Ioannis Kapodistrias, a Genuine Child of Orthodoxy

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By Athanasios Karathanasis
Professor Emeritus, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
Professor, University of Nicosia

In recent times, on the occasion of the cinematic film by the acclaimed director Ioannis Smaragdis about the first Governor of Greece, Kapodistrias, many opinions have been expressed regarding his awe-inspiring personality—most of them enthusiastic and even deeply moving.

This is also evident in the warm applause of the audience at the end of the screening.

The massive attendance of our compatriots to watch it resembles a nationwide pilgrimage of honor and gratitude to the memory of this man.

This turnout recalls that Sunday morning of September 27, 1831, when, after the sacrilegious act of the Governor’s assassination, crowds of women and children mourned over his lifeless body.

The women gathered mournfully, as in an ancient tragedy, soaking with cotton the blood spilled on the paving stones of the Church of Saint Spyridon.

For them, the Governor was the fallen dead, the fighter of the Nation and a new martyr.

This act of the women was deeply rooted in their souls through the traditions of our people.

The massive attendance of Greeks in theaters to watch Smaragdis’ film signifies their desire to come to know their first Governor, of whom they remember little from their school years.

And it would be good for students of the first two levels of education to watch it.

What did the Governor bring to the desolate land after the War, to our impoverished, homeless, and starving people, devastated by the fury of the Turks and Ibrahim’s Egyptians, while the occupiers were still scattered here and there in the Peloponnese?

And the borders of the newborn state had not yet been defined and depended on the will of the “Protecting Powers,” chiefly them, and of the “Sublime Porte.”

The Governor struck down anarchy, organized the naval fleet—which until then belonged to the shipowners—made the irregular army regular, with the help of the incorruptible Dimitrios Ypsilantis.

Moreover, drawing on his many years of experience, he organized the administrative authorities, revitalized the traditional communal system—which was wrongly abolished in our times to the detriment of the countryside.

He himself established the judicial system, founded health services to combat infectious diseases, customs offices, port authorities, and postal services.

A lover of education, he introduced the mutual-teaching method into public schools, which had flourished in the schools of Greek Orthodox communities of the Diaspora; he founded secondary schools, an ecclesiastical school, and an orphanage for the suffering children of those who died in the War.

He even made provisions for prayers in schools—being himself a genuine child of Orthodoxy—and entrusted the wise teacher Bartholomew Koutloumousianos with designing the prayer program in the daily school schedule in Aegina.

He did not speak of founding a university, as Greek education was not yet ready.

We owe to the Governor the founding of the National Printing House, the National Museum, and the National Library.

He managed to care for agriculture and rural development, the distribution of national lands after the departure of the Ottoman landlords; he took care of urban planning in the liberated cities (Patras, Messolonghi, Nafplio, etc.) and the construction of sanitation projects.

For economic development, he implemented a fair taxation system, which naturally displeased the powerful local notables.

Great men undoubtedly make mistakes, and so did the Governor, because he believed the world was perfect, as he wished himself to be.

The historian of the Greek Revolution, Spyridon Trikoupis—one of his first collaborators and later his opponent—while recognizing all his virtues, and emphatically so, attributes to him egoism and arrogance toward the fighters, whom he often treated unjustly.

As his friend, the Russian diplomat M. de Faber, rightly wrote, the Governor combined the ancient Greek ideal with his Christian soul.

Among his negatives is counted, as mentioned, his egoism, as he often emphasized what he had done for the Fatherland, at times undervaluing the sacrifices and contributions of others.

He believed that the progress of the Fatherland in those difficult times required a centralized, almost dictatorial administration. Nor were disparaging characterizations of our people absent.

The Governor believed in—and applied—the immediate implementation of new measures, rather than an evolutionary, gradual application.

The invitation of foreign-educated individuals—mostly Corfiots—to staff the administration of the newly founded state provoked fierce reactions from educated fighters who were ignored, as well as from scholars and merchants inspired by the principles of the French Revolution, who saw the Governor sidelining the democratic and liberal provisions of the Constitutions of Epidaurus and Troezen.

He failed to perceive the widespread dissatisfaction caused by the appointment of his brothers, Augustinos and Viaros, to high offices.

Nor was he able to reconcile with the honored fighters of ’21—the Kountouriotis, Mavromichalis, Deligiannis, Zaimis families, and others—nor with scholars such as the Macedonian Anastasios Polyzoidis and the poet Alexandros Soutsos.

This inability to reconcile with his opponents armed the murderous hands of Georgios and Konstantinos Mavromichalis. The powerful Maniots and the Hydra shipowners wanted their autonomy and demanded compensation for what they had contributed to the War.

All of this conflicted with Kapodistrias’ centralized and authoritarian policy.

His sole and steadfast supporter was Theodoros Kolokotronis.

Nor did he succeed in confronting British—primarily—and secondarily French agents who roamed the Peloponnese and the islands, slandering the Governor as pro-Russian through their constant intrigues.

Ultimately, beyond his mistakes, with the assassination of the Governor all that he had laid as foundations with such pain and amid such difficulties was lost.

The Fatherland returned to the chaotic pre-1828 condition, with the three foreign-backed parties, anarchy, and the material and moral plundering of the state and of souls by the “Protecting Powers,” which—save for a few of their representatives—never respected, until recent times, the sacrifices of our people.