National Oratorical Festival winner: ‘I’m here to spread God’s word, and that’s all that matters’

The St. John Chrysostom Oratorical Festival, a national speech competition for middle and high school student run by the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America’s Department of Religious Education (DRE), distinctly equips youth for this shift. It provides space for young Orthodox Christians to engage with their faith in a uniquely academic context.

Within the festival, students aged 12-18 prepare and present short speeches on a topic of their choice provided by the Archdiocese in competition against peers at parish, regional, metropolis, and national levels. Participants spend months researching, writing, and rehearsing their speeches, with the Festival beginning around February and continuing as late as June each year.

Andrew Taxiarchos, a rising high school senior and parishioner at Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church in Cranston, Rhode Island, is this year’s national winner of the Oratorical Festival’s senior division.

Andrew began competing in the Oratorical Festival as a seventh grader and has participated every year since. In 2025, as a junior in high school, he received an honorable mention at the national level, and, in 2026, won first place. His speech this year…