When the Metropolitan of Kastoria, Germanos Karavangelis, met Pavlos Melastranslated

Stelios Koukos

Anniversary of the Macedonian Struggle today, therefore also the memory of Pavlos Melas, who breathed his last in Macedonia on October 13, 1904.

He was young, only 34 years old...

The German Karavangelis was the same age when he first came to Macedonia in 1900 as metropolitan of Kastoria.

He was a highly educated young man, educated in Germany, who could have excelled as a professor in Halki or even remained a bishop in Peran of Constantinople.

However, at those times when Bulgarian terrorism prevailed in Macedonia and Greek blood flowed, as a Roman cleric he had to do his duty and save the flock entrusted to him by the Ecumenical Patriarchate.

He could not wash his hands and let the Macedonian population - first of all the Orthodox priests and the Greek teachers - be slaughtered.

Especially when the Greek government after the defeat of 1897 could not do anything.

Thus, the young metropolitan of Kastoria Germanos became the archangel of the region and harbinger of the Struggle. His particularly dynamic actions in many and varied fields overcame the strait…