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Hola! The latest entry in my Church Hopping column at Burnside Writers Collective is up, and it’s probably one of the most unique churches I’ve featured to date. It’s Don Justo’s “Trash” cathedral in Spain. A lot of my friends said the church is “interesting” in that tone that means “strange,” and while I agree it’s definitely not your traditional cathedral, I think the symbolism behind it is astounding. What do you think?
In case you missed it, here’s the link to my most recent Church Hopping entry on Burnside Writers Collective. In this adventure, I bring you to Agia Lavra, the little church where the Greek revolution began. Long before Facebook organized citizens, the Church was a place of social change.
Happy Independence Day! I fully realize in this chilly weather that today is not July 4. March 25, however, marks the 190th anniversary of Greek Independence from the Ottoman Empire.
Greece was a strong empire, impacting language and culture around the world for much of ancient history. Even after Greece fell to Roman rule, Greek thought and influence remained strong. However, in 1453 the Byzantine Empire fell to the Ottoman Empire.
On March 25, 1821, Metropolitan Germanos of Patras raised a revolutionary flag under a tree outside of Agia Lavra, a monastery in the Peloponnese. This wasn’t the first clash between the Greeks and the Ottoman Empire in those 400 years. The Turks had burned monastery, which was built in AD 961, to the ground in 1585. The Greeks rebuilt it in 1600 but then the Ottoman Empire armies of Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt destroyed the church in 1715. The Greeks rebuilt it again, and in 1821 Germanos gave an oath to the Greek fighters and raised the flag. Pasha’s army destroyed Agia Lavra again in 1826.
The War for Independence lasted nine years. Finally, on 1829, a small part of Greece was liberated. Slowly, other parts of Greece were liberated. On July 21, 1832, the Treaty of Constantinople, which put the Greek borders in writing, was signed, and on August 30, 1832, it was ratified. Still, it wasn’t until after World War II that other Greek lands were returned to Greece.
You can read my full article on the church where the revolution began in my Church Hopping column on Burnside Writers Collective.
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Get out your blue and white… in New York, the Greek Independence Day Parade will be taking place this Sunday, March 27, beginning at 1:30. The parade goes up Fifth Avenue, starting at 64th Street until it reaches 79th Street.
If you can’t get there, you can watch it on WWOR TV Channel 9. It will be anchored by Greek-Americans Ernie Anastos, Nick Gregory, and Nicole Petallides.
I’ve attended the parade many years, and when I was a kid I even got to ride on one of the floats!
Read my write up on the 76th Annual Greek Independence Day Parade in New York that took place a few years ago on Daily Frappe for more insight on the history of the parade and Greeks life in America.
Remember the other day when I mentioned that cute little restaurant Penelope? Well, last Friday Penelope happened to be the opening setting of a New York Times article by Mark Oppenheimer, entitled “Mapping Religious Life in the Five Boroughs, With Shoe Leather and a Web Site.” The article is about a Texas native named Tony Carnes, who moved to New York to go to The New School, where incidentally I’m enrolled in the MFA program, and who is, according to his website, “exploring the postsecular city.”
He’s mapping out every house of worship in the five boroughs of New York. My immediate thought was: there are so many churches that make use of school auditoriums, bars, and ballrooms — how will he find those churches, if he’s driving around looking for church signs? Well, apparently Carnes hears about those by word of mouth.
But he isn’t just mapping the city out. He and his colleagues are telling stories. Stories such as:
“The youth of Bethany Baptist Church put together a modestware fashion show in Jamaica, Queens called ‘A World of Difference.’ They follow a long tradition of fashion shows in African American churches.” —Fashion in Church, Jamaica, Queens
“Under the searing sun and stench of roadside garbage, a teenage Hispanic girl carrying a baby boy comes out of a door next to a church. Her tousled hair looked like she’d been up all night. The baby’s unwashed face was smeared with dirt; a diaper was the only thing covering his bare skin.” — Girl Power in Flatbush
“What church would get rid of its pews to make more room for feeding the poor? Surely, wouldn’t the pastor resign, the elders stomp out in exasperation, and the members hastily decamp for a properly pewed church? All that didn’t happen at a Lower East Side church ten years ago when it did just that…” —East Village church threw out its pews to make room for the poor
If you want to know about Greek Orthodox churches and Greek Pentecostal, there’s also an article posted on the census the nonprofit took in Astoria.
I love the way Carnes and his nonprofit organization are uniting houses of worship. In a way, it’s kind of a blend of the way Burnside Writers Collective gives community and voice to people of varied Christian background (head’s up: check out my church hopping column tomorrow!) and Asphalt Eden illustrates various New York church’s unique personalities by listing events.
In another way, it reminds me of the exciting and noble work the Endangered Language Alliance, headed up by Dan Kaufman, Bob Holman, and Juliette Blevins, is doing, mapping out endangered languages in New York and working to preserve them.
For more on Carnes’ “Journey thru NYC religions” visit http://www.nycreligion.info.
During the March on Washington, in which Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., made his famous “I Have a Dream” speech, at what church in Washington, D.C., did more than 700 people meet?
Find out in my Church Hopping column, archived at Burnside Writers Collective.
Stephanie Nikolopoulos is a writer, editor, writing teacher, and speaker based in New York City.
She is the coauthor, with Paul Maher Jr., of "Burning Furiously Beautiful: The True Story of Jack Kerouac's 'On the Road.'"
You can email her at stephanie_701 {@} yahoo.com
Stephanie Nikolopoulos 