The Pan-Samian Brotherhood of Melbourne ‘Pythagoras’ celebrated the 90th anniversary of its founding, at its Gala Ball last Saturday.

Among the dignitaries present was State MP and Parliamentary Secretary to the Premier, Nick Staikos, who referred to his Samian origin, deriving from the village of Konteika, while congratulating the Brotherhood, one of the oldest Greek organizations in Melbourne, founded on 27 November 1934, for its unceasing contribution to the Greek community over the last nine decades.

In his address, President of the Greek Orthodox Community of Melbourne and Victoria, Bill Papastergiadis, made an extensive reference to the history of the Samians and their relationship with the GOCMV from the early years of its establishment. He stated that the first clergyman hired by the Community was the Samian Archimandrite Dorotheos Bakaliaros in 1898, while among those who raised money for the construction of Evangelismos Church were two Samians Georgios Gavalas and Savvas Thomas, who also voted in favour of the first GOCMV Constitution, in 1902.

Papastergiadis went on to mention the contribution of the first Samian president of the GOCMV, Dimitrios Mavreidis (1921-22), who was a teacher and held a fundraiser for the relief of the victims of the Asia Minor Catastrophe, the turbulent tenure of Pythagoras Hadjimichael (1923-24), that of the conciliatory Nikolaos Kontogiannis (1925-37) and 1932-34) as well as GOCMV secretary Aristotle Papalexandrou.

He pointed out that the first Metropolitan of Australia, Christopher Knites, who took office a hundred years ago, was also from Samos and that the Community recently hosted a descendant of the gold digger Joachim Zannis, one of the first Greeks in Victoria, who arrived in our state in the 1850s from Samos.

Addresses were also delivered by the Pansamian President Iraklis Vagianos, honorary president George Karvelas and president of the Hellenic RSL Emmanuel Karvelas.

Afterwards, the younger members of the Kalimniou family moved those present, singing traditional carols from Samos and other regions of Greece and Father Christmas distributed gifts to all the children.

The revelry continued long into the night with those present looking forward to celebrating the Brotherhood’s 100th anniversary in a decade’s time.