There has been a great deal of comments in recent days on the «Olympic Games 2020» and the «Lighting ceremony» in ancient Olympia. I would like to take this opportunity to make once and for all clear: this charade has nothing to do with Hellenic culture. We Hellenes like theater, but our rites are not theatrical performances, our priests are real and not actors, the cult is not a show. Our Olympic Games have nothing to do with the «Olympic Games» of the modern era. Our Olympic Games were mainly religious festivals to honor Zeus and reduce tensions/aggression between the Hellenic Poleis or tribes. Modern «Olympic Games» are mere sporting events without any element of sacredness or piety (eusebeia).
This reenactment show they play ever four years, with their models – actors, their profane flames and empty hymns (without sacrifices) is totally alien to the original. That’s why it leads to aesthetically questionable results, not to use another expression. They should never have called this thing «Olympic Games.» But that’s yesterday’s news, after all, we cannot change the past. It is the present that we can and must change. Dragging institutions of a defeated culture through the mire by transforming them into their opposite, or commercializing them, while abusing an ancient sacred place, does not honor neither the organizers nor the participants. If those responsible for the Games respect Hellenic culture, at least a little, they should and must rename them.
They are obviously not Olympic.
This reenactment show they play ever four years, with their models – actors, their profane flames and empty hymns (without sacrifices) is totally alien to the original. That’s why it leads to aesthetically questionable results, not to use another expression. They should never have called this thing «Olympic Games.» But that’s yesterday’s news, after all, we cannot change the past. It is the present that we can and must change. Dragging institutions of a defeated culture through the mire by transforming them into their opposite, or commercializing them, while abusing an ancient sacred place, does not honor neither the organizers nor the participants. If those responsible for the Games respect Hellenic culture, at least a little, they should and must rename them.
They are obviously not Olympic.
