Memorial services around Greece mark Day of Nat’l Remembrance of Genocide of Greeks of Asia Minor by Turkish State

Memorial and te deum services were held in several Metropolises and parishes around Greece on Sunday, on the occasion of last week’s annual commemoration of the Day of National Remembrance of the Genocide of the Greeks of Asia Minor by the Turkish State.
The annual commemoration was established in a unanimous vote in Greece’s Parliament in September 1998.

This year’s commemoration coincides with the tragic centennial of the destruction of Smyrna by Kemalist forces, and the eradication of millennia-old Hellenism on the western shores of Asia Minor.

A memorial service was held at the Athens Metropolitan Cathedral on Sunday morning, officiated by the Bishop of Evripou, His Grace Chrysostomos, representing the Archbishop of Athens and All Greece, His Beatitude Ieronymos.

A te deum service followed at the monument of national martyr St. Chrysostomos of Smyrna, along with a procession to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, on Syntagma Square, where wreaths were laid.

Remembrance events in the greater Athens area were jointly organized by the Federation of Refugee Societies of Greece and the Attica Regional Government.

A Doxology and memorial service, along with the laying of wreaths was held on Sunday at the Cathedral of St. Minas in the Cretan city of Irakleio, officiated by the Archbishop of Crete, His Eminence Evgenios.

The memory of the victims of the Asia Minor Catastrophe was honored with an Archieratical Divine Liturgy and Memorial service in the south-central city of Lamia, officiated by the resident Metropolitan of Fthiotida, His Eminence Symeon.

Similarly, events in honor and memory of the Asia Minor victims and displaced persons were held in the western Greece port city of Patras, and in the southern city of Kalamata, where a procession of the Holy Icon of the Panaghia Eleousa took place through the city’s streets.

The wonder-working icon was brought to Greece by refugees from Smyrna in 1922, and is displayed for veneration by the faithful at the Church of the Ascension of Christ in Kalamata.

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