Athanasios Lefkaditis


Athanasios Lefkaditis was the founder of Greek Scouting.
Lefkaditis was born in 1872 to parents from Argostoli on Cephalonia in the Ionian Islands in western Greece. In 1899 he received his professional physical education teaching license. His love for sports led him to become director of the Panhellenic Gymnastics Association and working with professor and school owner Dimitris Makris.
During the 1908 Summer Olympics in London, as a member of the Greek delegation, Lefkaditis observed with interest the British Scouts' service and activities at the Games. He met with Robert Baden-Powell and shortly after, introduced Scouting in Greece in 1910.
In November 1910 he founded the first troop of Greek Scouts comprised by a number of his pupils at the Greek School of Dimitris Makris where he was a teacher. He was memorialized in 1963 on a postage stamp of Greece for the occasion of the 11th World Scout Jamboree, held 1–11 August 1963 in Marathon, Greece.
There are three books with his biography published so far, one by I. K. Dimitrakopoulos and two by Panayotis D. Cangelaris. Mention of him may be found in a number of other books related to Greek Scouting as well.