Man remembers Frixos Papapoustidis, president of the Greek Montreal Community, who found the need to establish a Greek school.
P.Τ.: Holy Trinity was the only church around and in the first year, on Good Friday,
the church was almost full. On Holy Saturday eh, there were a few people outside as well, but not the
Hellenism that there is today though, but Hellenism according to the estimates of the time, by the
specialists must have been about, about 4,000 persons in all, not more. But afterwards though, annually
there were coming several thousands and the Greek school which the Greek community had at the time, and
there were about 40-50 children who studied, was now impossible to, to fit, let’s say, the Greek children
who were coming from Greece and then and I remember this very well, at a general assembly in 19… must have
been… let’s slow down so that I don’t lose the, the years. I came in ’52, in ’55 that is three years later
the then president was someone named Papachristides, who was also a shipowner, then and a very able man. At
a general assembly down in Holy Trinity, down in the large hall, there was the only place which was, belonged
to the Greek community, we used to go and listen, I went too as a listener. And then Papachristides said that,
“Look guys. This and that is happening, Hellenism is constantly coming. Thousands, in three-four years, they’ve
reached I don’t know how many thousands. Greek children are coming and it’s impossible to find space in this school.
Something must be done”. And then they began, they started organising themselves and they bought this large plot
here that we have today and the church of Saint George was built, later the ‘Socrates’ school and all the other buildings which are present here.
