Flessas Family
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Flessas family has existed in the Peloponnese (Greece) since the 1600s from the time in which Venetians ruled the area. The name Flessas comes from the Bavarian word flosse which means "raft". These "Flosserei" or "lumbermen" from Bavaria formed large wooden rafts and transported wood on rivers to pulp and papers mills. Since one's surname denoted one's occupation, individuals were either named "Flessa" or "Flessas" if they were Greek. Interestingly, there is a large Bavarian family named Flessa that owns a bank in Germany known as the Flessa Bank. Bearers of the surname Flessas were found in Asia Minor in the early 1100s, as well as in Poliani (Kalamata, Greece), and in Prussia where the name emerged from medieval times as one of the noteworthy families of the region. From the 13th century onwards, the name Flessas was identified with great social and economic movements and members of the Flessas family were major contributors in the rise and creation of the modern Greek nation. In Greece, Gregorios D. Flessas (Papaflessas) was a principal organizer and leader of the Greek Revolution which began in 1821 and during which Greeks revolted against the rule of the Ottoman Turks. Papaflessas sacrificed himself in the famous Battle of Maniaki where the 6,000 strong Egyptian army of Ibrahim Pasha killed him along with 300-600 Greek soldiers on May 20, 1825. His father, Dimitrios George Flessas (1745-1799) was the patriarch of the Greek Flessas family. He married twice and had a total of twenty-eight children. With his first wife (Constantina Andronikou) he had eighteen children. After the death of his first wife, he and his second wife (Theodora Notara) had ten children. Papaflessas was the 10th child of Theodora and he studied in the famous school of Dimitsana.In 1819 he was ordained Archibishop by the Patriarch Gregory the E' and he was given the ecclesiastical "OFFIKIO" Dikaios, meaning the representative of the Patriarch. The family has over 3000 members all over the world today.
