Larisa Notaries Index

BACKGROUND

The Jewish community of Larisa was one of the most important mixed Sephardic and Romaniote communities in Ottoman Yunanistan/Greece. Intimately connected with the communities in Salonika, Trikkala, and Janina, Larisa was one of the cities with the title of Madre de Israel, mother of Israel. While never a community on the scale of Salonika in terms of size, it was one of the largest historically in Greece with familial connections all over the region.

In 1881, the Kingdom of Greece extended sovereignty over Ottoman Thessaly following the signing of the Convention of Constantinople. By November 1881, the Kingdom formally extended control over the newly united province of Thessaly and the first notaries of the Greek state began working. Prior, the Ottoman Sharia courts served as the notaries in the region.

On the Greek State Archives site, department of Larisa, three of the early Greek notaries have been partially digitized: Anastasias Filiou (1881-Jan 1889), Agathangelos Ioannidis (1882-1900), and Andrea Rodopoulou (1882-1900). This survey, undertaken by Associate Director of the Sephardic Research Division, Michael Waas, and Alexander Ventura of Athens, has uncovered a vast wealth of information on the Jewish community of Larisa and the surrounding area in these notaries. This database, which will be updated as notaries are complete, contains all sorts of documents such as powers of attorneys, causa mortis, testimony related to court cases and guardianships, and marriage contracts among others. And one of the most surprising findings has been that the apparent high-degree of Greek fluency among the Jewish community from the very beginning of the Greek state, suggesting that, at least for the merchants, Greek language fluency was an important component of education in the Jewish community by at least the mid-19th century. More research is needed.

See more on the Greek State Archives Arxeiomnimon Digital portal here.

DATABASE

This database includes 1,009 Jewish notary records in Larissa.

The fields in the database are:

• Primary Act
• Julian Date/Corrected Date
• Surname
• Given Name
• Father's name(s)
• Occupation/Occupation in Greek
• Signature? (Y/N)
• Hebrew? (Y/N)
• Greek? (Y/N)
• Type of document
• Notes
• Link (on second screen)
• File (on second screen)

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Special thanks to Associate Director of the Sephardic Research Division, Michael Waas, and Alexander Ventura of Athens for their tireless work in amassing and translating this data

November 2025