BOSTON – The Greek government has sent the grant of two million euro to the Holy Cross School of Theology as the Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis had promised in his February 2020 announcement during his visit to Washington, DC.

It should be noted here that the two million euro grant per year was an idea championed by the former Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs with Responsibility for Hellenes Abroad and the Orthodox Churches of the Diaspora Antonis Diamataris. He had also planned many other projects of vital importance for the support and advancement of Hellenism and Orthodoxy but his resignation prevented him of finishing implementing them, unfortunately.

The arrival of the funds at the School was verified in a telephone conversation with The National Herald by Alexandra Papadopoulou, Ambassador of Greece to Washington.

The Ambassador will visit Boston and also the School of Theology, where she will make the announcement. She said “the money was received by the School and we are going to announce it on Friday (October 23) with His Eminence Archbishop Elpidophoros.” The School will host a luncheon in honor of the Ambassador at the Dowd Hall in the Administration building with limited gusts because of the virus.

The Ambassador will also visit Mike Dukakis at his residence in Brookline to give him a medal from the President of the Hellenic Republic. She told TNH that “I told the Archbishop, ‘Your Eminence why you don’t come to go together to Mr. Dukakis.” Just three people will be going to Dukakis’ home because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The current Deputy Minister Constantine Vlassis will join via Zoom.

The Ambassador will meet with the officials of the Federation of Hellenic American Societies of New England and Greek-American Professors. She will deliver a lecture and participate in a Q&A session organized by The Karamanlis Chair in Hellenic and European Studies at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy titled Greece's Role in the Eastern Mediterranean.

The grant is expected to have a huge economic impact on the School of Theology, which found itself in dire and dangerous condition under the previous administration of the Archdiocese and the School, to the point that it couldn’t cover its basic operating expenses, having exhausted most of the endowment funds.

It will contribute to betterment of the image and reality of the School in the eyes of academic agencies which placed the School under two-year probation after the intervention of His Eminence Archbishop Elpidophoros and the then Vice Chairman of the Board and today’s president George Cantonis, who prepared all the reports and memos sent to the agencies.