The year 1571 was the turning point for the Ottoman Empire and by extension for Hellenism. For the first time, since 1453, the Turks suffered a terrifying military defeat, outside the Echinacea islands, in the so-called naval battle of Nafpaktos.
The defeat of the Turks filled the Greeks with hope and caused the explosion of various movements. The most important of these was the revolution proclaimed in the Peloponnese by the brothers Makarios and Theodoros Melissinos.
Leaders of the revolution in the Peloponnese and Roumeli were the Melissinos brothers, Theodoros the governor of the Thracian cities of Ainos and Xanthi and of course the bishop of Monemvasia Makarios. But who were the leaders of the Greek revolution? The Melissinos or Melisourgoi brothers seem to have been figures of great prestige in their time. Bishop Makarios in particular appears as the soul of the movement.
He was in contact with don Juan and the Europeans, he stirred up Moria and with his own motivation other bishops in Moria raised the banner of the revolution, like the then German of Palaion Patras.
The Melissani were, or at least claimed to be, descendants of an old, aristocratic, family of the Greek empire. Their commander was the general, during the reign of Emperor Constantine V, Michael Melissinos. Many letters of Bishop Makarios and his associates to don Juan the Austrian have been preserved, to which he replied with wishes and promises.
The revolution was consolidated with the arrival at the port of Oitylos of an official Venetian delegation with supplies and weapons. The Melissinos brothers also arrived in Mani a little later. There they came into contact with the leaders of the enslaved Maniats, Stamatios Koronios, Nikolaos Darmaros and Dimitrios Kosmas.
Together they all began to gather strength and finally raised the flag of revolution, a flag with the image of Christ. However, despite the appeals of Bishop Makarios, the Europeans did not come to the aid of the Greeks.
All that don Juan did, after his victory in the naval battle, was to land 8,000 men at Pylos, who, however, hastened to re-embark on the ships at the appearance of a small detachment of Turkish cavalry. Also, the European fleets attempted, unsuccessfully, to conquer Pylos, in an attempt to "enliven" the Greeks. The Greeks, however, did not need animating. They had a soul, they needed weapons and supplies.
The Greeks, helped by the fiery sermons of Bishop Makarios, had managed to stir up the whole of the Peloponnese and form a revolutionary army of 25,000 infantry and 3,000 cavalry, as if in exaggeration, Makarios argued in his letter.
While the Europeans were idle, Sultan Selim II was building a new fleet. Thus, in a short period of time, the Turks once again had a fleet of 250 warships. Strengthened, they decided to crush the Greek revolutionaries, who had been left to their own devices. Starting from Constantinople, the Turkish hordes descended the continental trunk of Greece, destroying everything in their path. More than 30,000 Greeks were slaughtered then, as an example.
The bishop of Thessalonica became a martyr of the Faith and the Fatherland, being thrown alive into the fire. The Greeks continued to wait anyway. In the meantime the new Turkish fleet landed on the Peloponnesian shores. On August 7, 1572, he was involved in a skirmish with the Christian fleet outside Kythera.
The conflict had no winner, mainly because the Christian coalition had already begun to erode and there was no will for serious involvement with the Turks. Things had a similar development on September 16, when the Christian fleet found itself in an advantageous position, having blocked the Turkish fleet at Pylos. But he still didn't take advantage of the opportunity.
Cervantes writes:"... I was there in Navarino, in the flagship with the three lanterns. And I also saw in the harbor the whole Turkish fleet, for all the sailors and janissaries who were there knew for certain that they would be attacked in the harbor, and had prepared their clothes and shoes, to leave immediately , without even waiting for the battle, such was their fear of our fleet.
"However, the will of the heavens was different and what happened was not due to a mistake or carelessness of the leader who led our people, but because of the sins of Christianity, and because God wants us to always have some executioners near us to punish us".
Theodoros Melissinos went to Pylos and met don Juan, asking him to keep the promises he had given in writing to the bishop Makarios. But don Juan told the Greek leader that there was nothing he could do. The Greeks should, he said, expect help next year when he would return, as he promised, with greater forces.
However, despite his true desire, don Juan was unable to campaign again in the Greek seas. In 1573 Venice signed a peace treaty with the sultan, abandoning and effectively condemning the Greeks to death. So the Greek leaders of the revolution surrendered their flags and fled to Venetian-occupied territories.
Thus, thanks to the new perversion of the Europeans, the opportunity for Greece was lost. When the Turks entered the Peloponnese they burned, slaughtered, plundered and captured, according to the custom of their "European" culture. Such was the bitter end of the Greek revolution. The Melissani brothers hid in the mountains, and then, when they found a suitable opportunity, crossed over to Zakynthos and from there to Italy.
The Melissani brothers visited the various courts of the West, Pope Gregory XIII and the Spanish King Philip II. But the only thing they achieved was to receive honorary pensions. The freedom of Greece could wait. After that, they permanently settled in Neapolis, where there was a significant population of Greeks, especially refugees from Koroni and Patras.
There they lived and died, Theodoros on March 25, 1582 and Makarios on September 12, 1585. They were buried in the Holy Altar, in front of the Holy Altar, of the church of the apostles Peter and Paul of the Greek community, in which they held such an official position.