TREBIZOND Resurrected
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The GEOGRAPHY
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NOTE (Source: "Leader of Turkish Nationalist
Church Dies." The Associated Press. [On-line]. The above cited article by The Associated Press refers to the death of a Turk national who had styled himself as a patriarch of a Turkish Orthodox Church in contradiction to the centuries old Church of Constantinople. The present commentary responds to two remarks made in the article. The first remark states that, Istanbul, Constantinople in Greek, was once the capital of the Greek Orthodox Byzantine Empire . . . . It must be made clear that both names, Constantinople and Istanbul, are Greek in origin (see "to Constantinople" above). Furthermore, it must also be made clear that Constantinople was from the time of its founding by Constantine the Great the governing city of the whole Roman Empire. This fact was never retracted, and except for the Fall of the great city, the latter still retains its unalterable historical continuity and preeminence. The city of Rome later regained significance and growth as a result of subsequent political divisions that affected the secular and religious spheres. This caused the eventual dichotomy known as the East and the West or the Greek and the Latin sectors. The fall of the Empire occurred only when the great city of Constantinople fell on Tuesday, May 29, 1453 and not prior. The aftermath of this encompassing cultural and historical continuity and influence is manifested today in The Americas, NEW BYZANTIUM. The second remark attempts the following: Turkey dismisses the Ecumenical Patriarch's role as head of Orthodox Churches around the world, recognizing him only as head of Turkey's dwindling Greek community, which has shrunk to less than 5,000 in a city of more than 12 million. The Associated Press would serve humanity's cause well by discerning and exposing furtive disinformation that helps to promote desired agendas: What importance is there in a Turk—an irrelevant and intrusive element—and what is his role to be able to dictate the religious authority of the head of the CHRISTIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH? It is on account of the unique nature of this rooted and ancient Church, and only through the free will and choice of the faithful everywhere, that the Patriarch of Constantinople enjoys first honor as the authentic ecumenical Spiritual Head. Such bestowal can only be consented to but NEVER negated by the Turk. Neither are . . . symbolic snakes acceptable: alleged to coil around Constantinople—their penultimate stop—en route to their longed for destination, Jerusalem. In addition, why are not the genocidal acts and religious persecutions by the Turk brought to the conscious and constant attention of the world—acts and persecutions that form the true basis of the above characterized dwindling Greek community? This should not be presented as a normal or natural population development but as a true crime that it is. Consider the following conditions in Asia Minor (Turkey [?]), in view of the planned ethnic elimination that continues unabated today. In 1923 there were 100,000 Greeks resident in Constantinople and 90.000 Muslims in Greece's Western Thrace (see map above). Today, there are 120,000 Muslims in Greece and only 2,500 in Turkey. In 1955, Turk democratic Prime Minister, Adnan Menderes, instituted pogroms against the Greeks of Constantinople. Christian Orthodox Churches have been destroyed and vandalized. The Patriarchate has been bombed repeatedly. Also consider the atrocity of the invasion and present day illegal occupation of Northern Cyprus by the Turk. Consider also the intimidation tactics by the Turk against the United States of America. |
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New York Governor GEORGE E. PATAKI issued a proclamation designating May 19, 2002 as "Pontian Greek Genocide Remembrance Day." The Governor's initiative increases awareness of the violence and genocide perpetrated against the Pontian Greek population in Asia Minor by the Turkish government during the early part of the twentieth century. Also remembered are the tragedies that befell the Armenian and Assyrian populations of the region.
AHI also praised
Governor Pataki for his October 6 proclamation commemorating the "80th
Anniversary of the Asia Minor Catastrophe," presented to the Holocaust
Memorial Observance Committee of Asia Minor. Recognition of these tragic
events is crucial in preventing their repetition in that region and
elsewhere.
The following further
attests to the
. . . joins
Growing Number of GENEVA, SWITZERLAND - The Swiss National Council, by a vote of 107 to 67, today adopted a resolution recognizing the Armenian Genocide, reported the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA). Swiss legislators recently took up the resolution, which was originally introduced by Rep. Jean-Claude Vaudroz in March, 2002 and later resubmitted by Dominique de Buman. The bill states, that "the National Council recognizes the Armenian Genocide of 1915. It calls on the Swiss Government to take necessary action and relay its position through the usual diplomatic channels."
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A major group of Hellenic people to have suffered the genocidal heavy hand of the Turk during 1916-1923 are the Pontic people. Historically they are the Hellenic people who flourished under the Empire of Trebizond (1204-1461). The Patron Saint of their City is SAINT EUGENE, Roman patrician and consul of Pontus, who early on was martyred for his implacable Christian faith.
Action is now afoot to create a new city in Thrace between Alexandroupolis and Xanthi just South of Komotini on the coastline of Northeastern Greece. It is at the foot of Mt. Ismaros where according to Homer, Odysseus (Ulysses) and his men managed to flee from Cyclops Polyphemus by intoxicating him with the local wine. The City will be named ROMANIA and will be centered around the Cathedral of Saint Eugene. The Cathedral is designed by the Greek Architect Eleni G. Gabra and is now under construction in replica form to the original in Trebizond (today used as a mosque by the Turk). Five thousand people will be able to take up residence in the City by the year 2004 on the 800th Anniversary of the founding of the Empire of Trebizond. Studies were conducted and urban plans were submitted at the University of Stuttgart in Germany under the direction of Prof. E. Ribbeck and Dr. H. Reichert in 1997. This is a first in Europe and the inspiration is the Renaissance of the Pontus Euxinus and Balkan peoples reflective of their prior glorious presence during the Classical and Byzantine periods. In previous centuries Dutch, German, and Italian cartographers identified that geographical area as Romania. The Greek Parliament is presented with a proposal of law that will establish this "new Ithaca" or new starting point for the Pontic people of the world. Prince Ioannis Arkadios Laskaris Komnenos, Grand Master of the Order of Saint Eugene of Trebizond is in close relationship with the people of Pontus regarding this project.
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MICHALIS CHARALAMBIDIS
PRESIDENT OF THE CIVIL
DEVELOPMENTAL NON PROFIT SOCIETY "ROMANIA"
THE IDEA OF ROMANIA
A NEW TOWN IN GREECE
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ORDER OF SAINT EUGENE OF TREBIZOND
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Since the mid 80's it was obvious that the descendants of Prometheus in Caucasus, the Pontians, were close to their new exodus towards their new Odyssey. The persecutions, the displacements towards Central Asia of the Stalinist period created conditions of psychological and moral insecurity and tendencies of flight to Greece. The oncoming end of bipolarity, of the separation of the world into coalitions and the possibility of communication again with Greece increased those tendencies.
They could not ask to return to their homeland, the Historic Pontus, the area between Sinope and the city Athina east of Trebizond, in today's Turkey, because of lack of conditions of safety.
Thus, the idea of creating a city, between the ancient Greek city of Maronia and ancient Mesimvria, where the Thracian land meets the Thracian Sea, was born from those subversions and the movements they were causing. It was the proposal of an Ithaca so that this time the modern routes, the "voyage" of the new Odyssey, of the new refugees would be short, without too much wandering, too many wounds and suffering.
The reasons, however, for founding the city are not just an answer to the request for the settlement of the new Pontian refugees -- the city was a hospitable Ithaca -- they were much deeper.
The idea of the city, its gestation and birth, was the product of deeper and polymorphous processes. It was expressing a more profound historic product.
The physical extermination of the Pontians, the genocide of the period 1916-1923, the uprooting from their historic homeland and the subsequent repeated disarticulation of their new communities, the taking away for state reasons of their right to historic memory, created conditions of change of their Pontic identity and threat to their Pontic existence and continuity.
Thus, the idea of the city was the expression of agony for existence and identity, of hope and security for continuity. An expression of accumulated deep historic thoughts, sentiments of nostalgia for their origin, pride for belonging to a group with a strong identity that had made great offerings to the civilization of the Euxinus and to humanity. An expression of the need for a place of reference, a metropolis with an urban structure and architecture rich in signs of history, symbolisms, memories, where this history and civilization would be visible. An architecture that gathers and protects a history which for centuries was scattered and persecuted; and at the same time creates, gives birth to new history.
The Pontians once again in their history, in the Ottoman period, a period of continuous flights and exodus from Pontus, gave an answer to their historic existential question and dilemma: what should we do in order to continue existing by creating a new city in the location of ancient Dioscourias in the southeastern Euxinus. Essentially, they turned a Turkish fort, the Sochum-kale, into a city, Sochum. A beautiful Pontic city which lately has, unfortunately, suffered much destruction.
The idea of the city, nevertheless, didn't come only from history, memories and the need for identity. It had a role, a dynamic extension into the future. The big geopolitical changes in the end of the 80's restored the historic natural communication functions of people, civilizations, products and goods, which had been broken off artificially. The Aegean was being reunited with the Balkans and the Euxinus. We were facing the return of history, geography, economy -- not their end.
An area, that of Thrace, which decades of geopolitical segregation had transformed into an underdeveloped border area, was returning recovering its position as a central area, as a center like it had always been in history. From Homer, to Thucydides, to the founder of the New Rome -- Constantinople -- Constantine the Great, to the exhortation in the 17th century of a vizier to the Sultan to build a city in that area.
The new city will undertake the meeting and connection of those new historic and geopolitical trends. Few pieces of land on our planet are of such geo-economic importance as those two hundred kilometers approximately that separate the new city from the Bulgarian city Burgas, in the Euxinus Pontus. Its geopolitical and geo-economic position comprises the biggest source for its creation, development and prosperity. It couldn't be richer in revenue, a revenue that comes initially from its position. One doesn't need much intelligence to understand that. A look at the map is enough. The contribution of the city locally to a maritime zone and inland where in antiquity more cities existed, can be expressed by what the creation of a new city meant to the ancient Greeks. For them it was the crossing from deserted, uncultivated -- as they are today -- wild zones and seas; that is, from chaos to creation, to cosmos. Thus, we will bring this area from chaos to cosmos.
Through those passages: from Pontus, Thrace, the Balkans, the Euxinus, the idea of the city, the city as a product of today's needs, goes beyond the geographic borders and sets off a wider role, an ecumenicity. It will be at the same time Pontian, Thracian, Balkan, Euxinian. Ecumenical for expressing those dimensions in its urban structure, its aesthetic, its symbols, its civilization. Its name ROMANIA came to express that synchronization and synthesis of history, of past and future, of old and new identities. It was the answer to the nostalgia, the yearning, the expectation of the anonymous Pontian poet, after the capture of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453, that the city would bloom again. An expectation that was expressed in the Pontic verse:
Though ROMANIA has passed
it blooms and brings forth more
A verse by which the Alexandrian -- the founding of Alexandria was a historic turning point for the idea of the city -- poet Constantine Cavafy was inspired in his poem EPARTHEN (It Was Taken).
The "brings forth more" of the anonymous poet was our idea for the city, ROMANIA. The name ROMA NIA is at the same time a reference, a message of re-communication and cooperation to the common conscience of all the Balkans and Euxinians. The Greek, the orthodox, the religious, the cultural conscience and identity which is returning, characterizes and unifies a wider geo-cultural sphere. Italian, German and Dutch cartographers of the previous centuries name this area ROMANIA. Also, it is becoming more widely known that ROMANIA was what later was named by European historians, Byzantium. A remnant of this name is the name of the district of Romagnia in the area of Bologna and Ravenna with its world known mosaics.
The idea, however, of the city was expressing deeper individual and collective moral, aesthetic, ecological and anthropological needs of a people. The attainment of a high quality natural and residential environment became part of the Pontic tradition, identity and aesthetic from antiquity to our days. Examples of this civilization were the dreamlike amphitheatric cities -- cities, theater -- on the shore of the Euxinus -- Amissos, Kotiora, Kerasounta, Tripolis, Trebizond; and the architectural creations, a synthesis of classical and Byzantine forms, of the Pontian maestros -- the masters that adorned Asia Minor and especially Kappadokia.
The violent cutting off from this natural, urban, architectural environment by means of biological massacre, after an attempt to produce the aesthetic and architectural values on the Hellenic grounds which lasted a few decades, was followed by what could be called a new uprooting and a new massacre: The great offense on the Hellenic nature, civilization and history; The massacre of the natural, urban and architectural Hellenic landscape of the last decades. A violent process which caused great changes on the internal and external ecology of individuals, of groups, on their anthropology, psychology and aesthetic.
Therefore, the idea of the city was not just a resistance to the ideology of oblivion of history but was also a resistance, a flight, a transcendence from the ideology of ugliness which rules on the Hellenic scenery and especially on the "capital" for decades now. It is an ideology which drove a country, a nation, known for its presence and contribution to human civilization through the concept of worthiness, to a country and nation of value. Testimony to this contribution are the ancient statues and the Byzantine, orthodox, Greek hagiography. Cities and precious buildings which we may travel and visit are now expressions of a ruined civilization which is not Greek
Hence, the new city is a pursuit of our lost self-portrait and self-conscience. It is the regaining of the meaning of the city as an urban aesthetic, as harmony with the natural environment, as Demos and Agora.
This heavenly theater city which will have its seats at the foot of Mt. Ismaros and its stage on the shore, is the ideal place for regaining those meanings and forms which cannot exist under the conditions of today's Greek ugly forms which are called cities. It will be an example of civilization. Wounded by the genocide, the uprooting, the catastrophe of the Hellenic urban and natural landscape, we will have a city to love, which will love us in return. It will be beautiful, it will make us beautiful, we will make it beautiful. It will make us citizens, we will make it a Demos.
It was only natural that our proposal for the city would go beyond our national borders. It would create European, universal interest, sentiments of cooperation, co-creation, solidarity. This was expressed through our meeting with the dear community of professors and students of the Department of Urbanists of the Polytechnic School of Stuttgart, a city that these last two decades proved it could defeat death and return to life and beauty. A sister city of Romania that Thracian and Pontian citizens embraced with warmth in the creation of the new city, as it is shown by their contribution to this publication.
Our meeting with the Department of Urbanists of the Polytechnic School of Stuttgart brings two important messages. The first one comes from history. In the beginning of the 30's of the previous century, German urbanists and architects, expressers of a great philhellenic wave that was penetrating the whole of Europe, came to Greece to contribute in the renaissance, the palingenesis of an ancient nation, that of the Greeks, which was coming out of centuries of barbaric Ottoman middle ages. Some of their neoclassical architectural masterpieces adorn parts of Athens that escaped the massacre. The Stuttgart group are the continuers of those great forerunners at a period when Hellenism is found between its final decline and its new palingenesis, an expression of which is ROMANIA. The other message is being addressed, it is an answer to the challenge for a new European synthesis. The creative getting together and walking along together shows us another road for the building of a Europe of men, citizens, peoples, civilization, science, volunteerism, solidarity. This way, another road, another model for a new Europe was born and created. Already another itinerary is following us, the one that started lately and brings ROMANIA from the Polytechnic School of Thessaloniki to the Polytechnic School of Milan, Barcelona, Havana, Mexico City and Buenos Aires.
When ten years ago we talked about the city, a circle of people who are in power and in the society and whom we could call "Impossiblists" -- you cannot do it -- said that it was a utopia. We accepted, indeed, that it was a utopia because the Pontians had no place -- u-topos means no-place -- and they were looking to find one. They found the place at the foot of Mt. Ismaros and the shores of the Thracian Sea where, according to mythology, Ulysses met the Cyclops Polyphemus. The Maronitis wine was made from the grapes that grew on the mountainsides of Mt. Ismaros. There were many vineyards at the time and according to Homer, that was the wine that Ulysses gave to Polyphemus in order to escape. This wine, with that name of origin, will come back to life along with ROMANIA and its inhabitants.
It is on those mountainsides, facing a few miles away the Ellispontus which leads us to the Propontis and on to the Pontus, that our place of settlement lies. It seems that our critics didn't know that according to Plato the cities have their prototypes in the sky.
ROMANIA, however, today is not a utopia. It is just not in the sky. Thanks to the work of those five young people who through it expressed their love for life, humanity, Greece; ROMANIA has images, streets, squares, buildings, harbors, parks, libraries, theaters, temples, gates, entrances, exits. It is beginning to have a face, soul, flesh and bones. It lies in your hands.
Today, whatever are the prejudices and resistance to the idea of the city, have collapsed. For relief from the Erinyes and feelings of guilt present in the face of the tragic reality of the newly arrived Pontic refugees in Greece, what is left for the Greek Parliament to do is to pass a bill in the next few months for the allotment of land and the State financial contribution to our great project.
In 2004, it will be eight hundred years since the founding of the empire of Trebizond which for two and a half centuries developed a rich civilization forming the crossroads between Europe and Asia on the silk route. I wish that with the help of God, the Saints and the human beings, on the eight hundredth anniversary since the founding of Trebizond, ROMANIA and its citizens will be ready to welcome citizens from all the continents of our planet. Especially, however, the Islamized Pontians of the Historic Pontus who today are using the church of St. Eugene, the patron saint of Trebizond, which was turned into a mosque, as a place of worship. Our first invitation will be addressed to them so that, after decades since our parting and our separation from history, we can celebrate our new meeting and return to our history in the church of St. Eugene in ROMANIA -- a replica of the temple in Trebizond, which is under construction.
However, we will not stop only with ROMANIA. This is just the beginning. The new Greek palingenesis that Hellenism needs, if it wants to exist and live under conditions of dignity and creation worthy of its contribution to civilization and humanity, must provide for two or three more new cities. It must recapture the significance and forms of the city at that place where cities first acquire their significance and form.
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Expansion of Western Civilization: from Constantine the Great to Constantinople and Byzantium and onward to America |
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