- Elder, it has been increasingly argued, that because of the difficulty of the Greek language, students spend too much time and effort to learn it, while they could be learning English and other knowledge more important for survival in our time.
- If we forsake and remove the Greek language, we cut off every bridge to our past. We detach ourselves from our roots. In a few decades we will appear as nomadic people, which gained statehood and national identity in the salvific year of 1976! The history of three thousand years of Hellenism, Classical and Byzantine, and of Christianity, will be struck out with one stroke of the pen. Imagine our society after twenty or thirty years, when the children of today will be the leaders of society. They will not even be able to read Paparrigopoulos.
All writings until today written will be for pulping. Ah, what greater national calamity can happen than this? The Asia Minor Catastrophe? It is small compared to this. The Cypriot? It also is small. This is because after two or three generations we will appear completely cut off from our past. Our past will be like a sealed cabinet, and no one will be able to open it even if they approach it; writings of three thousand years will be inaccessible. This is inconceivably worse!
They took from us Asia Minor. A national tragedy! Hellenism however, glory to God, remained. I would say that it peaked in 1940-41. A part of Cyprus became occupied. We suffer deeply. Injustice drowns us. However Hellenism has not been lost. Hellenism leans towards disappearing with what we are doing now. In this crucible, called the E.U., in this medley of nations, after a while we will assimilate completely. After a while they will introduce phonetic spelling. And the next step will be the Latin alphabet. At which time, as they said in Zallogo, the saying will apply: "Instead of fountains, you have mountains, people of Rachoula." Finis Grecia!
From the book Χριστώ τω Θεώ παραθώμεθα, έκδ. Ι. Ησυχ. Κεχαριτωμένης Τροιζήνος, 2003, σ. 149-150.
Translated by John Sanidopoulos
