Oratorical Festival - Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Pittsburgh - Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Pittsburgh

St John Chrysostom Oratorical Festival

2024 ARCHDIOCESE FESTIVAL

Introduced in 1983, the St. John Chrysostom Oratorical Festival provides Greek Orthodox teenagers the opportunity to write and talk about their faith. The Oratorical Festival Program begins at the parish level and is divided into three divisions:

Elementary Division (local festival only) for students in grades 4–6
Junior Division for students in grades 7–9
Senior Division for student in grades 10–12

The top speakers in the Junior and Senior Divisions advance to the district level. Two finalists in each district division represent the district at the Metropolis Oratorical Festival. The top speaker in each metropolis division is then selected to participate in the Archdiocese Finals, which is hosted by a different metropolis each year.

All eighteen finalists at the Archdiocese Finals participate in a weekend of activities, the highlight of which is the delivery of their speeches on Saturday morning. The Oratorical Festival Scholarship Fund provides college scholarships to the top speakers. Currently, the top three speakers of each division receive college scholarships of $2,000, $1,500 and $1,000 and each Honorable Mention speaker is awarded $500.

2024 METROPOLIS OF PITTSBURGH FESTIVAL DATES

With the blessings of His Eminence Metropolitan Savas, we are pleased to announce that the Metropolis Oratorical Festival will be held on Saturday April 20, 2024 at St. John the Forerunner in Youngstown, OH.

We will not be hosting District Festivals in 2024. Those who place at the Parish Level Festivals will immediately go to the Metropolis Level.

METROPOLIS ORATORICAL FESTIVAL COMMITTEE

Chairperson: Ann Ariano, Esq.

Email: gomoporatorical{@}gmail.com *

Phone: (717) 379-6350

REGISTRATION

We are requesting that each Festival Participant and each Parish Oratorical Chairperson submit a registration form online through the Google Document links below:

Participant Registration Form

Parish Chairperson Registration Form

We ask that the Oratorical Chairperson Registration Form be submitted as soon as possible so that we may contact you from time to time with important information.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Please take time to review the documents below. We will provide more specific guidelines regarding the speeches as we draw closer to the event.

Oratorical Festival Manual

2024 Junior and Senior Topics

NEW ESSAY, POETRY AND ICONOGRAPHY DIVISION

We are so please to contiue our second year of essay, poetry and iconography for 2024! Poetry, Essay and Iconography will be juddged prior to the Metropolis Festival and the finalists will be contacted via email or phone. Finalists will be invited to attend the Metropolis Festival on April 20th where they may display and/or read their work. All iconography will be displayed at the Metropolis Festival.

Guidelines for Essay, Poetry and Iconography

TIPS FOR A SUCCESSFUL PARISH FESTIVAL

• Include the list of Topics in your Parish’s monthly/weekly newsletter.

• Distribute the list and remind students of the Festival dates during Goya meetings.

• Incorporate a review of the topics (brainstorm ideas for speeches) into the Sunday School Curriculum for grades 7-9th and 10-12th. (it is suggested that this be done beginning in January)

• If your Parish has had past Metropolis/National Finalists ask them to speak to your Sunday School/Goya about their Oratorical experience.

• Make the Parish Festival a formal event, consider including a meal for the participants and their families, invite the entire Parish to attend.

• Encourage 4-6th grade students to participate in the Elementary Division of the Festival. Have the children give their speeches at the same time as your Junior/Senior Speakers. Doing so will allow the younger children to experience speaking in public and to be inspired by the speeches of their older peers.

• Ask your Festival Judges to provide written constructive feedback to all speakers. This can be accomplished by giving them extra time to do so following each speech. The Judges can also give feedback to the Elementary participants.

• Consider offering scholarships or other incentives to Oratorical participants. Many parishes award camp scholarships for participation. Also consider asking Parish organizations such as Philoptocos, Ahepa, Sunday School etc for donations towards scholarships. Elementary Participants can each receive a small gift or cash award.

• In the weeks that follow your Parish Festival allow the participants to give their speeches in church so the entire community can hear them. (this may need to be restricted to your top 3 in each Division depending on the number of participants).

NATIONAL ORATORICAL FESTIVAL

With the blessing of Archbishop Elpidophoros, the National Oratorical Festival will be scheduled for June 7-9, 2024 at Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church in Buffalo, NY.

For more information about the Oratorical Festival, visit the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese website here.

For questions or comments, email [email protected].

*Please note, email address link is disabled so that it will not be picked up by spam-bots. Please remove '{ }' to email. Thank you.

METROPOLIS SCHOLARSHIP FUND

Please consider donating to the Metropolis Scholarship Fund so that we may continue to offer scholarships to our talented youth. Please visit: https://onrealm.org/GreekOrthodoxMe/give/oratorical

Donations can also be mailed directly to the Metropolis to the attention of Alyssa Kyritsis. Please write “Oratorical Scholarship” in the memo line of your check.