One hundred years after the landing of the Greek army at the port of Smyrna, the author Vassilis Tzanakaris returns to the place where on May 2, 1919, the bloody beginning of the end of the Great Idea was written. That same idea that led us from years of glory to those of disgrace.

A book that meticulously records the fierce conflict between the High Commissioner of Smyrna, Aristides Stergiadis, and the pinnacle of orthodoxy in Smyrna, Metropolitan Chrysostomos. A conflict that cost rivers of blood and tears. With a unique legacy for its protagonists, two crowns of thorns: for Chrysostomos, the national martyr, and for Aristides Stergiadis, the national annihilator.

With the first faithful "until death" in the sacraments of orthodoxy and Great Greece, and the appointee of the Greek State, Aristides Stergiadis, a proponent of the doctrine of Greek-Turkish coexistence and friendship. With Chrysostomos worshiped by hundreds of thousands of Minorasians, and Stergiadis burdened, like another Efiates, with the hatred and curses of an entire people.

And with them, Smyrna and Asia Minor. The bloody events of the port area, which drove Venizelos mad, the daily lives of the people, the diplomatic intrigues and conspiracies, the passions and epic military campaigns, and finally the extermination and destruction.

An evocative book that brings an entire era to life with the passions, pettiness, hopes, dreams, and greatness of the people, and that attempts to answer the question: Was Aristides Stergiadis a national traitor and the number one culprit of the Minor Asia Catastrophe, or was he a cold skeptic who knew firsthand the nightmarish dangers threatening the epic endeavor of the Asia Minor Campaign?

The edition includes rich photographic material.