A winding four-hour drive from Athens, it enjoys near total silence, periodically broken by church bells and howling dogs.
By Thanassis Stavrakis and Derek Gatopoulos
FOURNA, Greece (AP) — Fourna, home to 180 people and hidden in the fir-tree covered mountains of central Greece, is a vanishing village that is determined to keep its place on the map.
A winding four-hour drive from Athens, it enjoys near total silence, periodically broken by church bells and howling dogs. Elderly residents measure the village’s chances of survival by the number of children enrolled at the local primary school.
Last year, there were only two.
But Fourna’s fortunes have been reversed by an unlikely and tireless partnership. The local schoolteacher, a Ph.D. student studying artificial intelligence, found common cause with the Rev. Constantine Dousikos, a burly Orthodox priest and former lumber machine operator who was ordained shortly before turning 50.
They started a despair-fueled campaign to attract families to Fourna, offering settling-in money raised from private donations and municipal programs.
It’s working: Two families have moved to the village, five more are on a 2025 wait list, and hundreds of others have made inquiries. Eight children now attend elementary classes.
Dousikos, equally at ease behind the wheel of his pickup or in front of the church altar, says the initiative was partly inspired by calls from the Orthodox church hierarchy urging clergy to promote family life.
“I think we did the obvious thing: Help the people here keep our village alive,” he says, standing in the Church of Transfiguration of Christ on the main square. “Of course, village life is not for everyone. You need to be good at manual work.”
Greece has one of the world’s oldest populations with 23% aged 65 or older in 2023, according to World Bank data. The central Greek region of Evrytania, home to Fourna, faces low birth rates and rural depopulation, with an average age of 56.2 – one of the three highest in the European Union.
Panagiota Diamanti, Fourna’s only elementary schoolteacher and co-founder of the family campaign “New Life in the Village,” says the urgency of the situation is palpable.
“If the kids don’t come, the teacher gets transferred and the school will close. And a closed school will never reopen,” she says. “We need bold action.”
More than 200 publicly run schools and kindergartens were shut down across Greece in the current school year due to low enrollment, many in remote parts of the country with sparse populations due to its mountainous mainland terrain and numerous small islands. Several local authorities have reached out to the Fourna campaign, and asked Diamanti to help them start a similar program.
After class, she joins her eight students in a game of dodgeball at the school yard that overlooks Evrytania’s jagged mountains. The kids enjoy a local-celebrity status; their birthdays are often celebrated in the main village square.
Vassiliki Emmanouil relocated to Fourna with her six children – five sons and a daughter – and says she has been showered with kindness. Village residents leave food outside her door overnight and are encouraging her to restart an old bakery when her husband returns from a spell of work in Germany.
“I’ve been here for nearly three months, and I would be ungrateful to say I’ve struggled,” Emmanouil says. “The local priest and his wife treat me as if I’m part of their family. The entire village has been by our side, from offering daily essentials to emotional support.”
Deaths overtook annual births in Greece in 2010 as the country sank into a severe financial crisis and the numbers have steadily worsened since then, reaching almost double the birth level in 2022.
The conservative government last year created a ministry of family and social cohesion. It has increased family benefits in the 2025 budget and reached out to the Orthodox Church for help.
Last year, the church’s governing Holy Synod issued a circular that was read out at all of Greece’s Orthodox churches, arguing that financial incentives will not be enough to reverse the dire demographic trends.
“Experts propose various solutions to address the issue, emphasizing its significant social, economic, and geopolitical implications,” the message said.
“The Church underscores the spiritual dimension of family life, advocating for unity, love, and the creation of families as a testament to divine purpose,” it added. “Children, considered gifts from God, bring meaning to life and symbolize hope and renewal.”
For Fourna’s residents, even church attendance is tied to village survival. Two dozen churches in the area remain empty most of the year but are well maintained and open for important dates on the religious calendar. The appearance of children in church and on the village’s long-quieted streets caught most residents off guard.
“At the start, I never thought families would come to live here. It’s a remote village, very small, without much here,” local business owner Giorgos Vassilikoudis said.
“But to my surprise, families did come and they’re happy,” said Vassilikoudis, who runs a restaurant and guesthouse. “It’s very good for the village and for people who have shops and businesses. For other villages, it serves as an example. It’s a good start.”
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AP journalist Lefteris Pitarakis contributed to this report.
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Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
First published Dec. 13, 2024
