Plenary session - 24 March 2022
Ladies and gentlemen,
Tomorrow is a double celebration: On the one hand, we celebrate the premonition of the birth of the God-Man and, on the other hand, the premonition of the National Regeneration. The strengthening of the feeling of philhellenism, as a result of the spread of the ideas of enlightenment and the French Revolution, led in 1814 to the founding of the Society of Friends and on 25 March 1821 to the outbreak of the revolution against Ottoman rule. A month after Alexander Ypsilantis' movement in Moldavia, the Old Patron Germanos raised the banner of the revolution in Agia Lavra and blessed the arms. Then, the Greeks shouted a phrase that was to become their national motto: "Freedom or death". "The desire for our freedom fell like rain on all of us", said Theodoros Kolokotronis. A rain of blood that washed the Greek soil from Ottoman barbarism. The numerically few Greeks routed armies and consumed fleets, creating philhellenic currents. The self-sacrifice and philanthropy of the Greeks of Alamana, Messolonghi, Souliou, Psara, Chios outnumbered the numerous Ottoman troops.
After four hundred years of slavery, nine years of struggle and many sacrifices, on February 3, 1830, with the signing of the Protocol of London, the vision of the creation of an independent Greek state took flesh and bones from the flesh and bones of the Greeks. To this day, the revolution of 1821 exudes national pride and inspires oppressed peoples to fight for their freedom. Cyprus made its own significant contribution to the struggle, contributing both in human and inanimate material, paying a heavy price with the hanging of Archbishop Kyprianos on 9 July 1821 and other clergymen, the massacres of many guards and dignitaries, confiscation of property and looting.
Alexandros Ypsilantis' timeless message "Fight for faith and country" is a reminder of our unpaid debt to those who gave their lives for freedom, as the wounds of the Turkish invasion are still open. At the same time, we understand the plight of the Ukrainian people, fighting an unequal battle with the Russian war machine. It is the wish of all of us that international and European law will prevail over the law of the strongest.
Eternal memory!
(IK)
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