Chicago and Aurora, Illinois to honor Greek Independence Day this week
The flag of Greece will be raised at Chicago's Daley Plaza Monday, a day ahead of Greek Independence Day.
The event from noon to 1 p.m. Monday will also include national anthems, a wreath laying at the eternal flame, and speeches.
The City of Aurora will also raise the flag of Greece at noon on Tuesday at One Aurora Plaza, 8 E. Galena Blvd.
Tuesday also marks Greek Independence Day, March 25, which is celebrated around the world. The Greek national holiday commemorates the start of the War for Greek Independence in 1821.
Greece had been under the control of the Ottoman Empire from 1453 until March 25, 1821, when Bishop Germanos of Patras raised the flag of revolution over the Monastery of Agia Lavra near Kalavryta, Achaea in Greece.
The motto of the revolution, which became the national motto of Greece, was "Ελευθερία ή θάνατος" — "freedom or death."
The revolution is also associated with The Annunciation of the Virgin Mary — an important celebration for the Greek Orthodox Church. In the Annunciation, the Archangel Gabriel appeared to Mary and told her she would be the bearer of the son of God.
Chicago's Hellenic Parade follows in a couple of weeks, on the afternoon of Sunday, April 6, along Halsted Street in Chicago's Greektown.
The first Greek Independence Day Parade in Chicago was held in 1965 — not in Greektown, but right in the Loop, along State Street heading southward from Wacker Drive.
Published reports note that during the in 1969, protesters joined in and held signs calling for an end to rule by a military junta in Greece. That period of military rule in Greece lasted from 1967 to 1974.
The parade was moved from the Loop to Greektown in the mid-1990s.
