HellenicCommunity_2009_3

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The newsletter of the Hellenic Communityand Orthodox Parish of Auckland

/ April / May 2009

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BATTLE OF CRETE COMMEMORATION

The Cretan members of the Hellenic Community ofAuckland wish to invite you to join with them tocommemorate the battle of Crete which took placeon May 1941. They will host a dinner on Saturday23rd of May at the Community Hall, 106 WesternSprings road.

Dinner will be served at 7p.m. Everyone is welcome.

Please, bring your own drinks.

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Photo on the left: Minutes before the immortality: Em.Katsanevas and his son Lefteris (free:.legteros) fromPerivolia, Chania, facing death. Minutes before their execu-tion.

(http://members.tripod.com/petrokefali/phodoc.htm)


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LETTERTOTHEEDITOR

EASTER 2009

From the experiences and impressions of the KiwiNovice-cook!

What an event!After a week of shopping, arranging, taking bookingsand general planning, Holy Saturday started withthe blank-slate of an untidy Community Hall andthe dilemma of just how we were going to makeroom for over 135 people!...let alone the ones thatwould come even without a booking

Andreas, and I spend the majority of the day clean-ing, finding and setting up tables, and with the verywelcome help of Christina Miliotis (who just hap-pened to poke her head in the door with her delight-ful family after attending the church service) we ar-ranged table-cloths and flowers to set-the-scene..

With a wee bit of a break for an hour or two Andreasand I were back at the hall to help Takis, Demetri,Elias and Con to prepare the lambs for the spits home was welcome at about 10pm! Andreas had ashower and was back at the Church for the midnightservice by 11, and home again at nearly 2am!!..

Sunday morning dawned grey and threatening rainat 6ambut by the time Andreas and I arrived atthe Hall it was warming and we could see somebreaks. With a couple of false starts trying to getstuff from Supermarkets and Daries that didnt openuntil 8am (I had been told that they opened at 7am!)I managed to rather inexpertly cook breakfast for

the team of men that arrived first thing to get thespits going and the lambs cookinggood thing thoseblokes didnt notice the burnt bits in the eggshaha

By about 9.30am the pressure started,,,me makingMayieritsa from a Greek cookbook that my sister-in-law had given me as present the last time I was inGreece, and not wanting to sample it to test for salt(got some blokes to do that) and being very ably su-pervised and helped by Aleka to do the agvo-lemeno,we managed to put the soup together to be ediblethen it was on to making four trays of Youvetsi atleast I had some experience doing that.. then on topreparing the Green Beans that Costa and Demetri

managed to find fresh at the last moment..Maria andAleka spent at least and hour top and tailing them,but what a great taste having them fresh I am sureyou all will agree!..Elias arrived with bucket-loads ofprepared potatoes which migrated into 5 large trays,and werent they great?! Thank goodness we hadaccess to two cookers (even if the warming drawer ofone didnt work at all).

Penny spent hours at the sink cutting lettuce, toma-toes, cucumber and so forth (along with Aleka andMaria), and prepared the delicious salads, then sheand Christina prepared the meze plates (that we justcouldnt keep up with as they were so yumthatTzatziki went like crazy!)

Lois arrived and immediately started cutting thebread ready for the meal.manned the Bar, gotdrinks for the workers, handed out plates and gener-

ally covered all those bits that I forgot!

All those lovely people that worked so hard whenthey came, and jumped in to help this Kiwi novicewere most, most gratefully appreciated.

Special thanks have to go to those ladies that pre-pared dishes, made cakes that no-one could resist(Heather), the to-die-for Baklava (Andreas) and the

MILLIONS of Koulourakia (Tasoula), and those ladiesthat made their own delicious Koulourakia Vasso,Alexia, Litsa to name a few (that went in a flash),Tzatziki, Noodles, chocolate cake, and those fantas-tic traditional Tsourekia that were outstanding onthe Easter dessert table!

For those wonderful dishes that I didnt mention (orsee, because they went so quick) thank you so muchfor your contributions and your generosity.

NOW, the lambs (that were the centre of the wholemeal) were fantastic werent they? Best ever, andably roasted by Takis, Demetri, Theo and Richard (Iam sure they got the best bits!!!! hehe, taking ad-vantage of roasters-choice rules of course) and fan-tastically carved by Takis and Craig artists..theymanaged to feed the multitudes with just threelambs! very impressive guys, as there were quite alot of unexpected guests. Talking about multitudes,I have to say that the special blessing of the foodand the rousing Christos Anesti from our own Fa-ther Nick did impress us all, reminding us of thereason that we were all together and celebrating.Thank you Father Nick for reminding us all why, andhow important the event was! Alethos Anesti!!

Dancing was another highlight of the celebration,

along with the contributions of those amazing anddedicated members of our Greek Community, thelovely children that experienced and enjoyed Greekhospitality (special mention of 4 day old ChristinaPavlides, who slept thru her first ever event) and thefine (thank goodness) weather that allowed us all toenjoy the day.

I could go on forever thanking people that helpedwith the preparation, the serving, with the dishesand the cleaning up, and those who just by theirpresence (Ernest, Katy and Heidi, Soula Lymberry,Mary Arabito, Litsa & Costa Evangalithakis, Pennyand Christos Stilianyou and all you others that Iknow and love) made the whole day well worth the

hard work and long hours. I enjoyed it and am reallygrateful for the cooking lessons, the support and thelove that you all shared with me on such a specialoccassion.

Lesley Dionysiou

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April Holy Easter 2009

Christ is Risen! With Gods help we celebrated the HolyEaster this year as well. The joy of the Resurrection of ourLord filled our pained souls. Everything is full with thelight of the Resurrection. Jesus died on the Cross, wentdown to Hades and despoiled him and then after threedays He resurrected Himself, since He is the source of Life,and is glorified by every living breath and creation.

The Word God, Jesus Christ, became perfect human aswell for our salvation. That is Divinehuman. So He cameamong us, He preached, taught, made wonders, suffered,was crucified and died and then after three days He resur-

rected Himself.Before Him, came in the desert of Jordan Saint John the

Forerunner and prepared the people to accept the Messiah.The One who brought the Grace and the truth to us. TheGrace is the forgiveness, the absolution, the mercy, it isthe absolute kindness. And this is very important, we needit. Humans want to be discharged from their guilt and fromtheir faults and to become pure, whiter than snow. Theycan achieve this through the Crucified Christ, after theyhave honestly, wholeheartedly and humbly made their con-fession and received the Body and Blood of Christ. Then

their sins are gone and they are free and obtain insidethem

theeternallife.

It is our chance now that Christ has resurrected Himself,to glorify Him and to take advantage of His Resurrection,

to be also resurrected and reborn in spirit. It is of ourbenefit and we need it.

Christ is Risen!

20 1941

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RELIGIOUS EVENT OF THE MONTH

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HISTORICAL EVENT


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The last couple of months have been very busy for the Hel-lenic Community with some large social and religious eventstaking place during that time. Many people have workedvery hard in order to see these events through, which we arevery grateful for.

Auckland City Council International Festival, 29thMarch2009.

To begin with, our community participated in the AucklandCity Councils International Festival, which took place onSunday the 29thof March at the War Memorial Park in MtRoskill. This was the 3rdyear in a row that our communitytook part. In our previous participation at the festival wecooked and sold souvlaki and also had a dance group per-form Greek dances, which proved to be very popular howeverthis time we only sold souvlaki.

This year he event was much more successful in every as-pect. The Greek Community stall once again was incrediblypopular and the queue of people waiting to buy souvlaki

was 10 to 15 deep for long periods. The service was fast andeverything ran smoothly thanks to all the contributions ofthose community members (and their families) who wereinvolved. We managed to sell everything before the end ofthe day and were able to make a very handsome profit forthe community (over $3,000!), which is very welcome inview of the expenses for renovations that are currently tak-ing place in the house above the hall and the kitchen in theHall that will in the next couple of months.

A lot people contributed generously with their time and la-bour both on the Saturday with all the preparation of foodand materials and also on Sunday, beginning with the trans-portation of all the necessary items from the communityhall to the park and ending with all the transportation backto the Hall at the end of the day.

We would like to give a huge thank you, to everyone whocame along and contributed their time, experience, commit-ment, and enthusiasm to help make the day such a successfor our community.

Greek National Independence Day - 25thMarch 1821 Anni-versary / Celebration 4thApril

The Celebration of the Greek National Day is one of the mostimportant events on the Greek calendar. In Greece and Cy-prus the 25thof March begins with a special church serviceand it concludes with marching by students of schools andthe armed forces.

Here in Auckland, on Sunday the 22ndof March, the Ambas-sador of Greece to New Zealand, Mr Evangelos Damianakis,visited us and participated in the church service which in-cluded a special prayer / doxologia for this occasion.

The Ambassador addressed the participants and talked aboutthe significance of this day both for the Greek people and forthe rest of Europe.

Under normal circumstances the celebration of would havetaken place on Saturday the 29thof March, however thatcoincided with the Auckland International Festival. There-fore it was more appropriate that we planned the celebrationfor the following Saturday the 4thof April.

The early indications for numbers for this evening were verydiscouraging. By Friday afternoon we had only 35 confirmed

seats, so we decided to allow a little more in the cateringjust in case a few more guests came at the last moment (aswe usually do).

However, on the Saturday evening the number of people thatturned up for the celebration was totally unexpected and

COMMUNITY ANNOUNCEMENTS

unprecedented. All of the 80 seats that were available in theHall were filled and it was a little cramped to say the least.We certainly love having as many people as possible comingto our events however when you have more than 100% ofthe expected number turn up you cannot help but feelsomewhat uneasy. The committee had been working hardall day Saturday preparing and cooking the food and onlymanaged to have just enough for everyone because of thegenerous contributions of some of the guests. Thank good-ness..and grateful thanks to those members who boughtalong their special dishes. Thanks also to Father Nick whod

blessed the food so we were able to feed the multitudes... JThe evening was a very successful one, and it would havenot been such a success without the fantastic music by theband Greek Nights. Theo, David and Christina providedthe music free of charge because they just love playing andsinging Greek music. They created such a wonderful atmos-phere with their rich repertoire of Greek music and manypeople didnt want to leave until very late at night. Manydanced themselves legless.

Many thanks to everyone who contributed in any way, fooddonations, cleaning and washing up and so much more.

Just a note **We say thats the Greek thing; we can turnup to events without informing anyone, and to have a seat,and for there to be plenty of food and drink. In the future if

you could please ensure that you let the organisers of suchevents know of your intention to attend, well in advance, inorder to make sure that there is no chance of you missingout on all that lovely food!

Easter 2009

This year, the Greek Orthodox Easter was one week afterthe Catholic one.

The Holy Week was very busy for Father Nick and thechurch, with evening services every evening and often dur-ing the day as well.

The culmination of the whole week was the Anastasi lit-urgy on Saturday at midnight. The church was full and eve-ryone felt quite elated with the proclamation that the Lord

Jesus Christ was risen being announced in 5-6 differentlanguages! Christos Anesti Alithos Anesti

Early on Saturday evening four whole lambs were prepared(put on the spits and marinated) by our community experts,Takis Porfiriadis and Dimitris Papadakis with the help ofCon Kritos and Ilias Drakakis, and the Hall was prepared forthe following day.

Sunday morning the day started at 6:30am with the settingup and preparation of the roasting spits under the gazebo.Just after 7:30am the lambs were roasting. Takis,Dimitris,Theo Despotakis and Richard Atkins looked afterthe lambs while they were roasting for over 5 hours andthey were cooked to perfection.

Lesley Dionysiou, Ilias and Maria Drakakis, Aleca and Chris-

tina Miliotis, Tasoula Despotakis and Penny Williamsworked non-stop busy in the kitchen making themageiritsa, mezedes, salads and other dishes for the buf-fet.

Takis and Craig Hobbs carved the lambs and made sure thateveryone had plenty of that delicious spit-roasted lamb ontheir plates. The additional food was delicious and everyoneenjoyed it. Special thanks to those who bought their specialdishes and sweets againthey certainly contributed to usbeing able to provide enough food for all our guests.

The number of people who had called and booked seats forthe Easter celebration were much greater than the availableseating in the Hall, which was fantastic, but it came with itsown set of issues just how were we going to fit everyone inand just how were we going to be able to provide enough

lovely Easter dishes for all?

All the available tables and chairs were bought out of stor-age and Con Krtitos bought chairs and tables from his homein order for us to have enough places for all those 138


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CONGRATULATIONS

Karen Osborne ,, , 16 2009.

Congratulations to Ilias and Karen Pavlidis on the safe arri-val of their new daughter , Christina - Sophia, who was bornon 16th of April.

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Congratulations to Dimitris Antonatos on the arrival of hisgranddaughter on January 2009.

WINNERS OF THE NEWSLETTER QUIZ

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The winners of the two quizzes published in the Newsletterwill be presented with their prizes on the night of the Cretan

Commemoration on the 23rd of May. If the winners are notattending, please contact the newsletter editor on his emailaddress: [email protected], for further arrangements.

GREEK CARTOON OF THE MONTH

COMMUNITY ANNOUNCEMENTS

guests expected.

SO MANY MORE people than the 138 expected came with-out bookings, which put the whole committee and helpersunder a lot of extra pressure. Most regrettably, I had tomake the decision to turn some people away as there justwas not any space or catering allowances left! In the endthere were some people who didnt have seats at all, butthankfully we could provide just enough food! As much aswe were thrilled at the turnout and loved the whole occa-sion, it was not without some extra stress and incrediblyhard work from Takis, Dimitri, Richard, Con, Theo,Ilias,Andreas M. and those ladies in the Kitchen that per-formed miracles to provide enough for everyone!

A special mention also must be made to thank those whocleared and cleaned and stacked and washed all thosedishes. THANK YOU EVERYONE.

THANK YOU

We would like to thank the following people who con-tributed helped to prepare the Church and the hallfor the Easter celebrations and other things

Panayiotis Goulovangas, who cleaned the Holywith the help of Costa Evangelidakis, and thenpainted it, donating all the materials and histime.

Litsa Evangeelidaki, Frideriki Goulovangas,Vaso Stavrianos, Efrosini and Alan Teague,Soula Tzirtzirlakis and Alexia Vader, whocleaned the Church and the hall before Easter.

Costa Kritos and Ilias Drakakis, who betweenthem cleaned the community hall and thechurch after the Easter celebrations.

Roula and John Musson, Theano Greenhow,Alexia Vader, who helped to undress theEpitafios and do special cleaning in thechurch on Saturday the 24thof April.

Tasoula Despotakis, Litsa Evangelidaki,Frideriki Goulovangas, Alexia Vader, VasoStavrianos who made koulourakia and Eastereggs.

Special thanks to Soula Lymbery and JohnMusson for their genereous donations towardsthe cost of providing the Easter Lambs

A SPECIAL THANK YOU, to John and Roula Mussonwho very generously donated the newKouvouklion (Epitafios).

Father Nicholas had requested for a new one to bebuild in order to replace the old one, which was a lit-tle too heavy to carry around. Father Nicholas pro-vided a design, which Joseph Kouratoras used to cre-ate the beautiful new Kouvouklion. Thank you toeveryone who contributed towards this.

Please accept our apologies if weve missed anybodyoff this list.

From Kathimerini (posted by John Osborne)


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The Greek Educational Centre

and

The Hellenic Consulate of Auckland

INVITE YOU

to an afternoon with:

ANGELOS

SIKELIANOS

1884-1951)

one of the major modern

Greek poets

...no its not an illusion for us

to ride a dream

from his poem: Attic 1968)

Date: 5th of July 2009

Time: 15:00

Place: University of Auckland


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FIBA - FIBA U19 World Championship takes another major step forward

AUCKLAND (2009 FIBA U19 World Championship) - An event which promises to be one of the sportinghighlights of the year in New Zealand has taken another major step forward with the announcement ofticket sales for the 2009 FIBA U19 World Championship to be held in Auckland 2-12 July.

Sixteen teams from around the world including the basketball strongholds USA, Argentina, Croatia,Australia, Greece and Spain will take part in 62 matches with up to 300 athletes and more than 60officials expected to attend, along with numerous official FIBA delegates and around 100 playerscouts.

Ticket prices start at $7 for children and $15 for adults with a variety of packages available as well.Tickets can be purchased at any Ticketek outlet, at the website www.ticketek.co.nz, at the venues orby phoning 0800 842 538.

There is also a call out to those wanting to join the event as volunteers. Around 280 volunteers arerequired in various positions from drivers to ushers, score bench assistants and many other roles.Those wanting to volunteer can download the form off the official website.

The 2009 FIBA U19 World Championship is making giant strides and will be an amazing event,especially in the fact it will be showcasing basketball talent from 16 different nations with manyplayers set for future NBA contracts. A basketball event of this magnitude has not been held in theSouthern Hemisphere before and it is a great coup that it is being played in the Auckland region.

With tickets now available and a push for volunteers the event is progressing well. The challenge is toconvince Kiwis of just how big an event this is going to be in the context of sport in New Zealand andaround the world. I firmly believe this event will exceed all expectations and leave a lasting legacy forthe sport and the country, says FIBA U19 World Championship Event Director, Dave Mee.

The ninth FIBA U19 World Championship for Men will be held at the North Shore Events Centre andASB Stadium, Kohimarama. It is the third largest basketball event in the world - only the FIBA Mensand Womens World Championships are larger.

Around the globe the event is recognised as the breeding ground for future global basketball stars withmany of todays well known players such as Vince Carter (United States), Luis Scola (Argentina), PauGasol (Spain), Andrei Kirilenko (Russia) and Australian Andrew Bogut having played in previoustournaments, showing all their skills and passion from an early age.

It is the first time New Zealand has hosted a Basketball World Championship and also the first time ithas been held in the Southern Hemisphere. The Junior Tall Blacks (New Zealand U19 mens team)willbe competing at the FIBA U19 World Championship for the first time

Live television coverage of three matches per day plus all New Zealand games and the quarters, semisand finals has been scheduled for Sky Television.

Local supporters of the event are Auckland City Council, North Shore City Council, Major Events NewZealand, SPARC, Tourism Auckland. Sky City Hotels is the official accommodation.


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, , . For Consular matters, please contact Mr Nikos Petousis, Hon. Consul of Greece in Auckland.

Contact Details: P O Box 26327, Epsom, Tel: (09) 571 0238 Fax: (09) 571 0529 Mob: 021 236 1427Email: [email protected]

.

Those who are interested for the issue or renewal of Greek passports, that they must apply directlyto the General Consulate in Wellington.

Embassy of Greece, 10th Floor, 5-7 Willeston Street, PO Box 24-066, Wellington, Telephone: (04) 473-7775;(04) 473-7776; Facsimile: (04) 473-7441;Email: [email protected]

Object:

To foster the appreciation, understanding and enjoyment of the Greek National heritage, its ide-

als and culture, including primarily the Greek Orthodox religion, Greek history, Greek customs,

Greek language, Greek music and dance.

-09-479 4010 0272-311091, - -Hobbs 09-5775959h 021-548 840, - - 09-523 0530, - - 09-620 0692,

: Bailey 09-489 2444, - 09-625 6823, -09-412 2345.

Executive Committee

President:Andreas Dionysiou, Vice President: Lucy Anastasiadou-Hobbs, Secretary: Michael Phanoulas, Treasurer:Penelope Williams

Members: Christos Bailey, Elias Drakakis, Con Kritos.

HELLENIC COMMUNITY AND ORTHODOX PARISH OF AUCKLAND

Postal Address: P O Box 52 174, Kingsland-Auckland 10003, Physical Address: 106 Western

Springs Rd, Mt Albert Website: www.greekcommunity.org.nz Email: [email protected]

H . $50 $30 . -. 130 . ., -, . , -, . , . -

HELLENIC COMMUNITY - MEMBERSHIP

The existence and functioning of our Community dependson membership fees and donations by its members andfriends. The Membership fee for a family is only $50 and foran individual $30 annually. Most of the funds raised frommembership fees are used for publishing and mailing theCommunitys newsletter to all members.

Membership runs from the 1st July to 30th June the follow-ing year and renewal of membership has to be made in ad-vance before the end of June each year. Who-ever wishes to become a member should contact either theSecretary, Mr Michael Phanoulas, or the President, Mr An-dreas Dionysiou for a Membership Application Form. Yoursupport is appreciated.

Editorial:The photos of this volume came from Andreas Dionysiou and Ilias Pavlidis. Thank you both .

More News and Updates: www.greekcommunity.org.nz

Editing by: Ilias Pavlidis

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CHURCH SERVICES AT THECHURCH OF THE HOLY TRINITY

Church services conducted by ft. Nicho-las every Sunday from 9am12 pm.

Matins Service (Orthros) 8:45 - 10:00

Divine Liturgy 10:00 - 11:45

For additional information and otherenquiries please contact ft. Nicholas on09521 9442 or 027 485 4815

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8:4510:00

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09521 9442 027 485 4815

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