UPPER DARBY, PA –
On Sunday, January 26, 2025, with the blessings and participation of His Eminence Metropolitan Apostolos of New Jersey, the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of New Jersey hosted the Annual Delaware Valley Region Greek Letters/Three Hierarchs Celebration at St. Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania.
The annual celebration brought together over 500 clergy and faithful from throughout the 13 parishes in the Philadelphia and Greater Delaware Valley Region, as the wonderful children of the area Greek afternoon schools beautifully entertained the attendees with poems, short plays, monologues and traditional Greek Folk Dance in honor of this wonderful celebration.

The Keynote speaker for the event was the proistamenos of the Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Wilmington, Delaware, the V. Rev. Christoforos Oikonomidis, who reflected on the relationship between the Three Hierarchs and the Greek Language, encouraging all in attendance that through the prayers of the Three Hierarchs that we continue our efforts to keep our Greek Orthodox Faith, our traditions and our Greek language alive for generations to come.
In His Archpastoral remarks, His Eminence spoke on the significance of learning and speaking the Greek Language, and the importance for us to pass on this beautiful rich language to our children, as knowing Greek will help us throughout our lives. Just as great doctors and physicians study the Greek Language to learn more about the body and disease, engineers and architects study the Greek language to learn more about their trades, any path we choose in life will be greatly assisted with our knowledge and understanding of our mother tongue.

Following the performances by the Greek Schools, the parish and Greek School of St. Demetrios offered a cake to His Eminence in honor of his recently celebrated 10th Anniversary as a Hierarch of our Orthodox Church. As His Eminence cut the cake the St. Demetrios Greek School beautifully chanted his Pheme as an expression of their love for their Chief Shepherd.
His Eminence concluded the evening be expressing his gratitude to the host community of St. Demetrios, under the leadership of the Rev. Alexandros Kaitidis, for their beautiful philoxenia. His Eminence also congratulated all of the children for their excellent performances and all of the teachers, directors, parents and grandparents for their great efforts in instilling the love of our language and culture to our children.
[Source: G.O.Metropolis of NJ / Photos by Stellios Lambrou]
