“Place of burial and memory of Muslims, old inhabitants of Karkara”. The marble slab on the right side of the municipal cemetery of Simantra, in the Municipality of Nea Propontida, Halkidiki, indicates the place where, as of today, 201 Muslims, old residents of the village, whose bones were found during the works for the construction of the Closed Municipality, rest. of the village.
The procession took place this afternoon, with the imam of the Athens mosque, Zaki Sidi Mohammed, leading the ritual, along with another imam, reciting prayers and supplications, while the two of them had previously placed the bones on the spot with due respect. burial, on the way to Mecca. In fact, in his statements after the ceremony, the imam praised the excellent organization of the burial process, which, as noted in a relevant announcement of the Municipality, “took place in the context of due respect that Greece always pays to the dead, regardless of religion. origin or race ‘.
At the ceremony, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was represented by the Director of the Thessaloniki International Relations Service Ioannis Vikelidis and the Deputy Director Katerina Tsampikidou, while the “present” was given – among others – the Consul General of Turkey in Thessaloniki Consuls General of the Republic of Cyprus and Georgia.
“We decided to build an indoor gym in the courtyard of the elementary school of Simantra and there it was discovered that there were 201 skeletons of Muslims, residents of the settlement of Kakara, which is witnessed from the Byzantine years,” said in a statement after the ceremony the mayor of Nea Propontidas Emmanuel Karras, explaining that it was an accidental discovery as “there was no testimony from any resident of Simantra about the existence of the cemetery”.
The mayor of Nea Propontida praised the cooperation with the Foreign Ministry and the Archaeological Service, which led to today’s ceremony, expressed the wish “for the dead to calm down” and noted that “it was our obligation to do this as here, in Greece, the Republic was born “And due respect should be given, as today, to the dead of any religion.”
For his part, the head of the Ephorate of Antiquities of Halkidiki and Mount Athos, George Skiadaresis, explained that the bones were found in 2020 and then followed a rescue excavation, which was completed in early 2021. From the way of burial and the custom it seemed that it was bones of Muslims, old residents of the village, which until today were buried in places of service “and were treated with due respect, as in these cases the excavations of all cemeteries are treated”.
The Turkish Consul General in Thessaloniki, Efe Ceylan, talked to the imams about the details of her burial ritual, participated in the prayer and then, in his statements, stressed – among other things – that this is an “important ceremony for the reburial of bones of our ancestors who lived in this area at that time “, he pointed out that a very simple ceremony was held with what was appropriate in terms of religion, and thanked the mayor of Nea Propontida and the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs for the invitation to attend today’s process in order, as he said, to be able to pray for the peace of the souls of these people.
“At the moment, the grandchildren of these people, Ottoman citizens of that time, are still alive in Turkey. “Most of the descendants live in Izmir and Antalya,” said the Turkish consul general, wishing “the souls of all the dead in this cemetery to calm down.”
It is noted that Simantra is the largest municipal district after N. Moudania with about 2500 inhabitants. It is a refugee village, built by refugees from Artaki of Propontis and Sementria of Cappadocia, from which it took its name.
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