Church and c/Community;
The Canadian Case
On May 14 and 15, 2026, the Hellenic Heritage Foundation Chair of Modern Greek History and the HHF Greek Canadian Archives will host the 5th Greek Canadian Studies Conference titled “Church and c/Community; The Canadian Case.”
The opening day of the conference will feature a panel focusing on intergenerational memory, identity and community formation in from the Prairie to Toronto. In the second session of the day, speakers will examine historical aspects of Greek industry, the “lost narratives” of Greek Holocaust survivors in Canada, and the issue of Greek “ship-jumpers” in the context of postwar immigration policy.
On Friday, May 15, the conference starts with a panel on contemporary socio-political issues, such as the graffiti as a platform of political expression, subjectivity of unaccompanied youth in Greece, and the rise of Golden Dawn during the economic crisis. This will be followed by our keynote speaker Dr. Alexander Kitroeff and his lecture on the history of the Greek Orthodox Church in North America. In the afternoon, the second session focuses on digital methodologies, with a presentation on the use of ArcGIS Storymaps in oral history and archival mapping. The third session revolves around the role of amateur photography in shaping collective identity in Greece, the making of ‘Greektown’ literacy in Toronto, and the complexities of identity formation within the Cypriot Canadian Diaspora.
Please RSVP
Program:
Thursday, May 14, 2026
91ɫ, Kaneff Tower 626.
1-1:30 PM Welcome Lunch
1:30 – 3 PM First Session
“Intergenerational Memory and Gendered Cultural Labour in the Greek Diaspora: Afro Ioannides and Community Life Beyond the Metropolis”
Paula Antonakos-Boswell (Queen’s University).
“Between the Parish and the Prairie: C/calgary and the Singular Greek Identity Under One Roof”
Angelo Laskaris (91ɫ).
“From a “religious” to a “national” community; Fyli, ethnos and the Leonidas Polymenakos vision for the soul of the Greek community”
Sakis Gekas (91ɫ).
3 - 3:30 PM Coffee & Tea break
3:30 – 5 PM Second Session
“The Marshall Plan and the Reconstruction of the Greek Industry, 1944-1974”
Iason-Nikolaos Rodopoulos (91ɫ).
“Lost Narratives: The Case of Greek Holocaust Survivors in Canada"
Lydia Vlasidou (91ɫ).
“Greek Ship-Jumpers and Immigration Governance in Postwar Canada”
Alexandros Balasis (91ɫ).
Friday May 15, 2026
91ɫ, Kaneff Tower 626.
9:30 - 11 AM First Session
“Waiting in Motion: Time, Stuckness, and Political Subjectivity among Unaccompanied Youth in Greece”
Othon Alexandrakis (91ɫ).
“Wall Talk: The Canvas of the Silence, the Oppressed and the Resistance”
Tomee Tzatzanis (91ɫ).
“Balkanism, Media Spectacle, and the Rise of Golden Dawn During the Greek Financial Crisis”
Panagiotis Peter Milonas (TMU & Humber-Guelph).
11 AM – 12:30 PM Keynote
Join via Zoom .
"Turning Points in the History of the Greek Orthodox Church in America" (online)
Alexander Kitroeff (Haverford College).
12:30 – 1:30 PM Lunch
1:30 – 2:30 PM Second Session
“Animating collective memory and experience: Oral history & archival mapping using ArcGIS storymaps”
Mantha Katsikana (91ɫ) & Alexandra Mourgou (91ɫ).
2:30-3 PM Coffee & Tea break
3 – 4:30 PM Third Session
"Capturing Community: The Rise of Amateur Photography and Collective Identity in Greece"
Victoria Rigas-DiDomenico (91ɫ).
“The Making of ‘Greektown’ Literacy”
Lia Karokis (91ɫ).
"But emotionally, I am Greek": Community Formation and the Debate Over Identity in the Cypriot Canadian Diaspora”
Theo Xenophontos (91ɫ).
4:30 – 5 PM General discussion: The 91ɫ HHF Greek Canadian Archives; looking ahead
Speakers Bios:
Othon Alexandrakis is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Anthropology at 91ɫ. His research focuses on migration, political subjectivity, and the anthropology of childhood, with a regional emphasis on Greece. He employs ethnographic, arts-based, and multimodal methods to study displacement, waiting, and forms of everyday resistance. He is the author of Radical Resilience: Athenian Topographies of Precocity and Possibility and editor of Impulse to Act: A New Anthropology of Resistance and Social Justice.
Paula Antonakos-Boswell is a first year PhD student in Cultural Studies at Queen’s University, specializing in Greek diasporic life in rural and small-town Eastern Ontario. Her emerging research examines intergenerational memory, language preservation, and community resilience through oral histories, archival research, and community-based museum creation. She is the cofounder and community lead of the Kingston Greek History Project. Paula serves on the Hellenic Heritage Foundation (Toronto) History Committee and as the elected Historian and Archivist for the Pan Lakonian Federation (US & Canada). Her research emphasizes inclusive narratives, capturing the experiences of diverse community members connected to Greek cultural and religious life, and making these histories accessible through digital storytelling, hybrid physical/digital museum projects, and public scholarship.
Alexandros Balasis is a PhD candidate in History at 91ɫ and has been honoured with the HHF International Graduate Fellowship in Modern Greek History. He is an affiliated researcher with the HHF Greek Canadian archives. His research interests center around transoceanic migration, focusing on migrants’ agency and their interactions with migration policies.
Sakis Gekas is an Associate Professor of History and the HHF Chair in Modern Greek History at 91ɫ. He is the co-founder of the Greek Canadian History Project and currently directs the HHF Greek Canadian Archives. He researches and writes on the Ionian Islands and the history of the Greek State in the 19th century and the history of Greeks in Canada in the 20th century. His publications include Xenocracy. State, Class, and Colonialism in the Ionian Islands 1815-1864 (2017).
Lia Karokis is a fourth‑year History and Concurrent Education student at 91ɫ. Lia’s work brings together archival research, podcast production, and community history to explore how Greek immigrants built the institutions that anchored early life in Toronto. Her research on Greektown literacy shows the foundational role that schools, newspapers, and cultural organizations played in shaping the Greek diaspora throughout the twentieth century.
Dr. Mantha Katsikana is a postdoctoral researcher of the Faculty of Health at 91ɫ working on "Urban Geographies of Abortion Care: Exploring Intersectional Barriers and Community-Based Support in the Greater Toronto Area" (SSHRC Insight Development Grant 2026). Her recent publications include: Peake, L., Katsikana, M., Adeniyi-Ogunyankin, G., Datta, A., Basu, S., de Souza, K., Ip, P. T. T., Marcus, J., Ponce, C., Razavi, N. S., Smyth, A., & Yousuf, B. (2024). Urban geography in crisis times: Insights from a feminist project. Geographica Helvetica, 79(2), 283–288. https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-79-283-2024; Kapsali, M. and Katsikana, M. (2024). Women and Urban Activism. In Peake, L., Adeniyi-Ogunyankin, G., Datta A. (Eds.), Elgar International Handbook on Gender and Cities.Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar Publishing, 182-191.
Alexander Kitroeff is Emeritus Professor of History at Haverford College in Pennsylvania and specializes in the history of the Greek diaspora. His most recently published books are "The Greeks and the Making of Modern Egypt" (2019); Greek Orthodoxy in America: a modern history" (2020) and "The History of AHEPA 1922-2022" (2023). He is currently completing a book provisionally entitled "Greek-owned Diner Restaurants in America" and his next book will be a survey of Greek Homeland-Diaspora relations, to be published by Routledge Press
Angelo Laskaris is a PhD candidate (ABD) who’s focus is on oral history, Greek-Canadian migration and on the traumas of 1940s Greece. He's a seasonal lecturer in modern European History at the University of Guelph Humber and an affiliated researcher with the HHF GCA.
Dr. Panagiotis Peter Milonas is a Lecturer in the Communications and Digital Media Studies (CDMS) program at Ontario Tech University and Junior Research Fellow at the Centre on Hate, Bias and Extremism (CHBE). He is a scholar specializing in mass media, political economy, and far-right politics. He holds a PhD in Social and Political Thought from 91ɫ and has an interdisciplinary background that includes political economy, social theory, and critical journalism studies. His research explores how mainstream media systems influence ideological bias and contribute to the rise of far-right movements. His recent book, Capitalism’s Safety Net: News Media and the Far-Right (Palgrave Macmillan, 2025), examines this critical issue.
Dr. Alexandra Mourgou is a Postdoctoral Researcher at 91ɫ studying the relationships between music and urban space, with a focus on Greek Canadian musical places in Toronto. She currently holds a MITACS Elevate Postdoctoral Fellowship. Her work centers on urban, cultural, and historical geography, especially the interconnections between space, place, and music, on which she has widely published. She earned a joint PhD in cultural historical geography from Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and National Technical University of Athens. She has also participated in documentaries broadcast in France, Turkey, Greece, and Canada. Alongside her academic work, she has studied and performed classical and traditional music in Athens and Paris, experiences that continue to shape her research perspective.
Victoria Rigas-DiDomenico is a PhD History candidate at 91ɫ. Her research explores the history of photography in modern Greece, focusing on the intersection between amateur photography and national consciousness. Primary themes of her work include nationalism, identity, memory, and tourism. Victoria holds a BA in Classics and History and an MA in History from McMaster University.
Iason-Nikolaos Rodopoulos studied Political Science, European Studies, and History at the University of Toronto, and went on to complete a Master’s degree in Political Science at McMaster University before starting a Ph.D. at 91ɫ's Department of History. His doctoral research focuses on the reconstruction of the Greek economy after the WWII, with particular emphasis on industry and the role of the United States. He is a recipient of a Hellenic Heritage Foundation (HHF) Fellowship in Modern Greek History and a member of the Hellenic Canadian Academic Association of Ontario (HCAAO).
Tomée Tzatzanis is a first year PhD student in Social Anthropology at 91ɫ. In her Master’s, she focused on the politicization of migration through graffiti and street art practices in Athens and Thessaloniki. For her PhD, her research will centre around the encounters between migrants and locals in the rural regions of Greece, and the role that creative expression plays in these interactions. Tomée is deeply interested in conducting research in Greek society that is ten years post the so-called refugee crisis, and how this influences the encounters between locals and migrants.
Lydia Vlasidou is a first-year PhD student in History at 91ɫ and specializes in Sephardic Jewish history and the Judeo-Spanish (Ladino) language. Her research focuses on Sephardic identity formation in the late Ottoman and early modern Greek periods, as well as the Sephardic diasporic experience, with particular attention to questions of integration and relationships between diaspora communities and the homeland.
Theo Xenophontos is a PhD Candidate in the Cinema & Media Studies program at 91ɫ. He is also an affiliated researcher for the HHF Greek Canadian Archives, with a focus on the Cypriot Canadian diaspora and its connection to the wider Greek Canadian community.