Dr Vassilis Adrahtas
Sub specie aeternitatis (From the perspective of eternity)
My life started on the land of the Dharug people –nowadays called Bankstown– on the 8th day of December 1968. I am the second of four siblings and my parents were migrants from Greece. In 1976 their dream came true and they returned with all of us to the motherland. Thus I grew up in a suburb of Athens called Brahami, which back then was full of daisies and poppies.
For reasons I never quite clarified, I studied theology at the University of Athens and then did further studies receiving a master’s degree in Studies in Religion. In 2005 I defended my doctoral thesis in the Sociology of Religion at Panteion University. In 2001, though, I had already returned to Sydney –after 25 years– in order to study the indigenous religions of this land. My research concluded in 2006 with a second doctoral thesis at the University of Sydney.
After my military service at the island of Lesvos, I worked in a number of sectors: education, translation, publishing and the media. I have had the good fortune to teach at several tertiary institutions (University of Athens, Hellenic Open University of Patras, Universities of Sydney, Macquarie, Western Sydney, New South Wales, Charles Sturt, as well as St Andrew’s Greek Orthodox Theological College). For better or worse, I have spent my whole life reading, writing and teaching.
I came back to live permanently in Australia with my wife and our two children at the end of 2010. Eight years have passed since then! In the beginning things were tough and they still are, but for different reasons… But is life ever easy or what’s the point in having an easy life? Every day for the last eight years, I do nothing else than learning what it means to be a child of the Great Land of the Southern Stars, while at the same time I have come to realised what it truly means to be a Hellene. And this I did realise here, far away from the blessed lands of Greece…
In Sydney I have been involved in various initiatives regarding the promotion of Hellenism within the circles of our community. For seven years I taught more than 25 short courses at the ‘Hellenic Open University’. For three years I taught Modern and Classical Greek at the educational program ‘Paideia’ of AHEPA NSW. To this day many are those you recall my time at 2mm radio station, while now and then I contribute with articles to the Greek newspaper KOSMOS.
It is quite a while now that I have stopped counting the talks I deliver, for they are far beyond 100. However, I have not stopped counting the diamonds I constantly come across in the lives of the fellow Hellenes who have honoured and continue to honour me with their presence. Some of them have already passed over to the other side, but I never forget them. My great hope is that one day, when we meet again, we will survey together from some kind of tower of eternity the multiplied fruits of our endeavours in the lives of our children.
Amen.
Sources:
- Reimaging the Hellene via Greek Dreaming | article by Con Stamocostas
- Education helps Indigenous Australians redefine their cultural integrity
