On January 9, 1821, the Ecumenical Patriarch Gregory the Fifth and the Holy Synod issued a patriarchal sigillion [sealed deed] stipulating the establishment of the Sinasos seminary. Four years later, in 1825, the first Christian school opened in Sinasos. The Sinasos School for Boys was on the western road of Kapalos. When entering its courtyard, one could see its peristyle, inspired by ancient Greece, and opposite the columns, the large school hall decorated by the painter Kostis Meletiadis. At the end of the yard stood the ‘tower of the grand clock’, erected in 1895 and funded by a donor.
There was also a School for Girls in Sinasos, which was located at Geni Machala, near the Church of the Taxiarchs. Initially, the school’s operation was impeded not only by the financial cost, but also by the common belief that girls did not need an education. Soon, though, these beliefs fell out of favour and the School for Girls continued operating, offering lessons and other educational activities to the girls of Sinasos. The Municipality covered the cost of the educators’ salaries and addressed the needs of both schools.
Extract from an interview with Vasiliki Papadopoulou, president of the ‘Nea Sinasos’ Association.
The handwritten graduation certificate for Athanasios Ch. G. Toperidis from 1898, which is exhibited in the ‘Nea Sinasos’ Association Museum, is only one of the hundreds such certificates issued for Sinasos men and women over the course of almost 100 years during which the schools of Sinasos were operating.
