This is Vassilis' narrative of his visit to Chios and Psara in May 2023:
I had postponed several times an invitation to visit and give a lecture in my home island of Chios and visit Psara but this year I made it a priority to go.
To make it more meaningful, I enriched the initial plan to give a public lecture on common human diseases with several other educational activities directed to graduating lyceum students who will continue to higher education. The revised plan was to visit the high schools of Vrondados and Chios that I had attended in the 1953-1955 period and give motivational speeches to the students based on my life long experience in education. I also had a great admiration for the contribution of Psara in the Greek war of independence and wanted to visit the island and repeat the program I was planning for Chios.
Professor Despina Sanoudou of the medical school of Athens and Manolis Paraschos professor emeritus of the Emerson College of Boston enriched the program with their presentations on career opportunities for the students and the stories of the displaced children of Chios and Psara respectively.
My former student, Dr. Irini Kazana, a cousin from my birth village, who is a staff member of surgery of the University hospital of Heraklion accompanied me in my tour and introduced me in my presentations. During my visit to Chios, I was hosted in the house of Eleftheria Lykopanti and Paraschos Kallitsis.
The visits to the high schools represented a pilgrimage for me, an opportunity to pay back my dues for the early education they provided me. I hoped during my visit to rediscover few of my old classmates and friends and I was fortunate to find two of them.
My message to the students was:
To have a dream
To have a role model that they would like to imitate
To never to give up till they realize their dream
And when they succeed to help others succeed.
The visit to Psara was the highlight of my trip: Our hosts, Konstantinos Marinos, a Psarian former high school teacher in upstate New York who retired in Psara a few years back, and former Psara mayor captain Manolis Agapousis welcomed us with Homeric hospitality.
A fishing trip was arranged for the next morning in the boat of Kostas Dimitrelis, who had cast his nets the night before outside the harbor of Psara. After the presentations in the evening the Mayor of Psara, Kostas Vratsanos, a descendent of freedom fighters, treated me with many gifts including a beautiful small replica statue of the Glory of Psara, that I treasure and then he and his wife Angeliki took us for dinner to a local restaurant.
The next day Agapousis and Marinos took us on tour of the island. Agapousis, a descendent of freedom fighters and a distant relative of George Sarigiannis (Sirian), the legendary gunner of the USS Constitution, is a living encyclopedia of Psara history. He and Marinos narrated step by step the events of the Turkish invasion and the epic resistance of the heroic defenders of the island. Their resistance culminated in the holocaust of Mavri Rahi carried out by Antonis Vratsanos, son of the then president of the assembly (vouli) of Psara.
At the end of this tour we also visited the monastery of Koimisis of Theotokos (Dormition of the Mother of Jesus), the church of St. Nikolaos, the impressive public library that was founded by Agapousis when he was the mayor. Finally we walked the trail that leads to the top of the Mavri Rahi. The day ended with an elaborate dinner in the house of Konstantinos and Maria Marinos.
The weather improved the next day and we were able to travel back to Limnia of Volissos and from there to Kourounia, my birth village located in the north eastern part of Chios facing Psara. There we participated in the local fiesta (πανηγύρι) on May 8. I returned to my sister Maria's house in Lagonisi on May 13 where relatives and neighbors treated me with a farewell party and I left for Boston the following morning.
The trip overall gave me the opportunity to share the experiences as a student and later as an educator with the students of Chios and Psara, renew my bonds with friends and relatives of Chios and obtain first hand information on the heroic struggle of the inhabitant of Psara in an effort to preserve their freedom.
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| Vassilis at the Glory of Psara statue. |
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| A group of friends at the Vrondados meeting. Second from the right is Vassilis' sister Argyro. |
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Two of Vassilis' Vrondados high school classmates: (L) Antonis
Sotirianos and (R) Despoina Vlisiolou-Chouli. |
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Festival Director Eleftheria Lykopanti shows a photo of
Vassilis displayed at the University of Crete Medical School.
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Psara Mayor K. Vratsanos presents Vassilis with
symbolic gifts from the island. |
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Vassilis and Captain Kostas at the fishing trip.
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| "Avlogyros," Kourounia's internet newspaper, covered Vassilis' activities. |
A few days later Dr. Zannis planted
a Hippocrates Tree branch
at UMass Medical School
On May 24, 2023, the Medical School of the University of Massachusetts held a ceremonial planting of a sapling of the plane tree of Hippocrates from Kos, which had been grown by Dr. Zannis for two years.
In a ceremony in the middle of the medical school campus, School Chancellor Michael Collins accepted the tree on behalf of the university and spoke about its history and the honor it represented for the school. There are about ten other campuses in the USA that have the tree.
Welcoming Dr. Zannis and Sabbatoparea member Dr. M. Paraschos, were, among others, Dr. Michael Czech, molecular medicine professor and organizer of the ceremony, and Dr. Silvia Corvera, chair of Diabetes Research at UMass.
After the planting, Maryellen and Chancellor Collins hosted a dinner for Dr. Zannis, Dr. Paraschos and med school faculty at the chancellor's residence.
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Left to right: Prof. Paraschos, Dr. Zannis, Chancellor Collins
and Prof. Czech. |
