INAUGURATION OF THE BUST OF THE HERO CHRISTOS G. KONSTANTINIDES (Postdated ritual)

 

INAUGURATION OF THE BUST OF THE HERO

 CHRISTOS G. KONSTANTINIDES (Postdated  ritual)

The retired . Lieutenant General Panagiotos K. Georgakopoulos,

during the Unveiling of the bust of Infantry Major Christos Konstantinides in his birthplace, Sidirokastro-Trifylias on September 28, 2024

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 Christos Konstantinides was born in 1888 here in Sidirokastro. Both his father Georgios and his grandfather Paraskevas, as evidenced by official documents, were judicial ushers here at the Peace Court, which was established in 1857. His ancestors were from Ripesi and took part both before and during the revolution, under the name of Mitrodimei. Worthy Chieftains. -Yiannoula's mother, Tasi Petropoulos, a descendant of the historical family of chieftains (6 brothers) was born in 1868, here in Sidirokastro. -Little Christos attended the Primary and Secondary Schools of Sidirokastro until 1906, when he volunteered to join the Infantry of the Greek Army with the rank of Corporal. He declares and joins the Antarctic Corps to pursue the Turkish and Bulgarian detachments, who were oppressing the Greek populations in Macedonia and Epirus, plundering, kidnapping children and massacring these populations, from Monastir to Pieria and Olympus. -This organization of the Antarctic Corps was carried out by Ion Dragoumis, along with the other founders of these committees, Kallergis, Lambros Koromilas, Kalapothakis and other Patriots. The secret movement and assistance of these armed bodies were undertaken by the then active Hierarchs, such as Germanos Karavangelis of Kastoria, Chrysostomos of Drama, Photios of Polyani, Theodoritos of Nevrokopiou, Emilianos of Grevena, the later Ethnomartyr Metropolitan Chrysostomos of Smyrna and others. Many of them sealed the Greekness of Macedonia with martyrdom. -The leaders of these guerrilla units were young Army and Gendarmerie officers, such as Pavlos Melas, Telos Agras, Vlachakis, Petropoulakis, Georgios Katekhakis, Pavlos Gyparis and others, as well as the Gendarmerie officers Spyro-Milios, Nikolaos Troupakis, Vasilios Daskalakis, Elias Chrysospathis and others. -Army and Gendarmerie officers were appointed as commanders, leading a force of 10-20 men each and an unknown number of volunteers. -They operated only during the night, while during the day they remained in inaccessible hiding places. Of the leaders of these 75 Antarctic Corps, unfortunately only 25 survived. The majority of them were from Ancient Greece and mainly from Crete. -The young Christos Konstantinidis secretly enters the Macedonian front, under the orders of Pavlos Gyparis. In the area of ​​Veve and Ieropigi, Florina, in a night cycloid operation, 4 chieftains, including Corporal Konstantinidis, defeat and kill a detachment of Komitatzes and release 120 Macedonian hostages, of whom 40 were girls, teachers, priests and elites. -The Gyparis Corps is decimated. It is reduced to the Makris, Bellos and Papaloukas Corps. They attack at night and simultaneously against the Bulgarian komitatjis, in the Antarctic, Prespes and Agios Germanos, killing 30 and withdrawing to the forested area there. -The morale of the inhabitants of these areas is restored. -In 1908, with the revolution of the Neo-Turks, the Antarctic Corps is withdrawn. -The sacred soil of the Macedonian land, was later to be defended again with bravery, blood and self-sacrifice by the young Christos Konstantinidis. -In 1909, a Revolution broke out in Goudi under the Artillery Colonel Nikolaos Zorbas, which has as a known result the call to the Greek Political Affairs of Eleftherios Venizelos. -In this movement, Infantry Sergeant Christos Konstantinidis also participated, along with the Lieutenants at the time, Pangalos, Othonaios, Kondylis, Paraskevopoulos, Gyparis, etc. -In 1912, he participated in the capture of the straits of Sarantaporos, Deskati, etc. and his company entered first, as a vanguard in Ioannina, following the late Major of the Evzonikos Belissarios. 2 -He was promoted again, for bravery, to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. At this point, Maria Liakaki, Doctor of History at the University of Athens, reads the Municipal Song, sung by Michalis Kaloulis (Manolopoulos), the conqueror of Bizani: The Turks entered, they entered the Bizani gate and the drums were beaten, three columns were formed. One beats Metsovo and the other Bizani and the third (the Evzonikos) goes into the city and enters. The Turk Pasha comes out, through the Gianni gate, and rests his sword on the feet of the heir -In the battle of Kilkis - Lachana in June 1913, he took part with the Regiment of Colonel Papakyriazis, in the front line of fire. -The few-day battles of Kilkis – Lahanas were the deadliest of the battles of the systadis to date, with 8,885 dead and wounded.  

 Three Regimental Commanders and 14 Battalion Commanders, including Colonel Papakyriazis, fall on the battlefield. -The fight was conducted by lance, and the line of attack and charge was 50 to 100 meters from the Bulgarian lines, on an unpaved field. Merciless slaughter, rivers of blood, cries of pain, cries of triumph, composed a paean of horror and grandeur. -Konstantinides is rescued. He is promoted again, for bravery, to Second Lieutenant of Infantry for his self-sacrifice, even to the point of contempt for death, on the battlefield. -The National Division follows. He joins the Defense Army formed by Eleftherios Venizelos. He participates from the beginning to the end of the struggle on the Macedonian Front, against the Germans, as Company Commander in the battles of Doirani and Skra. In his company, the soldier Themistoklis Arnokouros, from Sidirokastro, is seriously injured and dies. Christos Konstantinidis defends once again with self-sacrifice and heroism the lands of the Macedonian land, with the Cretan Division. 3 -In January 1919, he disembarks with the 34th Infantry Regiment of the Macedonian fighter Colonel Christos Rebelos in Odessa and participates in the operations against the Bolsheviks. -It is known that this campaign failed. It left behind 480 dead and 280 missing. Unspeakable reprisals by the Greek-born population followed. Persecutions, looting, murders. -The Hellenism that had been settling there for centuries was eradicated forever. The French allies did not allow our Army to board the chartered French ships. The heroic Captain Kakoulides, through our warships, gave orders and took a position to engage the French ships in battle, which finally accepted boarding, with the intervention of the English. Well-known names of brave officers who participated, such as Othonaios, Plastiras, Gonatas, Kondylis, Sarafis, Bakirtzis, Grigoriadis and the Artillery Lieutenant, our compatriot Sotirios Kasimis. -The Polemarch Christos Konstantinidis, thunders present, on the battlefields of Asia Minor. -With the independent Division, he fights heroically in the riparian areas of the Sangarios River. -The waters of the river, turn red with blood. He writes a letter to his brother, Panagiotis, then 19 years old, a student, rebuking him: “Only the girls of Athens are hiding now, while the Fatherland is fighting. Here are the men, here is the glory, here is the dishonorable duty. Hurry to volunteer enlistment.” Brother Panagiotis obeys the orders of his fighting brother. He enlists as a volunteer, fights in Usak, is captured, tortured, returns crippled, with his legs amputated. I proudly bear his name, Panagiotis. Our distinguished scientist reads the song again, just as it was sung by Nikolaos G. Alexopoulos and Panagiotis Konstantinidis, fighters of Sangarios and I recorded it in 1963, as a high school student: Sangarios, Sangarios blood-soaked, you have burned our hearts  panathematized. You do not want to throw stones and water, but the blood of Lebanese lads and corpses. 4 -With the collapse of the Front, the unit of Christos Konstantinidis, the independent Division of Colonel Kalogeropoulos, is the last one left, acting as a delaying maneuver, to evacuate the remnants of the Army. The Commander orders the killing of approximately 120 horses, by the men of the Sub-Division Commander of the Gendarmerie Dikaiou. He refuses. When the cruiser “LIMNOS” untied the ropes for departure, he ordered Captain Christos Konstantinidis to line up the remains of his Company and present weapons in a line, on the deck, paying tribute to the fresh graves of the brave fighters. The trumpet does not herald a ceremonial trumpet blast or a rush to battle but a mournful trumpet blast, chilling and full of tragedy. The General with the Officers in line, salute with eyes that ran like a river. It was a breath of death, a death rattle of centuries of life, of the Hellenism of Ionia. Maria Liakaki reads again, the Doxastic Silence: Give the order, Lieutenant, It was evening, in the early part of September, that the Merarchos ordered us all to arm ourselves. In front of him and then those behind,  silent and weeping. motionless at the graves let us look and you take the trumpet, may your trumpeting be mournful. Until the ends of the earth, of the Ionian Sea, may your echo reach, there, in the graves of the young, like a silence of praise to cover everything.  

-This man, the fearless hero Major Christos Konstantinidis, my dear pilgrims, was executed on September 14, 1943 by the German Nazis, by machine gun bursts, here in his village, outside his house, at the foot of the castle. His fault was that he wore the uniform, the one he had been awarded, as a retired Major. It seems that even if he were killed, he would have been a terror to the murderers. They rushed to him, half-dead or dead, and shot him again with a machine gun. -This is proven by the fact that my late mother Marigo, his cousin, found and collected the machine gun shells on and around her murdered cousin. I lovingly keep these chalices in the Historical Museum. 5 -The blood of the hero, which was not shed on so many battlefields, was destined to water the soil of the fatherland, by dishonorable executioners. -There were scenes of madness. Mother Angeliki with the 5 children, near my mother in the outhouse of Litrouviou, here in the village. -The Golgotha ​​of orphanhood follows. With a struggle for life, George, a businessman, Constantine and Athanasios emerge as honored Generals of the Greek Army. Niki and Eleni, educated, with high positions. -In parallel with his military action, Major Christos Konstantinidis is vigilant for the spiritual elevation of the homeland. -Together with his late brother Panagiotis, they publish from 1930 to 1940, the newspaper “AGON TIS TRIFILIAS”, which was the nursery of all the prominent scholars of Trifylia and not only, as well as the Newspaper “PANTRIFYLIAKI”. -With the imposition of the Metaxas dictatorship, Panagiotis Konstantinidis refuses to direct the newspaper, which is taken over by Aristos Stathopoulos. -So a great contribution of the Konstantinidis Family to the Homeland and the Nation. -General Konstantinos, with parchments of studies in Military Academies abroad, serves in high and important services of the Allied and Hellenic Army. He travels all over the world as a member of the NATO Peace Generals Group. He writes dozens of articles and studies and speaks dozens of hours on television and radio networks all over the Planet. He writes dozens of books in the historical and scientific field. -The other General Athanasios, commands large Military Formations in the Greek and Cypriot vital space. -So brave generals, like their father, proudly wear the decorations of the Fatherland on their chests. -My sponsor Panagiotis, a historical writer, left an enviable legacy in Greek literature. His bust adorns the scale of civilization, here in the village. -His wife Stavrini, uprooted from her lost homelands, develops enviable activity in the Patriotic and Social field, here and elsewhere. 6 -With unceasing anxiety she takes care of the education of the poor children of the village. Five poor girls of the village, in the 50s, leave her house in Athens as brides. She takes the lead with works for the sanctuary of our Church. The Panhellenic Federation of Asia Minor Studies declares her Worthy of the Lost Homelands, posthumously and awards her its sacred honors. -The third brother of the Major, the late Paraskevas, a great Engineer, and his indomitable wife Eleni, in the 1950s, took on the responsibility of hosting 5-6 poor boys from the village in their home. They took care of their studies in Technical Schools, where they distinguished themselves. -Today, descendants of this noble family, mainly scientists, adorn and brighten the Greek and international arena. -All of them, in their scientific essays, mention with great pride, as their place of origin, their beloved Sidirokastro. -All the Konstantinidians, those who have so far fallen asleep in blessed memory, as well as their wives and children, were buried in their beloved Sidirokastro. -Their bones, rest in peace on the common grave of the entire family. -May you rest in peace, Warlord Major Christos Konstantinidis. -From today, stay here, motionless and unmoving watchman of the Fatherland. You will mark throughout the ages, valor, bravery, but above all you will demonstrate the debt to the Homeland and the Nation of the Greeks. -We all know that at this sacred moment your soul, here, like a cloud flying around, rejoices in Great Joy. May your Memory be Eternal!!