This notebook was found in the hands of his sister Parthena, many years after his death, thus becoming known to his children as well. On the first page of the notebook, we read: “This story was found in our great-grandfather's house. This house belonged to our grandmother's father, who was a priest. Back in those days, priests studied in Monasteries. This story was from the monastery archive of Vazelonos in Upper Matschouka, a handwritten copy carefully written like a print, with some pages missing at the end.”
“Eternal Memory.” On the second page of the notebook, from which the SARPOLI narration begins, the author notes the following Gospel and other sayings: “Love one another, said the Lord. Love your enemies, for even evildoers have friends and love them. Forgive them, Father, for they do not know what they do. These words came out of our Lord Jesus Christ’s mouth. Righteousness from Heaven has descended, said the prophet David. Christian Love is the greatest good of the world. This world will have no value without this Love.” And at the end, in quotation marks, he states the title of the book: "THE FIRST INHABITANTS OF CONSTANTINOPLE. The New Rome".
The narrative concerns the period of Christian persecutions in Rome and the rise to the imperial throne of Constantine, after the “IN THIS SIGN CONQUER” and the victorious battle against Maxentius. It describes catacombs, Christian martyrdoms, the life of a general’s family, who, originally a fierce persecutor of Christians, Domitius, converted to Christianity and joined Constantine’s camp.
Additionally, it covers the transfer of the Empire’s seat to the East, to the new city, Constantinople, and the discovery by Constantine’s mother, Helen, of the Holy Cross, along with many passages from the Old and New Testaments. When this text was written is unknown. However, it is known that Stathis Christoforidis, in the 1960s, when agricultural work and other obligations did not occupy him much and he had time, wrote in the Pontic dialect everything imprinted in his childhood memory: legends, jokes, fairy tales, and his own memories.
During this period, it is most likely that he also worked on recording the narration. The text that Stathis Christoforidis, at the age of fifth grade, read and reread and memorized like a fairy tale, was not necessarily written in the modern Greek language but in an understandable simple Katharevousa. This language, after more than fifty years, was not easy to reproduce verbatim. This explains why the narration contains a mixture of Katharevousa and Demotic language in the version he wrote.
In any case, Stathis Christoforidis, with his sixth-grade grammatical knowledge and his writing talent, simply, vividly, and expressively, with coherence and continuity, left us a text that may not claim linguistic purity but engages the reader’s interest and is easy to read. The publication was edited by Konstantinos, the son of the author, who faithfully preserved the phrasing and language of the writer, intervening only in spelling and formatting into paragraphs, dialogues, and others.
He brought the manuscript out of obscurity and took on the entire effort for its publication.
Manufacturer
- Publisher
- Ekdoseis Kyriakidi IKE
- Skroutz Book Awards 2025
- -
- Type
- Narrative
- Theme
- History of Pontus, Historical Archives
- Language
- Greek
- Cover
- Soft
- Number of Pages
- 186
- Release Date
- -
- Publication Date
- 2019
- Dimensions
- 17x24 cm
- ISBN-13
- 9789605992996
Important information
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