e-arsakeio


Books' archway


ep en


harvard




Despite the post-war financial difficulties, benefactors and donors strove to achieve the foundation’s financial autonomy.


Απόστολος Αρσάκης The most prominent of all  benefactors was Apostolos Arsakis, doctor of medicine, scholar and politician, born in Hotahova Premeti, in Epirus, who lived and excelled at Bucurest , Romania.

In 1850, Apostolos Arsakis, while financing the construction of  ‘Megaron’ in Panepistimiou street in the center of Athens, he also contributed to fund raising for Philekpaideutiki Etaireia enabling the latter to achieve its goals.

In one’s own right Filekpaideftiki Etaireia nominated the Schools Arsakeia in his honour.

HELEN AND MIHAIL TOSITSAS

Ελένη & Μιχαήλ Τοσίτσας Great benefactors of our schools are Mihail and Helen Tositsa. They are both coming from Metsovo at Epirus. Tositsas offered a great part of his personal property to national charity while his widow offered a piece of land and undertook the construction ,  the provision of equipment  and the maintainace of the Tositseia Schools.

MIHAIL TOSITSAS

He was born on 3th January 1787 at Metsovo of Epirus. His father owned a factory which made fur coats at Salonika, where he himself moved. In 1806, when his father wasn’t able to continue his work, he and his brothers undertook the factory. The young businessman was lucky and he managed to expand the business. He founded branches at Malta, Alexandria of Egypt and Livorno in Italy. In 1820 he settled down in Egypt. He was appointed as a banker by Mohamed Ali, at the time the regent of Egypt, Ibrahim Pasha’s father, well- known from the Greek revolution. He managed to acquire the favor and trust of Mohammed Ali and later he had the management of his estates. In exchange for his services, Mohammed Ali gave him vast farms (estates) to cultivate cotton and so Tositsas became one of the most powerful landowners in the region. With the fortune he acquired, he helped the Greek Revolution in every possible way.

In Alexandria, Egypt, he helped in the foundation of the Greek Community in 1843. He was the first president (chairman). He built a hospital in 1843 and a church in 1847. He financed the first Greek Communal School, which was named after him, “The Tositsaia School”. The school was inaugurated in 1854 by Stephanos Tzitzenas, the chairman of the Community, who succeeded Mihail Tositsas. The school worked for 114 years before it was closed in 1968. The building housed “The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria and Africa”.

Tositsas was also the General Council of Greek in Alexandria. He is considered to be the “father” of the Greeks in Alexandria.

In 1847 Tositsas donated the land, so that the first communal church to be built the “Church of the Annunciation of Virgin Mary”. It was first operated in 1856 and is active to the present day. In this church the eminent Patriarch and Pope of Alexandria and Africa, Peter the VII, was enthroned in March 1977.

He also offered huge amounts of money for the poor in Greece, the Greek School in Salonika, churches and monasteries, for the Charity Home and hospitals in Athens and many others.

In 1854 when the Greek-Turkish relations stopped, he was forced to leave Egypt and he moved to Athens. After his death he left considerable amounts of his fortune at the Polytechnic School of Athens, the University of Athens, Arsakeio and also to numerous charity organizations.

To be specific, he offered 100.000 talara, the currenct of the era, to the Polytechnic School of Athens to enrich their equipment, 20.000 for the salaries of the teachers at Metsovo, and also to buy books for the poor children, 3.000 for the Greek School in Salonika, 196.000 Egyptian grossia for the Greek School in Alexandria, 2.000 talira for the poor of his native area and 500 for ear priest at the church of Agia Paraskevi and numerous churches and monasteries of the region. 2.000 talira at the Home of the Poor in Athens, the University, the hospital, the House for Blind people, Arsakeia Boarding School and the Eye Hospital. 10.000 to construct roads and many other.

His wife, Helen continued  her husband’s difficult task and she offered 60.000 drachmas to Philekpaideutiki Etaireia  to build a Mutually Teaching School and 10.000 drachmas to found the University National Guard.