Tucson Arizona’s St. Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church’s Hellenic Center was vandalized with graffiti markings.
An unknown perpetrator spray painted vulgarities directly under the name of the building.
The incident has been reported to the police.
It is unknown if security or surveillance cameras captured the incident on tape.
We received the photo from a parishioner of the church who asked to remain anonymous, stating that “the hate is spreading like wildfire… We are going backwards in this country. I’m furious.”
In his message, he also noted “We Greek Americans can not turn a blind eye to what is going on in this country, regardless of political affiliation. If we do, we have nothing to be proud about.”
UPDATED INFORMATION: Since publishing our story we’ve received numerous emails and messages from individuals at the parish in Arizona, mentioning a long-standing feud between two opposing sides of the community stemming from various actions relating to the “anti-Greek direction of the parish” and numerous matters pertaining to a real estate development to build a new parish and community center that never materialized. While a perpetrator has not been caught, most people who contacted us believe the incident is related to internal conflict in the community between traditionalists who want to main the church and community’s Greek character, and others who wish to become more “Pan-Orthodox” and remove ethnic Greek affiliations. We also contacted the local police department. One officer who could not speak publicly because he was not authorized told The Pappas Post that “we think it was definitely an inside job and stemmed from within the community itself.”
The complete, unedited version of the photograph:
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6 comments
WELCOME TO TRUMPISTAN, the land of stupidity, hate, racism and xenophobia. The land of liars, thieves, sexual predators and pedophiles, and those who believe that the earth is flat and that he rich must take from the poor. MANY GREEKS VOTED FOR TRUMP THINKING THAT ONLY MEXICANS ARE THE TARGETS OF THE RIGHT WING RACIST RAGE, NOW ENJOY WHAT YOU VOTED FOR. (Actually Tucson is a city that does not have any Republican elected in office, but has a small Trumpist minority who invited Bannon over and gave to him a reward for his fascist ideology)
Really , it has nothing to do with Trump wake up
DEMETRIOS….You mean like your ignorant racist rants.What proof do you have that it was TRUMP supporters who did this?…None, but thats ok..Right.
Next let me explain to your ignorant little greek brain.Trump does not make anyone racist.He does not tell anyone to go paint racist crap on walls.What will you be saying when you find out it was some dumb leftist liberal that did this.
You should worry about why a Country as old and cultered as Greece went Bankrupt and leave real politics to the smart.
Because we both know how racist greeks are…dont we….Shhhhhhh i wont tell anyone what your family thinks of “some” minority groups…would you like me to tell you what YaYa and Papou and Mama and Papa used to tell you about these groups.
So be quiet you ignorant clown and stop throwing stones without any proof …
so what are you suggesting should be done about incidents like this?
when burning crosses were placed on the front lawns of african-americans should the authorities assumed it was another african-american and left it at that?
read some history brother , greek americans (and a lot of other ethnicities) were subjected to real discrimination and bigotry when they came to this country. it wasn’t that long ago. have you forgotten that trump questioned the qualifications of a federal judge because his parents were from mexico and insulted the mother of a deceased muslim soldier?
In fact, several anti-semitic and racial hate crime were actually committed by minorities (like in Crown Heights). The assumption that non-minorities did this does not reflect reality
Tom, just because your ” YaYa and Papou” were racist it does not mean that mine were also racist! BTW, people that call the people they disagree with “dumb leftist liberal” are almost always racist.. Like Trump!