Why this day is chosen to be the Day of Elinophilia (from Greek: friends of Greeks)? The 19^th of April, the day when the great poet Lord Byron laid his last breath in Greece by sacrificing his life for the freedom of the country from the Ottomans. This data was announced to be the Day of Elinophilia and International Solidarity in Greece by a suggestion by the parliament chairman Dimitris Sufas and Internal Affairs Minister Prokopis Pavlopoulos.

The first celebration of the holiday this year coincides with the 200^th anniversary of the day when Lord Byron first visited Greece in 1809. The poet is a famous Hellenic lover and his early poems contribute for the mobilizing of the Europeans in help of the Greek cause. In 1824 Byron joins the Greek freedom detachments in Missolonghi, where he dies on Aril 19^th from pneumonia.

“The memory of Lord Byron is still alive and the message, which it brings, is still current. He fought and sacrificed his life for the Greek independence and at the same time he called himself “citizen of the world.” This way he connects the idea of the elinophilia with the universal values,” says Internal Affairs Minister Prokopis Pavlopoulos.

This year, the holiday will be celebrated on April 26^th, because it coincides with the Easter celebrations. Lord Byron is honored in Greece also because he was publicly against carrying out the marble artifacts of the Parthenon by Thomas Eldjin, who was the British ambassador in the Ottoman Empire in the beginning of the 19^th century.