The Gregoris Afxentiou SAGA

of priest Christodoulos, where there was a hideout. On November 1956 Afxentiou and his groups carried out many attacks against car convoys and premises. The British called it “black November”. From Palechori he moved to Agros. There he met Kyriacos Matsis. From Agros he moved to Amiandos and Zoopigi. On 30 towards 31 December 1956 he clashed with agents of the British and Turkish auxiliary policemen and during these clashes Michael Yiorgallas was fatally wounded, while Afxentiou returned, wounded, after walking for six hours together with Minas to the Papoutsa hideout. He moved to Makheras from where he sent a message to Andreas Karaolis to demolish the “oven” hide-out, in his house because it had been betrayed. At Makheras they constructed a hideout 1.000 meters from the Monastery. The searches of the British became more intensive and continuous. Cart driver Petros Philippou was betrayed by Pipinos and Apostratos. At Macheras Monastery Gregoris Afxentiou remained with his guerilla fellow fighters Antonis Papadopoulos, Phidias Symeonides, Avgoustis Efstathiou, Andreas Stylianou and Minas Mina, who moved there a few days before the battle. When the blockade became very tight, they all went down to the hideout on the slope. When the British discovered the hideout and they called Afxentiou to surrender. He urged his comrades to give themselves up. He said, that he himself had to fight and die. His fellow fighters came out on his order but Avgoustis Efstathiou went back to the hideout on orders by an English soldier to see whether Afxentiou had been killed following the throwing of a hand grenade. He remained fighting together with Afxentiou until the moment the British poured petrol on the hideout. The Macheras eagle fought like a lion for eight hours against thousands of soldiers. On 3 March 1957 he became a holocaust in his hideout at Macheras. The British did not defeat him. They cowardly burnt him with petrol. But Gregoris Afxentiou will live for ever.