Kallithea, Limnos

Kallithea is a village of Limnos Administratively it belongs to the Municipality of Limnos 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 Nea Koutali. It used to belong to the prefecture of Lesvos.

It is located in the center of the island and the original name of the village was Sarpi.

Location - Name

Kallithea is built amphitheatrically on the slope of a low hill at a distance of about 800 meters from the bay of Moudros. The location provides panoramic views of both the bay and to the north as far as Samothrace and Imbros. Due to this location, in 1955 it was renamed "Kallithea", since the previous name was considered Turkish.

However, Sharpin has been mentioned in a census document of the monastery of Megisti Lavra since 1361. Therefore, the place name cannot be of Turkish origin. On the contrary, it has ancient origins and is perhaps one of the few Mycenaean place names that survived in Lemnos! Specifically, Mycenaean inscriptions mention the word "sa-pi-de: box", from which the ancient words "sarpis (the)" and "sarpos (the): ark" and consequently: "wooden house" came. The word survives in the Pontic idiom as "sarpin (the): agricultural storehouse" and as a compound in the word "sarpokoilis: the one who has a big belly like the sarpi".

Therefore, the old name of the village, which in the community documents of the 19th century is sometimes marked with the popular type Sarpi and sometimes with the words form Sarpion, was literally a place-name fossil of unique value, which without much thought was uprooted in 1955.

In the past, the village was built further east, in the bay "Agios Georgios", but the residents were forced to relocate due to the pirate dangers on the one hand and the swampy ground on the other. It is unknown at this time what he will do after leaving the post. In 1739 Pococke mentions that Sarpi was a large village on the west coast of the Gulf of Moudros and was also marked in 1785 on the map of the French traveler Choiseul-Gouffier.

19th century

From the community records we know that in 1854 a settlement was established with a priest named Apostolos. In 1856 he had 66 enlisted men, who paid 1,058 groschen to avoid enlistment. In 1858 it was visited by the German archaeologist Conze, who notes it on his map as Sarpi. The village was inhabited by 50 families in 1863 and 55 in 1874. In the same year there were 63 houses and it belonged to the town hall (koli) Kondia.

Most of the Sarpins were Kechagians on nearby farms: Ottoman, Greek or monastic. The villagers sent a representative to the Pallimnia provincial assembly.

Because it was located approximately in the center of the island, it has been the seat of the community doctor since 1874 "for the safety of the affected people, who can hardly go down to Chora ...", as typically mentioned in a community decision.

The Palaeological School

In 1868 the Sarpi School of Palaeology operated in the village, the first mutual school on the island outside the capital, sponsored by the Duke of Paleologos (1790-1870), a descendant of a family of captains from Sarpi who maintained an insurance company in England.

In addition to the school, the founder built a home for the teacher, cells for the accommodation of students from other villages, kitchens and an oven. For the maintenance of the school he had deposited an amount of 1500 pounds, from the interest of which the teacher's salary was also paid. The dividend was sent every year to the school's tax office by his son Ioannis from Manchester.

In 1873 there were 60 students in the School and 10 students and in 1890 200 children! The teacher's annual salary was 7,000 groschen and was equal to the salaries of the teachers of the island's capital, Castle!

In 1896, when the transfer from London stopped coming, because the company of Paleologos had financial difficulties, the financing of the school was undertaken by Garofallos Theodosiou, with 24 twenty-francs per year for three years (1896-99). Theodosius was a cotton merchant in Egypt. But his good fortune did not bring him luck. In 1904 his cotton mill burned down and he went bankrupt. A few days later he died of grief. From 1900 the school became a community and was funded by the Greek community.

The village school was taught by teachers: Papa-Aggelis Michelis, Theodosios Georgiadis (1899-1905), Stavros Hasapis (1905-10), Georgios Symeon (1916-27), Athanasios Papachristou (1927-35), Leonidas Veliaroutis ( 1938-47), Spyros Moustakas (1942-45), Dimitrios Amditis (1952-71), Anastasios Doukakaros (1976-80), Paraskevas Vagios (1987-90) etc.

The Church

In 1868 the church of Agios Georgios was built from the ground up "with the help of the pious inhabitants". It is of basilica style and inside it the capes stand out in the women's room, the hagiographies of Pavlos Thomas (1870), Efstratios Irmos and Grigorios Papamalis (1918-23).
Chapels

There are picturesque chapels around the village. The most important of these are:

Agia Fotida The feast of the saint is on August 1 every year. The chapel lies on the provincial road of Kallithea Koutalis (island of the island
Agios Charalambos (If you look up from the courtyard of Agios Charalambos you will see the small church of Agia Fotida on the opposite mountain)
Saint Anthony
Saint George. At the location of Agios Georgios was the original location of the village.

Modern Times

In 1918, Sarpi became a separate community. In the interwar years it experienced little growth. In 1928 it had 381 inhabitants who were mainly engaged in agriculture, animal husbandry and fishing. Trees were planted, ornamental and fruit trees.

In the years 1927-29 the school was converted into a two-seater and an additional room was built for it with the help of an inheritance of Alexandros Ioannidis (1866-1919), a noble landowner from the Castle who bequeathed the house and land he owned in Sarpi for the benefit of the school. . It then operated as a car until 1990 when it closed. Since 2001, a two-seat "School of Special Education" and a corresponding single-seat kindergarten have been operating in the school building.

After the war, the population of the village shrank due to internal and external migration and out of 399 inhabitants in 1951, only 218 were registered in 2001. The small youth of the village is active in the Cultural Association "Ag. George ", who recently published the book by L. Veliaroutis:" Kallithea (Sarpi) of Limnos and its Paleological School ".

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.
L. Veliarouti, "Kallithea (Sarpi) of Lemnos and its Palaeological School", 2007.
"LIMNOS: Historical & Cultural Heritage", published by G. Konstantellis, 2010.

See also: Limnos, island

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