50 years of the Thassian Wedding – 2026

Theologos, Thassos, 13. August 2026

Press release

Fifty years of the «Hatzigiorgis» Society, fifty years of the Thassian Wedding

More than a thousand visitors at the highly successful anniversary revival of the custom in Theologos — the Gold Medal of the Thasian Heracles awarded to the Society by the Municipality of Thassos, and a frank conversation about what quality tourism on the island really requires

With more than a thousand visitors, according to the organisers’ estimate, the Educational and Cultural Society «Hatzigiorgis» revived the Thassian Wedding in Theologos on Wednesday, 12 August. The cobbled lanes of the village filled from early evening and, for a few hours, the settlement worked the way it worked a century ago.

The reenactment is meant for locals and visitors alike, yet it is not only a spectacle — it is a record: the stages of the traditional wedding, the costumes, the songs and the dances that the whole village once knew by heart and that few now keep. The Society’s dance group holds a thread that begins with the Ladies’ and Young Women’s Association of the 1960s and with the first recordings of Thassian songs. Sixty years on, the same songs were heard again — from children’s mouths.

An honour set the seal on the anniversary. The Mayor of Thassos, Mr Kyriakidis, presented the Society with the Gold Medal of the Thasian Heracles, recognising its pioneering role in the social and cultural life of the island.

The evening did not remain in the past, however. In his address, the President of the Society, Mr Karantelos, said something rarely heard at a celebration: a criticism of what culture on our islands has been reduced to.

«The festival is not the culture. It is the celebration of culture. It is the wreath, not the root. The question is not how many people came — it is what remained the next day.»

The point bears directly on Thassos. A destination does not stand out through sun, beaches and festivals; everyone has those. It stands out through depth — through how far the history of a place is genuinely connected to the tourism experience offered to the visitor. A footpath that has been cleared, a museum that is open, a custom recorded before it vanished, a local product with a name and a history: these are what remain when the lights go out and the tables are cleared away.

Over these decades the Society has never confined itself to events. It runs the Folklore Museum in the «Hatzigiorgis» mansion of 1813, a lending library, the Cultural Centre and much else. All of this work keeps the history and the memory of the place alive and shows how the island’s society has developed.

If yesterday evening left anything behind beyond the images, it is perhaps this: that a cultural society does not wait for a grant in order to act. It creates, it cooperates, it envisions — and when it must, it makes demands.

The Society thanks its sponsors, the dance groups of the participating societies, the societies that attended and all official guests. And above all the dozens of volunteers who carried, cooked and cleared away.