The statues dedicated to Ioannis Theophilopoulos in his home village of Lagadia and in Ilioupoli in Athens flank a mid-19th Century photograph of the man in the centre. The picture, taken by Petros Moraitis, is housed in the National Museum in Athens. Photos: Supplied.
29 April 2021 1:40pm
When she drove past the statue in Ilioupoli when she was on honeymoon in Athens, Mandy Nickas noted that the name it bore was of Ioannis “Tsakalos” Theophilopoulos, her maiden name.
In 2014, while on another visit to Greece, she drove past the beautiful clifftop village of Lagadia on her way to her father’s village at Mavridi in near Olympia in the Peloponnese. Another statue of Ioannis Theophilopoulos had been erected at in Ladadia where he was born in 1795.