HISTORY OF AGIA PARSKEVI FLORINAS

AGIA PARSKEVI

Located 12 kilometres north of Florina, Agia Paraskevi is a borderland village with land that makes the Greek and former Yugoslav borders. The village is a flat agricultural village at an elevation of 612 metres. Agia Paraskevi is neighboured by Dragos across the border, Ethniko, Parori, Kato Kleines, Polyplatanos and Niki.

The village received its name from an old and holy chapel dedicated to the Saint Paraskevi. The village was formerly known as Sfeta Petka but once it was liberated from the Ottoman Turks in 1912 and incorporated into the Kingdom of Greece it was renamed its Greek equivalent of Agia Paraskevi on December 21, 1918. The village settlement was known to have existed from the 15th Century and grew out of the lands that were previously of Ethikon (Opsirina) and Dragos.

Agia Paraskevi has three churches, the oldest house of worship was the chapel of Agia Paraskevi (Sfeta Petka) built in 1570 and was a Holy church of the area. In 1827 it was torched and destroyed by Ottoman Turks. In 1886 a small chapel was rebuilt and enlarged later by the 25th Army of Epiros.

The church of Saint Nikola(s) was built in 1856 and for a short time provided a graveyard for the dead however the churchyard was subject to flooding from the wet and melting snow and relocated to the churchyard of Saint Dimitrios which was erected in 1859. Here the graves of the ancestors of the village can be found.

The village has a small school that existed during the time of the Turks and still stands today and Agia Paraskevi also has a kindergarten which has recently become used as a school.

The village was populated by local families and had no refugee admixtures. Before the villagers were freed from the Turks in 1912 the village had three Turkish families who spoke the local dialect and one Albanian family. The local inhabitant were an industrious people who farmed large flat farmlands. Crops grown included various grains, corns, beans and potatoes. On the nearby hillside named Chaliga was the village vineyards and here on this hillock was the rock named Marko kamen. In local folklore it was believed that the Serbian King Kraljevic Marko sliced the rock with his sword leaving a large gash in the rock, a gash that is still seen today.

The people of Agia Paraskevi migrated for work in the early 1900's to North America and some even made way to South America where they perished. After the turbulence of World War Two and the Greek Civil War many families began to close their doors to their houses and make way to Australia, America and Canada for a better life where they created proud communities that still carry the pride of their village in their hearts.

Today, Agia Paraskevi the old Sfeta Petka is populated by over 120 inhabitants and visited and spoken about with great sentimentality by its children abroad.

Mark Giantsis