Raising of the Flag at Agia Lavra

According to Greek tradition, on 25 March 1821, Bishop Germanos of Patras raised the banner of the revolution at the Monastery of Agia Lavra, near Kalavryta in the northern Peloponnese, and blessed the Greek fighters, who swore an oath to fight for freedom. The banner showed the Dormition of the Virgin Mary. The ceremony has become one of the most famous symbols of the start of the Greek War of Independence. It is commemorated every year on Greek Independence Day, which coincides with the Orthodox feast of the Annunciation. Historians have long noted that the scene, as it is traditionally told and painted, was described by later writers, notably the French author François Pouqueville, and that contemporary evidence for the exact event is limited. Germanos had in fact been involved in the uprising in the region around those days, and the Kalavryta area was one of the first to rise up. The banner is still kept at the monastery, which was burned by the Ottoman army in 1826 and later rebuilt, and it remains a national place of pilgrimage.