Greece: 155th territory to join our Confederation
A new Vincentian Conference has been founded on the Island of Rhodes
One more territory has joined the International Confederation of the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul: Greece. On June 2nd , the Conference Our Lady of Victory was founded in the city of Rhodes.
The new Vincentian group was recruited by Franciscan priest Luke Gregory (OFM), who was in contact for several months with the Council General to establish the Conference. The founding ceremony included a Holy Mass and was attended by brother László Koenczoel, International Territorial Vice President for Europe 1.
The board of the new Conference is composed as follows: sister Lorna Anacin (President), sister Delia Gandol (Vice President), sister Angela Philippou (Treasurer) and sister Aikaterina Luisidis (Secretary). The spiritual advisor is Father Luke Gregory. In total, 20 brothers and sisters are members of the new Conference, some of them foreigners.
Greece is a nation of 11 million inhabitants, most people are Orthodox Catholics (90% of the population). The number of Roman Catholics is very small: 200,000 (representing approximately 2% of the population).
History
The presence of SSVP on Greek soil is not new. In 1846, a Conference was founded on the Island of Santorini. In 1865, another Conference was founded in Athens. According to archival reports available at the Council General’s head office, there are still records of conferences in Cephaloni, Zakynthos, Patras and Thessaloniki.
For various reasons, the SSVP in Greece went into decline and these conferences were sadly put in the dormant category. At present, in 2023, through the Conference of Our Lady of Victory, the Vincentian charism returns to this beautiful country.
SSVP Plus
With the entry of Greece, the International Confederation now counts 155 territories, 9 of which were added during this mandate: Cayman Islands, Vatican, Liberia, Tanzania, Cyprus, Cape Verde, Albania, Slovenia and Greece.
The SSVP PLUS Project, created for this purpose, has already identified some countries where it is very likely that a Vincentian Conference will be established in the coming months, such as in Scandinavia, Morocco, San Marino, Kazakhstan, among others. The project manager is brother Julio Cesar Marques de Lima from Brazil.
“I want to thank the hard work done by brothers Laszlo and Julio Cesar to bring back the SSVP to Greece. And we cannot forget to thank Father Luke Gregory immensely for the motivation given, which culminated with the foundation of the group. We are all happy with this news that was only possible by God’s grace”, emphasized brother Renato Lima de Oliveira, 16th President General.
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