Historical review
History of the Fellowship of Free Evangelical Churches in Greece
On 16 February 1891, in Korakiana, Corfu, the first child of the mayor Spyros Metallinos, Kostas, was born. This child was used by God to play an important role in upgrading the spiritual life of Greece by creating the Free Evangelical Church movement.
His father, a mayor, but unremunerated, raised him in great poverty. Kostas Metallinos himself said, "I grew up in an environment of deep poverty". Although he never bought books as a child, due to his family's indigence, he always passed his annual examinations with flying colours, which showed his diligence and high IQ. His natural gifts given by God were later used to create the Fellowship of Free Evangelical Churches.
In 1904 he enrolled in high school in the capital city of Corfu. His father had passed away, but his whole family and especially his uncle Christodoulos, despite his poverty, struggled to educate him. He describes his own psychology at that time, saying he had "an unquenchable thirst for scientific knowledge and all the doctrines and systems concerning man, the world and God in order to find the truth to serve it".
In 1908 he came to Athens and enrolled in the Department of Mathematics at the University of Athens. He quickly embraced the theory of evolution, materialism and unbelief. He was however consumed by a frenzy of hatred for the person of Christ. Influenced by the atheistic ideas of the nineteenth century, he tried to find arguments against Christianity by studying the New Testament. But instead of finding the arguments he was looking for, he met Jesus Christ in person!
Reading the New Testament, his heart broke and with tears in his eyes he said: "Oh, Jesus, I did not know you and that is why I fought you. I thank you because you accepted me too. I promise You that I will be completely Your own and serve You all my life...". That meeting was an earthquake and a milestone in his life. It was similar to the meeting of Saul (later to be known as the Apostle Paul) on the road to Damascus. From then on, K. Metallinos became a warm and sincere preacher of the truth of Christ - a mission, a vision, that lasted until the end of his life. The promise he made in his first prayer was kept by K. Metallinos for 50 years until he departed from this world from the camp of the Fellowship of the Free Evangelical Churches in Sounion at 8 p.m. on Tuesday, January 22, 1963, while he was lecturing to those engaged in the ministry of the word in the Free Evangelical Churches. His grave is in the First Cemetery of Athens.