Caricaturist from Portugal says hello!
 

Greetings, everybody!

I'm Frederico, 36, from Portugal.

I am a caricaturist of historical figures, begining a new collection.
I hope I can have the chance to show it to you, in a proper space here, and ask for your advice (not selling or spam).
My collection will inlude some ancient greeks, so I thought you may be curious about them.

Thanks for having me.
See you soon!

Hello, just FYI this chat group is about American fraternities and sororities.

Hello, Ninja.

I may have understood something wrong... I'm sorry if that happened. Maybe you can help me.
The name is "Greek chat" and you have specific forums named by greek characteres. Has this forum something to do with Greece?

As for american fraternities and sororities, I know portuguese communities took there the celebrations of the "Espírito Santo" (Holy Ghost), as in many countries around the world. And the original fraternityis in my little town here, founded in the XIII century.

Do you know something about that?
Is there any special kind of fraternities and sororities that you talk about here? Or you talk about them in general?

Thanks!

Nothing to do with Greece.

And I suspect that American sororities and fraternities share little to nothing in common with the celebrations of the Holy Spirit and fraternities founded in Portugal in the 13th century.

Fraternities and Sororities in North American colleges are referred to as "Greeks" simply because of the traditional use of Greek letter initials as a name. Nothing to do with Greece or Greek (European) culture.

Using Wikipedia as an information source:

The first generally recognized Greek letter student society in North America was Phi Beta Kappa. The Greek letters Phi, Beta, Kappa, are derived from the motto of this organization. The founder of Phi Beta Kappa, one John Heath, chose Greek as the language for the motto because the study of Greek was part of a classical education offered at the time, and specifically because John Heath "was the best Greek scholar in college."

Imagine if John Heath had been "the best German scholar in college", Greek Chat might now be "German Chat"!

Unlikely. They wouldn't have made it through 2 wars against Germany intact.

They'd be Victory organizations or something silly.

Soooo Victory Chat? :P

I'm not sure how common they are, but there are religion-based "fraternities". I'm wondering if the OP is referring to something like the Knights of Columbus.

In the early-mid 80s, my Catholic grammar school (K-8) had the boys' Fraternity, which worked under the guidance of the Franciscan Brothers - they look like monks; and the girls' Sodality of Mary, working with the Sisters of Mercy. Membership was limited to 6-8th graders. We did service projects in and around the Parish, such as cleaning up the school and church grounds and visiting the retirement home. I remember going to visit a convent home that is on the beach (gorgeous location) that holds day retreats.

I don't remember much about what the boys did, but both groups were centered around religious vocation-in-training. I found the experience to teach me a modern-day application of my faith.

I think he's talkign about Holy Ghost Societies, which I know nothing about other than google found them for me. No clue how close to KoC they are, but they appear to be Portuguese and fairly common.
Nah it would have died out in the 50s

Thanks for your enlightment, I didn´t know the significance of you use for "Greeks".

Ree-Xi, I don't think the Holy Ghost Fraternity has nothing to do with Columbus. But I don't know the Knights of Columbus, so I may be mistaken.
The Holy Ghost Fraternity, I'm almost sure it was founded here by the franciscan monks, who had built here, in my little town, just a few years earlier, their bigger convent in the iberian peninsula. They tought my town was very alike Jerusalem, so they choose it to do it.
The purpose of the Fraternity was to envolve he civilian people in their values of assisting the poorest, and they had festivities every year with lots of food and games free for the poor peolpe. I think some of this remains in the celebrations that still exist, mainly in the portuguese communities, and mainly within this communities that are originary from Azores.