GREEK ORTHODOX ARCHDIOCESE OF AMERICA 8-10 East 79th St. New York, NY 10075-0106 Tel: (212) 570-3530 Fax: (212) 774-0215 Web: http://www.goarch.org Email: communications@goarch.org
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE August 9, 2007
Contact: Anton C. Vrame, Ph.D Tel.: (617) 850-1218; Fax: (617) 850-1489 Email: religioused@goarch.org
Oratorical Festival to Celebrate 25 th Anniversary
The St. John Chrysostom Oratorical Festival will mark its 25 th anniversary with the national finals in June 2008. Over the years, the festival has given thousands of teenagers "an opportunity to learn, write and speak about their Orthodox faith, Church and heritage." A program that began with the participation of 73 parishes in 1984 has grown to 203 parishes in 2007.
In 1983, Mr. Ernest Villas, the Department of Religious Education Director, established the Oratorical Festival. Mr. Villas and Minerva Stergianopoulos, the first Archdiocese Oratorical Festival chairman, wrote the first Oratorical Festival Manual.
The first national Oratorical Festival finals were held in New York City at the 1984 Clergy-Laity Congress where finalists from the 10 dioceses, which then included Canada, participated. The top speakers in each division took part in a panel discussion the following day. The 1985 Oratorical Festival finals were held in St. Louis and the Rev. George Zervos served as the national chairman. In 1986, the finals were held at the Clergy-Laity Congress in Dallas. Detroit was the host city in 1987 and the final time that the Oratorical Festival was combined with a Clergy-Laity Congress was in 1988 in Boston. Since then, the Oratorical Festival finals have been hosted by parishes within each of the metropolises on a rotational basis each year during a weekend in June.
The Rev. John and Presbytera Margaret Orfanakos have been serving as Archdiocese National Festival co-chairs since 1985. Mr. Villas was succeeded as director of the Department of Religious Education by the Rev. Dr. Frank Marangos in 1997, who served for 10 years. The current director is Dr. Anton Vrame.
The Metropolis of Boston will host the 25th St. John Chrysostom Oratorical Festival finals on June 6-8, 2008. Fr. Agathonikos Wilson, pastor of St. Nicholas Church in Lexington, Massachusetts will chair the host committee, which will begin its planning meetings in October.
Each year, former Diocese/Metropolis Oratorical Festival finalists from the host metropolis are invited to the finals. As part of the 25 th anniversary observance, the Department of Religious Education asks previous finalists to contact the department to provide an update on what they have been doing since their participation. Please contact the Department of Religious Education at 50 Goddard Avenue, Brookline, MA 02445 -7415, or via e-mail at religioused@goarch.org , or telephone at (617) 850-1218.
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