Yes, in the eyes, hearts and souls of the Hellenes, the Hellenic clergy have earned the right to lead their flock because they lead by example!  Furthermore, it is a well known fact that the laity leaderships of the omogenia have not been able to agree on a First among Equals Leader, thus the Hierarchs are often thrust by default, in the leadership position.

Two more points for the advocates of separation of church and state in our American democracy. 

·     Four years ago a Jewish rabbi ran for the office of Vice-President of the US, and there was no public discussion against it, or in any case, it was not made an issue. 

·     Second, in the last election, the religious right openly and actively campaigned for one candidate from the pulpits across America and successfully elected the new President of the US. This involvement was made an issue, but in the end the American voters had the last word. 

Conclusion: At best, there is inconsistency galore in the American public’s sensitivity of the involvement of religious leaders in the affairs of state.  Nevertheless, some members of our omogenia seem especially sensitive to this issue as it relates to Greek Orthodox Hierarchs.

Having said all that, we agree with Dr. Vryonis that “most Hellene-Americans are not well organized and/or informed or willing to participate in the shaping of American foreign policy”.  However, it is our considered opinion that there could have been no better leader than  Archbishop Demetrios, a Macedonian himself, a scholar, and the Honorary President of the Pan-Macedonian Association, Inc, to take the omogenia delegation to the Department of State and make the arguments against the policy reversal on this issue that we consider totally incomprehensible, indefensible and against the best interests of the US.  Even if His Eminence was a parish priest and not the Archbishop, we would have sought him out to lead the delegation and make our case before our government’s leadership.

Finally, we will not characterize the outcome of the efforts undertaken as “lacking of an obvious benefit” because we strongly believe that the issue is not resolved yet, nor will it ever be resolved, until a just solution is reached.

Role of the Omogenia in Greek Foreign Policy

We agree with the thesis that the Greek government has the primary responsibility to handle issues of Greek foreign policy.  The Macedonian issue, however, goes beyond the Greek boundaries as it is an issue of stolen ethnic identity and a malicious attempt at the revision of history. As such, it becomes an issue of all free men the world over and especially of those who share the Macedonian identity and heritage. In short, it is especially the business of Hellenes worldwide, including Hellene Americans.

The Jewish people, to their credit, irrespective of citizenship, have made it a priority to fight any attempt of historic revisionism about the holocaust and all other matters pertaining to Judaism. 

Hellenes, with an ecumenical heritage, culture, and contributions to humanity, second to no other peoples, have the sacred duty and obligation to do the same. The preservation of Hellenism is too precious and too universal an ideal to be left only in the hands of the residents of Greece.  Dr. Vryonis’s life and his contributions to Hellenism surely personify this belief.

We have no illusions that our omogenia is adequately prepared and able to do battle against the professional lobbyists that other groups employ to protect their interests at the single Hyper-power’s headquarters, Washington, D.C.  In fact, we have been making this argument to various Greek governments for decades, but to no avail.  On the other hand, we are not ready to give up our responsibility and our duty to defend with all our power, our heritage, our identity, our history, our just cause, and our freedom to pursue our happiness.  Simply put, if we do not, nobody else will do it for us.

In summary, we recognize our shortfalls and the urgent need to address them, but we strongly believe that over the years our amateur efforts on behalf of so called “Hellenic issues” have not been counterproductive, as Dr. Vryonis maintains, but quite the opposite, they have been constructive.  Assuming that all politics is local, what is in the best interest of Greece: an omogenia that cares about Hellenic issues or an omogenia that does not?

Irrespective of how one answers this question, let it be known that our considered opinion is that we act as we do not only as Hellene Americans, but also as free men and women who want to preserve our own heritage.  In doing so, we promote (not selectively) the ecumenical and universal values of Hellenism/Americanism: justice, liberty and the inalienable freedom for all of God’s children to pursue their happiness.  

IT IS significant that FYROM does not steal the name Macedonia

We respectfully disagree with Dr. Vryonis’s assessment that the “name does not have much significance”.  We maintain that it has fundamental significance.  His examples of New England and New York are not parallel with the FYROM / Macedonia case.  

In both instances the New Yorkers and the New Englanders are called Americans not British or French. The FYROMians, instead, maintain that they are “Macedonians”. The citizens of the Kingdom of Ancient Macedonia in its earlier existence were historically and indisputably part of the Hellenic world of the time, and were known as such, for over 2,000 years (until they were re-invented in 1944, via the declaration of ethno-genesis by the Slav godfathers Tito and Stalin, for clearly irredentist reasons.  Furthermore, FYROM, showing its undisputed intentions, is now claiming among others that Alexander the Great and Aristotle, as Macedonians that they were, are their ancestors, despite the fact that the FYROMian Slavs did not appear in the Balkans until the 6^th century AD, a good 1,000 years after the Hellenes united by Philip II and his son Alexander III spread Hellenic (not Macedonian) culture all over the known world.  It was not Greek historians that named the period of Alexander and the years that followed as “Hellenistic Period”.

More suitable examples would be (a) the case of Great Britain (GB) that was denied by a French VETO to enter the European Union with the name Great Britain.  The French feared that this name may possibly give reasons to Great Britain to claim the French prefecture of Brittany as her own!  Eventually, Great Britain joined the European Union as United Kingdom (UK).  

Another example (b) involves Austria and the USA. At the end of WWII, Austria wanted to be known as “The German Republic of Austria”.  The victorious Uncle Sam would hear none of that.  One country bearing the name Germany was plenty.  Austria had to be content with plain Austria and its citizens are since called Austrians.

The above examples are a small sample of many instances in modern times that countries, despite their wishes, were forced to change the name that they wanted to be known by because it was objectionable to their neighbors and/or others for a variety of reasons.  Thus the argument of FYROM that it is their prerogative to call themselves whatever they want is at best a weak one.

What makes the US change of heart extremely disturbing is that we encourage a weak and rudderless new country-entity with immense internal problems to pursue an evil policy of “cultural terrorism” at a time that we have declared war on all terrorists!   Is this the rule of law and democratic values that we want to teach the world to follow? Is this the roadmap of the New World Order?  

With all due respect to Dr. Vryonis, irrespective whether this issue of the name of Macedonia is or should not be important for Greece, it should be and IS of PARAMOUNT importance for the USA and for our leadership in the world.

·     First, for no good reason, we stabbed a friend and ally (Greece) in the back.

·     Second we reversed a 60 year policy for questionable political gain.

·     Third, having spent a lot of US taxpayers’ money in the 1940’s and a lot of Greek blood to prevent Tito’s and Stalin’s attempt to usurp Macedonia and enslave Greece, we now offered FYROM the prize they were seeking on a platter ignoring our best ally’s sensitivities on this issue.  We ask again and again:

Is this the rule of law and democratic values that we want to teach the world to follow? Is this the roadmap of the New World Order?   Do these tactics lead to world peace?

I am sure Dr. Vryonis knows the following quotation from a 1944 communication by US Secretary of State Stettinius. I am compelled to state it here for the benefit of the readers:

           “… This government (USA) considers talk of Macedonian “nation”, Macedonian            “Fatherland”, or Macedonian “national consciousness” to be unjustified            demagoguery representing no ethnic nor political reality, and sees in its

           present revival a possible cloak for aggressive intentions against Greece…”

Turkey is Greece’s greatest problem

We believe that this is a statement that most Hellenes will agree with. However, regrettably we have to qualify this statement as well.  We say regrettably because we consider the “Old World Order” and the “New World Order” as co-responsible for Turkey’s behavior. 

•  In the Fifties President Eisenhower said words to the effect that we must use the same sterling principles of freedom and justice toward friends and foes alike.  However, the Turks did not believe it.  In 1955 they staged a fake attack on the Turkish Consulate in Thessaloniki, and brought an angry mob of thugs from Anatolia that burned, raped and killed innocent Greeks in Constantinople and Smyrna.  The US looked the other way.  Some years later, the Turks staged another show. They brought Prime Minister Menderes to trial, convicted him and put him to death for having staged the massacres. The bottom line was that there were over 90,000 Greeks living in Constantinople in the Fifties. They were there since the time of Pericles. There are fewer than 3,000 living there now.

•  In 1956 the Hungarians took Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and America at their word.  They revolted against their communist oppressors expecting help.  The US looked the other way and the Hungarians were drowned in their own blood.

•  For the last several years Armenian Americans are trying to have the US Congress recognize the Armenian Genocide by the Ottoman Turks.  Shamefully, both Republican and Democratic Presidents have personally intervened on several occasions to kill the recognition lest our Turkish friends be offended! 

•  In the summer of 2002 Paul Wolfowitz, then Deputy Secretary of Defense, stated in a CNN interview in Constantinople where he went to convince the Turks to allow us to open a northern front against Saddam, that “what he admires the most about the Turks is the way they treat their minorities”.   Apparently Mr. Wolfowitz like the German General Staff in WWII did not remember (the holocausts/genocides of) the Armenians, the Assyrians and the Greeks. We challenge him to go to Berlin and make the same statement about the Nazis.

The Turks have ‘thanked us’ for our loyalty, discretion and support by denying us access to their bases to open a northern front on our second war against Saddam.

•  Presidents Clinton and Bush removed the Yugoslav butcher Slobodan Milosevic from power and we are still looking for the mass graves he left behind.  While that war was going on, there were 30,000 “terrorist” Kurds killed by the Turks but the US and the rest of the world never heard about it.

•  In the first Iraq war we intervened and removed the aggressor from Kuwait.  In Cyprus we looked the other way  when the Turks intervened to “save” their threatened brethren.   As a result a great number of Turkish Cypriots have left their homeland refusing to be “saved” by and cohabitate with their eastern co-ethnics. We, in turn, presented the two communities of Cyprus with the infamous “Democratic Annan Plan” that among other provisions has offered to the 18% minority a very “democratic veto” over the decisions of the 82% majority and suggests that the Greek Cypriots self-compensate themselves for the loss of their properties to the Turkish invaders!   

I can go on but the point is clear.  We have met the culprit; it is not Turkey. It is us!

Lest our positions be misunderstood, as was the case in a conversation we had in Athens with former US Ambassador Thomas Miller, we are very proud of our two Mother Countries and being of Hellenic extraction we are inflicted by the “Socratian complex” that teaches:

            “ … over and above the mother and the father and all the ancestors, the           mother country (πατρίς) is considered most precious and most holy and     sacred, and by the gods and by the people who have a mind and can think ...” 

As Hellene Americans we have the privilege of being loyal to two unique Mother Countries; the one that gave birth to democracy and its immortal human values, and the one that has now the privilege of preserving them and promoting them.  Thus, ours is the sacred privilege and duty to keep a watchful eye as worthy and good participating citizens (Καλοί κ’ αγαθοί πολίτες) and servants of both.  

May God have mercy on us all and may God bless Hellenism, America and those who guard Thermopylae.

Thank you for your consideration of publishing the above.

Cordially,

Panos D. Spiliakos

Panos D. Spiliakos, Supreme Secretary

Pan-Macedonian Association, Inc.

Chairman, HANC Committee on National Issues