The School under the name "The World" was founded by Nikos Soukos in London in 1993 and was renamed in 1998 to the Ecumenical School of Free Speech (OSEL)
The feeling that emerges from the world around us today is the lack of normality. People are affected, some by wars of sovereignty of their leaders and others by the miserable economic conditions that prevail, but also by the incompetence of those who govern. Politics in its acting sense is being devalued, principles, values and ideals are being written off, and societies are now marching with the ChatGPT and... whatever he wanted came to pass!
Against this sad reality, I believe it is worth mentioning a vision, a global vision, of a Greek professor at Northeastern University in Boston, Nikos Soukos, from the Pentagii of the mountainous Dorida. The professor has founded a laboratory of applied molecular photomedicine, and his research has been awarded by the National Institutes of Health of the United States. He himself envisioned the operation of a base of thoughts, ideas, ideals and values in the service of the Global Man.
It is truly significant that an internationally renowned visionary professor honors his birthplace, Pentagioi, by founding an Ecumenical School of Free Speech.
This School, called “The World,” was founded by Nikos Soukos in London in 1993 and renamed the Ecumenical School of Free Speech (OSEL) in 1998. The term “reason” was used by Heraclitus to denote the logical principle that governs the world, and today it has disappeared!
OSEL is hosted on the first floor of the Alexandros Papoulias estate in the village of origin of its founder, Pentagioi (or Pentagiou), located in the province of Dorida in the prefecture of Phocis, two hours from Delphi.
The activities of OSEL are truly impressive. Since 2023, a summer school called the Vardousia School of Science and Philosophy has been operating there, opposite the Vardousia Mountains. Scholarships are also given to high school students to attend summer courses on scientific topics in Philosophy, Sociology, and Technology. This gives students the unique opportunity to gain a comprehensive understanding of the reality they experience and not a world that does not exist. This way, they will be able to face the challenges in their personal and professional lives.
In 2024, educational events were held in memory of the emblematic reformer of mental health in Greece, Professor of Psychiatry Panagiotis Sakellaropoulos (1926 – 2018) from Chryssos, Fokida. A multifaceted personality, who stood his whole life against various forms of pressure from people. During the years of the dictatorship, he joined a resistance organization and during the period of the uprising of the Polytechnic University, he stood as a doctor on the side of the students. He devoted himself to Social Psychiatry and in Fokida, he began a psychiatric reform with the creation of a mobile unit, which treated those in need in their homes.
He also founded the Society of Social Psychiatry, which continues to operate under the presidency of his wife, Dr. Athina Frangouli-Sakellaropoulou. Unfortunately, the current government is trying to downgrade Social Psychiatry with a bill on mental health. This would be a big mistake, and OSEL will strongly support every effort to prevent this unacceptable downgrading.
It would be a blessing, indeed, if such schools were operating in all regions of our homeland. Utopian, you might say, such thoughts for our time! And yet, the vision of Professor N. Soukos became a reality, and the will made it bear fruit.
Published in VIMA
photo by https://cos.northeastern.edu/people/nikolaos-soukos/
Northeastern University, College of Science
