Greek Translation Team Leader: Haritini Christakou
I was born in Athens, Greece in 1962. Ι studied at the Athens Law School, attended two post-graduate courses, and did a practice at the Greek Council of State. Since my university years, I had been doing several jobs. At the last years of my studies, I started working at the American Embassy in Athens. I worked there for four years. In the meantime I got married and entered the legal profession. I worked as a lawyer for about six years specializing in stock exchange counseling. I raised two children who became adults this very year, 2015.
In 1997 an accident happened to my 3-year-old daughter and it signaled the beginning of a very intense spiritual awakening. After one year, I got a divorce. And another year later I decided to leave my most promising career as a lawyer. I started doing Reiki and color sessions and seminars. During this period I met my life companion with whom, in 2000, we established a publishing house specializing in spiritual books. Thus, translation and editing became part of my new life.
In 2001, I started teaching and lecturing on a wide variety of spiritual issues and my sessions changed as well. I started offering spiritual guidance. A few years later, we established an Academy for Spiritual Studies offering courses and studies on various spiritual subjects.
In 2006, I was reading a book where A Course in Miracles was mentioned. It caught my attention and I ordered it. I read only a few pages from the beginning and then I jumped straight into the Workbook. I read the first 5 or 6 lessons and decided to do the lessons. So, everyday I would do the lesson for the day and then translate it into Greek for a deeper assimilation.
After few months, I had the urge to contact the Foundation for Inner Peace (FIP) and request their permission to upload each day the respective lesson translated into Greek, so that other people could benefit from it. FIP informed me that A Course in Miracles was already being translated into Greek and that it was important that the book was published first.
After a few months, I received correspondence from FIP letting me know that it would be okay to go ahead with the translation of the Workbook, provided there was a publisher interested in publishing it! In December 2008, the Workbook was published in Greece. Then, it was at the end of 2011, when another correspondence arrived letting me know that if I was still interested it would be okay to go ahead with the rest of the book.
And so it was that in February 2012 I met with Kenneth Wapnick, who guided me into the “how-to-do-this.” It was an exquisite experience of collaboration. I am grateful for his simplicity, his clarity and generous spirit. The translation project began and it was during this process that I realized that everything I had ever done in my life — all the jobs, all the book translations, all teaching, all sessions, raising two kids, everything — was to prepare me for this specific project.
Since the publication of the workbook in Greece, one of the most devoted students of the Course was Dimitra Argyropoulou. She became part of the translation project from the very beginning. Her devotion and commitment was unparalleled and her presence kept reminding me of the task at hand during the much troubled time that followed. I could perhaps write a novel on what happened in the meantime, but trying to keep it short, it will suffice to say that three days after Kenneth’s passing, my husband had a most severe stroke. He was hospitalized for four and a half months, never returned home, and in May 2014 he passed. Our publishing house had to close down because the tax on the shares was sky high. A new company was incorporated and my son, who was finishing his second year of studies in psychology, entered into the picture. A few months later my daughter, who studies visual arts, decided to take psychology as a minor!
In the meantime, a team of readers was formed on its own. Eight people wholeheartedly supported the project and read the text. My children became part of a different support group! They would cook and take care of the house, be patient with our living room becoming an office stuffed with piles of paper. I stopped teaching at the Academy since the final stage of the project required intense concentration and diligence. Dimitra and I kept working from dawn till late night, while the readers kept providing their feedback. And spirit proved to be even more generous. A university specialist in the Greek language, Babis, joined the group! So, here we are today — eleven people (twelve actually with George who passed), who contributed their minds and hearts and devotion and energy, to bring the Greek ACIM to completion along with two children who grew up so much and so beautifully within just a year and a half.
I am grateful and proud for being part of this project and this group of people. I am grateful for all the support I received from Whit and Judy Whitson. In so many ways, despite all adversity, we all achieved this together, and it was for me a true communion experience and an actual opportunity to live the Course and be the Course.
Finally, I would like to end this note saying that ACIM and my country, Greece, have an interesting synchronicity. The Workbook was published right at the beginning of the economic crisis and now, in June 2015, at the peak of the crisis the publication of A Course in Miracles is announced. I hope the Holy Spirit directs our minds towards right thinking and Greek people everywhere benefit from its teaching, find the strength to stand with God, since God is the love in which we can forgive, and realize that God is the strength in which they can trust. We need no other.
With a deeply grateful heart,
Haritini
ACIM.gr
ΕΝΑ ΜΑΘΗΜΑ ΣΤΑ ΘΑΥΜΑΤΑGreek Softcover Edition
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