Theophilos Kairis was a Greek priest and revolutionary. He was born in Andros

Andros

Andros, or Andro is the northernmost island of the Greek Cyclades archipelago, approximately south east of Euboea, and about north of Tinos. It is nearly long, and its greatest breadth is . Its surface is for the most part mountainous, with many fruitful and well-watered valleys. The area is...

, Cyclades

Cyclades

The Cyclades is a Greek island group in the Aegean Sea, south-east of the mainland of Greece; and a former administrative prefecture of Greece. They are one of the island groups which constitute the Aegean archipelago. The name refers to the islands around the sacred island of Delos...

, Ottoman Greece

Ottoman Greece

Most of Greece gradually became part of the Ottoman Empire from the 15th century until its declaration of independence in 1821, a historical period also known as Tourkokratia ....

, as a son of a distinguished family.

Education

Kairis studied in the theological school of Smyrna

Smyrna

Smyrna was an ancient city located at a central and strategic point on the Aegean coast of Anatolia. Thanks to its advantageous port conditions, its ease of defence and its good inland connections, Smyrna rose to prominence. The ancient city is located at two sites within modern İzmir, Turkey...

 and was ordained a Greek Orthodox

Greek Orthodox Church

The Greek Orthodox Church is the body of several churches within the larger communion of Eastern Orthodox Christianity sharing a common cultural tradition whose liturgy is also traditionally conducted in Koine Greek, the original language of the New Testament...

 priest. He spoke many languages ranging from Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...

, Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

, Italian

Italian language

Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...

, French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

, German

German language

German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

, and English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

, that would allow him to participate in organizing the Greek War of Independence

Greek War of Independence

The Greek War of Independence, also known as the Greek Revolution was a successful war of independence waged by the Greek revolutionaries between...

 and to one day build the "Orphanotropheio" (Ὀρφανοτροφεῖο; Greek for "Orphanage

Orphanage

An orphanage is a residential institution devoted to the care of orphans – children whose parents are deceased or otherwise unable or unwilling to care for them...

"), a progressive school that embraced the modern university

University

A university is an institution of higher education and research, which grants academic degrees in a variety of subjects. A university is an organisation that provides both undergraduate education and postgraduate education...

 system. Kairis studied with Benjamin of Lesbos at the school of Kydonies, Asia Minor

Asia Minor

Asia Minor is a geographical location at the westernmost protrusion of Asia, also called Anatolia, and corresponds to the western two thirds of the Asian part of Turkey...

, and was introduced to contemporary science and Greek interpretations of natural science

Natural science

The natural sciences are branches of science that seek to elucidate the rules that govern the natural world by using empirical and scientific methods...

.

Kairis studied in Pisa

Pisa

Pisa is a city in Tuscany, Central Italy, on the right bank of the mouth of the River Arno on the Tyrrhenian Sea. It is the capital city of the Province of Pisa...

 and Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, and shared to the ideas of the Age of Enlightenment

Age of Enlightenment

The Age of Enlightenment was an elite cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe that sought to mobilize the power of reason in order to reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted intellectual interchange and opposed intolerance and abuses in church and state...

. He studied mathematics

Mathematics

Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...

, natural sciences and philosophy

Philosophy

Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...

. Kairis also had an interest in archaeology

Archaeology

Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...

, making some major findings upon his native island of Andros. He also had an interest in botany

Botany

Botany, plant science, or plant biology is a branch of biology that involves the scientific study of plant life. Traditionally, botany also included the study of fungi, algae and viruses...

 and cataloged many of the plants of his local area, as well as documenting pharmacologic properties of various plants.

Revolutionary activities

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

History of modern Greece

The history of modern Greece covers the history of Greece from the recognition of independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1832 after the Greek War of Independence to the present day.- Background :In 1821, the Greeks rose up against the Ottoman Empire...

.

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

Andros

Andros, or Andro is the northernmost island of the Greek Cyclades archipelago, approximately south east of Euboea, and about north of Tinos. It is nearly long, and its greatest breadth is . Its surface is for the most part mountainous, with many fruitful and well-watered valleys. The area is...

: 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

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

.

There are many factors that influence the beginning of the Greek War of Independence. Furthermore, philosophy and science from Western Europe

Western Europe

Western Europe is a loose term for the collection of countries in the western most region of the European continents, though this definition is context-dependent and carries cultural and political connotations. One definition describes Western Europe as a geographic entity—the region lying in the...

 began to penetrate the culture of Greece

Culture of Greece

The culture of Greece has evolved over thousands of years, beginning in Mycenaean Greece, continuing most notably into Classical Greece, through the influence of the Roman Empire and its Greek Eastern successor the Byzantine Empire...

 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

Age of Enlightenment

The Age of Enlightenment was an elite cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe that sought to mobilize the power of reason in order to reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted intellectual interchange and opposed intolerance and abuses in church and state...

 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

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

? How did the Greeks accept the truly revolutionary ideas of the French Revolution

French Revolution

The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...

 and liberalism? What were the reactions of the conservative Greek Orthodox Church

Greek Orthodox Church

The Greek Orthodox Church is the body of several churches within the larger communion of Eastern Orthodox Christianity sharing a common cultural tradition whose liturgy is also traditionally conducted in Koine Greek, the original language of the New Testament...

 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

Psara

Psara is a Greek island in the Aegean Sea. Together with the small uninhabited island of Antipsara it forms the municipality of Psara. It is part of the Chios peripheral unit, which is part of the North Aegean Periphery. The only town of the island and seat of the municipality is also called...

 would form the body of the Orphanotropheio, in which Kairis taught many of the ideas learned from Philhellenes

Philhellenism

Philhellenism was an intellectual fashion prominent at the turn of the 19th century, that led Europeans like Lord Byron or Charles Nicolas Fabvier to advocate for Greek independence from the Ottoman Empire...

 from all over Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

. 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 power

Great power

A great power is a nation or state that has the ability to exert its influence on a global scale. Great powers characteristically possess military and economic strength and diplomatic and cultural influence which may cause small powers to consider the opinions of great powers before taking actions...

s of the time installed Otto von Wittelsbach

Otto of Greece

Otto, Prince of Bavaria, then Othon, King of Greece was made the first modern King of Greece in 1832 under the Convention of London, whereby Greece became a new independent kingdom under the protection of the Great Powers .The second son of the philhellene King Ludwig I of Bavaria, Otto ascended...

 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

Holy Synod

In several of the autocephalous Eastern Orthodox churches and Eastern Catholic Churches, the patriarch or head bishop is elected by a group of bishops called the Holy Synod...

 in 1839, was confined to the monastery in political exile on the island of Skiathos

Skiathos

Skiathos is a small Greek island in the northwest Aegean Sea. Skiathos is the westernmost island in the Northern Sporades group, east of the Pelion peninsula in Magnesia on the mainland, and west of the island of Skopelos.-Geography:...

. He had been located to Syros

Syros

Syros , or Siros or Syra is a Greek island in the Cyclades, in the Aegean Sea. It is located south-east of Athens. The area of the island is . The largest towns are Ermoupoli, Ano Syros, and Vari. Ermoupoli is the capital of the island and the Cyclades...

 for trial and execution but died in 1853, 10 days before his judicial hearing, of natural causes.

Orphanotropheio of Theophilos Kairis

Theophilos Kairis, founded with a few disciples, a pietistic revivalist movement, known as Theosebism, inspired by the French revolutionary cults, radical Protestantism and deism. This movement was anathema

Anathema

Anathema originally meant something lifted up as an offering to the gods; it later evolved to mean:...

tised by the Synod of the Patriarchate of Constantinople.

Beginning with 1826, Kairis dedicated himself to an institute for orphans of the Greek revolution on Andros. The "Orphantropheio", or orphan school, presented Kairis with the opportunity to introduce to the Greek education system a wide range of subjects ranging from comparative religion

Comparative religion

Comparative religion is a field of religious studies that analyzes the similarities and differences of themes, myths, rituals and concepts among the world's religions...

, astrology

Astrology

Astrology consists of a number of belief systems which hold that there is a relationship between astronomical phenomena and events in the human world...

, ship navigation

Navigation

Navigation is the process of monitoring and controlling the movement of a craft or vehicle from one place to another. It is also the term of art used for the specialized knowledge used by navigators to perform navigation tasks...

, agriculture

Agriculture

Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...

, applied mathematics

Applied mathematics

Applied mathematics is a branch of mathematics that concerns itself with mathematical methods that are typically used in science, engineering, business, and industry. Thus, "applied mathematics" is a mathematical science with specialized knowledge...

, accounting, natural science

Natural science

The natural sciences are branches of science that seek to elucidate the rules that govern the natural world by using empirical and scientific methods...

, advanced mathematics, and Theosebism.

Members of the Orphanotripheio represented children from all sides of the Balkan conflict, with individuals from Bulgaria

Bulgaria

Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...

, Muslim

Muslim

A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...

 Turks

Turkish people

Turkish people, also known as the "Turks" , are an ethnic group primarily living in Turkey and in the former lands of the Ottoman Empire where Turkish minorities had been established in Bulgaria, Cyprus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Greece, Kosovo, Macedonia, and Romania...

 displaced by the Revolution, and Catholics

Roman Catholic Church

The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...

 who had inhabited the Greek island since the Middle Ages

Middle Ages

The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...

.

In fact, Kairis had a very different vision for an independent Greece, one that was based upon the concept of separation of church and state

Separation of church and state

The concept of the separation of church and state refers to the distance in the relationship between organized religion and the nation state....

 as proposed by Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom , the third President of the United States and founder of the University of Virginia...

. Kairis advocated for a pan-Balkan

Balkans

The Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...

 state similar to the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, that would a multicultural

Multiculturalism

Multiculturalism is the appreciation, acceptance or promotion of multiple cultures, applied to the demographic make-up of a specific place, usually at the organizational level, e.g...

 state that preserved the cosmopolitan nature of the post-Byzantine Empire

Byzantine Empire

The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...

 era, where all creeds were equally free of tyranny from the oppressive "Ottomans".

This was the prelude of the so-called Eastern Question

Eastern Question

The "Eastern Question", in European history, encompasses the diplomatic and political problems posed by the decay of the Ottoman Empire. The expression does not apply to any one particular problem, but instead includes a variety of issues raised during the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, including...

, the gradual dismemberment of the decaying Ottoman Empire

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

 by the Great powers.

The Kairis Library

The library is housed in a wonderful neoclassical building, in Hora (or Andros Town) and contains about 3,000 tomes from the collection of Theophilos Kairis. In the library are also exposed a large number of rare publications, manuscripts, historical records, works of art and a small archaeological collection. Within the records, extensive letters demonstrating a network of intellectuals would update Kairis about the trends in European science and philosophy.

Also the mathematical treatises of Kairis are present, representing a very active and original intellect, who had written on complex themes, including on mathematical extensions of Pierre-Simon Laplace

Pierre-Simon Laplace

Pierre-Simon, marquis de Laplace was a French mathematician and astronomer whose work was pivotal to the development of mathematical astronomy and statistics. He summarized and extended the work of his predecessors in his five volume Mécanique Céleste...

's Celestial Mechanics. Artifacts that demonstrate Kairis philosophic approach to understanding the energies (energiki ousia phiseos) of nature remain in the library, and highlight Kairis knowledge of Joseph Fourier

Joseph Fourier

Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier was a French mathematician and physicist best known for initiating the investigation of Fourier series and their applications to problems of heat transfer and vibrations. The Fourier transform and Fourier's Law are also named in his honour...

's work on energy

Energy

In physics, energy is an indirectly observed quantity. It is often understood as the ability a physical system has to do work on other physical systems...

. Through various letters and correspondence, Kairis's approach to communicating with the various philhellenes demonstrates a network of intellectuals that were involved with the French revolution

French Revolution

The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...

. Kairis has been referred to as the "new Socrates" and was very active in didactic education. The island of Andros has a series of water fountains, and horizontal windmill

Windmill

A windmill is a machine which converts the energy of wind into rotational energy by means of vanes called sails or blades. Originally windmills were developed for milling grain for food production. In the course of history the windmill was adapted to many other industrial uses. An important...

s constructed at the time the students from the orphanotropio were active on the Island, and represent applications from the Kairiki lessons.

One can find books by Professor Mavromatis in the library, who edited Kairis's mathematical work, focusing on how Kairis use the Newtonian binomial

Binomial theorem

In elementary algebra, the binomial theorem describes the algebraic expansion of powers of a binomial. According to the theorem, it is possible to expand the power n into a sum involving terms of the form axbyc, where the exponents b and c are nonnegative integers with , and the coefficient a of...

 to find the roots of cardinal numbers.

Kairis was in constant communication with western intellectuals from Andros, and had communicated with Auguste Comte

Auguste Comte

Isidore Auguste Marie François Xavier Comte , better known as Auguste Comte , was a French philosopher, a founder of the discipline of sociology and of the doctrine of positivism...

, and wrote on his treatises on sociology

Sociology

Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...

, then a newly emerging subject. Kairis has also incorporated these ideas into the curriculum of the orphanotropheio. Comte's ideas were tremendously influential on Kairis in the later years of the orphanotropheio, especially the idea that social ills can be solved as advocated by Jeremy Bentham

Jeremy Bentham

Jeremy Bentham was an English jurist, philosopher, and legal and social reformer. He became a leading theorist in Anglo-American philosophy of law, and a political radical whose ideas influenced the development of welfarism...

.

Kairis spoke many languages and was interested in teaching philosophy from the ancient Greeks, translating the great poetry and theatre from antiquity, as well as the philosophic treatises of Aristotle and Plato. Furthermore, lessons on the progressive subject of comparative religion

Comparative religion

Comparative religion is a field of religious studies that analyzes the similarities and differences of themes, myths, rituals and concepts among the world's religions...

 was to be invaluable for the would be ship captains and merchants embarked on international trade. Kairis would teach theosphitism, but in the context of world religions, ranging from Buddhism, many describing the philosophical thought of Kairis similar in vein as with the Transcendentalism

Transcendentalism

Transcendentalism is a philosophical movement that developed in the 1830s and 1840s in the New England region of the United States as a protest against the general state of culture and society, and in particular, the state of intellectualism at Harvard University and the doctrine of the Unitarian...

 of Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau was an American author, poet, philosopher, abolitionist, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, historian, and leading transcendentalist...

 and Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson was an American essayist, lecturer, and poet, who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century...

.

Kiaris emphasised poetry as part of the curriculum and taught Lord Byron's work, Robert Browning

Robert Browning

Robert Browning was an English poet and playwright whose mastery of dramatic verse, especially dramatic monologues, made him one of the foremost Victorian poets.-Early years:...

 as well as poetry from the French and German speaking west. This was to create a naturalist and metaphysical aptitude balanced with the natural sciences and mathematics

Mathematics

Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...

.

Unfortunately, the school was disbanded after Kairis was declared a heretic, but many of the orphanotropio would go on into the shipping professions, and were also versed in accounting and probability. Of notable family names who can trace back ancestors who were schooled by Kairis were the Goulandris and Emberikos families. Other students hid in the surrounding mountains, taking with them the banned books from the school, and continued to live with the inhabitants of the island working and building some of the most interesting windmills in Greece.

Indeed, Kairis had also taught his students the early field of Archeology, and conducted field trips on the island to the place he had discovered the ruins of a temple dedicated to Aphrodite prior to the Greek revolution.

To this day, every summer, art exhibitions are organized in the new exhibition area of the library.