Andros Island

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From Rafina:

With Fast Ferries, 3 times a day everyday (2 hours)

With Golden Star Ferries, 12 times a week (1 hour and 55 minutes)

The island is commonly believed to have been named after General Andros, as a reward for his services to the Cretan King Radamanthys.

But it also appeared under other names, such as Hydroussa, Lassia and Gavros.

Source: Municipality of Hydroussa booklet Andros 2015

• ANCIENT TIMES

During the Final Neolithic (over 5,000 years ago), Andros had a fortified village on its west coast, which archaeologists have named Strofilias, after the plateau on which it was built. Strofilas was related to the "Attiki-Kephala" culture, and predates the Cycladic culture of the Bronze Age. It was an important maritime center and one of the earliest examples of fortification in Greece. It is notable for rock carvings on its walls, which include animals such as jackals, goats, deer, fish and dolphins, as well as a depiction of a flotilla of ships.

The island in ancient times contained an Ionian population, perhaps with an admixture of Thracian ancestry.

Though originally dependent on Eretria, by the 7th century BC it had become sufficiently prosperous to send out several colonies, to Chalcidice (Acanthus, Stageira, Argilus, Sane). The ruins of Palaeopolis, the ancient capital, are on the west coast; the town possessed a famous temple, dedicated to Dionysus.

In 480 BC, it supplied ships to Xerxes and was subsequently harried by the Greek fleet. Though enrolled in the Delian League it remained disaffected towards Athens, and in 477 had to be coerced by the establishment of a cleruchy on the island; nevertheless, in 411 Andros proclaimed its freedom, and in 408 withstood an Athenian attack. As a member of the second Delian League it was again controlled by a garrison and an archon.

In the Hellenistic period, Andros was contended for as a frontier-post by the two naval powers of the Aegean Sea, Macedon and Ptolemaic Egypt. In 333, it received a Macedonian garrison from Antipater; in 308 it was freed by Ptolemy I of Egypt.

In the Chremonidean War (266-263) it passed again to Macedon after a battle fought off its shores. In 200, it was captured by a combined Roman, Pergamene and Rhodian fleet, and remained a possession of the Kingdom of Pergamon until the dissolution of that kingdom in 133 BC.

• VENETIAN - TURKISH RULE & GREEK WAR OF REVOLUTION

Before falling under Turkish rule, Andros was governed by the families Zeno and Sommaripa under Venetian protection from 1207 till 1566. Subsequently, the island again came under direct Ottoman rule.

On May 10, 1821, Theophilos Kairis, one of the leading intellectuals of the Greek Revolution, declared the War of Independence by raising the Greek flag at the picturesque cliffside church of St George: at this time, a famous heartfelt speech, inspired shipowners and merchants to contribute funds to build a Greek Navy to combat the Ottomans.

Source: wikipedia.org

• THEOFILOS KAIRIS (1784 - 1853)
  

Theophilos Kairis (19 October 1784 – 13 January 1853) was a Greek priest, philosopher and revolutionary.

He was born in Andros, Cyclades, Ottoman Greece, as a son of a distinguished family.

Starting from 1811 he led Greek language high schools in Asia Minor. Eventually, he took an active part (1819–1826) in the Greek War of Independence and is now considered as an important figure in the History of Modern Greece.

On May 10, 1821, Theophilos Kairis, one of the leading intellectuals of the Greek Revolution, declared the War of Independence by raising the Greek flag at the picturesque cliffside church of St George on the island of Andros: at this time, a famous heartfelt speech, or "rhetoras", inspired shipowners and merchants to contribute funds and contribute ships to build a Greek Navy to combat the Ottoman Empire.

There are many factors that influence the beginning of the Greek War of Independence. Furthermore, philosophy and science from Western Europe began to penetrate the culture of Greece at the same time of the establishment of the Philiki Etairia, which was composed of intellectuals and merchants.

The views of the Age of Enlightenment in European countries are in general well researched, while the attempts to introduce the Enlightenment to countries in the periphery of Europe, such as Greece, is not documented to the same degree.

Many unanswered questions remain from this historical period, and surround the philosophic work of Theophilos Kairis. How did the scientific revolution migrate to the Greek-speaking regions occupied by the Ottoman Empire? How did the Greeks accept the truly revolutionary ideas of the French Revolution and liberalism? What were the reactions of the conservative Greek Orthodox Church and who sacrificed their lives in the cause of their ideas?

Many of the orphans from the Greek War of Independence, especially from the massacre from the island of Psara would form the body of the Orphanotropheio, in which Kairis taught many of the ideas learned from Philhellenes from all over Europe. Hence, this was the first true European university of Greece.

Though he was an ordained priest, Kairis fought in the War of Independence and was severely wounded in one battle. Towards the end of the war, he was selected to draft the verbiage for Greece's Constitution. But when the European Great powers of the time installed Otto von Wittelsbach as a kind of Viceroy of the Powers he was not ready to integrate himself into the new system.

King Otto offered him the position of Director of the University of Athens and awarded him the Gold Cross (equivalent to the Medal of Honor) for his contribution to the war, but Kairis turned both of these down. Instead, he continued to teach radical ideas of the Enlightenment which brought him into conflict with the King and with the Eastern Orthodox Church.

Kairis became a victim of the Eastern Orthodox Church's equivalent of the Holy Inquisition. Kairis suffered a tragic end reserved by fate for those who, being pioneers, tried to introduce to Greece the liberal ideas of Western Europe and the Enlightenment. The philosopher priest, Theophilos Kairis, following his conviction by the Holy Synod in 1839, was confined to the monastery in political exile on the island of Skiathos. He had been located to Syros for trial and execution but died in 1853, 10 days before his judicial hearing, of natural causes.

Source: wikipedia.org