The Saint Thomas Hellenic Afternoon School celebrated the Feast Day of the Three Hierarchs, Saints Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian, and John Chrysostom, with great dedication and appreciation to these great pillars of our Greek Orthodox Faith and the Greek Letters.
The program on January 29 followed the Metropolis of New Jersey’s celebration on January 28 in Wilmington, Delaware, where the St. Thomas community’s 5th and 6th grade students wowed the audience with poems and their angelic voices. The entire St. Thomas Hellenic Afternoon School student body of 125 presented poems, oratorical biographies, and songs to remind older and younger generations of the legacy and contributions of these great Church Fathers. This year’s program was held in the Danielle Kousoulis Cultural Center instead of the church proper as St. Thomas Church is in the midst of a multimillion-dollar iconography project with iconographer George Giariskanis and his team from Greece actively working on beautifying the church.
Echoing the remarks of St. Thomas presiding priest the Very Reverend Archimandrite Avgoustinos Psomas and that of the school principal Margarita Vrettos, the students’ presentations emphasized the philanthropic, monastic, liturgical, and theological inheritance from these great bishops, as well as their emphasis and dedication to the importance of education and the Greek language. These programs and presentations from the students based on the lives and teachings of the Great Hierarchs remind us that our beloved Greek language, which served as the medium to share the Greek ideals of democracy, philosophy, medicine and law to the entire civilized world, continues to flourish.
On this annual Feast Day, the St. Thomas Hellenic School PTO recognized and presented gifts of appreciation to all the Greek School teachers. Additionally, the PTO offered tyropites and spanakopites as a fundraiser and treat for the students. Finally, the Three Hierarchs celebration continues and coincides with the Greek School PTO’s main fundraising event, the annual Greek School Dance. On February 10, the students together with their families and Greek School Alumni come together to proudly watch the students perform Greek folk dances from various regions of Greece, and then dance the evening away with live Greek music like a traditional Greek panegyri.
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Photo Source: Wikimedia Commons License: CC-BY-SA Copyright: Rennett Stowe
