The St. Photios Greek Orthodox National Shrine has announced the winner of its 2022 annual Greek Language Essay Contest in memory of Metropolitan Iakovos of Chicago.
An award of $1,000 was presented to Evridiki Vougiouka, 14, of Sacramento, California. All contestants will receive a certificate of participation signed by Archbishop Elpidophoros of America and Bishop Demetrios of Mokissos, Hierarchal Proistamenos of St. Photios Shrine.
This year’s contest reflected on the welcoming of immigrants to the United States and was open to teenagers from the U.S. and Canada.
The Greek language essays, like the shrine’s English essay contest, reflected on the current relevance of the famous lines from of the poem, “The New Colossus,” by Emma Lazarus found at the Statue of Liberty in New York City:
“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
End these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
-Emma Lazarus, “The New Colossus”
The annual contest was chaired by Stella Kokolis, M.Ed., President of the Federation of Hellenic American Educators, and donor of the award for the contest. Additional committee members and judges also included Meropi Kyriakou, Katerina Bliatza and Maria Foutouli.
St. Photios Shrine commemorates the first Greek settlers to arrive in the New World while celebrating immigrants and their experiences in the U.S.
Click here to read the winning essay written by Evridiki Vougiouka.
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