Kuzey Ege Hikâyeleri
Bir Tıp Diploması ve Bağlantılar Dünyası
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Dimitris Krallis reflects on European educational journeys of individuals from North Lesvos.
A medical degree dating back some 162 years, books, writings, as well as recent research have helped outline the story of the three sons of the Gogos family of Vatousa on the island of Lesvos; an archimandrite, a doctor, and a journalist. One of them, Georgios Gogos, was the maternal grandfather of Maritsa Kalligeris of Sykaminia. Maritsa eventually married Ioannis K. Krallis, the compiler of the archive, featured on the Aegean Stories Vault, thus linking through family ties, three villages in the Northern part of Lesvos. The contribution of the doctor Georgios [1] and his brothers to the local community and their place in Lesvos’ 19th c. history, will be covered in subsequent publications.
In the present text, we only deal with Georgios’ medical degree, which, after careful scrutiny, they present here, considering the information it offers [2].
Georgios Gogos, born around 1830/2 in Vatousa, Lesvos, studied at the University of Würzburg, a historic city in Lower Franconia, Bavaria, which had been home to a model university hospital since 1581. This very institution became world-famous in 1895, when Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, inventor of X-rays, received the Nobel Prize in Physics. Georgios Gogos’ degree is written in Latin, according to the custom of the time, and bears the date of the reign of Maximilian II, King of Bavaria from 1848 to 1864. The name of the university, now known as Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg, is mentioned on this degree, in the general section, as Academiae Julio-Maximilianae.
The diploma was awarded to Georgios Gogos from Lesvos, who is listed as Georgio Gogos de Lyssa. The title awarded to him is Doctor Medicinae, Chirurgiae et Artis Obstetriciae Gradum, translating into Doctor of Medicine, Surgery, and Obstetrics. The award of the diploma followed successful examinations and a relevant decision by the Medical School, as stated in the Latin phrase, ex examini ordinario medicorum decreto rite contulit. An important piece of evidence for the dating comes from the reference to the rector, Frangisco Hettinger – Rectore Magnifico, i.e. Frantz Hettinger, who served as rector of the school over two academic periods: 1861–62 and 1867–68 [3]. Combining the data from the reign of Maximilian II with Hettinger’s term as rector, it appears that the degree dates to the academic year 1861–1862.
Hettinger’s presence in Würzburg raises some interesting questions to which there are currently no safe answers. According to family accounts, Georgios Gogos’ studies in Bavaria were facilitated, if not financed, by his brother Gregorios, who later became Archimandrite of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Budapest. Gregorios, who was six years older than his brother, had served as a priest in various areas, including Crete in 1863. He then taught at the Theological School of Chalke from 1860 to 1865, served as senior priest of the Church of the Annunciation in Vraila, Romania, from 1872 to 1874, and as director of the Patriarchal Office in Alexandria, Egypt, and preacher of the Patriarchate in 1874 [4]. From 1868 to 1872, he pursued advanced studies in Strasbourg, France, where he must have witnessed the conquest of the city by Bismarck’s troops.
A man of recognized intellectual activity, Gregorios translated from German The Divine Person of Our Lord Jesus Christ: The Miracle of History by the Protestant German theologian Philip Schaff, a work published by the Smyrna-based Amalthea Printing House in 1869. The Archimandrite obviously felt a degree of comfort when coming into contact with the thought of non-Orthodox theologians, and his work at the Theological School of Chalke may have brought him into contact with his counterparts in Europe, such as the Catholic theologian and Rector of the University of Würzburg, Franz Hettinger. Researchers may therefore ponder what role active networks of Christian theologians and clergy, Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant, played in the educational mobility of members of Greek communities in the Ottoman Empire.
The parchment of Georgios Gogos’ medical degree is therefore valuable in that it attests the personal, European journey of an individual from Lesvos in the 19th-century.
It is also a document important for the study of the broader history of Greek communities, their educational networks and initiatives, the nature of medical education, and the attendant cultural exchanges of the period. It highlights the choice made by young people from the Ottoman Empire, but also by their sponsors, to turn to European universities, in order to integrate themselves into an international scientific movement. It also sheds light on the presence and mobility of Greeks in European centers such as Würzburg, at a time when modern Greek universities had already laid the foundations as institutions of higher education, popular among Greeks of the Ottoman Empire.
Finaly, this document helps us situate on a map educated figures from Lesvos’ 19th century social scene. These individuals, through their studies and actions, contributed decisively to the formation of a literate, scientific, and socially active class in the province. Georgios Gogos fits perfectly into this historical context, as a person who combined knowledge with social mission, leaving a mark that may be traced both in the archive and in the local collective memory.
[1] Photograph of Dr. Georgios Gogos, 1880s, in Cairo. From the Archive: GR-KFL, Collection: KALLIGERIS FAMILY.
[2] Photograph of Georgios Gogos’ diploma, from the magazine Παλμοί της Βατούσας, issue 110 (210), 2025, on page 7, with an erroneous identification of the university.
[3] Franz Hettinger (1819–1890) was a prominent figure in Catholic theology in 19th-century Germany. A professor at the University of Würzburg and twice elected rector, he was distinguished for his work in restoring the relationship between faith and science at a time of intense philosophical and social transformation. The presence of his name on the diploma, with the honorific Rectore Magnifico, reinforces the importance of the document and confirms its date.
[4] Gogos Gregorios, “Η εν Πέστη της Ουγγαρίας Ορθόδοξος Ελληνική Κοινότης και Εκκλησία”, Εκκλησιαστική Αλήθεια 4 (1884), pp. 339-344.
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