New Byzantium  — like non-absolutist historical Byzantium — is the eminent force of choice
to counter the scourge of terrorism.  The error of 1203 A.D. must not be repeated.     

The struggle is against  terrorin all its aspects: whether spontaneous, self-organized, or state-sponsored.  It is not a struggle against any religion, nation, or ethnic entity.
__________

The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind.
(Thomas Paine [1737-1809]. American Revolutionary Patriot born in England.)

American Patriotism is grounded in Americanism.
Americanism is the fulfillment of the most compelling yearning in human nature:
The desire to be Free.
The pursuit of that most precious gift first emerged in the Ancient Greek world, and resurfaced in the form of religious tolerance in 313 A.D. through the Edict of Milan instituted by Constantine the Great.  It has now regenerated Europe and has begun to penetrate the world -- first achieving optimum expression in the United States of America.  It is the ultimate historical continuum vested in all The Americas  or NEW BYZANTIUM.

        It is folly and misleading to reason that the Moslem invasion of Central Europe was the consequence of Moslem penetration of the Iberian Peninsula and of the Balkans.  Both these events were only symptomatic of a much more fundamental occurrence earlier in history: the ill-conceived and treasonous invasion and devastation by the West itself of Constantinople at the opening of the Thirteenth Century. (See related history)

        It is also unfounded to reason that in some way Islam today holds the higher moral ground over Christianity because the women of the West have achieved a more independent and stronger contributory status in society.  Why then are Moslem women clamoring for even their basic freedom?  The true issue in that quest is not the presence of that freedom but how that freedom is used.

        Since its founding, New Rome, or Constantinople, or Byzantium had always been the guardian and protector of the West.  It was the rupture of that Western integrity that opened the way for the later Moslem onslaught against Europe.

        The Western world committed a grave error once.  Today, the same confrontation exists but on a much larger scale, including the interests of progressive Islamic nations.  In this instance, America has become the defender of Civilization and thus, New Byzantium.  The error must not be repeated.  The unity and firm coalition of Western nations together with that of the progressive nations of the world is paramount for the survival of all Civilization.

(An Analysis and A Proposal)
____________

    "Former Archbishop Iakovos of North and South America [Greek Orthodox Church] called the terrorist attack a 'demonic act' . . . . He went on to say , .  . . there is organized violence that goes back many centuries since the Persian Wars when the Anatolian people were trying to destroy Christendom and the 'white' race."
(Source: Kalmoukos, Theodore. "Iakovos: Attack Was a Demonic Act." National Herald, September 22-23, 2001, p. 1).

____________

Religious Conviction Abhors Terrorism: It Condones Justice.

____________

v
GRAND DUCHY OF HESPERIA
COUNTY OF AYLA
THE  SUPREME PRELATURE
ORDERS OF SAINTS CONSTANTINE THE GREAT
AND HELEN, A.D. 312 

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤

 
NEW  BYZANTIUM


     Much has been written about the Byzantine Empire, the great City of Constantinople, its art, language, culture and customs.  Generally, however, and due to the fall of the City in 1453, any reference to the Empire is made in a historical context, and rarely is there an acknowledgment that it exerts any influence at the present time.

     Contrary to this perception, the reality is that meaningful and substantial remnants of the Byzantine world are with us today.  This is a reasonable consequence of the event marking the fall of the City.  Although a political and social disintegration of that society occurred, its rich cultural substance quickly and steadily shifted to various parts of Europe to form the basis of the Renaissance. [For early examples, see: Origins and Coinage].

     Three elements comprise the foundation of the Byzantine ideal which more accurately describes the maximum achievement of Western Civilization. These are, Greek culture, the Roman institutional system, and Christianity. In combination, these influences produced a viable social and political system capable of effectively enduring the test of time and tension.  Most eminent proof of this is the existence itself of Byzantium which lasted from 330 A.D. to 1453 -- eleven hundred years, longer than any other social-political system in the history of the world.

     Alone, these elements, although of profound importance, each lack the necessary quality effectively to lead to the governance of a society.  It can be concluded, therefore, that contemporary Western Civilization is the natural sequel of the Byzantine world wherein prevailed the influence of Hellenic culture, the Roman system of laws, and Christianity based on its Hebraic past.  Political interests have persistently obscured this reality which at last is beginning to surface in the minds and consciousness of an informed world.  Byzantium shall no longer be seen as the exclusive historical domain of just one people, one nation, one culture, or one religious denomination.  It is the common possession of the civilized Western world.  It is, in fact, the Western civilized world itself.

     The expansion of the western European Christian peoples of the Latin Church achieved their maximum geographic outreach at the Pacific coast of northern California near San Francisco.  Subsequently, the eastward expansion of the eastern European Christians of the Greek Church by means of Russian monks arrived at the same location.  The meeting point of the move northward along the Pacific coastline by the Spanish and that of the Russians southward on the same coastline, essentially marked the termination of the expansion of Western Christian Civilization. San Francisco with its notable hills is reminiscent of both Rome and Constantinople (or Byzantium, or New Rome).  Behold then, San Francisco, the NEW BYZANTIUM.

     An imaginary line drawn from Constantinople along approximately 30 degrees longitude east to west traversing the North Pole, meets Kodiak, Alaska where the Russian monks founded their first mission on American soil.  Their subsequent southward expansion likewise brought them to their maximum outreach at approximately the 40th parallel.  This was directly across the Earth from Constantinople on firm land -- on the coastline of California in the vicinity of San Francisco.  Once again the Orient meets the West.  Behold, NEW BYZANTIUM.

     Unlike politically motivated writers would have us believe, Constantine the Great, founder of the Byzantine Empire, achieved the unity rather than the disunity of the Western world.  Chief evidence of this, as previously stated, was the extraordinary durability of the New Roman or Byzantine state.  By introducing Christianity as the official religion, Constantine reconciled Hellenistic culture with Roman pragmatism on a moral footing to produce the Byzantine ideal.  The practical application of that ideal was realized by the function of the triune presence of the City, the authority of the Emperor, and the inspiration of the shared common Faith. The City served as the repository of physical and cultural wealth and as the guarantor of physical existence; the Emperor personified and acted as the authority of the legal, political and military system of the state; the Church served in her role as the perpetuator of the Faith and as the guardian and interpreter of the moral and spiritual values of the society. It must be noted, however, that the continuity of the state was ensured by making the roles of the Emperor and the religious head interchangeable.  In the absence of one the other would temporarily assume the duties of the former.

     Prior to his death, Constantine delegated to his successors that they should honor and perpetuate his select personal guard of men who had served him faithfully.  The monogram of Christ which had appeared to him in the sky just before the battle and subsequent victory outside of Rome against Maxentius in 312 A.D., became the battle sign of his army.  His personal guards were appointed the protectors of that symbol known as the Labarum. Constantine's request was later honored, and although Constantinople fell in 1453, the institution of his select guard continues in existence today as the protector of the Labarum, and is known as the Order of Saint Constantine the Great.

     Another institution was founded by Constantine in honor of his mother, Helen, commemorating the discovery of the True Cross at a location revealed to her in a series of dreams.  The early practice was to give to distinguished persons of the feminine gender a small piece of the Cross encased in a locket.  This institution is also preserved to this day at his request, and together with the former are known as The Sovereign Byzantine Order of Saints Constantine the Great and Helen, A.D. 312.  Persons in the Order -- an international institution -- are awarded correspondingly the Cross of Saint Constantine and the Cross of Saint Helen in various ranks. It is the world's first dynastic Christian Order and it is headed by the Imperial Family of the Laskaris Komnenos of Constantinople, heirs to that right as confirmed by Act of the Roman Senate (16-V-1525, Lib. Decr. 1515/1526, f. 142).             

Copyright: Mark Athanasios C. Karras 1990.                      [NEW BYZANTIUM: Birth of the notion - June 11, 1990]

The above was published in "Revista Cayey" of
the University College of Cayey, University of Puerto Rico.  Volume XXII,
Numbers 66-67, March-June, 1990, Cayey, Puerto Rico.

_____________________

QUINTO CENTENARIO
Encuentros y Desencuentros al Medio
Milenio de Hallazgo del Nuevo Mundo

FIFTH  CENTENARY
Encounters and Divergencies on the Half
Millennium of Discovery of the New World

 The Author:
Dr. Teodoro Lascaris-Comneno

Reference: Lascaris-Comneno, Teodoro. (1993). Quinto Centenario: Encuentros y Desencuentros al Medio Milenio de Hallazgo del Nuevo Mundo  [Fifth centenary: Encounters and divergencies on the half millennium of discovery of the New World]. (Pp.136-139). Consejo Nacional de la Cultura (CONAC). Caracas, Venezuela: Colper, Editores. (Original in Spanish).

(Closing Chapter - translation)
ERA  OF  NEW  BYZANTIUM

            The [said] New Era is rendered by the internal process that is produced in each individual and globally in the whole community.  It is an ample and tolerant form of thinking, whereby man is neither come to suffer nor to pay for a bad deed, but to live in harmony in the midst of all and by way of our means.  When harmony is broken, emotional and physical disturbances arise that range from sadness to grave illnesses.

            Within the New Era, eastern philosophical views and high level psychic manifestations will have preeminence, with absolute respect toward all religious beliefs: all this, in connection with the development of modern electronic equipment and computation and technical resources.

            The center of the New Era is in America, in the New Byzantium, in California near San Francisco where the East met with the West: the Russian Orthodox monks with the Castilian Catholic friars.

            The words Byzantium and Byzantine were used pejoratively, and in particular by the Franks who in the IV Crusade sacked Constantinople.  However, in the past century the investigations in scientific and historical fashion by Germans, English, French, and Russians have fully reappraised Byzantium for its art, literature, customs, and above all for its ecumenical syncretism.  From Byzantium derives the Renaissance and from it the Modern Age.  Its fall in 1453 originated the discovery of the New World.

            Byzantium united the Greek culture, the Latin institutional system of Rome, and monastic Hellenic philosophical Christianity.  This system lasted for eleven centuries (from 330 to 1453), more than any other Republic, Crown, or Empire.

            As Jaspers[*] affirms in his Origin and Goal of History, there have only been three great civilizations: that of India, of China, and of the West, comprised of and integrating high cultures.  The one of the West was born in Asia Minor in the Greek City of Miletus of Ionia with the thinkers and philosophers Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes, followed by the pre-Socratic(s), today much revitalized in the new thinking relative to contemporary Philosophy.

            The Greek and Hellenistic cultures form the basis of the culture of Rome, succeeded by II Rome or Byzantium that in turn was attempted to be continued by the two III Romes, the Germanic Roman Empire and that of the Czars of all Russias.  Byzantium in the New Era is foretold in the American continent as New Byzantium, not only in California but including the city of Valencia, Venezuela, in view of the secret and magical name of Byzantium or Constantinople, which was: VALENTIA.

            An imaginary line drawn from Constantinople traversing the North Pole to Kodiak, Alaska, where the Russian monks founded their first mission on American soil, arriving by their expansion to the fortieth parallel, goes directly from Byzantium to the vicinity of San Francisco, California.

            And, precisely, the Labarum of Constantine glows in our time in both distinguished cities in the North and the South of the Continent.

            The highest mission of New Byzantium is that all the Americas: English, Portuguese, Frankish, and especially Spanish need to cooperate with full mutual deference and respect, consistent with the spirit of the New Era, comprehension, understanding, and fraternal communication, according to the prophetic divine inspiration of the Supreme prelate of the Order of Constantine the Great, Dr. Mark Athanasios C. Karras.  Thus, the Americas of the New World, following the guiding example of Byzantium, the mythical and exemplary city of Greece and Rome, of the Latin and Greek languages, in the ensuing XXI Century, will come to know each other and above all MEET IN DUE FORM.

            This is so, because from the point of view of civilization, their provenance is Western and that was GRECO-LATIN.

            Spain is the daughter of Greece and Rome, and Spanish America is heir and legatee to a millennial philosophical and scientific civilization in which the Hispanic Latin American modality is a guide to excelling creativity in all aspects, especially racial and social, in the search of human communities more ample and tolerant in each instance . . . .

Teodoro Lascaris-Comneno (1993)

_________________________________________
[*Jaspers, Karl. The Origin and Goal of History. Michael Bullock (Trans.). New Haven: Yale University Press, and London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1953. Greenwood Publishing Group, 1976.]

_____________________

The following book is indispensable reading,
and in particular for anyone engaged in the search for
the continuum and the sense of history.

CHRISTOPHOROS  COLUMBUS
by
Ruth G. Durlacher-Wolper

is a convincing study that reveals
Christopher  Columbus a Byzantine  Prince

the study further confirms the inexorable consequence that
NEW BYZANTIUM  is The AMERICAS

SECOND EDITION ●  COPYRIGHT 1994  ● ISBN 960-85009-8

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤

The
GOLDEN  GATE
A historic name first used in Constantinople
and now in San Francisco

The following historical account was tendered by the  California Highway & Transportation District  in a former Internet reference:

"Actually, the term Golden Gate refers to the Golden Gate Strait which is the entrance to the San Francisco Bay from the Pacific Ocean.  The strait is approximately three miles-long by one-mile wide with currents ranging from 4.5 to 7.5 knots.  It is generally accepted that the strait was named Chrysopylae [color added] or Golden Gate by Army Captain John C. Fremont, circa 1846.  It is said it reminded him of a harbor in Istanbul [Constantinople] named Chrysoceras or Golden Horn."  (See: www.goldengate.org/.  See also Hagia Sophia: The Heartbeat of Christianity).

Constantinople is situated at the tip of a peninsula surrounded by the waters of the Bosporus and its harbor, the Golden Horn.  San Francisco too is located at the tip of a peninsula and is surrounded by water three ways  -  on the west by the Pacific Ocean, on the east by the San Francisco Bay, and on  the north by the Golden Gate.  The interesting detail is that the United States Geological Survey, 1973a, 1973b describes San Francisco by approximately a seven mile by seven mile square.  The University of California San Francisco (UCSF) tells us that this is a city of 49 square miles [7 by 7] situated upon 44 hills.   Given the famous hilly topography of the city, one might wonder if there are not five more underestimated elevations that have been disregarded.  This, certainly would round  things off to an entertaining total of 49 (. . . reminiscent of the "1849 Gold Rush" and its highly popular "San Francisco 49ers"). (See: http://www.sfsu.edu/~puboff/tour/seven.htm.)

Arms of the Cross Retreat
Santa Rosa, California

_______________

Father O'Brien writes:

February 13, 2004

Dear Bishop Karras,

Thank you for your continued support.  With his visit to Greece, the Pope has broken the ice, and recent reciprocal visits give hope that progress will continue.  We appreciate that the Archbishop of Athens and the Patriarch of Constantinople keep after the European Union to include the Christian contribution to Europe in proposed Constitution.

Orthodox do not look kindly on the Holy Roman or the later Austrian Hungarian Empire who were successful, however, in keeping out the Mohammedans.  Now, they flood into Europe and even America, and "human rights" demand both that they be given equal treatment and that the Christian development to Europe (and America) not be remembered.

The Greeks of Asia Minor (Turkey), Crete, Thessaly, etc., and even Greece itself know what they are talking about.  The suffering they've endured, and loss of souls from the Cross to the Crescent, has been considerable.  Moslem numbers are on the increase in the U.S.; and, while many of them are good people, there is a radical arm among them that has been effective in the past and will be again, in snatching Christian souls for Mohammed.

A divided Christianity is a weak one, and it is time for us to think about our survival.  If Catholics and Orthodox do not get together in obedience to our Lord to love one another, we will be forced together to assure that our great-grand-children will be Christian, if not for world survival of Christianity.  Not Greece nor Rome but Africa is now leading Christian nation, and they are being martyred right and left by Moslems! A black pope is not too far distant! Christian greetings,

(signed) Father O'Brien   

Americans
of Greek provenance are not alone in asserting their American identity:
It is both privilege and duty for all Americans.
(The letter below is to the Editor of the
National Herald
Long Island City, NY, February 2-3, 2002)

IS THE  U.S.  THE  NEW  BYZANTIUM? 

To the Editor,

As an American of Greek descent, I continue to read the columns and letters which are written in the many publications that address the subject of "Hellenism" and the discourse which ensues over its future and those in whose hands its vitality depends.

The perspectives about which the various authors select to discuss are varied, the positions sometimes extreme, but never does one ever finish reading a piece without being reminded that the opinion expressed is true, righteous, and authoritative.  Greeks may have lost their kingdoms, but never their conceit.

Yet over the years, the readings leave me perplexed because often the concept of Hellenism is interpreted by different people in different ways so what results is that points of view don't really differ, they just happen to be talking about different things with the same name.  It's very confusing.

I always thought the origins of Hellenism were rooted in the pre-Christian era, where the concepts of freedom, democracy and paganism walked hand-in-hand enriching the lives of its members and justifying the conquests of imperialistic appetites. Then the Romans came to town, changed the names of the streets, but still sent their kids to those schools which taught the wisdom of the Greeks.  Soon enough, Romans left Rome itself, and decided to build in the suburbs when Constantine took his new Christian way of life to a place that would not be polluted by the cynicism of the downtown club.  So now the literati spoke less of the mind and more of the spirit, and the cross became the interior design rage.

But this Christian era spread throughout the Mediterranean world and beyond, so the parables of Christ were then taught in French, Russian, and even in Arabic dialects.  In the meantime, the Constantinople that was Roman then Greek became a vassal of the moors.  So the Eastern culture went underground and prayed for redemption which finally came a half a millennium later when the world decided that it was okay for Greece to exist again.  So now there is a country which everyday makes its daily crawl out of an existence that not too long ago could be considered third world.

            So now, what is Hellenism? What we hear is that when we go to church, the liturgy must be spoken in Greek as if otherwise it's less holy, that we who are Americans of Greek descent are no more than step-children to those who are native to Greece, and that we must take direction from the denizens of Attica and the Phanar in matters of culture and religion.

I'm a second generation Greek, and I lack fluency in Greek, especially the medieval kind.  Yeah, it may all sound melodic in Church, but then it only makes sense since it was fashioned to conform to the sounds of the language. The Greek-only argument is not about what is sacred or pure, it is about power.

There is a new center of power, and we not only serve halvah, but lasagna, corned beef and sushi.  The US represents the new dynamic of learning and culture to which others conform, including our music, our culture and yes, our language.  The Church has two choices: either participate in change, or be rendered obsolete.

We are the new Byzantium. It's time we started calling the shots.

 Dean J. Trantalis, Esq.
             Ft. Lauderdale, Florida