2. REFERENCES
 

NOTES AND REFERENCES

1.   Agissilaos Sgouritsas, an Athens lawyer and intellectual, born in the nearby village of Vassara. At that time, Sgouritsas edited the seminal “Malevos” magazine. “Malevos” was a lively publication, largely dedicated on research and current affairs of South Mt. Parnon villages.

Phaedon Koukoules served as head-teacher in the nearby village of Vamvakou. He later became a Professor of Byzantine Studies at Athens University. Their co-operation in the Malevos magazine in the 1920’s, produced a series of essays and contributions about several aspects of Tsintzina history. After a prolonged lull, TA TSINTZINA newspaper under Motivo’s editorship (1961-1980), became host to another series of articles about aspects of village history. Several of these contributions appeared simultaneously or interchangeably in the annual Lefkoma of the Jamestown Conventions between the 1920s to the late 1950s.

2.   Psichogios, K.D.: A Tsintzinian teacher in the Sparta “Gymnasion” who had also being ordained priest. Being an unmarried clergyman in the Orthodox tradition, makes one eligible to be elected bishop. Psichogios had already aquired the distinction of “Archimandrite” but later decided to leave the monastic scheme and resigned from the clergy. In the 1930s he was living in Sparta, where he wrote a few books including a Travel Guide to Laconia. He was executed by the Germans during the occupation, in 1942. His unpublished Tsintzina two-volume monograph, was handwritten in 1941, in Sparta. 

3.   Nectarios (Clomos), Abbot of St. Anargiroi Monastery: Nectarios is mentioned at the point of his ordination, as the son of George Chlomos from Tsintzina (an unknown surname today that indicates a Byzantine origin). Nectarios later ascended to become Abbot (Igoumenos) and died in December 1784.

4.   St. John’s cave & chapel: It is important to stress that the outside fortifications of St. John’s cave chapel are much more recent. In fact, they were built only as late as 1825-26, at about the time of the Braimi raids in the Peloponnese, during the Greek War of Independence (1821-1829). Therefore, we can certainly regard this wall (as well as the inside formations below the chapel) as aiming to turn St. John’s into an impassable, safe citadel against unwelcome raids & intrusions in the village.

5.   Important information about medieval Tsintzina are included in Dragoumis Stephanos: “Chronikon Moreos”, p. 256, Originally published in 1921; reprinted: 1994, Ekdoseis “Eleftheri Skepsis”.

6.   The 1292 or 1295 Chrissovoulon Imperial Decree, among other things  ascertained the Tsintzina area to the Metropolis of Monemvassia, into which, it subordinated five or six other dioceses, including the Diocese of Reon and Prastos  to which Tsintzina had historically belonged.

To avoid confusion, it must be stated that the Metropolis of Monemvassia at the time had not merged with the Metropolis of Sparta, as the situation is today. The modern city of Sparta did not exist of course, but just to its north, the city of Lakedaimon flourished. The greater Lakedaimon area had its own Metropolis, called “Metropolis of Lakedaimon”.

The territory of the Metropolis of Lakedaimon stopped eastwards just outside Tsintzina itself, Tsintzina being a territory of, formerly the Metropolis of Reondos & Prastou; then, since the Chrissovoulon, the territory of the Metropolis of Monemvassia.

7.    The original reference for the 1292 or 1295 Imperial Decree is: Muller & Miclosich, “Acta et Diplomata Greca” 160, p. 159; reprinted at various sources.

8.    The Diocese of Reon & Prastos was formally dissolved in the 1840s, within the framework of the establishment of the independent and autocephalous Church of Greece. See also Dragoumis, op.cit.  and Rallis & Potlis, “Sindagma Theion & Ieron Kanonon”, p.p. 333-340.

9.   Koukoules, Phaedon: See thesis on “Ta Tsintzina”, 36^th Tsintzinian Annual Convention Lefkoma, Jamestown N.Y., 1951, p. 7.

12.  Dededimos, P. on the claim of St. Theodoroi: See in the 34^th Tsintzinian Annual Convention Lefkoma, Jamestown N.Y., 1949.

13. Grammatikoyiannis & Mousklis 1932 interviews: In the local Tsintzina dialect, zipouni is a hand-knitted, or woven overcoat, mostly in the form of a sleeveless, front buttoned jacket. What Mousklis says here actually is that the first Tsintzinians were craftsmen of hand-made cloth, traded for other goods in and outside Tsintzina. This view is supported by many others, among them, Psychogios (in his monograph of Tsintzina), Vagenas, Kallianis etc, also it has remained as such from oral tradition.  We have not managed to establish actually what the word ‘tsousis” means, although with a capital “T”, it is a nickname (paratsoukli) for some branches of the Kyriakoulias family. It should be more or less obvious however, that it refers to a trade or craft.

This interview was published as extract form the N. L. Andritsakis’ tetradion, in TA TSINTZINA, issue 46, April 11^th, 1965, titled: “Xefillontas Palia Tetradia”.

14. Violence & Vendettas in late 1800s Zoupena: See a self-publication of Dimitri N. Giannoukos (2006) “Pages of Tsintzina history and of soccer in Zoupena”. Also the claims of bloody incidents by members of the Gerasimos family against earlier settlers from the Michelakos family in the Laina district, an area between Goritsa and Zoupena.

15. Revolution and beyond, name “tsintzina”. See various articles published in “TA TSINTZINA” newspaper, in particular between 1961-65, the early 1990s and 2000-2003. Contributors included –among others- nonTsintzinians such as Dimitri Kallianis and Thanos Vagenas and several Tsintzinians including panos Gerasimos, Panos Doscas, Spiros Andritsakis and Dimitris Giannoukos.

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