What drives a person to dedicate an entire lifetime to the arts—even when he never planned to become an artist himself? In this captivating episode, Christian Kirsch, now 81, takes us on an unexpected journey through the formative moments that ultimately led to the rebirth of the Delphic Games in modern times. His story begins in a metal-arts classroom where young students had to craft their own hammers before they were allowed to work on their first piece. “If you don’t know where you come from, you can’t develop your full capacity,” his professors insisted. That philosophy remained with him forever.
From there, Kirsch recounts how life kept steering him toward culture: first as a soldier in the German Air Force, and at that time, he prepared for the entrance exam to a major drama school in Munich and was one of the 10 selected out of more than 100 applicants. Even though, he couldn’t start because he didn’t had the financial resources. On his question what to do meanwhile he got the advice to learn singing, fencing, and finally the backstage world of opera. As he supported singers, dancers, and painters, he learned to listen deeply, observe precisely, and recognize talent where others overlooked it. Yet he also began to question why so many world-class artists he encountered were not from Europe. His search for answers led him back into history—toward a Europe whose artistic elite had been scattered by war, and toward a calling to rebuild a cultural foundation that had been lost.
The turning point came when Kirsch explored the idea of founding an international arts competition. Experts laughed. “Art cannot be ranked,” they said. But Kirsch’s curiosity refused to settle. A letter from the Olympic Committee—warning him not to use the word Olympic—unexpectedly opened a new path. A renowned philologist of the Ludwig Maximilian University introduced him to his special subject, something Kirsch had never heard of the ancient Pythian Delphic Games for the arts, the thousand-year artistic counterpart to the Olympics.
What followed were two sleepless nights and a complete transformation of his concept. The modern Delphic Games were born—rooted not in rivalry, but in the ancient Greek principles of dialogue, shared learning, and peace. The deeper Kirsch dived into Greek history, the more he realized how these ideas continued to shape Europe and the world today. Destiny soon took him to Greece itself. There, surrounded by cultural icons such as Melina Mercouri, Mikis Theodorakis, and Stavros Xarchakos, Kirsch absorbed the spirit, language, and artistic heritage of the country that had unknowingly prepared the ground for his mission centuries earlier. Greece became more than a place—it became a key to understanding how culture binds civilizations together. This episode is not just a personal story. It is an exploration of how art, history, and human relationships can bring people together across borders and generations. Kirsch reveals why the Delphic idea matters today more than ever, and how ancient wisdom can inspire modern cultural renewal.
If you want to understand the origins of the modern Delphic Games, how they connect to global peacebuilding, and how one man’s curiosity became a lifelong cultural mission, this conversation is a must-watch.