While walking through the Plaka a couple days ago I watched an Orthodox priest evaluating things for sales in various shops. On one side fashionable leather goods littered the aisles and on the other side icons and various religious artifacts. Without disdain the priest completely ignored the trendy items for his desired goods. This reminds me of a passage that we read today in class from the Book of Maccabees about a man that refused to eat pork or even feign to eat it for the sake of principle. This need for a certain refrain from compromise seems to define the Greeks. Through the ages they have fought relentlessly to preserve their cultural traditions against a myriad of enemies and in the end have ask for more. At the Acropolis Museum today we saw the plaster casts of the marbles taken by the English that have yet to be returned. These spaces, waiting to be filled with their real counterparts, can be seen from the road entering the complex and even the subtext provided explaining each piece passive aggressively taunts the British Museum. This sense of action, responsibility and integrity combined with national pride is exceptional and has assisted in allowing their culture to flourish for over two millennia.
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