Macedonian Press Agency: News in English, 01-09-02

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From: The Macedonian Press Agency at http://www.mpa.gr and http://www.hri.org/MPA.

CONTENTS

[01] GLÕXBURG PLANS TO RETURN TO GREECE

[02] HONOR TO THE HORTIATIS HOLOCAUST

[03] CHRISTODOULOS HEATS THINGS UP - MEETING WITH EFTHYMIOU

[01] GLÕXBURG PLANS TO RETURN TO GREECE

His permanent return to Greece by the end of 2002 is being planned by Konstantinos Glyxburg, who wishes to buy the old villa his mother used to live in, in Psyhiko, which now belongs to the shipowner Mr. Hatziioannou, as does the country house.

As the "Bima tis Kyriakis" newspaper reports, he intends to settle in Athens after the decision of the International Court on Human Rights on the amount on compensation the Greek State should make for the so called "royal property", which is due in February.

The Greek authorities are troubled by the way he will return. This is because K. Glyxburg has a Greek passport from the Karamanlis government era, under the name "Konstantinos, former king of the Greeks", which, however, has expired and cannot be renewed, based on the law introduced by Evaggelos Venizelos in 1994, unless the interested party states a last name. besides that, he also holds a Danish passport, with the same name, and the Greek authorities cannot refuse him entry if he uses it.

[02] HONOR TO THE HORTIATIS HOLOCAUST

A memorial for the 149 victims of the Nazis took place today in the Church of St. Georgios in Hortiatis. Then, garlands will be placed at the heores' monument in the central square of the village.

In the framework of the Hortiatis Citizen's Move events, an event has been organized for tonight in the courtyard of the Byzantine church, titled "57 years later...Remembrance or Oblivion?"

On September 2nd 1944 a group of men from the 31st Battalion of ELAS, attacked a German jeep. In the ensuing battle one German soldier was killed and another 3 were wounded. On the afternoon of the same day, a convoy of 32 German trucks arrived at the village, headed by the well known Captain Shubert of the SS and the traitors Kapetanakis and Germanakis. They ordered all of the residents to gather in the square, but were unsatisfied by the number of people gathered, so they broke into homes and either dragged or killed those who couldn't walk. After receiving no information on that morning's attack the enraged Shubert concentrated all the villagers in the village bakery and another house and burnt them down, thus giving the village its gas chamber and crematorium, and burning Hortiatis into the pages of history.

[03] CHRISTODOULOS HEATS THINGS UP - MEETING WITH EFTHYMIOU

"Greece has always been and still is a country which recognizes Christ as God and Savior. Whomever doubts that should come out and say it so we can see that there are people who want to make Greece a country which has no God, Church, faith and tradition."

These were statements made by Archbishop Cristodoulos in his sermon today in the church of St. Konstantine in Moschato.

Mr. Christodoulos, drawing on Paul the Disciple and said that whomever does not love Christ is anathema (which is excommunicated, as he explained), and that the true criterion of loving Christ, is applying what he said.

As he characteristically said, :Loving Christ does not mean you intend to install Theocracy in Greece, or that you want to become some kind of political leader. They have to distort facts, so as to turn a part of the people against me. I'm not making things up, just saying what St. Paul and St. Kosmas say. If they want someone to swear at, let them swear against them and against Christ".

On Friday, Foreign Secretary Giorgos Papandreou speaking at the meeting of the Central Committee meeting of PASOK, stated: "I believe that on hand there is true concern on the salvation of our Greek identity, by a large number of people, all those that signed the statements. But I believe that Mr. Christodoulos has exploited that concern in a bad way. We will not secure our identity with a simple recording", he pointed out.

Petros Efthymiou, Minister of Education, will meet on Tuesday with the three Metropolites of the Holy Synod's special committee on the ID issue, Ierotheos of Nafpaktos, Ignatios of Dimitriada, and Daniil of Kesariani. With this meeting, the three Metropolites will end the series of meetings they had with government and political party spokespersons.

The Minister of Education, in an interview with the "Kyriakatiki Eleftherotypia" refers to the conditions on a possible meeting of the Archbishop with the Prime Minister.

"A preparatory cooperation meeting of the Church and the relevant Ministry of Education and Faiths must take place first, so that the issues to be discussed can be put in order, in which, of course, the ID card issue will not be included, since that issue is legally closed, but also, I think, in all other ways, too".

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