Germanos Karavangelis was born in Stipsi, a village on the island of Lesbos.
Biography
He was a metropolitan bishop of Kastoria, in communion with the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, from 1900 until 1907, appointed in the name of the Greek state by the ambassador of GreeceNikolaos Mavrokordatos and was one of the main coordinators of the Greek Struggle for Macedonia that had an aim to defend the Greek and Greek Orthodox clerical interests against the Turks and the Bulgarians in then Ottoman Turkish-ruled Macedonia. During the Macedonian struggle, Karavangelis directed the Greek response to supporters of the Bulgarian cause, the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization and the Exarchate. At the time Karavangelis would travel in rural areas, and portrayed a fierce romanticized image of himself dressed with a dark raincoat, a bandolier on side of his shoulder and a gun on the other with a scarf tied around his clerical hat. Karavangelis viewed Bulgarian influence within the area as a threat to Greek interests. He advocated for close relations and interaction among Turks and Greeks in the region, only in the context of when it was needed. Karavangelis viewed the rivalry between the Patriarchate and Exarchate as without religious dimensions and that the main concern preoccupying Balkan states was the post-Ottoman future of in the region after the empire was removed from Macedonia. Greece at the time sent more funds, men and arms to individuals such as Karavangelis in Macedonia. He organized armed groups composed mainly of Greek army officers, volunteers brought from Crete, Peloponnese and other parts of Greek populated areas, as well as recruited localMacedonian Greeks such as the chieftain Vangelis Strebreniotis from the village of Srebreni, and Konstantinos Kottas, a former member of Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization from the village of Rulya. In 1905, Orthodox priestKristo Negovani in his native village conducted the divine liturgy in the Albanian Tosk dialect and for his efforts was murdered on orders from Bishop Karavangelis who had condemned during mass the use of Albanian. Karavangelis succeeded to strengthen Greek aspirations in Macedonia and thus helped the later incorporation of the major part of Macedonia by Greece in the Balkan Wars, for which he is praised as a national hero of the Greek Struggle for Macedonia. He is the author of the book of memoirs "The Macedonian Struggle". He was awarded Order of the White Eagle and Order of Saint Sava.
