Simonidis, son of Maria di Simi and Simone the stagirita, who in turn was the son of Kostas, son of Photius, son of Constantine, son of Fotocare, son of Andrisco, and descendant, going back gradually, of eighty-eight others ancestors, he was born on 5 November 1820 in the island of Hydra and precisely on the warship of his father, called Ares, exactly when he left the port and sailed to Simi, the mother country of the newborn. When the ship docked at Simi, after four days, the newborn is baptized in Christ on November 25, and is called Constantine. The captain of the ship Andrea Miaule relieved him from the sacred baptismal font thanks to the lady named Despina (if she does not deceive the memory) since the hero Miaule was not very well. Educated and become a pupil of the most prepared among the Greeks I mean, for example, Filetero the grammarian, of the learned Neofito Dukas, of Gregory, son of Costantas, extraordinary speaker, of Rigas, the famous mathematician, of Benedict, adorned with all knowledge and virtue, by Giovanni Foziades of Simi, pupil of the Muses, later called Hierotheos, and above all of the famous Alessandro Sturtza was proclaimed a doctor in philosophy having (previously) composed the learned treatise Sul Chersoneso Calcidico. But he did not neglect even the fine arts, indeed he also took care of them and most of them shone, having initially attended some of the best artists of Athos, Damasceno and Gennadio, and subsequently others, in particular the French Vitali (Vidal?), One of the famous schoolchildren of the famous French David.
In the year 1843, being in Odessa, under the tutelage of the secret adviser of Tsar Nicola, Alessandro Sturtza, he left for Trebizonda, for political tasks, on the orders of Sturtza. After stopping for a while and having traveled the country all around (), he went to the Greek monastery of Sumelas. Returning from that monastery to Trebizond, he began to visit, in order, all () the coastal towns and small towns of Pontus Eusin, catechizing anyone who was worthy of catechesis, of Greek Orthodox faith, against the Turkish barbarians; and at the same time writing a very important archaeological treatise on Ponto Eusino (). When he arrived in Calcedone (now Scutari), he returned to Byzantium, and from there to Eraclea. Started by Eraclea and having traveled all () the Thracian coast, and then also the Chersoneso tracio on this side and beyond the Hellespont, arrived in 419 Lisimachia, the city once founded on the ruins of the city of Cardia 420 and stopped little, he left again after three days and returned to the river Ebro. Here, sick and then recovered, he inspects the foundations of the ancient cities of Pieride, as well as those of the cities in the strontium gulf, then he goes to Stagira, the famous homeland of his ancestors.
From here he went for the third time to Mount Athos. Having stopped there for some time, the History of the hagiography and the hagiographers of Mount Athos writes summarily. He had composed it by transcending the material from the philological treasures preserved there. He sent it to Sturtza because he had compiled it along with his other archaeological writings. Translated into Russian, it will also be given to the press with other archaeological writings of him.
Left from the Athos, visit the islands, all (), which are located around the mountain, as well as some of the Sporades and the coast of Caria 422 and a small part of Lycia. From Lycia he returns to Cyprus (he had been there other times) and from Cyprus he goes for the second time to Alexandria.
From Alexandria it was in Cairo and Mount Sinai in the year 1844, in the month of January.
Stopping for a while in the Greek monastery of this mountain and having discovered things of great importance, he wrote about it to the Patriarch Costanzio. And back again in Cairo and again reaches the Sinai in March.
Having traveled all around and carefully both Mount Sinai and the surrounding area (and therefore the whole country of Cassanites () and that of the Elyos, 423 and reached the palindrome promontory to carry out archaeological research, passed through the sea of the Eropits 424 ( commonly called the Red Sea) in the city of Filotera in the Troglodyte, and from there it reached the port of Topo] and then to the city of Copto.
From Copto he goes as far as Thebes, where he has stopped three whole ([= the) months leaves for the Philai islands, placed south of Syene [Aswan], and also from there, after seven months, 425 returned to Alexandria, with three crates of archaeological records. Having then crossed Syria throughout () and Mesopotamia, Arabia Saudi Arabia and Mount Lebanon as well as the Antiliban, as well as Panfilia and Cilicia, later returned to Babylon and from there to Persia, and from Persia returned to Russia again safe and sound.
In 1846 he went to Byzantium, to Bithynia, to Misia, and to free Greece, where he became a severe critic of the American pseudo-apostles, and freed Greece from the filth of these evildoers. Then he goes to Epirus, Thessaly and Macedonia, and again to Byzantium, to Odessa and Petersburg, and he goes back to Byzantium through Germany. 14
From Byzantium it goes to Smyrna, in the year 1851 and again on Athos and in other cities and islands of non-free Greece. Then in Alexandria, Cairo, Mount Sinai in March 1852.
From the mountain he wrote ten letters to us, dealing with various topics, as well as from other countries: and sooner or later we will publish only those of philological argument, together with those addressed to Costantius and Sturtza if (God willing) it will be possible.
He also went to Abyssinia Simonidis, from Mount Sinai, together with two Greek archimandrite. And there he thwarted the plots contrary to the correct faith of the pseudo-priests of the Latin church and, reinforced the Greek faith, returned again to Alexandria, and from there to Malta.
From Malta it passed to Carthage and the surrounding region () and again to Malta and Sicily and from there to other cities and islands of Western Europe and eventually reached the English city of Liverpool in 1853 and then to London, as is expressed his Journey of archaeological study 15 addressed to Sturtza. From which we too have escaped everything () is reported above and we publish it now with the consent of the noble Alessandro Sturtza, not at all doubting that Simonidis himself will also praise our dedication to the beauty to which Simonidis was also voted since childhood.
Written in Moscow, the first of August of the year 1853
Callinico Hieromonaco
