Mark Athanasios Constantine Karras was born in 1927 in Miami, FL. His parents together with his two siblings went to live in Greece where they experienced the Nazi and Fascist war and occupation of WWII. On their return to the USA, he was drafted into the US Armed Forces serving in Japan and in Germany, receiving honorable WWII and Korean War discharges. He studied at Columbia, University, NYC and at the University of Miami, FL and earned a Bachelor of Business Administration degree. His subsequent marriage was followed by a residence in Chile with his family and a vested involvement in the ranching business. Their return to the USA included his earning of a Master's degree in Economics from the University of Miami: his thesis was based on original source material and titled, “Chilean Technical Education and United States Aid Policy” This was followed by a business venture for the manufacture of a soil stabilizing material for road and runway construction. Apart from his secular activities, his Christian devotion—both his grandfathers in Greece being eminent Orthodox priests—resulted in his consecration to the Eastern Orthodox Episcopate. His religious work was misrepresented by the author, publishers, and film-makers of the book and film known as "The Exorcist," against whom he brought legal action. He advocated and continues his spiritual/ecclesiastical mission as the Universal Faith; and following his earlier academic work, he earned a Doctor of Philosophy degree from Trinity Seminary, Newburgh, IN, accredited by the University of Liverpool, UK. He is appointed to the Supreme Prelacy of the Byzantine Order of Saint Constantine the Great and the Order of Saint Helen. He authored the books, "Christ Unto Byzantium" and "Seven Gates to Freedom: Awareness and Consciousness." The latter book explains the “Theory of EXPANCTION” referenced in the Website WWW.NEW-BYZANTIUM.ORG/7g.htm that he administers. His doctoral dissertation is titled: "Leadership Style of Constantine the Great: Significance for Leadership Development in the Church" (Re: ProQuest, Catalog No. 3114803, www.il.proquest.com; and Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, DC, www.doaks.org). His marriage, now over sixty years, has given the blessing of a daughter and two sons as well as three grandchildren. The Byzantine House Lascaris Comnenus of Constantinople has anointed him with the Byzantine nobility titles of the County of Ayla and of the Grand Duchy of Hesperia with inheritable rights in both.

 

 

 

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Expansion of Western Civilization: from Constantine the Great to Constantinople and Byzantium and onward to America

NEW BYZANTIUM is The AMERICAS
 We are sincerely pleased you have come to visit our Site and we extend to you our warmest greeting in the highest tradition of BYZANTIUM.  Our Principal goal is to impart to you heretofore intentionally little known facts about BYZANTIUM as the foundation of Western Civilization.  We will avoid knowingly withholding the truth as an aim to social disorientation.  Practice of historical deception must cease.  We hope that you will enjoy our contribution to the fullest.  Welcome.
Constantine the Great began his eventful climb in York, England and reached the apex of his achievement in Constantinople, the City that he founded and named after himself (Constantine+Polis [city]=Constantinople).  By means of these pages, our readers travel through time, touching upon the early periods, including that of Constantine, of historical Constantinople, and of Hagia Sophia—the nexus of the Christian world—to arrive at places and events of our present day.  Our readers reach the outermost limit to which both Eastern and Western Christian groups expanded, bringing forth the flower of Western Civilization.  That limit is the Western Hemisphere as a whole, and in particular the coast of California near San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge where the two groups converged  as they approached from the North and from the South.