“Alexander the Great Our King of Kings: The Social, Religious and Ethnic Significance of the God-King”

Zei o vasilias Alexandros?

Zei kai vasilevei kai ton kosmo kyrievei!

Megas Alexandros, King of Kings. A man who in such a short life time, achieved so much for Hellenism, that today, he should be held as an inspirational role model, whose life experiences and personal character, may even hold the answer to our people’s salvation.

One of the Nine Worthies, a list of important figures that in the middle Ages, embodied the ideal of knighthood, today Alexander’s significance fails in comparison. Today, at least in Hellenic America, the days of Alexander representing the ideal role model are no more. Gone are those days, such as when the leaders of Rome, idolized him. Gone are the days when his mere image would bring leaders to their knees, once even bring Julius Caesar to tears, because Caesar believed he achieved so little compared to Megas Alexandros.

Legend claims, he was born on the same day the Temple of Artemis was burned down in Ephesus, because Artemis was more concern, with the birth of Alexander, than to save her own temple. Born in the holy city of Pella in 356 BC, Alexander stands today as the greatest Hellene to walk the face of the earth. Yet Alexander’s significance in our identity is slowly being lost, now in Hellenism darkest hour. When imposters from the north, plot to steal his legacy and change our history. These anti-Hellenist have no shame, they dare to even lobby, for the change of Hellenism, to Macedonism. How have we come here? How have we, as a people, allowed our selves to be faced with the very theft of our own identity? Political sabotage and betrayal aside, it is this very loss of hero-worship for Alexander, and his significance to our very identity, that has allow this crisis to appear.

It is because of this, that we must re-examine the very meaning, Alexander holds for the Hellenic people. He was Megas Alexandros, the visionary whose cultural impact led to the birth of Hellenistic culture and the spread of Hellenic Civilization across the known world. Born of Macedonia and Epirus, Alexander dared to envision a united Hellas, where artificial city-state borders and different dialects, no longer divided our people. He dared to envision a Hellenic world, where Hellenic philosophy and culture would unite mankind and give birth to a new era of peace and brotherhood. Yet today, unlike the days in which Roman Families would embroidered into their clothing, images of Alexander, you’re more likely to see a young Hellenic American wearing a Che Guevara Tshirt, than an Alexander one.

He was Megas Alexandros, the great warrior, who armed with a Hellenic education, defeated greatest Empire of his time, marching through Syria, Egypt, Mesopotamia and Persia, to seek retribution for the burning of Athens generations earlier. An inspiration, whose journey and struggle, teaches us that, we must not forget the wrong doings suffered by our ancestors, but rather we should fight to avenge them, and honor them.

He was Megas Alexandros, the strategist, who even generals today measure them selves against. Constantly out numbered, Alexander was invincible in battle, and is held by some today as the most successful military commander of all time. A role model, who shows us that, all though always outnumbered, the Hellenic people can still achieve victory if we only dare our selves to believe. Was it not Alexander who said, ‘There is nothing impossible to him who will try?’ An example that is forgotten by Hellenes today, for although we are out numbered still in our struggles for our national issues, victory is still possible if we only dare to believe, and remember, that we have always been outnumbered, from Thermopylae, to the mountains of Epirus on Oxi day.

He was Megas Alexandros, the unifier, who took a collection of city-states, and kingdoms, and created a united Hellenic identity, an identity, which today faces a threat, towards the very legacy of the man, who helped to created it.

He is Megas Alexandros, our King of Kings, and we should honor him. There are some unfortunately, fellow Hellenes, that do not want us to honor him. They, who have no honor, wish to change our history, and prevent us from defending his legacy, a legacy that is rightfully ours, a right that will not be delivered upon us on a silver platter. It is a right the must be won in the halls of Congress, defended in the walls of Universities, and preached openly on all forms of media. Only through vigilance and aggressive advocacy, can this right, yours and mine, be achieved. Those individuals who wish to revision our identity, forget, they have neither the authority, nor the right, to change our history. For history is written in the stones, and remembered throughout the ages. It is a history, that is, just as much apart of me, as it is apart of you, and no government, foreign or domestic, has a right to take apart of you away.

We, as a community, can no longer afford to rely on those politicians in Athens, to defend our rights as Hellenes. It is up to each and every one of us, to become advocates for Hellenism, to lobby our different syllogi and Federations to action, and our motherland, into defending our identity.

Today, the corrupt politicians in Athens have not only been busy in their attempts, to sell the Hellenic identity of Macedonia, but they have also been trying to prevent Alexander’s worship from reappearing. I recall in the early 2000s, the Chicago-based Alexander the Great Foundation, pledged $45 million dollars to carve the likeness of Alexander into the side of a cliff in Greece. A project, which would have renewed Alexander’s significance for Hellenes, and would have brought economic benefits from tourism to Macedonia, and yet the project was blocked by the Hellenic Ministry of Culture.

The enemies of Hellenism, those imposters from the North, do not these problems. They flaunt their cult like worship, of our greatest hero, their ‘Alexander-mania’. Naming airports and highways after Alexander, and now proposing to build an eight-story high statue, of Alexandros on horseback in the center of their capital, aside a fountain surrounded by four bronze lions, guarded by bronze soldiers, one of which will be Alexander’s father, Philip, along with other statues of historical figures and a church, which will cost the small country where unemployment runs at 35% a whopping $14 million. And yet, for 17 years now, our friends in Athens have been arguing over where to put a sculpture of Alexander in our capital, leaving the likeness to gather dust in some storeroom. It his how the government of Athens honors the greatest Hellene in history?

A man, in which lies the inspiration, to save not only our identity, but the inspiration and courage needed, to solve all our national issues. And yet many inside our community frown up calls by Hellenic Activists, to aggressively approach, our national issues. To solve our issues in the same manner in which Alexandros solved his, through bold strokes, an Alexandrian Solution.