To the Editor:

In a Q&A session at the Young Adult League (YAL) Conference over Labor Day Weekend, I asked His Eminence Archbishop Elpidophoros, “Can the Church help young adults learn the Greek language?”

He responded, “It is not the job of the Church to teach people to speak Greek. It is to teach Gospel.”
I felt confused. We praise our Church for helping us pass on our language during the Ottoman occupation. Now, when many of our families want to pass it on in America, the Archbishop says the Church will not help.
He added that Greek is not even difficult to learn. As a professor at Aristotle University in Thessaloniki, he saw many foreign students become proficient in a year.

Young adults in America can become proficient, but we need help — and we need to know if the Church is really not going to help us.

Nikolaos Piperis
Omaha, NE