OTD Emmanouil Xanthos (1772 – November 28, 1852)

Born on the island of Patmos, he was a Greek revolutionary and merchant and 1 of the founding members of Filiki Etaireia.

He lived and worked first in Smyrni and then in Trieste. In 1814 in Odessa, Ukraine, along with Nikolaos Skoufas and Athanasios Tsakalov, founded a secret organization to prepare the groundwork for the Greek War of Independence – Filiki Etaireia.

From Odessa he then went to Constantinople, to further the cause and garner further support from the Greeks there.

Xanthos was an important organiser of the Revolution once hostilities broke out. Meeting with the likes of Alexandros Ypsilantis and Ioannis Kapodistrias and planning out their next moves.

It was Xanthos who played a leading role in getting Alexandros Ypsilantis out of Austrian jail, after he was imprisoned by the Austrians, following the outbreak of the Greek Revolution in Wallachia and Moldavia in 1821.

Xanthos died in poverty on November 1852, in Athens.

His Memoirs which he completed before his death, were published in 1854 and are an important source of historical information, about the inner workings prior to and during the Greek War of Independence.