Greek Businessman Offers 15 milion euros his whole property to built a Church

15 million euros, his whole property, Greek businessman, I. Anagnostopoulos, is offering for the fulfillment of a very old Greek promise, known as the ”Vow of the Nation”. During the National Revolution of 1821 against the Ottoman occupation of Greece, the warriors made a promise to built an elaborate temple in the name of Christ the Savior in Athens, if they succeed to free the country. The temple would have been as majestic and luxurious as the church of Agia Sophia at Constaninople.

The Greek people started to gather money for this purpose soon after their independence, from the time of their first governor, Ioannis Kapodistrias. But the project is facing some problems.  After more than two centuries, maybe the time has come to complete it. Mr. Anagnostopoulos, president of the corporation ” Friends of the Vow of the Nation,” is willing to offer the money himself. The timing could not be any better since the project has been approved by the official Greek Church and the only thing left is to find the right place. The businessman wants to build the temple in the Attikon Forest whereas the Archibishop Ieronimos wants to built it either in the region of Goudi or behind the Sotiria Hospital.

What is interesting is that in 1969 the Greek government created a special account for the fulfillment of the vow with 45.5 million of government money and 180 from donations. When the corporation looked for that amount of money, they found only the 10%. The rest had been used for “other” purposes.

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