Fisini, Limnos

Fisini is a village of Lemnos. Administratively it belongs to the Municipality of Lemnos of the North Aegean Region (Kallikratis program).

From 1999 to 2010, according to the then administrative division of Greece, it was the seat of the homonymous municipal district of the Municipality of Moudros. It used to belong to the prefecture of Lesvos.

History

The village is mentioned for the first time in 1321 as a patriarchal estate in a document of the patriarch Ioannis IGD:

"... the passages of Vissinos, Skandalis and the rest about Agia Melitini."

Apparently, it was the property of a Byzantine official, Vissinos, from whose name the present name came. Tourists usually ignore Fisini. They report either the nearby fort and the port of Skala or the settlements of Tilo and Cogito, all on the east coast of Lemnos. However, logically the village existed, as it has survived as a name since the 14th century - as well as the other two Villages of Skala, as it was called until the 19th century: Skandali and Agia Sofia.

Skala was located in the area that is now called Pyrgos. There are the ruins of a medieval castle of about three acres with an outer wall. Next to Skala was the settlement of Goudila, three kilometers north of today's village. A document of the monastery of Meg. Lavra states that in 1355 the monastery of Panagia Sergouniotissa maintained properties in Goudila. Piacenza (1680-85) and Vincenzo Coronelli (1696) note him as Tilo. It has not been reported since.

According to local tradition, its inhabitants moved to Fisini to escape the pirates. Most likely, this happened at the same time as the abandonment of the nearby Skala fortress - which until then offered protection from piracy - during the 18th century and before 1785. A similar movement of residents to a safer position at the end of the 18th century is reported in neighboring Agia Sophia. Ruins of houses, wells, cemeteries and windmills can be seen to this day.
Name

In the local idiom and in community documents of the 19th century the village is referred to as Visin (in 1856), Fisin or Inin (the), and its inhabitants with anagrammatism: Sfnades (the). Thus, the feminine type prevailed: Fisini (the) which was rendered in the verb phyto with a paretymology, because in the area "f'sa, sfniz ': siphons, raises siphons (cyclones)", something that led some to adopt the wrong type: Physini (the). On the maps of Conze (1858) and Fredrich (1904) it is marked as Psin. Conze visited it and searched his church for antiquities but did not provide details.

Saint Sozon
Saint Sozon with the renovated cells

On the east coast of the island, south of Skala, there is a fortified settlement with the strange name Cogito, first in 1572 by Porcacchi and then by others in 1680-95. Porcacchi reports that he is heading to the garb near a cape and that he has a miserable castle. Also, that his information comes from an older anonymous manuscript.

The place is also noted by Choiseul-Gouffier in 1785, both in his very accurate map and in his text. This is Saint Sozondas, whose name was not recorded correctly, which is not at all strange. With the right name: Hag. Sosos, noted only in 1903 by Fredrich. Therefore, the church of Agios Sozontas existed at least from the beginning of the 16th century in SE Lemnos. Also, that in this place there was a small fortress, already ruined in 1572.

The sailors of Lemnos considered Agios Sozos a savior, because he once saved the shipwrecked people by turning his cape into a boat, so at the end of the 19th century it was established that he was honored as the patron saint of Lemnos. His feast day, September 7, was three days long and the pilgrims spent the night in specially built cells, which are preserved restored.
Ottoman period

We have several references to Fisini in 19th century community documents. In 1854 the priest of the village was named Constantine and the annual contribution of the village to the metropolitan was set at 640 eggs, 30 cheeses and 60 pounds. In 1856, 109 men aged 18-60 paid a tax of 3,488 groschen to escape conscription. In 1863 there were 52 families, as many as in 1874, a sample of population stagnation. In the same year there were 72 houses. By the end of the 19th century, the community had issued coins for small trades with the "Ψ" stamp, ie Yin (F'sin). The people of Phisin sent a representative to the Pallimni provincial assembly.
The temple

The church of the village, Agios Ioannis is not known when it was built, but it is of similar architecture to others of the 19th century. Its stone bell tower was built by Fisi-sentis stone Konstantis Ataliotis. It was a three-story building, but after the 1968 earthquake it was considered dangerous and one floor was removed with great difficulty, because the stone was jointed with a pencil.

It is not excluded that the church is a continuation of the monastery of Agios Ioannis Vaptistis that existed in the area of ​​Skala and has been mentioned since 1362. It is characteristic that the pronaos is based on two dissimilar marble columns, one of which has a marble capital with ornate carving while the another stone, also carved, with an obvious attempt by the stonemason to imitate the design of the marble. Obviously, the marble members come from an older construction, most likely the area of ​​Skala.
Craftsmen

In addition to gems and stone carvings, Fisini has been a tradition for potters since the time the village was located in Goudla. The goulash oils were famous. Gaitaneris and Tzivakis, who settled in Roussopouli, are mentioned. Also, the village produced famous mill owners - that is, windmill builders - with Manolis Georgalas or Manolaros being older. As a raw material they used the soft gray-yellow porolith that abounds in the area.

Because he was known to his craftsmen, in 1938-39 George the Great, an envoy of the Academy of Athens, visited the village to study the popular construction of Lemnos.
The school

Until 1903, the young people of the village attended the community school of Skandalis, and some were not very diligent, such as the later priest and teacher Andreas Andreadis (1875-?). In 1904, on the initiative of the priest Vassilios Kalathas, an unofficial school was founded with 17 students in the house of Emmanuel Kokkinaras, who subsidized its operation until 1907 when it became community.

Emmanuel Kokkinaras, a child of Fisini who became rich in Egypt, founded the Kokkinareion Girl's School in Ibrahimia and is considered a great benefactor of the Greek community there.

The school building was built in 1909 and later expanded with the help of Finnish immigrants. It operated until the 1980s and 1990s.
Newer period

From 1918, Fisini became a community together with Hagia Sophia. In the interwar years it had 100 houses and about 400 inhabitants. After the war, it suffered a dramatic population decline: out of 547 inhabitants in 1951, only 84 were recorded in 2001. In Athens, there is an active Association of Fisinians.

Sights

The church of Ag. Ioannou with the stone carved bell tower.
Saint Sozon.
The fort of Skala.

Bibliography

Tourptsoglou-Stefanidou Vassiliki, "Travel and geographical texts for the island of Lemnos (15th-20th century)", Thessaloniki 1986.
Cdrom District of Lemnos: "Lemnos Beloved".
Th. Belitsou, Lemnos and its villages, 1994.
"LIMNOS: Historical & Cultural Heritage", published by G. Konstantellis, 2010.

Municipal unit Moudros
Municipal Community Moudros
Κουκονήσιο, το (νησίς)
Moudros (Μούδρος, ο)
Community Kalliopi
Kalliopi (Καλλιόπη, η)
Community Kaminia
Voroskopos (Βοροσκόπος, ο)
Kaminia (Καμίνια, τα)
Community Kontopouli
Agios Alexandros (Άγιος Αλέξανδρος, ο)
Agios Theodoros (Άγιος Θεόδωρος, ο)
Kontopouli (Κοντοπούλιον, το)
Community Lychna
Anemoessa (Ανεμόεσσα, η)
Lychna (Λύχνα, τα)
Community Panagia
Kortisonas (Κορτισώνας, ο)
Panagia (Παναγία, η)
Community Plaka
Plaka (Πλάκα, η)
Community Repanidi
Kotsinas (Κότσινας, ο)
Repanidi (Ρεπανίδιον, το)
Community Roussopouli
Roussopouli (Ρουσσοπούλιον, το)
Community Romano
Romano (Ρωμανόν, το)
Community Skandali
Skandali (Σκανδάλιον, το)
Community Fisini
Agia Sofia (Αγία Σοφία, η)
Fisini (Φισίνη, η)

See also: Limnos, island

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