On Monday 12th December, the second phase of the twinning of the municipalities of Kissamos and Kythira took place in Kissamos, attended by the minister for Culture and Sport Lina Medoni, local government representatives, Cretan clergy and citizens. In a ceremony at Kissamos town hall, the mayors of the two municipalities signed a protocol providing for the further development of friendship, exchange of experiences and the promotion of issues of common interest.

The mayor of Kythira Efstratios Charchalakis, accompanied by the municipality’s general secretary Efrosini Kasimati and the head of its Workers’ Association Polyxeni Alexidou, was on a two-day visit to Kissamos, during which the visitors also took part in the celebrations honouring the town’s patron Saint Spyridon.

Following a service at the historic church of St Spyridon in the centre of Kissamos, the second phase of the twinning ceremony took place at the town hall on the afternoon of 12th December. It was attended by the minister of Culture and Sport Lina Medoni, Chania MP and former Education minister Vasilis Digalakis and Amphilochios, Metropolitan of Kissamos and Selino. Also present were the Metropolitans Makarios of Gortyna and Arkadia, Damaskinos of Apokoronas, and Kyrillos of Ierapytni and Sitia, the mayors of Chania Panagiotis Simandirakis and of Sfakia Manousos Chiotakis, local government representatives from all over Crete and many members of the public.

The mayors, in their remarks after the signing of the protocol, emphasised their intention that the action should not have a merely symbolic character, but should mark the beginning of a close collaboration between the two municipalities in the fields of culture and tourism, cooperation in the sectors of civil protection and volunteerism, and highlighting of the challenges faced by every municipality and the characteristics which make each one unique.

The mayor of Kissamos spoke warmly of the municipality of Kythira, emphasising the links between the two areas, both geographical and communal, with many long-standing contacts between their residents.

In his turn, the mayor of Kythira said that the twinning of the two municipalities should have taken place long ago, because of their cultural links, which he said date back to antiquity. Mr Charchalakis himself has roots in Kissamos, his grandparents’ village being that of Charchaliana, which is a few kilometres south east of Kissamos. Reviewing the historical links between the two areas, he referred to the incorporation of ancient Antikythira under the influence of Falassarna, and the establishment of Cretan refugees on Kythira and Antikythira after the Ottoman conquest of the island, also mentioning the discovery on Antikythira of an icon of St Myron, archbishop of Crete in the 4^th century AD, who became the island’s patron saint, and the ordination of Cretan priests during the Venetian rule.

The Culture minister Lina Medoni also emphasised the cultural links between the two areas and the importance of the openness to outside influences which the twinning implies.

Following the speeches, the mayor of Kissamos gave Mr Charchalakis and the Culture minister copies of the Tilifos Agreement, recorded on a limestone stele found at Tilifos near Falassarna, which marked an alliance between Falassarna and Polyrrinia in the 3rd-2nd centuries BC. The mayor of Kythira in his turn gave Mr Mylonakis a copy of the Antikythira Ephebe, a bronze statue of a youth which was found in 1900 near the wreck which yielded the Antikythira Mechanism and is exhibited in the National Archaeological Museum of Athens. To the Culture minister he gave a tablet which was used as a notebook around the 4th century BC to teach writing to children, which has inscribed on it the letter K – the initial letter of both municipalities.

Following the exchange of commemorative gifts, there was an official dinner at the Cultural Centre of the Metropolis of Kissamos.