Theophrastos Georgiadis ( el, Θεόφραστος Γεωργιάδης, 1885-1973) was a

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

author and teacher. His work about the once prosperous urban center of

Moscopole Moscopole or Voskopoja ( sq, Voskopojë; rup, Moscopole, with several other variants; el, Μοσχόπολις, Moschopolis) is a village in Korçë County in southeastern Albania. During the 18th century, it was the cultural and commercial ...

, today a small mountain village in southeastern

Albania Albania ( ; sq, Shqipëri or ), or , also or . officially the Republic of Albania ( sq, Republika e Shqipërisë), is a country in Southeastern Europe. It is located on the Adriatic and Ionian Seas within the Mediterranean Sea and shares ...

, is considered of great value since it concerns the period before the town's destruction in 1916.

Life

Georgiadis was born in Moscopole, modern

, then part of the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...

. He was a teacher and director in the local Greek school until 1916. When Moscopole was ravaged by irregular bands during

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, and most of its cultural buildings were destroyed, he was compelled to leave.Kirchhainer, 2003: p. 1

Work

In his volume ''Moschopolis'', first published posthumously in 1975 in

Athens Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...

, Georgiadis makes brief descriptions of the 22 churches and chapels of Moscopole, from which only 5 survive today. He includes information such as donors’ inscriptions of each church, the church registers as well as descriptions of the architectural style and the decoration of each building. For instance, about the Church of the Archangels Michael and Gabriel he mentions that it had two chapels dedicated to Saint Spiridon and Saint Nahum, which are in ruins now. In the Church of the Holy Virgin, notes that a scene of the

Apocalypse Apocalypse () is a literary genre in which a supernatural being reveals cosmic mysteries or the future to a human intermediary. The means of mediation include dreams, visions and heavenly journeys, and they typically feature symbolic imager ...

was depicted in the

porch A porch (from Old French ''porche'', from Latin ''porticus'' "colonnade", from ''porta'' "passage") is a room or gallery located in front of an entrance of a building. A porch is placed in front of the facade of a building it commands, and form ...

which is now almost completely destroyed. Georgiadis gave also details about several churches that are completely destroyed, such as Saint Euthimios.Kirchhainer, 2003: p. 16

References

Sources

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Georgiadis, Theophrastos 1885 births 1973 deaths Greek writers People from Moscopole Greeks from the Ottoman Empire Bangas Gymnasium alumni Albanian emigrants to Greece