Greeks

Wildly influential and popular Greek rocker Vassilis Papakonstantinou is celebrating 50 years on the country's music stages with a big, career-spanning concert at the Panathenaic Stadium (Kallimarmaro) on June 14.

A group of 17 students (pictured here in Meteora) from the US, India, Japan, Venezuela, Taiwan, Mexico and Kuwait earlier this month visited Greece on a 10-day educational tour that included visits to archaeological sites, museums and modern monuments as well as meetings with government officials and business leaders.

Archbishop Elpidophoros of America will represent the Greek-American community at the White House's celebration of Greek Independence Day.

Nick Larigakis, President of the American Hellenic Institute (AHI), a Washington, DC-based public policy and advocacy center, has issued the following statement in celebration of the 202nd Anniversary of the Greek War of Independence:

"Greeks, God signed for our freedom and he won't take his signature back"

⁃ General Theodoros Kolokotronis, Hero of the Greek War of Independence

US President Joe Biden noted that the Greek-US alliance has never been stronger in the annual proclamation of March 25th as Greek Independence Day. He said his country's founders had been inspired by ancient Athenian Democracy and extolled the contributions of Greek-Americans to the US economy, noting his own longstanding ties to the Greek-American community.

Greece will defend its sovereignty and security, while adhering to a foreign policy that remains geared to peace and prosperity, President Katerina Sakellaropoulou said Thursday in a message to diaspora Greeks ahead of the March 25 national holiday celebrating the launch of the 1821 war of independence against Ottoman rule.

Tourism Minister Vassilis Kikilias referred to the importance of Greek tourism for the growth of trade and commerce, while addressing a Hellenic Confederation of Commerce and Entrepreneurship (ESEE) event on Wednesday.

The Virtual Museum of Greek Immigration to Canada is the fruit of two years of research conducted by Immigrec, an interdisciplinary educational consortium made up of research teams from the universities of McGill, Simon Fraser and York in Canada and the University of Patras in Greece.

January 30th marked the 100 year anniversary of the signing of the Lausanne Convention, which led to the forced expulsion of 1.2 million Greek Orthodox Christians from Turkey and 400,000 Muslims from Greece.