site.btaEmpress Theophano Prize Aims to Reimagine Europe, Special Olympics Chair Timothy Shriver Says

Hundreds of children and youngsters, including children with disabilities, gathered on the promenade in the Greek city of Thessaloniki on October 24 to participate in a sports event organized by Special Olympics, the world's largest sports movement for people with intellectual disabilities. The aim of the forum was social inclusion of people with intellectual disabilities through sport activities.

Earlier that week, on October 23, the 5th annual Empress Theophano Prize was presented to Special Olympics and its Chairman, Dr. Timothy Shriver, at an official ceremony held in Thessaloniki’s Rotunda. The Empress Theophano Prize is awarded to individuals or organizations who embody European and universal values.

Addressing the ceremony, Stavros Andreadis, Chairman of the Governing Council of the Theophano Foundation, noted that that the main purpose of this non-monetary award is to highlight the values that follow the path of respect in everyone's life, the path towards a better global society in a world of cooperation and mutual understanding.

During the event, Herman Van Rompuy, Chairman of the Advisory Council of the Theophano Foundation, who served as prime minister of Belgium from 2008 to 2009, and then as the first permanent president of the European Council from 2009 to 2014, stressed the role of the Special Olympics movement in including people with intellectual disabilities and creating opportunities for them to develop as full human beings.

Van Rompuy emphasized Thessaloniki’s symbolic location, as the city lies between Mount Olympus and the values of the Olympic movement, and the monasteries of Mount Athos and the traditional values of humanity, solidarity and charity.

"We are right on all fronts in choosing these laureates [Special Olympics and its Chairman Timothy Shriver]. The Theophano Foundation also wanted to show how attached it is to humanity in these times of dehumanization. The attention each athlete receives at Special Olympics is it stark contrast to the lack, the total lack of importance attached to each person in two war zones. And by the way, those wars are going on not so far away from Thessaloniki, both barely around 1,300 kilometres [away]," Van Rompuy added.

"Empress Theophano gave great attention to education and culture during her reign a thousand years ago, also as a means of transcending differences between people and cultures. The city of Thessaloniki itself has not been spared of tragedy and atrocities during its long history. So, this city is all the more sensitive to humanity today. The enthusiasm and the fraternity of Special Olympics’ athletes are the antidote of today’s evils," he further said.

"The classical games are mainly about medals. At Special Olympics, it is really also about values. Of course, there is dedication, training and competition. Rather, there is that overwhelming feeling of togetherness and respect. Every human being counts, whoever they are, whatever their limitations are or their gifts. That is the foundation of our civilization, or [as] it should be. It must be fought for every day, it must not perish from the Earth," he stressed, adding that nothing is more important than the human person. "He or she is just an individual. A human being becomes a person by being connected to others," Van Rompuy emphasized.

"Sport at Special Olympics is a means, not an end in itself. The basis is ethical, not purely commercial. And that too, is an antidote to the commercialization of almost every Special Olympics," the Chairman of the Advisory Council of the Theophano Foundation also said.

Receiving the award, Timothy Shriver said: "We accept this great prize in the name of the Uniter of East and West Theophano, and we accept it as a sign that our athletes have won. They have won victories of their own, their victories over division, and over arrogance, and over despair. But we also accept it with a promise of bravery. Let me win, but if I cannot win, let me be brave in the attempt".

"We commit to joining the Foundation in this noble mission to reimagine Europe. As we gather today, as you all know better than I do, we can hear the echoes of Athens, the awakening of the idea born not far from here. The idea of the citizen, the idea of a person responsible for ethical behaviour. Just a few miles from here, we can hear the echoes of Olympia, the idea of sport as a revelation of human greatness. We can travel across East and West in Europe and remember the contributions of the Orthodox tradition that comes from here. Mount Athos has been mentioned, the great saints who inspired us to search for the power of the soul, and to reveal it, and unleash it, and receive it in great monastic traditions. And we can look all the way to the West and remember the Magna Carta, the birth of the idea that human beings are equal under the law, that there are no rights that the King has that the citizen does not have all of these ethics, excellence, spirit, equality. They are reflections of the great diversity of human gifts and the great gift of human diversity. But whether here, in Thessaloniki or in Athens, or in Istanbul, or in Sofia, or in Berlin, or Rome, or Paris, or Madrid, or Dublin, when the great questions have been asked throughout history, what is the value of a live? What is the importance of the spirit? What is the good in a government? What is a responsible citizen? Every time these questions have been asked people with intellectual disabilities have gotten an empty answer. Whether it is in ancient Greece or in modern Europe, there is, and I am sorry to say, a recognition of all those great movements as just words on the page. The promise up until now has been empty. Our community, some 200 or, maybe, 300 million people on Earth today, their story has been one, I am sorry to say, often broadly defined by cruelty. The denial of the most basic rights and opportunities. We hear it even today – you are a curse, you are hopeless, you do not belong, you do not have value. And the actions that follow those ideas have been equally cruel. Institutionalization, rejection, the loss of chance to go to school, to learn to read, to make friends, to go to a birthday party, all so cruelly denied," Shriver said.

He also told the story about the birth of the movement more than 60 years ago, when it was founded by his mother Eunice Kennedy Shriver. "She invited some 50 children with intellectual disabilities to her home. Her brother, ten, maybe twenty kilometres away, was the President of the United States [John Kennedy]. She chose instead to invite children with intellectual disabilities to come to her house, and she put on a bathing suit and she got in the pool and she taught them to swim. And she invited other mothers to join her. Do not accept the judgement that you are told by others. […] Towards the end of her life, I asked her about those early days and she said: "I just wanted to teach children how to swim. I just wanted to prove they could do it". She was joined by many other brave mothers, those young volunteers, and they took a stand in their actions for human dignity. What they did was actually quite simple. In a continent full of complexity what they did was eminently doable by anyone in this room. They met, they played, they celebrated. That’s it! Imagine yourself now putting on your bathing suit. I know it sounds silly. But putting on your bathing suit and getting in the pool, and reaching out to a child who has never had a chance to swim, and holding her hands, and maybe helping her buoy up, and then getting out of the pool and saying: "You did it today. Well done!". That could be anyone of us waiting for the chance for someone to meet us, to play, to celebrate what happened," Shriver’s story continued.

When the human and his spirit are freed from scorn, watch out – something big can happen, the Special Olympics Chairman underscored.

The Special Olympics movement boasts over 50,000 games this year – in countries and provinces, in villages and towns, in schools, in refugee camps, in neighbourhoods, all over the world, Shriver said, explaining that every single game of those is an invitation for anyone to attend it and have a front row seat for the best in humanity.

"Every country’s early childhood programme should be inclusive of children at the age of two, and three, and four, and five, and six years old, so that they learn to play together and learn not bias but dignity from the earliest of ages," he stressed.

This is called an inclusive mindset, Shriver noted, adding that it benefits not only children with intellectual disabilities but the other children as well, and it results in reduction of bullying and increase in academic achievement. "Why? Because children have their eyes open to the idea that they do not need to be afraid, that their learning matters, that they have a purpose, that they can serve and make a difference. All these benefits are not just humanitarian benefits. The World Bank now argues that countries lose 3 to 7% of GDP when they exclude people with intellectual disabilities," he also pointed out.

"Today, I would say, the world, as Herman [Van Rompuy] has said, can no longer accept the idea that human belonging must be at the expense of someone else. If you look at these two flags [Shriver points to the flags of Greece and the EU], you see here two flags of equal height and perhaps even equal commitment. You may love your country Greece. It does not require that you loathe another nation, that you distain another nation, that you dehumanize another people, that you are against the dignity of someone else. That model can no longer be tolerated. The days of winning one’s own belonging at the expense and the contempt of another must end. […] You have recognized people who change our politics from the bottom up. An in this Prize, you also recognize that the task before us to reimagine Europe is a big job. […] We have our role models and we celebrate the vanguard of a new Europe, and we invite you not just to look to the European Parliament, to the European Union, not just to look to your heads of state, and dear ministers and mayors, not just to look to scholars and celebrities for your model. If you are wondering, in the face of so much loneliness, and so much despair, and so much exhaustion that comes at the hands of dehumanization, if you are wondering who can show us a way out – I offer you the example of the athletes of Special Olympics. […] This is not a charity. This is a movement of healing divides. And who wins when a divide is healed, when fear is broken, when stigma is eliminated, when eyes are opened, everyone wins. We are here to celebrate that our Special Olympics’ athletes are demanding now that we challenge schools all over this country [Greece] and all over Europe to become places where inclusive sport is allowed to teach the importance of inclusion to all children. We are here to say that we demand that healthcare systems change to adapt to the needs of people with intellectual disabilities," Shriver added.

Who was Empress Theophano?

Women played a more important role in Byzantine society and enjoyed more rights than for many centuries in Western Europe. They were better educated than in medieval Western Europe, and often promoted education and the arts, the Theophano Foundation’s says on its website.

One of them, Princess Theophano, a niece of the Emperor Johannes I Tzimiskes, had a great influence on the early beginnings of gender equality in Western Europe, on education, on trade with the Empire and beyond, and on its sanitary (she insisted on regular bathing and dressed in exquisite silks) and culinary habits (she introduced the use of the fork). She thus contributed to laying the foundation of its flourishing culture in the Middle Ages.

In the intermediate years of 867-1056, the Byzantine Empire reached its political and cultural height. Its population and cities expanded, economy and trade flourished, and Byzantine art was at its apogee. The rest of Europe was by far not as developed.

The relationship between the Byzantine Emperor, who saw himself as the successor to the Eastern Roman Empire, and the Orthodox Patriarch of Constantinople, and Western Europe, had been disturbed by the Pope who in 800 also made the King of the Franks, Charlemagne, an Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, seen as successor to the Western Roman Empire.

In order to once again improve the relations between the two post-Roman empires, the Princess Theophano, born in 955, was to be married to the future Emperor Otto II, at the request of his father, the Emperor Otto I, in order to seal a treaty with the Eastern Roman Empire and the Holy Roman Empire.

After the death of Otto I, Theophano became co-ruler with her husband Emperor Otto II and received the title of Imperatrix. She thus inaugurated the practice of wives becoming queen or empress, a hitherto unknown practice among Western European rulers, and the beginning of women’s rise in politics and society. In 983, Otto II suddenly died and Theophano became the first ever empress-regent in Western European history for her infant son, Otto III.

Equally important, Theophano provided her son with a scholarly education in addition to the traditional military training of future Germanic rulers, and sought advice from many of the best scholars of her time, thus strengthening the role of civic advisors to the court. This would be another innovation with significant consequences in later European political history, basing the prestige of its rulers not only on their arms, but also on the arts and culture.

As imperatrix, she had enough influence to encourage trade between the two empires, thus helping to improve early medieval economy in the West. And she took part with her husband in spreading Christianity to north-eastern Europe, becoming the grandmother of the Piast dynasty, the first united kingdom in Polish history.