Ivan Savvidi: “May 19 is a day of memory and sorrow, the day when our thoughts and voices merge into a common prayer, sounding in memory of the victims suffered by Christian peoples as a result of the inhuman policy of the Ottoman Empire”
Dear brothers and sisters, compatriots!
May 19 is a day of memory and sorrow, a day when our thoughts and voices merge into a common prayer, sounding in memory of the victims suffered by Christian peoples as a result of the inhuman policies of the Ottoman Empire.
We pay a debt of memory to our ancestors, innocently killed, unjustly expelled from their native lands. And our memory connects the past and the present, countries and continents with an invisible thread, uniting us, scattered by fate at different ends of the world, into a single whole, into a proud unbroken Pontic people.
Years go by, but we still feel the pain of loss keenly. However, with each subsequent generation of Pontians, hatred and thirst for revenge are replaced by the desire to restore historical justice through creation.
We analyze the causes of the catastrophe, study its consequences, by all means and means try to tell the world about the horror of the crimes committed. So that those who today are ready to unleash new wars and conflicts with ease, realize the scale of the possible tragedy.
I am grateful to everyone and everyone who makes their contribution to our common cause. I am proud of our compatriots around the world who never stopped working, despite the difficulties of the past year.
My special gratitude is to the international scientific community, thanks to which the study of the Pontic tragedy in recent years has reached a fundamentally different level, and, in particular, to the staff of the Department of Pontic Studies of the University. Aristotle, which made it possible for more than 2.5 thousand students to study the history of Pontus.
And I pray to the Lord that we all have the strength and opportunities to continue to fulfill with dignity the historical mission of the Pontic people, the essence of which is to counter any kind of extremism and intolerance.
Dear ones, today we bow our heads in common prayer in memory of the victims of the Asia Minor catastrophe, about our relatives and friends, about everyone who suffered from criminal acts aimed at exterminating individual peoples.
May the Lord rest their souls and strengthen us on the way to fulfill our duty.
Blessed memory of the innocent murdered!
With a low bow,
Ivan Savvidi.
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