The National Heraldwww.thenationalherald.com

TH

E NATIONAL HERA

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Honoring the Hellenic Triumph of Liberty

MARCH 25, 2017

CelebratingGreek Independence

THODOROS VRYZAKIS, GRATEFUL HELLAS (1858),

GREECE PERSONIFIED AS A WOMAN, WITH REVOLUTIONARIES WHO PARTICIPATED IN THE GREEK

WAR OF INDEPENDENCE, NATIONAL HISTORICAL MUSEUM, ATHENS

This insert was sponsored in part by Dr. Spiro & Amalia Spireas, Sigmapharm Laboratories

Greek Independence Day2 THE NATIONAL HERALD, MARCH 25, 2017

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Georgios Karaiskakis (January 23,1780 - April 23, 1827) was a fa-mous Greek klepht, armatolos,military commander, and a hero

of the Greek War of Independence.Klephts were bandits, warlike mountain

folk who lived in the Greek countrysidewhen Greece was still part of the OttomanEmpire. Armatoloi were irregular GreekChristian militia, brigands who were some-times commissioned by the Ottomans toenforce the Sultan’s authority in regionswhich were difficult for Ottoman authori-ties to govern due to inaccessible terrain.

Both groups switched allegiances ac-cording to circumstantial demands. Somewere traitors. Many were heroes whohelped liberate Greece from more than 400years of Turkish oppression.

Karaiskakis was one such hero. He wasborn in a monastery near the village ofMavrommati in the Agrafa mountains, lo-cated near the town of Karditsa in the Pre-fecture of Thessaly. His father was the ar-

matolos of the Valtos district, DemetrisIskos or Karaiskos. His mother, ZoeDimiski, was a local nun and cousin of Go-gos Bakolas, captain of the armatoloi inRadovitsi.

Known as The Nun’s Son and Gypsy(because of his dark complexion), he be-came a klepht at a very early age in theservice of Katsantonis, a famous local brig-and. Karaiskakis excelled as a klepht. Agile,cunning, brave and reckless, he rosequickly through the ranks, eventually be-coming a protopalikaro, or lieutenant.

He was captured by Ali Pasha’s troopsat 15 years of age and imprisoned at Ioan-nina. Impressed by Karaiskakis’ courageand intelligence and fighting spirit, AliPasha released Karaiskakis from prison andmade him one of his personal bodyguards.

Karaiskakis served as a bodyguard toAli Pasha for 12 years (1808-20), beforelosing favor with the Ottoman warlord andfleeing back to the mountains to continuehis life as a klepht.

During the early stages of the war,Karaiskakis fought in the Morea (Pelopon-

nese), where he was drawn into the in-trigues which divided the Greek leadership.He nonetheless recognized the necessityof providing Greece with a stable govern-ment, and was a supporter of JohnCapodistrias, who would later be-come Modern Greece’s firsthead of state.

Karaiskakis’ reputa-tion grew during themiddle and latterstages of the war.He helped tolift the firstsiege of Mes-solonghi in1823.

Messo-longhi firstrevolteda g a i n s tthe Turkson May20, 1821,and was am a j o rs t r o n g -hold of theG r e e krebels dur-ing the Rev-olution. Its in-h a b i t a n t ssuccessfully re-sisted a siege byOttoman forces in1822. The secondsiege began on April 15,1825 by an army of 30,000men, and was later reinforcedby another 10,000 men led by IbrahimPasha, son of Muhammad Ali Pasha ofEgypt.

After a year of relentless enemy attacksand facing starvation, the people of Mes-solonghi decided to leave the beleagueredcity in the Exodus of the Guards, a sortieon the night of April 10, 1826. At the time,there were 10,500 people in Messolonghi,3,500 of who were armed. Very few peoplesurvived the ensuing Ottoman pincer moveafter their plan was betrayed.

Due to the heroic stance of the popula-tion and the subsequent massacre of its in-habitants by the Turkish and Egyptianforces, the town of Messolonghi receivedthe honorary title of Hiera Polis (SacredCity), unique among other Greek cities.The famous British poet and PhilhelleneGeorge Gordon (Lord Byron), who sup-ported the Greek struggle for indepen-dence, died there in 1824. Byron is com-memorated by a cenotaph containing hisheart, and a statue located in the town.

Karaiskakis also did his best to save thetown in April 1826. As commander of the

armatoloi, he attempted to relieve the sec-ond siege, but he got sick, and his illnessand the lack of discipline among the ar-matoloi prevented him from providing ef-fective support in the attempt to break

through Turkish lines. Few of Mes-solonghi’s defenders survived.

That same year, how-ever, Karaiskakis was

appointed comman-der in-chief of the

Greek patrioticforces inR u m e l i ,a c h i e v i n gmixed re-sults: Whilefailing tocooperateeffectivelyw i t ho t h e rleaders ofthe inde-pendencem o v e -ment orwith for-eign sym-

path izer sf i g h t i n g

alongside theGreeks, he

gained militarysuccesses against

the Ottomans.He also partici-

pated in the failed at-tempt to raise the siege of

Athens in 1827, and attemptedto prevent the massacre of the Turkish

garrison stationed in the fort of Saint Spyri-don.

Karaiskakis was a brave warrior andone of the few Greek commanders theTurks actually feared. Pardoned by theGreek central government at Nafplion, heput down a regional revolt in the Pelopon-nese in the autumn of 1824.

His most famous victory was at Ara-chova, where his army crushed a force ofTurkish and Albanian troops under MustafaBey and Kehagia Bey in November 1826.Victories such as the one in Arachova wereespecially welcome amid the losses anddisasters occurring elsewhere.

Karaiskakis was killed in action on hisnameday, April 23, 1827, after being fatallywounded by a rifle shell during the siegeof the Acropolis. Karaiskaki Stadium inNeo Faliro, Piraeus is named after him, ashe was mortally wounded in the area. Hewas buried on the island of Salamis afterhe died, and was buried at the church ofSaint Demetrios on Salamis, according tohis express wishes.

Georgios Karaiskakis: Hero of the Greek War of Independence

By Eleni Sakellis

For many Greeks living outside of Greece, Greek Inde-pendence Day takes on a special meaning. It is a celebrationcommemorating the start of the Greek War of Independenceand reminds us of what our ancestors fought and died for.On March 25, 1821, Bishop Germanos of Patras raised theflag of revolution over the Monastery of Agia Lavra in thePeloponnese. The cry “Freedom or death” became the mottoof the revolution. The date of March 25 is also a religiousholiday, the Annunciation of the Virgin Mary when theArchangel Gabriel appeared to the Virgin Mary and told hershe would be the mother of Jesus, the Son of God. Thedouble celebration honors the Mother of God, the Theotokos,and the faith that sustained the Greek people through thehard years of Ottoman oppression and then through the bru-tal years of war in the fight for freedom. Very few holidayshave such powerful connections in the minds and hearts ofthe people through faith and history.

Though many of us live far away, our love for our Greekheritage, language, and homeland remain steadfast. Themost famous heroes of the Greek War of Independence,Theodoros Kolokotronis, Georgios Karaiskakis, YannisMakriyannis, Athanasios Diakos, Rigas Feraios, Papaflessas,Constantine Kanaris, Manto Mavrogenous, Andreas Miaoulis,Odysseas Androutsos, and Laskarina Bouboulina, still inspireus today with their remarkable stories. We should also re-member the countless, unnamed heroes who made the ulti-mate sacrifice in the struggle to breathe free, like the womenand children of Souli, immortalized in the Dance of Zalongoand the famous song lyrics including the poignant stanza,Στη στεριά δε ζει το ψάρι/ ούτ’ ανθός στην αμμουδιά/ Κι οιΣουλιώτισσες δεν ζούνε/ δίχως την ελευθεριά. Translated

into English, The fish cannot live on the land/ Nor the floweron the sand/ And the women of Souli/ Cannot live withoutfreedom.

For many Greeks, the struggle for freedom that began in1821 lasted much longer. The territory of the Greek nationafter the War of Independence included only part of whatwe call Greece today. The borders expanded and contractedand expanded again, forged by war and the people’s deter-mination to uphold the ideals of Hellenism. The islands ofthe Dodecanese after millennia of upholding the Greek lan-guage, traditions, and faith, only became part of the ModernGreek nation in 1947. The emotion inspired by the unificationis still powerful and within recent memory for those wholived through the years of the Italian occupation and thenthe German occupation in World War II. On March 1, theGreek Parliament held a special live celebratory session forthe 70th anniversary of the incorporation of the Dodecaneseinto the Greek state and voted to designate 2017 as the yearof the Dodecanese.

It is especially vital today that we look back and rememberthe historic struggle for freedom and the tremendous re-sponsibility to maintain that freedom in the face of all threatswhether internal or external. At a recent event, Consul Gen-eral of Greece in New York Konstantinos Koutras quotedThomas Jefferson, “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty,”which applies to every nation in the free world and nowmore than ever as we see how interconnected we are globally.

As we march in the various parades to show our Hellenicpride, it is important to remember the stories and strugglesof the past and how the Greek nation and people still enduredespite the hardships and the crises. The indomitable Hellenicspirit continues to rise. ΖΗΤΩ Η ΕΛΛΑΣ! ΖΗΤΩ Η 25η Μαρ-τίου!

The True Meaning of Greek Independence Daya

b

HAPPY GREEK INDEPENDENCE DAY!ΖΗΤΩ ΟΙ ΑΘΑΝΑΤΟΙ ΗΡΩΕΣ ΤΟΥ 1821!

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The Greek National Anthem Dionysios Solomos. I know you by the fearsome slash of the sword

I know you by the stance, which with a glance surveys the land

Emerged from the sacred bones of the HellenesAnd empowered as in the past

Hail, Oh Hail Liberty!

Hymn to Liberty - First Stanza(English Translation, Courtesy of John J. Chiakulas, PhD.)

Long Live Greece! Lond Live Freedom!

Greek Independence Day4 THE NATIONAL HERALD, MARCH 25, 2017

and so we were pretty poor,he never finished his educationbecause he went into the army,so he wanted his son to succeedand it was all about education.So he pushed education and hepushed education so much, hedidn’t realize you push, andthen you want to become anacademic, you want to becomea scientist, and a couple of dayslater he comes to me, he hadcut out an article from the Eth-nikos Kyrix, the Greek newspa-per because he only read theGreek newspaper, about RoyVagelos leaving academia to gobecome head of research atMerck.

My father said to me, so ifyou want to become a scientist,don’t become any scientist, atleast become like this scientist,become like Roy Vagelos andRoy was a big hero in the Greekcommunity and still is. You maynot know this, but he really builtMerck to what it became, Merckwas the most admired companyfor ten years in a row and hewas the most admired CEO inthe world for ten years in a row,and this was all documented inthe Greek paper, and my fatherkept cutting out the articles. Hecut them all out and said “thisis the guy you want to be like.”

Roy wasn’t only my hero, hewas everybody’s hero, so evenwhen we started the company,my partner, Len, he also ofcourse, we all wanted to be likeRoy, and we all thought Roy wasthe greatest.

In the early days of Regen-eron, when we were very smalland there were only ten peopleand so forth, my dad knew Lenvery well and he was alwayscoming over, there was a muchdifferent environment if you canimagine because we were asmall operation and my fatherwould come by and he wouldgive us a hard time all the timeand he would say to us “youguys don’t know what you’re do-ing, what you should do is callup this guy Roy Vagelos andhe’ll want to help a young Greekguy like George.” So my dadwas saying that all the time andLen would get annoyed, hewouldn’t get really annoyed, buthe would joke around and I stillremember, he would say “Mr.Yancopoulos, you’re going tohave to stop, otherwise I’m go-ing to have to call security andhave you removed from thepremises”; he was joking. Soanyway, a few years go by andI’ll never forget it, I was sittingin Len’s office so we had somecalamity, and luckily for me Ihad Len so I never worriedabout things, and he’s not pan-icking but he’s very concerned,[and says] “you know George,maybe we’re not quite as smartas we think we are and maybewe’re not quite ready to be thenext Roy Vagelos neither of ustogether, maybe we should callup the real Roy Vagelos and seewhether he might come andhelp us out, figure it out for us.”[I said ] you’re sounding like mydad and sure enough right thenand there, he called, this was inthe early to mid-90s and youhad to call information. I re-member him calling, finding outwhat the area code for Raleigh,NJ which is where Merck head-quarters were and he dialed andasked for the chairman’s officeat Merck Pharmaceuticals andyou know Roy didn’t pick up buthe left a message and I said Len,you know we’re never going tohear back and sure enough aweek later he comes to me andsays “George, Roy called back,”and anyway, the rest is history.

So my dad made Roy myhero from the age of 15 and Iam still trying to, though thereis no way you can catch up toRoy, he is just still the mostamazing human being of alltime. Roy is just the most in-credible on so many levels, hemay very well be… the best hu-man being I know.”

TNH: You know, we are in-terviewing you to give our chil-dren and grandchildren anotherhero to follow. We congratulateyou as the Grand Marshal of thisyear’s Greek Independence Pa-rade, commemorating 196 yearsof freedom and to honor you asthe person of the week for ourPeriodiko, dedicated to the lead-ers of the community. Your ex-perience is inspiring. You’re hereat Regeneron 28 years, you havearrived, and you have built anempire.GY: Well, it’s amazing to me,

but I was just a typical Greekkid from the Woodside-Astoriaarea and you know I was raisedon the songs about [the GreekWar of Independence], it’s soclose the timing of Greeks interms of their subjugation underthe Turks, and my part ofGreece wasn’t freed until theearly 1900s, so all four of mygrandparents were actually bornunder Turkish subjugation,some people call them slavesand the songs I was raised onwere the songs of slavery or sub-

jugation and I sang these songs,Feggaraki mou Lambro andMavrin H Nyxta Sta Vouna. Onesong is about the children underTurkish rule and they’re not al-lowed to learn Greek and soforth, so at night lit by the moonthey would go to secret schoolsin caves to learn and keep upthe Greek because the Greekswere enslaved by the Turks forover 400 years and they main-tained their Greekness, believeit or not, for that whole periodof time, it’s one of the longest,maybe the longest periods whenone group of people were en-slaved and rose up and main-tained their identity after allthat period of time and how didthey do it? By these secret

schools and among other things.And the other song, Mavrin HNyxta sta Vouna, which was myfavorite. and I remember beingon my bed when I was like fouryears old and making believe,so it’s about Greeks fighting theTurks and my town and my areais from the mountains where itwas very real to me, where theywere on the mountains fightingwith the Turks with swords.

My town is called Kastoria.So it was all very real to me andall four of my grandparents hadtheir stories about this and so itwas with a lot of pride that youget dressed as a freedom fighterand you go to the parade whenyou’re a kid, and you have yoursword and you’re playing withyour friends. So, it is amazinglyfull circle 50 years later to bethe Grand Marshall of this pa-rade that I was marching in asa tsolia 50 plus years ago.

It’s sort of amazing but thehistory is so close, all four of mygrandparents. And my grandfa-ther, which is a phenomenalstory he was a freedom fighteragainst the Turks and the Bul-garians in the late 1800s he wasborn in 1883 and he was sen-tenced to die and he escapedand he had no education so atthe time, there was no educa-tion and somehow he got to Vi-enna, Austria. So think aboutthis, he’s growing up in the late1800s, he was born in 1883, solet’s say this is the late 1890sand he is in Vienna and seeselectric lights for the first timebecause in Greece obviously, hehad never seen it. He told methis story when I was a very lit-tle boy, he sees electric light andthought it was magic and wasso fascinated by it that he de-cided he was going to devotehis life to this magical miracleof these electric lights. He hadno education, he had a job atthe famous Vienna Opera House

cleaning the floors, sweepingthe floors and he would save thelittle librettos, the little booksthat would have the text in Ger-man and he taught himself howto read German, and he some-how, we still don’t know all thedetails, I have his diploma.

This is an amazing story bythe way, so [back to] Roy Vage-los. So I want to be like RoyVagelos, everyone wants to belike Roy Vagelos and there’s somany parallels I draw but youcan’t make this stuff up. He gota bunch of Greeks including meand Michael Jaharis to donateto Columbia Medical Center tobuild this beautiful new build-ing, the Vagelos Building, whichis a spectacular building, any-

way, and he gave the openingaddress at the building, themost incredible talk. He talkedabout his roots and where hecame from, and one of the mostamazing things that he said wasthat his parents were raised inwar and they had nothing andthey had to come over in theearly 1900s as immigrants fromthe turmoil that was going onthen, because they’re actuallyfrom around Constantinopleand probably Smyrna and theysomehow got displaced andthey came over here but the pre-vious generation, his grandfa-ther, had been educated andabout the only thing theybrought with them was hisgrandfather’s diploma and theamazing thing is that my grand-father somehow got to univer-sity and became an electrical en-gineer in Austria and about theonly thing that my familybrought over when they camein the late 1950s from Greecewas his diploma. I have hisdiploma on my wall and I havehis name, you know Greeksname the first grandson afterthe grandfather, so his name isGeorge Damis Damianos Yan-copoulos and it’s the same nameand I have a diploma from thisuniversity in Austria from theearly 1900s with my name onit, and he became an electricalengineer, and he went back toGreece.

First, he went to Asia Minorand he built two of the firstpower plants in all of Greece inSmyrna which got destroyed inthe Catastrophe of Smyrna, thenhe eventually moved aroundand he had a partnership withan Egyptian Jew and they builtsomething like the first 15power plants in all of Greece.Then, full circle, my father wasborn into a family that was ac-tually quite wealthy, but thenthe Germans came and they

took over all the power plantsand somehow because he wasn’twilling to collaborate or what-ever, they put my grandfatherin jail and my father who was15 at the time joined the armyand became a freedom fighter.So, it basically came full circle.His father starts out with noth-ing, becomes very rich, buildsan empire, has all these powerplants, is left with nothing. Myfather now pretty much at thesame age is now a freedomfighter and first against theNazis and then against the Com-munists and so then he comesto America and raises me. So Itell my kids, they’ve got to beprepared there’s probably goingto be a great collapse, they’re

going to turn into freedom fight-ers and have to start from thebeginning themselves becauseit’s all cyclical… you can’t makethis up.

My mother, Vasiliki was alsofrom Kastoria. She died lastsummer, at 91. I have a sister,Sophia, she was also pushedinto a lot of education. She’s thesmart one. She has a PhD in the-oretical astrophysics from Co-lumbia, and was actually in thesame group with [famed astro-physicist and director of the

Hayden Planetarium] Neil de-Grasse Tyson. I went to highschool with him, and my sistergot her PhD with him.

TNH: Do your children alsowant to pursue careers in sci-ence? GY: I have 4 kids, Ourania,

Damis, Louka, and Demetra,ages 23, 21, 19, and 16 andwell, unbelievably enough, theymay all end up, and it was notsort of expected, they might allend up being scientists and en-gineers, though it didn’t startthat way.

My oldest daughter is al-ready famous by the way, be-cause she identified some bigcontroversy at the UN that theywere covering up that they havevery few women in positions ofpower and she exposed this. Herwork was cited in the New YorkTimes, but also the UN endedup then shifting gears and theyhad her put together a wholeexhibition on this topic. So itwas one of the largest public ex-hibitions they had at the UNthat was highlighting women inthe history of the UN and howwomen have not been given theprominence that they should beand my daughter became, forsomebody who is so young, itwas unbelievable how much at-tention she got, but then she gota little frustrated working at theUN and seeing how it was hardto make a change. So she de-cided to go back to medicalschool.

My son Damis is interestedin environmental geology, andso he’s also going towards thesciences and my other son ismajoring in a dual degree inphysics and engineering, andmy youngest is the smart one inthe family, she’s still in highschool but she is interested inastrophysics and aerospace en-gineering.

My daughter Demetra hasmade a name for herself as well.She is now one of the top femalehigh school wrestlers in thecountry, and you know, howthey have varsity teams, varsitywrestling, she is the captain ofthe boys varsity wrestling teamand by the way, you may haveseen recently in the news therewas this controversy in Texasabout this girl was transgenderand she was taking steroids tobecome male but she ended upwresting against girls eventhough she was in transition.

This year she had an undefeatedseason and she became cham-pion, well, she was undefeatedin the scholastic season, but dur-ing the tournament she lost toone person, my daughter. So mydaughter beat the transgenderboy, I didn’t know it either. I wasfollowing the story in the newsand then her coach texted usthat last summer she had wres-tled against him and beat him.

TNH: How often do you getto visit Kastoria? GY: We’re hoping to go this

year. We went two years ago, sowe try to go every couple ofyears.

TNH: How difficult was it toleave academia and open yourown business in the pharmaceu-tical industry? GY: There were really two

separate things that got me intothis world, one having to dowith my father again and onehaving to do with Len. On theone hand, I was doing very wellby some standards in the acad-emic world. At a very young ageI was offered professor positionsand had gotten very largeawards to fund research in mylaboratory for several milliondollars and my father at thattime was very disappointed thatI was pursuing this academicscience career and when I wonone particular award and thiswas in 1988 and it was for $2.5million and that was a lot ofmoney, it still is a lot of money,but in 1988 that was a lot moremoney and it guaranteed fund-ing for my laboratory for eightyears back then and I thoughtthat it would show to my fatherthat I had made it, that my sci-ence was so worthwhile thatthey were giving me all thismoney.

I went home to Queens be-cause I always used to go homeon Sunday to have dinner withthe family and with my parentsand I thought this would im-press them and he said twothings that I’ll never forget, helistened to this and the firstthing he said was (in Greek-)“Exactly how much of that $2.5million goes into your pocket?”That was the first thing and thenwhen I tried to explain, yeah,but it’s the research and youdon’t understand my goal ismaybe I could do important sci-ence and someday I couldmaybe come up with something

Dr. George Yancopoulos, Parade Grand Marshal, Talks to TNH Continued from page 1of our main section

Dr. George Yancopoulos, Founding Scientist, President and Chief Scientific Officer of the pharmaceutical company Regeneron, spoke with The National Heraldabout his work, family, and the full circle moment of being selected as the Grand Marshal for this year’s Greek Independence Day Parade in New York.

Dr. Yancopoulos in his office at Regeneron where the framed articles chronicle his work andachievements in the field of biomedical science and the pharmaceutical industry.

Dr. George Yancopoulos holds a copy of The National Herald from 2015 that featured a storyabout his rise to the heights of the pharmaceutical industry on the front page.

PHOTOS: TNH/COSTAS BEJ

Greek Independence DayTHE NATIONAL HERALD, MARCH 25, 2017 5

that could maybe help peoplesuffering from disease. My dadsaid, because my dad was nofool, and I might choke up here,too, but he goes, “I brought myfamily here,” he was a big be-liever, like a lot of Greeks fromthat generation, in America. “Ibrought my family to the great-est country on the face of thisplanet and in this country if youreally think you can do some-thing like help cure disease,”and I had told them that intomy pocket I was making$35,000 a year which by theway you don’t appreciate it nowbut in 1988 it was a lot ofmoney, but he even with no ed-ucation was making more thanthat. So he goes on, “this is thegreatest country on the face ofthis planet,” he was a big be-liever, “and in this country if youreally think you can do some-thing as important as help curea disease you can make a hellof a lot more than $35,000 ayear doing it.”

So I thought I was going toimpress my father and I leftonce again feeling like I had lethim down, and then within aweek I get a phone call from thisguy who I didn’t know at all andhe called me because back thenit was in the very early days ofcloning genes and there werevery few people who had clonedgenes and I happened to workwith, though I was a young guy,but I already had a reputationbecause I had worked with oneof the world’s premiere genecloners which is another inter-esting story how I got into thisfield because once again it’s allthe Greek connections. BecauseI had a reputation and becausethe guy I had worked with wasso well known, Len talked tohim and he said you’re nevergoing to get one of these estab-lished, older superstars in genecloning now, but if you wantsome guy who could be the nextyoung superstar you got to talkto this guy Yancopoulos. So Lenjust sort of cold called me aboutgetting together with him tohelp him start this company.

Honestly, if I didn’t have thatjuxtaposition of my dad beingdisappointed in me and sort ofsaying do something bigger andhe was always into doing some-thing in business and Len call-ing, that was the magic that sortof said, okay I’m going to walk.Nobody had ever walked away,by the way, from this actuallypretty famous grant at the time,it was the Lucille P. Markeyaward and nobody else everwalked away from a $2.5 milliongrant. It was unheard of, and Iended up becoming somewhatlegendary because peoplethought I was crazy. Then, about20 years later I was invited backto be the speaker at this eventabout all these people that hadgotten this award and everybodyelse said why didn’t we do that?

Part of it is also, I really hitoff right away with this guy Lenand we’re still you don’t see usas much but we haven’t changedin the 28 whatever years it’sbeen. We’re exactly the same,we love each other but we ar-gue, it’s like brothers. We argue,incessantly and we’re always de-bating and we’re always takingdifferent sides in an argument,but it all helps the process be-cause you have two people ar-guing it out and then we engagewith [others in the company]Jay Markowitz there, Neil Stahl,and Drew Murphy and we en-gage everybody else in the dif-ferent sides of the argument andit leads, I think, to a much betterdiscussion and a much betterdecision at the end of the daywhen you’re sitting there havinga high level debate over every-thing constantly instead of justone person saying do this or theother person saying do that.

So, nothing has reallychanged, I love it, I mean I lovedhim from the beginning, but ourinteractions and our relation-ship hasn’t really changed in theentire time and I knew from lit-erally the beginning I just, some-thing hit it off and I could seethat he was a very honest guywho was very ethically moti-vated and you could see a lot ofhis motivation. He has a se-verely disabled son who wasborn with neurological deficitsand one of the original, found-ing goals of Regeneron was toregenerate the nervous systemand a lot of it was for his sonand we’re still, believe it or not,almost thirty years later, we’restill working on that because it’sso hard and it’s related toAlzheimer’s Disease and Parkin-son’s, so we’re still working onall those diseases.

In the meantime whateversuccess we had ended up beingin a totally relatively unrelatedarea, but I knew from the be-ginning that he was just notonly very smart, but just veryethical and very honest and verywell-motivated and he told mesomething that my father alsotaught me and he said helearned this from his father andhe was also very close to his fa-ther which very much was con-sistent with how I was raised.He said life was about doingwell by doing good. And thatwas how I was raised and reallyhe still lives by that and he re-ally hasn’t changed and he’s

never disappointed me in termsof his ethics and his viewpoint.

I believe we are the most eth-ically-driven company. Thething that makes us different Ithink we’re more like the legacyof Roy Vagelos’ Merck, whichwe all aspire to both me andLen, we aspire to this, but Roywas the greatest paradigm ofdoing things ethically and doingthings based on the science. Andalmost every other company hasmoved away from that. They’redoing things for commercial rea-sons and to make money, andRoy said well, if you do thingsbased on the science to try toimprove the human conditionand you’re ethical about it,

everything else, the money, willtake care of itself. We’ve triedto live by that and I think thatwe’ve, huge credit to Len be-cause he’s never disappointedme, I think that we have stayedthat way and especially whenwe actually brought Roy onboard to provide a double checkto make sure that we stayed eth-ical and based on the science,but Roy is a great mentor and Ithink Len and I have literally de-voted our lives to try to live upto his example and bringing himin was just the actual physicalsymbol of what we’ve been try-ing to do and live up to.

But I should just mentionthat when I first went into sci-ence I was in a different fieldand very early on when I was incollege I was excited by some-thing unrelated. So in 1975 mydad tells me Roy Vagelos shouldbe your hero. Then a couple ofyears later I’m going to collegeand I’m doing protein crystal-lography, a different field of sci-ence, and I’m struggling and notdoing that well. Then theycloned the first gene and the au-thors of the paper that clonedthe first gene were Efstratiadis,Maniatis, and Kafatos at Har-vard. Three Greeks cloned thefirst gene or the first cDNA it’scalled, and I literally, I read thepaper and went wow, maybe I’min the wrong field, maybe Ishould go into this new field ofcloning genes because maybethis is what Greeks are good at.So Roy Vagelos was my hero butthen I went into cloning genesbecause of Efstratiadis, Mani-atis, and Kafatos, and ironicallyenough, all of those guys, butparticularly now Maniatis whois still a very famous guy and isalways being honored. He is avery prominent professor at Co-lumbia and I talk and deal withhim all the time. I had a phoneconference with him just yester-day, so it’s ironic how peoplewho are your heroes, Roy Vage-los or Tom Maniatis, you actu-ally get to meet them so it isfunny sometimes how things inlife you’re inspired by and forme certainly these Greek con-nections, Roy Vagelos is myhero, and I go into what I gointo because of Efstratiadis, Ma-niatis, and Kafatos.

We have a lot of Greeks here,Aris Baras is running our genet-ics center.

TNH: The campus here is im-pressive, but how did you startout?GY: We had 10,000 square

feet, sort of the equivalent ofwhat would be that little cornerof that building and then weslowly took over almost that en-tire building. Then we neededmore space, and started build-ing additional buildings. So nowwe have nine buildings.

TNH: What goes on in thebuildings?GY: So, it’s largely research,

I mean there’s supporting activ-ities here that we have that helpthe research people and we alsohave the people who are in-volved in providing our drugsto the patients, but mostly here,this is mostly our research cam-pus and we do everything fromwhat they call developing anti-

body drugs to gene sequencing.We have the world’s largest hu-man sequencing effort goinghere that’s headed by this youngGreek guy Aris Baras, the largesthuman genome sequencing ef-fort is going on, on the otherside of the street.

Up in Albany, in Rensselaeris where we have our manufac-turing facilities and we also builtanother manufacturing facilityin Ireland. Then we have somebusiness offices in BaskingRidge, NJ and a couple of otherplaces. It’s where we actuallyhave some clinical people, so it’snot research laboratories, it’swhere we have some peoplewho are involved in organizingclinical trials and also doing thebiostatistics involved in that.

TNH: The company has6,000 employees, how manywith advanced degrees?GY: 630 with advanced de-

grees, 500-1,000 PhDs and Iwould say another 2,000 whohave technical degrees eitherMaster’s or undergraduate de-grees in the sciences. Then theother half of the people areprobably more support typepeople.

TNH: How many drugs havebeen approved so far?GY: So far it’s four, but in the

next 1-2 months we hope tohave two more, important onesincluding one for severe atopicdermatitis or eczema, but we’realso testing the same drug [forother ailments] and it looks verypromising for asthma and an as-sortment of other allergic dis-eases. That’s the first drug, andthen the second drug that wehope to be approved is forrheumatoid arthritis whichwe’re also very excited about.Our other four drugs are for eyediseases it’s the leading drugthat actually saves vision andactually gives back vision lost topeople who have macular de-generation or diabetic eye dis-ease, so it’s a very importantdrug. We have another drug fora rare disease called cold in-duced inflammatory syndrome,we have another drug for low-ering cholesterol and hopefullypreventing heart disease, and

we have a cancer drug. So thoseare the four approved and wehope to get two more in the nexttwo months.

TNH: A remarkable achieve-ment.GY: In the entire world last

year there were only 20 drugsapproved by the FDA and halfof them were actually not newdrugs, they were generics. Ourcompany by itself just in thenext two months is going to get

hopefully two important, impor-tant new drugs approved.

It took us over 20 years forour first approval and that wasbecause what we really didwhich is very unlike any othercompany is we built the wholefoundation and an assembly lineto make the drug and since thenwe’ve had at least one drug al-most every year and now we’rehoping to even accelerate, twoin the next couple of monthsand we’re hoping to get a couplemore maybe even either at theend of the year or the beginningof next year. So we built a ma-

chine that can really now pro-duce regularly because it’s allcoming from our own science.

Most other companies buyopportunities and they’re licens-ing. We’re actually doing fromthe beginning science all theway to the manufacturing ofeverything. And we’re, we maybe, I have to say, we’re certainlythe only company in history ofour size that has produced thesemany drugs already and such apipeline all internally. It’s neverbeen done before so we are veryproud of that.

In the job I do, it’s not reallyhow many hours you’re grindingaway, I think that for the peoplewho are really exceptional atthis they are sort of addicted toit, basically it’s all what’s goingon in there, and basically youcan’t really turn it off and themost important ideas can hap-pen when you’re at your kid’ssoccer game or running on atrail in the woods.

The most important thing Ithink is to have your mind befree and be creative becausewhat you have do is you havethink of new things that no-body’s ever thought about be-fore, so you can’t do that bywhatever and like I said I con-sider it part of the training ofmy children. If you ask my kids,hopefully, you’ll see several ofthem at the parade. We talkabout these things all the time.My viewpoint is that you don’t

really understand what you’redoing if you can’t explain it to asmart fifth grader. That’s myperspective and so I explainwhat we work on and talk aboutto my kids and sometimes theyask questions and their perspec-tive is often some of the bestthat I’ve gotten because it’s notbiased by their experiences, andthey’re very smart. I think mykids are very smart so a lot ofideas come from either conver-sations that we have amongstourselves all the scientistsaround here whether it’s Len orNeil Stahl or all these great peo-

ple we have internally but alsosome of my good ideas comejust from talking with my kidsand they say well why don’t youguys do this and I say wow, whydidn’t we think of that, becausethey think with a virgin mind,so basically when your job in-volves thinking you’re doing itall the time.

TNH: What takes more ofyour time, managing the busi-ness or the scientific aspects?GY: I think I’ve been a very,

very lucky guy. In life, if you’regoing to do anything most ofthe time I think people who dobig things are doing it withother people, and so I’ve beenvery lucky in that both on thebusiness side I have people likeLen and also Roy who are reallydoing a lot of the heavy lifting.On the science side which iswhere I concentrate more I alsohave incredibly brilliant scien-tific collaborators who havebeen with me some of them arerelatively new, but some of themhave been here almost from thebeginning. So what I do most ofmy day, I just have meetingswith all these smart people andthey end up doing all the workand I just help cross-fertilizesome of the ideas and maybehelp out a little bit but my jobhasn’t really changed in 28years. It’s just meeting with mycolleagues and brainstorming,that’s what we do around here.

TNH: Regeneron stock is do-ing very well, do you follow itregularly?GY: Our market is up now, it

varies every minute, I don’t ac-tually follow it, Len follows it,so we’re about 372, and we’re a$40 billion company now. Idon’t follow it day-to-day, I justfollow it over the long term. Ibelieve what Roy Vagelos says,you do the science, you comeup with important drugs for pa-tients and then the stock priceand everything else will takecare of itself and I really don’tworry about it day to day. Evenweeks go by sometimes and Idon’t even look at the stockprice, but honestly we’ve donewell over time, and back then,when we went public in 1991 itwas, at the time, one of therecord IPOs in the industry Ithink we raised about $100 mil-lion which was huge back then.It set some sort of record.

TNH: Where did the nameRegeneron come from?GY: The funny thing is, the

title of my high school scienceproject was The Molecular Basisof Regeneration, so I was alwaysinterested in regeneration, butit’s sort of coincidental. Whathappened was in the early daysof the company we were talkingabout the nervous system andregrowing nerve cells and some-body, I believe it was MikeBrown suggested why don’t wecome up with regenerating neu-rons or regeneuron and then AlGilman said that doesn’t soundright and it doesn’t sound asmuch about genes, so why don’twe just drop the u and he madeit Regeneron, so it came fromthree of our board of advisors.

The most important thing,I think, is to have yourmind be free and becreative because you haveto think of new thingsthat nobody’s everthought about before...

The National Herald salutes the Greek-American community

and Greek Independence Day

Join the Greek Independence Day Parade, March 26th, 2017 – 5th Avenue, New York City!

TH

E NATIONAL HERA

LD

Greek Independence Day6 THE NATIONAL HERALD, MARCH 25, 2017

In order to better inform the Greek-American community and Philhellenes par-ticipating in the parade celebrating the 196th anniversary of Greek Independence,which will take place on Sunday March 26th at 1:30 pm along Manhattan’sFifth Avenue, we are posting the final lineup of the groups and floats. Theparade lineup was released by the Parade Committee of the Federation ofHellenic Societies of Greater New York, which organizes the Parade, amongother events in commemoration of Greek Heritage Month, each year. The an-nouncement is a free publication and is an additional contribution on behalf ofThe National Herald to the Greek-American community.

ORDER OF PARADE BATTALIONS1. NEW YORK CITY POLICE DEPARTMENT MOUNTED COLOR GUARD2. NEW YORK CITY POLICE DEPARTMENT CEREMONIAL BAND3. FIRE DEPARTMENT OF NEW YORK HELLENIC SOCIETY4. COLOR GUARD – BANNER OF THE FEDERATION AND THE GREEK

AND AMERICAN FLAGS5. THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF THE FEDERATION OF HELLENIC SO-

CIETIES OF GREATER NEW YORK6. FEDERATION OF HELLENIC SOCIETIES OF GREATER NY – PETROS

GALATOULAS, PRESIDENT7. 2017 PARADE GRAND MARSHALS:

• IOANNIS SAVVIDIS• GEORGE D. YANCOPOULOS, M.D., PHD

8. 2017 PARADE HONORARY MARSHAL: EMIRATES AIRLINE9. HONORARY PARADE CHAIRMAN – HIS EMINENCE ARCHBISHOP

DEMETRIOS, PRIMATE OF THE GREEK ORTHODOX CHURCH OFAMERICA

10. PARADE CHAIRMEN EMERITUS• JOHN CATSIMATIDIS• PHILIP CHRISTOPHER

11. PARADE CHAIRMEN• VASILIOS GOURNELOS• GEORGE KALERGIOS

12. PARADE CO-CHAIRS• ARIS KOURKOUMELIS• ANTHONY MIHAILIDIS• PAUL KOTRONUS

13. REPRESENTATIVES OF THE GOVERNMENTS OF THE UNITEDSTATES

14. REPRESENTATIVES OF THE REPUBLIC OF GREECE AND THE RE-PUBLIC OF CYPRUS

15. HONORED GUESTS AND OFFICIALS

HONORARY BATTALION63rd Street, Fifth to Park Avenues

1) THESSALONIKI COLLEGE FROM THE REPUBLIC OF GREECEGREEK SCHOOL OF PLATO MARCHING BANDACROPOLIS FLAG CARRIED BY ARISTA STUDENTS OF THEHELLENIC COMMUNITIESPRESIDENTIAL GUARD OF THE REPUBLIC OF GREECE –EVZONESNEW YORK CITY POLICE DEPARTMENT - SAINT PAUL’S SOCIETYNEW YORK CITY DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTION HELLENICSOCIETYLAOGRAFIKOS OMILOS AMERIKIS- GREEK AMERICANFOLKLORE SOCIETYKALAVRYTAN, 1821LAVARON OF ’21 – KALAVRYTAN FRATERNITYLAVARON OF KALAMATA SOCIETY “SAINT APOSTOLE”LAVARON OF MANI SOCIETYLAVARON GEROS TOU MOREALAVARA EXODOS MESOLOGIOU, AETOLOAKARNANES & D.O.R.S.LAVARON CRETAN ASSOCIATION “OMONOIA”LAVARON PONTION SOCIETYLAVARON RIGAS FERAIOSXANTHOS O FILIKOS PATMOS ASSOCIATION, INC.

2) FLOAT # 1– MISS GREEK INDEPENDENCE3) CATHEDRAL OF HOLY TRINITY, NEW YORK, NY

CATHEDRAL SCHOOLST. BASIL ACADEMY

4) HELLENIC MEDICAL SOCIETYHELLENIC LAWYERS ASSOCIATION

5) FLOAT #2– HELLENIC TIMES SCHOLARSHIP FUND6) FLOAT #3 - FEDERATION OF STEREA HELLAS – Celebrating

100 years - Eleftheriani SocietyFEDERATION OF STEREA HELLAS OF U.S.A. & CANADAGEORGIOS KARAISKAKOS, HERO OF 1821 PORTRAYED BY JOHNNIKOPOULOSNAFPAKTIAN BROTHERHOOD, DAUGHTERS ROUMELIS, ST.DEMETRIOS BROTHERHOOD, PLATANOS SOCIETY,VELOUHIO OF ATLANTA, AETOLPAKARNANIAN MUUAL,AGRINION SOCIETY, ANALYPSIS SOCIETY, ATHANASIOSDIAKOS, DIPLATANOS SOCIETY, GALAXIDI SOCIETY,KATAFIGION SOCIETY, KARPENISI SOCIETY, PERISTASOCIETY, THERMOPYLES SOCIETY, ELEFTHERIANI SOCIETY,ENOSIS EVRYTANON AMERIKIS TO KARPENISI,SYLLOGOS EVRYTANON AMERIKIS-PANAGIA I PROUSSIOTISA

7) ANNUNCIATION GREEK ORTHODOX CHURCH OF ROCHESTER –Celebrating 100 YearsPANHELLENIC CULTURAL ASSOCATION, PARISH COUNCIL,CHOIR, GREEK SCHOOL, SUNDAY SCHOOL, HOPEAND JOY, GOYA, DROSOPIGI SOCIETY, AGIA PARASKEVISOCIETY, OMONIA FLAMBOURO, PONTIOS SOCIETY

FIRST BATTALION 63rd Street, Fifth to Park Avenues

8) FLOAT #4– ATLANTIC BANK9) ZOODOHOS PEGHE GREEK ORTHODOX CHURCH, BRONX, NY

GREEK AMERICAN INSTITUTE10) FLOAT #5 – CYPRUS FEDERATION

Pan-Cyprian BandCYPRUS FEDERATION OF AMERICAPANCYPRIAN ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA, DIVISIONS:ATHLETIC, YOUTH ATHLETIC (ELEFTHERIA), WOMEN’SISSUES NETWORK, DANCE, CHOIR, ASGATA ASSOCIATION“CYPRUS", CYPRUS YOUTH COMMITTEE AMERICA(CYCA), LAMPOUSA CYPRIOT-AMERICAN ASSOCIATION,ENOSIS LEFKARITON IN AMERICA, NJ CYPRIOTASSOCIATION SALAMIS, KALAVASOS FRATERNITY, PANPAPHIANASSOCIATION, UNITED CYPRIANS OF AMERICA

11) ST. GEORGE GREEK ORTHODOX CHURCH OF KINGSTON12) FLOAT #6 – AHEPA FAMILY

AHEPA EMPIRE STATE DISTRICT 6, NJ DISTRICT 5, YANKEEDISTRICT 7DAUGHTERS OF PENELOPE, SONS OF PERICLES AND MAIDS OFATHENA

13) FLOAT #7– ALMA BANKBand:#1- NYC All City HS Band

14) ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST GREEK ORTHODOX CHURCH, NEWYORK CITY

14A) ST. ELEFTHERIOS GREEK ORTHODOX CHURCH, NEW YORKCITY

14B) ST. NICHOLAS GREEK ORTOHOX CHURCH OF NEWBURGH, NY 15) FLOAT #8 – INVESTORS SAVINGS BANK16) FLOAT #9 - PAN-ICARIAN

PAN-ICARIAN BROTHERHOOD OF AMERICA17) FLOAT #10– HIMARRIOTON SOCIETY18) FLOAT #11- UNITED CHIOS SOCIETIES

Band:#2- Emerson HS BandCHIAN FEDERATIONPAN CHIAKI SOCIETY, INC. “KORAIS”UNITED CHIOS SOCIETIES OF AMERICA & CANADA

19) FLOAT #12 - ARCHANGEL MICHAEL CHURCHGREEK ORTHODOX CHURCH OF THE ARCHANGEL MICHAEL,PT. WASHINGTON, NY

20) ACADEMY OF HELLENIC PAIDEIA21) FLOAT #13- HELLENIC COMMUNITIES OF BROOKLYN &

STATEN ISLANDSTS CONSTANTINE & HELEN CATHEDRAL OF BROOKLYN, NYST. NICHOLAS GREEK ORTHODOX CHURCH AT THE WORLDTRADE CENTERBAND:#3- Boy Scout Troop 236 BandKIMISIS THEOTOKOU OF BROOKLYN

HOLY CROSS – BROOKLYNTHREE HIERARCHS – BROOKLYNHOLY TRINITY – ST. NICHOLAS – STATEN ISLAND

22) FLOAT #14- ST. DEMETRIOS OF MERRICKGREEK ORTHODOX CHURCH OF ST. DEMETRIOS, MERRICK, NY

23) PAN LEMNIAN PHILANTHROPIC ASSOCIATION “HEPHAESTUS”INC

24) FLOAT #15- ST. BARBARA OF ORANGESAINT BARBARA GREEK ORTHODOX CHURCH OF ORANGE, CT

25) FLOAT #16– ST. IRENE CHRYSOVALANTOUSACRED PATRIARCHAL MONASTERY OF ST. IRENECHRYSOVALANTOUEXECUTIVE ECCLESIASTICAL COUNCILPHILOPTOCHOS SOCIETY, YOUTH, GREEK SCHOOL OF ST.IRENE CHRYSOVALANTOU,PTA OF THE GREEK SCHOOL, ST. NECTARIOS GREEKORTHODOX CHURCH, BROOKLYN, NY,EXECUTIVE ECCLESIASTICAL COUNCIL, PHILOPTOCHOSSOCIETY, GREEK SCHOOL OF ST. NECTARIOSPTO OF THE GREEK SCHOOL

26) FLOAT #17 - CORONATRANSFIGURATION OF CHRIST CHURCH OF CORONA, NEWYORKTRANSFIGURATION GREEK SCHOOL

27) FLOAT #18 - CRETAN SOCIETIESOF NY & NJUNITED CULTURAL & EDUCATION COMMITTEE OF NY & NJCRETANSCRETAN ASSOCIATION “OMONOIA”, CRETAN WOMEN’SASSOCIATED “PASIFAE”LAVRYS CRETAN YOUTH ORGANIZATION OF NEW YORK,SYLLOGOS KRETON-MINOS,CRETAN SISTERHOOD OF BROOKLYN, CRETAN BROTHERHOODOF BROOKLYNKAZANTZAKIS YOUTH, PHILOXENIA OF STATEN ISLAND,DICTAMOS OF WESTCHESTERTHE WHITE MOUNTAINS & ARKADI OF NJ, EROTOKRITOS &ARETOYSA OF LONG ISLAND

28) GREEK SCHOOL OF PLATO FROM BROOKLYN, NEW YORK29) FLOAT #19– ST. NICHOLAS, FLUSHING

Band:#4- Newark Symphonic BandST. NICHOLAS GREEK ORTHODOX CHURCHWILLIAM SPYROPOULOS SCHOOLGREEK AFTERNOON SCHOOL “STEFANOS & ARETI TSERPELIS”SUNDAY SCHOOL - P.T.A.CHOIR - PARISH COUNCIL

30) FLOAT #20 – PAN KERKYRAIKOSPAN KERKYRAIKOS ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAOTHONI SOCIETY OF USAPAN ERIKOUSA SOCIETY OF AMERICA

31) FLOAT #21– PAN GREGORIANPAN GREGORIAN ENTERPRISES

32) ANNUNCIATION GREEK ORTHODOX CHURH OF NEW YORKCITY

33) FLOAT #22 – CARNIVAL OF LOVE34) FLOAT #23- ST. DEMETRIOS OF JAMAICA

Band:#5- Yonkers Military BandORTHODOX CHURCH OF ST. DEMETRIOS, JAMAICA, NY

35) PANAGHIA OF ISLAND PARK GREEK ORTHODOX CHURCH,ISLAND PARK, NY

36) HOLY TRINITY GREEK ORTHODOX CHURCH OF NEWROCHELLE, NYGreek Afternoon School, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Philoptochos,AHEPA

37) WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT HIGH SCHOOL GREEK CLUBMANHASSET HIGH SCHOOL HELLENIC CLUBARCHBISHOP MOLLOY HIGH SCHOOL GREEK CLUBFRANK SINATRA SCHOOL OF THE ARTS GREEK CLUBFRANCIS LEWIS HIGH SCHOOL HELLENIC CLUBGREEK CLUB OF LONG ISLAND CITY HIGH SCHOOLTOWNSEND HARRIS HIGH SCHOOL GREEK CLUB

38) FLOAT #24 – ST. DEMETRIOS CATHEDRAL, ASTORIAG.O.C. ST DEMETRIOS CATHEDRAL OF ASTORIA & STSCATHERINE & GEORGE CLERGY,BOARD OF TRUSTEES, DAY SCHOOL, HIGH SCHOOL,AFTERNOON SCHOOL, PHILOPTOCHOS,G.O.Y.A., BOY & GIRL SCOUTS

39) FLOAT #25- ARMENIANKNIGHTS OF VARTAN -ARMENIAN FRATERNAL ORGANIZATION

40) STUYVESANT HIGH SCHOOL GREEK CLUBBRONX HIGH SCHOOL OF SCIENCE HELLENIC CULTURALSOCIETYBROOKLYN TECHNICAL HIGH SCHOOL GREEK CLUB

41) ST. MARKELLA CATHEDRAL OF ASTORIA, NYHOLY METROPOLIS OF G.O.C. OF AMERICACATHEDRAL OF SAINT MARKELLA OF ASTORIAEXECUTIVE COUNCIL, PHILOPTOCHOS SOCIETY, GREEKSCHOOLSAINT ISIDOROS CHURCH OF BETHPAGE L.I.PARISH EXECUTIVE COUNCIL, PHILOPTOCHOS SOCIETY

42) HELLENIC LYCEUM OF KAVALA, GREECE43) FLOAT #26 – KASTORIAN SOCIETY

Band:#6- Passaic County BandSOCIETY OF KASTORIANS “OMONOIA” INC., PHILOPTOCHOSKASTORIA, YOUTH KASTORIA,PAN MACEDONIAN ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA, PAN-MACEDONIAN STUDY CENTER, HELLENIC AMERICANLIBRARY ELIAS NEOFYTIDES, MACEDONIAN TV, PANMACEDONIAN NY & NJ DISTRICT, ARISTOTLE UNIVERSITYOF THESSALONIKI, GROUP OF CIVIL ENGINEERS,THESSALONIKI, KASTORIA, MAVROVON, ALIAKMON,HALKIDIKI, DRAMA, GIANNITSA, KAVALA, KILKIS, KOZANI,KORISOS, LITOHORO, KOSTARAZION, OINOE,THASSOS, ALEXANDER THE GREAT, KATERINI, NAOUSA

44) FLOAT #27- GREEK CHILDRENS FUND45) LOUPAKIS SCHOOL46) FLOAT #28- PONTIAN OF NEW YORK & CONNECTICUT

PAN PONTIAN FEDERATION OF USA & CANADAPONTION SOCIETY “KOMNINOI”PANAGIA SOUMELA PONTION AMERIKISPONTIAN SOCIETY “PONTOS” OF NORWALK

47) FLOAT #29 - PAN-ARCADIANBAND:#7- Park Ridge HS BandPAN ARCADIAN FEDERATION OF AMERICA, EASTERN DISTRICT“GEROS TOU MORIA”EPARXIA KYNOURIAS

SECOND BATTALION64th Street, Fifth to Park Avenues

48) Patriot Brass Ensemble – Metropolis Band49) FORT LEE POLICE DEPARTMENT- MOTORCYCLE UNIT50) GREEK ORTHODOX METROPOLIS OF NEW JERSEY51) HELLENIC FEDERATION OF NEW JERSEY52) FLOAT #30 – ST. JOHN THE THEOLOGIAN OF TENAFLY

GREEK ORTHODOX METROPOLITAN CATHEDRAL OF ST. JOHNTHE THEOLOGIAN, TENAFLY, NJ

53) SAINT BARBARA GREEK ORTHODOX CHURCH OF TOMS

RIVERS, NJ54) ST. GEORGE GREEK ORTHODOX CHURCH OF CLIFTON, NJ55) FLOAT #31– ST. ATHANASIUS OF PARAMUS

ST. ATHANASIOS GREEK ORTHODOX CHURCH OF PARAMUS, NJ56) GREEK ORTHODOX CHURCH OF ASCENSION OF FAIRVIEW, NJ57) KIMISIS TIS THEOTOKOU GREEK ORTHODOX CHURCH OF

HOLMDEL, NJ58) ST. GEORGE GREEK ORTHODOX CHURCH OF OCEAN, NJ

BAND:#8- Emerson HS Band59) RUTGERS UNIVERSITY HELLENIC CULTURAL ASSOCIATION60) THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY HELLENIC STUDENT

ASSOCIATION61) NEW JERSEY INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY HELLENIC

CULTURAL ASSOCIATION62) WILLIAM PATTERSON UNIVERSITY HELLENIC CULTURAL

ASSOCIATION63) MONTCLAIR UNIVERSITY HELLENIC SOCIETY64) FLOAT #32– ST. NICHOLAS OF WYCKOFF

ST. NICHOLAS GREEK ORTHODOX CHURCH OF WYCKOFF, NJ65) FLOAT #33 – ST. GEORGE OF PISCATAWAY

ST. GEORGE GREEK ORTHODOX CHURCH OF PISCATAWAY, NJ66) ST. ANDREW GREEK ORTHODOX CHURCH OF RANDOLPH, NJ67) FLOAT #34– ST. DEMETRIOS OF UNION

ST. DEMETRIOS GREEK ORTHODOX CHURCH OF UNION, NJ68) FLOAT #35 – STS NICHOLAS OF ROSELAND

ST. NICHOLAS, CONSTANTINE AND HELEN OF ROSELAND, NJ69) FLOAT #36 – HOLY TRINITY OF HICKSVILLE

GREEK ORTHODOX CHURCH OF HOLY TRINITY, HICKSVILLE, NYBAND:#9- Boy Scout Troop 236 Band

70) FLOAT #37– HOLY RESURRECTION OF BROOKVILLEGREEK ORTHODOX CHURCH OF THE HOLY RESURRECTION,BROOKVILLE, NY

71) FLOAT #38 – ST. PARASKEVI OF GREENLAWNST. PARASKEVI GREEK ORTHODOX SHRINE CHURCHPARISH COUNCIL, PHILOPTOHOS, GREEK SCHOOL, SUNDAYSCHOOL,GREEK-AMERICAN PRE-SCHOOL, GIRL SCOUTS, GOYA, PTO, JOY,HOPE, YAL

72) AESCULAPIAN THESSALIAN BROTHERHOOD73) STS. CONSTANTINE & HELEN GREEK ORTHODOX CHURCH OF

WEST NYACK, NY74) FLOAT #39– HOLY CROSS OF WHITESTONE

GREEK ORTHODOX CHURCH OF HOLY CROSSGREEK ORTHODOX COMMUNITY OF WHITESTONE

75) ST. PETROS THE APOSTLE GREEK ORTHODOX CHURCH OFBRONXEVDOXIA LEVESANOS SCHOOLAGIA ELPIS PHILOPTOHOSCULTURAL FOLKLORE SOCIETY FROM PIRREAS, GREECE

76) PANSAMIAN BROTHERHOOD “PYTHAGORAS” OF NY77) FLOAT #40 - ST MARKELLA - WANTAGH

ST MARKELLA GREEK ORTHODOX CHURCH AND SCHOOL OFWANTAGH, NY

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PANEPIROTIC FEDERATION, SOCIETY OF EPIROTES,ANAGENESIS, SOULIOTISSES,PYRRHUS BENEVOLENT SOCIETY, DAUGHTERS OF EPIRUS

80) BAYSIDE HIGH SCHOOL HELLENIC SOCIETYBENJAMIN N. CARDOZO HIGH SCHOOL GREEK CLUB

81) FLOAT #42 - CATHEDRAL OF ST. PAUL, HEMPSTEADGREEK ORTHODOX CHURCH OF SAINT PAUL CATHEDRAL

82) FLOAT #43 – MESSINIANMESSINIAN BENEVOLENT ASSOCIATION “ARISTOMENIS

83) FEDERATION OF DODECANESE SOCIETIES OF USA AND THEYOUTHNISYRIAN SOCIETY OF NEW YORK RHODES, KOS, KALYMNOS,KARPATHOS, KASOS, SYMI, NISYROS, LEROS,ASTYPALEA, KASTELLORIZO, TILOS, HALKI, PATMOS, LIPSIBAND:#10- Park Ridge HS Band

THIRD BATTALION65th Street, Fifth to Park Avenues

84) ARISTOTELIO UNIVERSITY OF THESSALONIKI – DEPT OF CIVILENGINEERING

85) BROTHERHOOD OF MANI, INC.86) PAN ELIAKOS SOCIETY OF NEW YORK, INC87) KALAMATA SOCIETY88) FLOAT #44 – OLYMPIACOS

OLYMPIACOS FAN CLUB89) ST. NICHOLAS GREEK ORTHODOX CHURCH, WEST BABYLON,

NYGREEK AFTERNOON SCHOOL, GOYA, JOY, PARISH COUNCIL

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GREEK ORTHODOX CHURCH OF ASSUMPTION, PORTJEFFERSON, NY

92) GREEK ORTHODOX CHURCH OF OUR SAVIOUR COMMUNITY,RYE, NY

93) GREEK ORTHODOX COUNCIL OF ELECTRICAL WORKERS,LOCAL #3 IBEW

94) INTERCOLLEGIATE HELLENIC SOCIETY OF AMERICAHOFSTRA UNIVERSITY HELLENIC SOCIETYHELLENIC STUDENTS MANHATTAN COLLEGEHELLENIC SOCIETY OF ST. JOHN’S UNIVERSITYNEW YORK UNIVERSITY HELLENIC CLUBSTONYBROOK GREEK & CYPRIOT STUDENTSQUEENS COLLEGE ICAROS GREEK CLUBFORDHAM UNIVERSITY UNDERGRADUATE & LAW SCHOOLGREEK CLUBHUNTER HELLENIC SOCIETYBINGHAMPTON GREEK CLUBCOLUMBIA UNIVERSITY HELLENIC SOCIETYQUINNIPIAC UNIVERSITY HELLENIC SOCIETYSUNY MARITIME COLLEGE HELLENIC CULTURAL CLUB

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MEMBERS AND 2017 PARADE COMMITTEE

• Floats will be lined up on 62nd Street from Fifth toLexington Avenues

• Parking for buses will be from 80th to 83rd Streets,Madison to Park Avenues

• All Guests with Seating Passes must enter 5th Avenue from70th Street

Order of the Greek Independence Day Parade on New York’s Fifth Avenue

Greek Independence DayTHE NATIONAL HERALD, MARCH 25, 2017 7

JOHN CATSIMATIDIS, Jr.

Happy and Joyous Independence Day

Greek Independence Day8 THE NATIONAL HERALD, MARCH 25, 2017

Greek Pride in FloridaPhoto caption- In the bright sunshine, the annual Greek Independence Day Parade in TarponSprings, FL marched on Dodecanese Blvd. with participants in traditional costumes and the crowd

waving the blue and white Greek flags. The Presidential Guard of Greece, the Evzones, also marchedin the parade to the enthusiastic cheers of Long Live Greece! Long Live the 25th of March!

Greek Heritage Celebrated at Brooklyn’s Borough HallBrooklyn Borough President Eric Adams hosted the event in honor of Greek Independence Dayon Monday, March 20. In attendance were Consul of Greece in New York Manos Koubarakis,keynote speaker Andrew Gounardes, NY State Assemblymember Nicole Malliotakis, and thehonorees George Annis, Anna Chrysostomou, Julia Demakakos, Popi Gavales, Connie Ioannides,

Chris Kalogerou, Dean Rasinya, Emmanuel Tsoukaris, Theodore Vallas, Fotoula Vasilakos, andDemetrios Voyiazis. Following the award ceremony, the school dance groups from Holy CrossChurch in Brooklyn, A. Fantis Parochial School of Saints Constantine and Helen in Brooklyn, aswell as the Greek Charter School danced in traditional costumes.

By Dr. Leonidas Petrakis

Thomas Jefferson, the thirdPresident of the United Statesand the author of the Declara-tion of Independence, was inti-mately familiar with classicalGreek ideals and culture, whichplayed an important role alongwith the ideals of the Enlight-enment in formulating the prin-ciples upon which the AmericanRepublic was founded.

In fact, Thomas Jeffersonwas fluent in Classical Greekand prided himself on beingable to read the Classics in theiroriginal language. In 1800, Jef-ferson wrote the following to fa-mous chemist, Dr. Joseph Priest-ley: “I enjoy Homer in his ownlanguage infinitely beyond[Alexander] Pope’s translationand I thank on my knees himwho directed my early educa-tion for having put into my pos-session this rich source of de-light.”

Prior to being elected presi-dent, Jefferson served as U.S.Ambassador to France for fiveyears (1785-89), a tumultuoustime for France, and indeed forthe world. Although the Ameri-cans were determined to stayout of the European wars, theydid not remain aloof and unen-gaged in the Old Continent’s in-tellectual and political develop-ments.

On the contrary, Jefferson’sdiplomatic residence in Chaillotwas a beehive of activity and acentral meeting place for lead-ing European intellectuals. Itwas there that Adamantios Ko-rais was often a dinner guest ofthe future president.

Korais was a towering intel-lectual figure who, along withRigas Feraios and other patriotsof the Greek Diaspora, played akey role in preparing the en-slaved Greek nation to gain itsindependence from the Ot-toman Turks.

Korais, whose parents werefrom Chios, was trained as aphysician, but he moved to Parisin 1788, where he establishedhimself as a world renownedclassical scholar, editing andpublishing many classical Greektexts. His commentaries on theclassics (i.e., Prolegomena) arestill highly valued. In Paris, Ko-rais also became deeply in-volved in the Enlightenmentmovement and closely observedthe French Revolution.

Like Jefferson, Korais be-lieved that people enlightenedby education could best governthemselves, and that democracywas better than monarchy orany other system.

He devoted his energies tohelping his countrymen gaintheir independence and democ-racy, advocating the establish-ment of schools, libraries and,in every way possible, elevatingtheir educational level. Like Jef-ferson, he admired the achieve-ments of the ancients, but hewanted their noble ideals offreedom and democracyadapted to the realities andneeds of modern states.

When the Greek War of In-dependence broke out in 1821,Korais was too old to return andfight. Instead, he aggressivelytried to gain support abroad forthe Greek Cause. He wrotecountless letters seeking moral,political and material supportfor the Greeks. Korais mistrustedthe European powers, especiallyEngland, but he had great ad-miration for the establishmentof the American Republic, andconsidered it to be the best mod-ern actualization of the democ-ratic ideals first developed bythe Greeks. He advocated theadoption of a constitution inGreece which would be in linewith the American Constitution.

Furthermore, Korais pointedto George Washington, Jeffer-son, and Benjamin Franklin asrole models for politicians of theModern Greek state when it wasstarting on its path to indepen-dence and nationhood.

Korais wrote his first letter(in French) to Thomas Jeffersonin Monticello in the summer of1823. He reminded Jefferson oftheir meetings in Paris, and alsosent along his newly edited vol-umes of Aristotle’sNichomachean Ethics and ThePolitics, for which Jefferson ex-pressed appreciation. In his let-ter, Korais, highly vexed by thebickering among the Greekswhich was clearly having an ad-verse effect on the Greek Warof Independence, wrote the fol-lowing to Jefferson:

“Modern Greece has pro-duced many a Leonidas and Mil-tiades, but since it came out ofa long period of slavery, it wasnot possible to produce law-givers like those that had ap-peared among Greece’s ancientcitizens, or like those that wehave seen in our own times inyour country.”

Korais proceeded to seek ad-vice and political support fromthe illustrious and respected ex-president, and also suggestedconcrete steps which the Amer-ican Government could take on

behalf of the struggling Greeknation.

Jefferson responded in thefall of 1823 with a long letter ofhis own: “I pray that you acceptmy thanks (for the books). I hadseen only your Lives of Plutarch.These I had read, and profitedmuch by your valuable Scholia.And the aid of a few words froma Modern Greek Dictionarywould, I believe, have enabledme to read your patriotic ad-dresses to your countrymen.”

It is interesting that Jeffersonthe scholar clearly recognizedthe continuity of the Greek lan-guage.

In the same letter, Jeffersonalso referred to the central roleof the classical ideals of Greekdemocracy and their influenceon the founding of the Americanrepublic: “Nothing is more likelyto forward this objective (self-government in the newly liber-ated Greece) than a study of thefine models of science left themby their ancestors, to whom wealso are all indebted for thelights which originally led our-selves out of Gothic darkness.”

After discussing the centralideas for the founding of theU.S. (e.g., separation of powers;inherent rights of all people; fac-tors such as geography whichmake it necessary to adapt,rather than just adopt, the ideas

of the ancients), Jefferson pro-ceeded to focus on education,emphasizing what was criticalin American primary schools(i.e., public education for everyinfant of the state, male and fe-male, while in the intermediateschools, the elements of naturalphilosophy and, as a prepara-tion for university studies, theGreek and Latin languages).

Jefferson then clearlydemonstrated his Phil-Hellenicsentiments: no people sympa-thize more feelingly than ourswith the sufferings of your coun-trymen; none more sincere andardent prayers to Heaven fortheir success. And nothing in-deed but the fundamental prin-ciple of our government, neverto entangle us with the broils ofEurope, could restrain our gen-erous youth from taking somepart in this holy cause. Possess-ing ourselves the combinedblessings of liberty and order,we wish the same to other coun-tries, and to none more thanyours which, the first of civilizednations, presented examples ofwhat man should be.

And Jefferson concluded hisletter in very moving terms: “Ihave thus, dear sir, according toyour request, given you somethoughts on the subject of na-tional government. They are theresult of the observations and

reflections of an octogenarianwho has passed 50 years of trialand trouble in the variousgrades of his country’s service.

“They are yet but outlines,which you will better fill up andaccommodate to the habits andcircumstances of your country-men. Should they furnish a sin-gle idea which may be useful tothem, I shall fancy it a tributerendered to the manes of yourHomer, your Demosthenes andthe splendid constellation ofsages and heroes, whose bloodis still flowing in your veins, andwhose merits are still resting, asa heavy debt, on the shouldersof the living and the future racesof men.

While we offer to Heaven thewarmest supplications for therestoration of your countrymento the freedom and science oftheir ancestors, permit me to as-sure yourself of the cordial es-teem and high respect which Ibear and cherish towards your-self personally - T. Jefferson.”

In subsequent letters, Koraissought concrete steps in supportof the Greek cause, not as char-ity, but because it was bothmorally right, and also benefi-cial to the American state. Whata difference, we may point out,with some of America’s presentclose friends, who simply putout their hand only to receive.

Jefferson did not grant theKorais’ requests for public polit-ical support and the beginningof commercial relations by send-ing American trade representa-tives to Greece. By this time, Jef-ferson was an ex-President, andalthough still influential, hispower was limited. Yet Jeffer-son’ support was important, andthe Greek Cause was activelyaided by great Phil-Hellenes, in-cluding Edward Everett, SamuelGridley Howe, Daniel Websterand many others. Even Presi-dent James Monroe, the fifth USPresident, expressed great sym-pathy for the Greeks, althoughhe had to contend with his Sec-retary of State John QuincyAdams’ real politic and also withhis own Monroe Doctrine,which delimited American in-volvement in Europe.

Dr. Petrakis was SeniorScientist and DepartmentChairman at Brookhaven Na-tional Laboratory in LongIsland, and now resides in Oak-land, CA.

Jefferson and Korais:The Deep Roots of Greco-American Friendship

Thomas Jefferson portrait by Rembrandt Peale, 1800. Adamantios Korais portrait by Smolki Muller.

TNH/STAVROS MARMARINOS

PHOTOS: TNH/COSTAS BEJ

Greek Independence DayTHE NATIONAL HERALD, MARCH 25, 2017 9

The Order of AHEPA Salutes the Heroes of 1821

Supreme President Andrew C. Zachariades

and the entire AHEPA Leadership

join you in celebrating 196 years of freedom!

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95 Years of Service to the Community

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The Order of AHEPA Since 1922

Greek Independence Day10 THE NATIONAL HERALD, MARCH 25, 2017

Drs. Spiro & Amalia Spireasand

Sigmapharm Laboratories

I KNOW YOU of oldOh divinely restored,

By the light of your eyesAnd the edge of your sword.

From the graves of our peopleShall your spirit prevailAs we greet you again-

Hail, Liberty, Hail!

Long did you dwellAmid the peoples that mourn

Awaiting some voiceThat should tell you to return

Ah, slow broke that dayand no man dared call,

For the shadow of tyrannyLay over all.

Oh, unfortunate one!The only consolation you had

were the past glories,and remembering them you cried.

Long you have awaitedfor a freedom-loving calland in despair one hand

hits the other one.

(A translation in English by Rudyard Kipling in 1918)

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Lyrics: Dionysios Solomos, 1824Music: Nikolaos Mantzaros, 1828

Adopted: 1864