’s efforts to make Greece a greener country, fight climate change, and stimulate the economy – especially in the countryside – the organisation has committed to planting trees that will speed nature’s recovery and generate income for the locals. THI’s staff has identified a team that will help them plant trees in areas where they are needed the most.
This effort will be part of a much wider campaign that THI will launch inviting people from across the globe to contribute to the reforestation of Greece. In exchange for their donation, they will receive a certificate that identifies the tree they helped plant in the Homeland.
“With these endeavors, THI’s unmatched ability in the Diaspora to both raise money and identify the best way to use those funds for the short and long term needs of Greece and its people is on display in a very moving way,” George P. Stamas, THI Board President, said.
Peter Poulos, THI’s Executive Director, added: “once again tragedy reminds us of our unwavering commitment to Greece. The people of Greece appreciate that they can always depend on the generosity of our supporters and the vision of THI’s leaders.”
