Look up orthodox in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Orthodox may refer to:

• Orthodox (album), an album by the Czech death metal band Krabathor
• Orthodox Christian Church, known more often in the West as the Eastern Orthodox Church
• Paleo-orthodoxy, a movement in Christianity aimed at upholding the historic teachings of the Church
• Orthodox Judaism, a denomination within Judaism
• Orthodox File Managers, a user interface to work with file systems
• Orthodox seed, a seed which may be preserved via drying or freezing
• Left-arm orthodox spin, a bowling technique in cricket
• Orthodox stance, a way of positioning the feet and hands in combat sports

See also[link]

• Orthodox year (disambiguation)

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

The Greek is a fictional character on the HBO drama The Wire, played by actor Bill Raymond. The Greek is the head of an international criminal organization involved in narcotics and human trafficking.^[1] The Greek is a mysterious figure involved in numerous criminal activities. His given name is never mentioned on the show, and though he is known only as "The Greek", he has stated (in the episode Port in a Storm) that he is not actually Greek. A quiet and unassuming man, the Greek prefers to keep a low profile, operating all of his business through his lieutenant Spiros "Vondas" Vondopoulos. His smuggling organization operated from a small diner in Baltimore for years, and while Vondas would conduct business the Greek would listen in quietly at the counter. Nick Sobotka, upon seeing the Greek identify himself, was amazed that the shadowy figure had been in plain sight the entire time.

Despite his calm appearance, the Greek is cunning and ruthless, and only interested in facts that make him more money. Series creator David Simon has said that The Greek is an embodiment of raw unencumbered capitalism.^[2] Anyone interfering in this process is eliminated immediately, and he prefers to leave victims headless and handless to hinder identification.

The Greek's smuggling operation includes importing sex trade workers, illicit drugs, stolen goods and chemicals for drug processing. He bribes union stevedores to move containers through the Baltimore port for him and uses his muscle, Sergei "Serge" Malatov, to run containers back and forth from the port to his warehouse, a front managed by "Double G" Glekas. The Greek supplies the major drug dealers in East Baltimore with pure cocaine and heroin, using Eton Ben-Eleazer to move his drugs. His chief client is Proposition Joe, but he is also affiliated with smaller drug dealing organizations like those run by "White Mike" McArdle. His sex trade interests in Baltimore include a brothel run by a madam named Ilona Petrovitch, bringing in girls from eastern Europe. He manages to avoid prosecution for his crimes because an FBI counter-terrorism agent named Kristos Koutris tips him off if a criminal investigation gets too close. It is suggested he and Vondas may serve as federal informants.

Biography[link]

Season 2[link]

The Greek began to draw police attention in Baltimore when his contact at the docks, Frank Sobotka, became the target of an investigation. At the same time a container of thirteen dead young women intended for the sex trade was discovered at the docks, triggering a high-profile homicide investigation. The container belonged to the Greek and the girls were killed by a crewman onboard the vessel that had delivered them. The ship's crew had been paying the girls for sex and when one of the girls refused, she was killed. The crewman responsible dumped her overboard and collapsed the air pipe to kill the remaining women. The Greek had Sergei track the crewman down, interrogated him personally, and had Vondas kill him.

As the investigation continued the police were able to link Eton and Sergei to the drug smuggling operation. When police began tracking containers as they left the port, The Greek and Vondas began to close down the operation temporarily by dumping their cell phones and stealing "clean" containers. Persuading Sobotka to keep the smuggling operation going he bought further protection from Agent Koutris by betraying a load of Colombian cocaine, giving him time to destroy incriminating evidence in the warehouse and Glekas' store.

The Greek recognized that the investigation was too extensive to stop and made plans to leave, sending Vondas to assure Proposition Joe that supply of drugs would continue albeit with new faces. He attempted to buy Sobotka's silence with promised legal aid for his son, but when he learned from Koutris that Frank was planning to turn informant he had the union man killed. Although Frank's nephew Nick Sobotka was able to identify The Greek in a photo and Sergei was pressured to give up the location of his hotel suite, Vondas and the Greek had already boarded a flight to Chicago. Aware that the Greek and Vondas were gone, the police left the investigation behind and moved on to the drug dealers he supplied.

Seasons 4 & 5[link]

The Greek continued to supply "Proposition Joe" Stewart, who formed an organization with other drug dealers called the New Day Co-Op to provide The Greek's product to them in exchange for reduced violence and sharing of territory. When Omar Little steals an entire shipment of heroin from the Greek's men as it is being delivered to Stewart's people, Marlo Stanfield demands a meeting with Spiros "Vondas" Vondopoulos in order to allay his fears that Stewart was responsible.^[3][4] Once Stanfield is satisfied, he waits for the Major Crimes Unit's investigation into his activities to cease and then moves to establish a direct relationship with Vondas and the Greek. After getting in communication with Vondas through former soldier Sergei,^[5][6] Marlo eventually sells himself as Joe's replacement by convincing the Greek that he requires an insurance policy in the form of a replacement for Proposition Joe, in the event that anything should happen to him. Realizing that Stanfield will move against Stewart regardless of his approval, the Greek accepts Marlo's proposal to act as an "insurance policy," knowing that it will mean Joe's death.^[7][8]

After Stewart's murder, Stanfield meets with Vondas to initiate their new business relationship.^[9][10] Stanfield's tenure proves short lived when he is forced into retirement by an investigation, and the other Co-Op members purchase the connection from Stanfield. In the closing scenes of the series finale, Slim Charles and Fat-Face Rick take over meeting with Vondas while the Greek listens quietly in the background.^[11][12]

References[link]

Frank Schaeffer (born August 3, 1952) is an American author, film director, screenwriter and public speaker. He is the son of the late theologian and author Francis Schaeffer. He became a Hollywood film director and author, writing several internationally acclaimed novels depicting life in a strict fundamentalist household including Portofino, Zermatt, and Saving Grandma.

Background[link]

In 1990 Schaeffer became an Orthodox Christian as a member of the Orthodox Church, which he says "embraces paradox and mystery".^{[citation needed]} He converted in 1992 at a Greek Orthodox Church in Newburyport, MA.

In 2006 he published Baby Jack, a novel about a marine killed in Iraq. He is also known for his best-selling non-fiction books related to the United States Marine Corps, including Keeping Faith—A Father-Son Story About Love and the United States Marine Corps, co-written with his son John Schaeffer, and AWOL—The Unexcused Absence Of America's Upper Classes From Military Service and How It Hurts Our Country, co-authored with former Clinton presidential aide Kathy Roth-Douquet.

In 2007 Schaeffer published his autobiography, Crazy for God: How I Grew Up As One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back, in which he goes into much more detail regarding what it was like to grow up in the Schaeffer family and around L'Abri. In 2011, he published another memoir called Sex, Mom, and God, in which he discusses growing up with his parents and their role in the rise of the American religious right and argues that the root of the "insanity and corruption" of this force in U.S. politics, and specifically of the religious right's position on abortion, is a fear of female sexuality.^[2]

Political views[link]

Schaeffer has written: "In the mid 1980s I left the Religious Right, after I realized just how very anti-American they are, (the theme I explore in my book Crazy For God)."^[3] He added that he was a Republican until 2000, working for Senator John McCain in that year's primaries, but that after the 2000 election he re-registered as an independent.^[3]

On February 7, 2008, Schaeffer endorsed Senator Barack Obama for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination, in an article entitled "Why I'm Pro-Life and Pro-Obama."^[4] The next month, prompted by the controversy over remarks by the pastor of Obama's church, he wrote: "[W]hen my late father -- Religious Right leader Francis Schaeffer -- denounced America and even called for the violent overthrow of the US government, he was invited to lunch with presidents Ford, Reagan and Bush, Sr."^[5] Schaeffer based this claim on statements that supporters of the elder Schaeffer contend were taken out of context from his father's work "A Christian Manifesto." After the 2008 Russian-Georgian War, Schaeffer described Russia as a resurgent Orthodox Christian power, paying back the West for its support of Muslim Kosovar secessionists against Orthodox Serbia.^[6]

On October 10, 2008, a public letter to Senator McCain (and Sarah Palin) from Schaeffer was published in the Baltimore Sun newspaper.^[7] The letter contained an impassioned plea for John McCain to arrest what Schaeffer perceived as a hateful, and prejudiced tone of the Republican party's election campaign. Schaeffer was convinced that there was a pronounced danger that fringe groups in America could be goaded into pursuing violence. "If you do not stand up for all that is good in America and declare that Senator Obama is a patriot, fit for office, and denounce your hate-filled supporters ... history will hold you responsible for all that follows."^[7]

Soon after Obama's inauguration, Schaeffer criticized Republican leaders for the course on which they had taken his former party:

How can anyone who loves our country support the Republicans now? Barry Goldwater, William F. Buckley and Ronald Reagan defined the modern conservatism that used to be what the Republican Party I belonged to was about. Today no actual conservative can be a Republican. Reagan would despise today's wholly negative Republican Party.^[3]

In February, 2010, Schaeffer accused President Obama's critics of being racist.^[8]

Books[link]

• Sex, Mom, and God: How the Bible's Strange Take on Sex Led to Crazy Politics—and How I Learned to Love Women (and Jesus) Anyway, Cambridge: Da Capo Press, 2011. ISBN 978-0-306-81928-5
• Patience with God: Faith for People Who Don't Like Religion (or Atheism), Cambridge: Da Capo Press, 2009. ISBN 978-0-306-81854-7
• How Free People Move Mountains: A Male Christian Conservative and a Female Jewish Liberal on a Quest for Common Purpose and Meaning (with Kathy Roth-douquet), New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2008. ISBN 978-0-06-123352-4
• Crazy for God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back, New York: Carol & Graf Publishers, (September) 2007. ISBN 978-0-7867-1891-7
• Baby Jack: A Novel, New York: Carol & Graf Publishers, (October) 2006.
• AWOL: The Unexcused Absence of America's Upper Classes from Military Service—and How It Hurts Our Country (with Kathy Roth-Douquet), New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2006. ISBN 978-0-06-088859-6
• Voices From the Front: Letters Home From American's Military Family, New York: Carol & Graf Publishers, 2004. (Third of Military Trilogy) ISBN 978-0-7867-1462-9
• Faith of Our Sons: Voices From the American Homefront — The Wartime Diary of a Marine's Father, New York: Carol & Graf Publishers, 2004. (Second of Military Trilogy)
• Zermatt: A Novel, New York: Carol & Graf Publishers, 2003. (Third of Calvin Becker Trilogy) ISBN 978-0-7867-1259-5
• Keeping Faith: A Father-Son Story About Love and the U.S. Marine Corps (with son John Schaeffer), New York: Carol & Graf Publishers, 2002. (First of Military Trilogy)
• Saving Grandma: A Novel, New York: Berkley Books, 1997. (Second of Calvin Becker Trilogy)
• Letters to Father Aristotle, Salisbury, MA:Regina Orthodox Press, 1995.
• Dancing Alone: The Quest for Orthodox Faith in the Age of False Religion, Brookline, MA: Holy Cross, 1994.
• Portofino: A Novel, New York: Macmillan, 1992. (First of Calvin Becker Trilogy) ISBN 978-0-7867-1716-3
• Sham Pearls For Real Swine, Brentwood, TN: Wolgemuth & Hyatt, 1990.
• Is Capitalism Christian? (Editor), Westchester, IL: Crossway Books, 1985. ISBN 978-0-89107-362-8
• Bad News For Modern Man as Franky Schaeffer, Westchester, IL: Crossway Books, 1984.
• A Modest Proposal (with Harold Fickett), Westchester, IL: Crossway Books, 1984.
• A Time For Anger: The Myth of Neutrality, Westchester, IL: Crossway Books, 1982.
• Addicted to Mediocrity: 20th Century Christians and the Arts, Westchester, IL: Crossway Books, 1982.

Films[link]

• Baby on Board (1992). Slapstick comedy starring Judge Reinhold and Carol Kane.
• Rebel Storm (1990). Futuristic action film starring Zach Galligan and June Chadwick.
• Headhunter (1989). Occult horror film starring John Fatooh, June Chadwick, and Steve Kanaly.
• Wired to Kill (1986). Post-apocalyptic action film starring Devin Hoelscher, and with Merritt Butrick.
• Whatever Happened to the Human Race? (1979). A Christian response to abortion, euthanasia, and infanticide, narrated by Francis Schaeffer and former Surgeon General Dr. C. Everett Koop; it was released with a book by the same title.
• How Should We Then Live? The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture (1976). Frank Schaeffer produced his father Francis Schaeffer's critically acclaimed film series on the rise and decline of Western culture from a Christian viewpoint; it was released with a book by the same title.

See also[link]

• Crazy for God (expression)
• Republican and conservative support for Barack Obama in 2008

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official Frank Schaeffer website
• Francis Schaeffer at the Internet Movie Database
• Frank Schaeffer entry at Orthodoxwiki.org
• Interview with Schaeffer and Kathy Roth-Douquet on AWOL at the Pritzker Military Library
• Interview with Schaeffer by Krys Boyd on Crazy for God at KERA public radio.
• Interview with Schaeffer by Steve Lawson at Greenbelt.
• Fathers and Sons—On Francis Schaeffer, Frank Schaeffer, and Crazy for God Critical review by Os Guinness, Books and Culture, Christianity Today.