The following biographies were written for the many. We were motivated to write them out of love and admiration. We believe this is justified. And for another reason: because there are no alternatives available to today's reader, in the form presented here.
The goal we aimed for is for each one to have its own completeness, although the depicted figures often operate within the same sphere, influencing and being influenced by the same events, reflecting the same situations, merging into the same vision, and sharing the same goals and ideals.
A consequence of completeness is thoroughness. However, thoroughness for the many who are intended. We provided, in our opinion, all those elements that express the soul, dynamism, fighting spirit, sacrifice, and self-sacrifice.
We often used details, when it could illuminate and underscore a point, an event, a facet of the biographed person from their own perspective. We did not use footnotes. At the end of the texts we borrowed from, we only include the name of their author in parentheses. The rest is supplemented in the bibliographic anthology that we provide at the end of the book.
Thus, the text "flows." It becomes more readable. The world we are trying to bring to life in the "Synaxarion" is not known to the broader reading public. Yet, to others, it is no less unknown.
Let it not be thought that our reasons for particular preference led us to include the depicted figures in this collection. Although among them there are many of the most significant, the era of Ottoman rule is so rich that they cannot encompass it all.
(. . .) [Excerpt from the text of the preface]
