Hellenic Headine News--"Hermes Expo" to Present Spyridon Biography

"Hermes Expo" to Present Spyridon Biography

The long-awaited book The Lonely Path of Integrity will be presented for the first time at the International Trade Exhibition Hermes-Expo in Atlantic City on April 6 and 7, following president Paul Kotrotsios' free offer of exhibition space to Exandas SA, the book's publishers.

The new publication, an English edition of the biography of former Archbishop of America Spyridon, was written by Justine Frangouli-Argyris, a Montreal-based Greek journalist. The book was translated by Jerry Stamatelos (Montreal) and Geoffrey Cox (Athens), edited by Charles Phillips (Montreal), and published in Athens by the prestigious Exandas Publishers.

Mr. Kotrotsios was impressed with the apocalyptic nature of the book and considers The Lonely Path of Integrity a work of major importance for the Greek American community and Orthodoxy at large.

John Catsimatidis, the former president of the Archdiocesan Council will host a reception introducing the book on Saturday, April 6, 1pm. at the Trump Taj Mahal. The author, Justine Frangouli-Argyris, will be present to meet guests and sign copies of the book.

The English edition of Spyridon's biography has been enriched with two previously unpublished official reports written by his Eminence evaluating the state of Orthodoxy and Greek Education in Italy and the United States.

The biography of Archbishop Spyridon is an authorized account of the life and times of a modern Church leader, a prelate who attained the highest station in the Greek Orthodox Church of America after many years of struggle and service to the Church. Yet, after only three years, as it became evident that he would not serve the dubious schemes of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, the Center of World Orthodoxy in Constantinople, he was deposed and exiled to a non-existent Diocese of an ever-diminishing See.

More than an insider's look at the journey of an Archbishop, who, thanks to a priestly family tradition entered the life of the Church in his early childhood, this book traces the path of a young man: born in America, matured in Greece, educated in Europe. Finally, having faithfully served his Church in Switzerland and Italy for twenty-five years as priest and bishop, he returned to home, to the land of his birth, as Archbishop.

His multifaceted life and ecclesiastical career portray a man who initiated a special era in the life of the Orthodox Church in Italy and America, who struggles with preserving the historic Orthodox Tradition of Byzantium and the survival of Hellenism in the diaspora.

Archbishop Spyridon, who today has withdrawn from active Church service, bears personal witness in the pages of this book -- through his diaries, personal notes and journal entries -- to the dramatic three years that marked the history of the Greek American community. (Exandas)

(Posted April 2003)