April, 2026
Event Details
Nostos for Greek Adoptees
When: Thursday, April 2, 2026 | 18:30
Where: ACG Events Hall, The American College of Greece
[6 Gravias str., Aghia Paraskevi, GR 15342]
Organized by:
The Demos Center of The American College of Greece
About the event:
Greece’s thousands of adoptees, the so called “Lost Children of Greece”, who were born from the 1940s to the early 1970s, have longed to restore their citizenship for years. These were the first adoptees in history that were systematically sent out of the country for adoption.
For many, getting their Greek Citizenship, it was the only certain connection to a family and a community in Greece. For years, many hurdles lay in the path of these adopted persons, most of whom grew up in the United States. But through an exceptional combination of advocacy, scholarly research, the government’s political will, and institutional support (The American College of Greece, The Demos Center of ACG and King’s College London), the path for Greek-born adoptees to restore their Greek citizenship has now been opened.
Since May 2025, one adopted person after another has achieved this lifelong goal, gaining with it a sense of recognition and symbolic repair. The law that passed helps heal the country from a painful and difficult period that separated families from their children. After all, being Greek runs deep in their sense of belonging and identity.
On 2 April 2026, we will discuss and celebrate this momentous breakthrough with the leading policymakers: Professor Gonda Van Steen, Dr. Athanasios Balermpas, long-time supporter and designer of a range of practical solutions, Dr. Mary Cardaras, Dr. Eirini Karamouzi, adoptee activists and scholars. Also present will be Greek-born adoptees and direct beneficiaries of the legal change.
Event Flow
Welcome Remarks
Dr. Ed Wingenbach
President, The American College of Greece
Remarks
Professor Gonda Van Steen
Koraes Chair of Modern Greek and Byzantine History, Language and Literature
Director, Centre for Hellenic Studies, King’s College, U.K.
Conversation on “Adoption, Memory and Reform: How is Greece Shaping Policy for its Diaspora?”
Moderator
Victoria Hislop
Bestselling Author
ACG Annual Kimon Friar Lecturer
Panelists
Professor Gonda Van Steen
Koraes Chair of Modern Greek and Byzantine History, Language and Literature
Director, Centre for Hellenic Studies, King’s College, U.K.
ACG Annual Kimon Friar Lecturer
Dr. Athanasios Balermpas
General Secretary, Ministry of Interior, Hellenic Republic
Former Secretary General of Citizenship in Greece (2019–2023)
Dr. Eirini Karamouzi
Professor of Contemporary European History
Associate Dean, Research & Innovation
Deree – The American College of Greece
Editor, Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies Journal
Dr. Mary Cardaras
Founder & Director, The Demos Center of The American College of Greece
Co-Founder of The Kali Polis Project
Reception
The event is free and open to the public. Parking on campus, upon availability.
Registration is required.
The event will be presented in both Greek and English.
For more information, please contact us at [email protected]
Bio of the panelists
Professor Gonda Van Steen
Koraes Chair of Modern Greek and Byzantine History, Language and Literature Director, Centre for Hellenic Studies, King’s College, U.K. 27th Kimon Friar Lecturer at The American College of Greece
Gonda Van Steen earned a PhD in Classics and Hellenic Studies from Princeton University and holds the position of Koraes Chair of Modern Greek and Byzantine History, Language and Literature at King’s College London. She also serves as the Director of the Centre for Hellenic Studies at King’s.
Her early scholarship focused on the intersection of ancient drama and modern Greek politics. Her first book, Venom in Verse: Aristophanes in Modern Greece (2000), was awarded the John D. Criticos Prize. She followed this with Liberating Hellenism from the Ottoman Empire (2010), Theatre of the Condemned: Classical Tragedy on Greek Prison Islands (2011), and Stage of Emergency: Theater and Public Performance under the Greek Military Dictatorship of 1967-1974 (2015), which analyzed performance and censorship under the Greek junta.
In recent years, Professor Van Steen has pioneered research into the “lost children” of Greece. Her 2019 book, Adoption, Memory and Cold War Greece: Kid pro quo? (published in Greek in 2021), explored the uncharted terrain of postwar Greek adoption stories. She followed this with the 2024 publication of The Battle for Bodies, Hearts and Minds in Postwar Greece, an annotated memoir of an American social worker in Thessaloniki.
Her most recent contributions include co-editing The War for Anatolia and the Remaking of International Order (2026) and the 2025 play Adoptions Reckonings: For Three Refrigerators and a Washing Machine, which centers the narratives of Greek-born adoptees. Professor Van Steen can be reached at [email protected].
Dr. Mary Cardaras
Founder & Director, The Demos Center of The American College of Greece
Co-Founder of The Kali Polis Project
Mary Cardaras is the Founder and Director of The Demos Center at The American College of Greece. An Emmy Award-winning journalist, writer, and documentary filmmaker, she holds a PhD in Public and International Affairs from Northeastern University in Boston. She has been teaching at the university level since 1991, with a career-long focus on developing students into active, curious, and globally-minded citizens.
The Demos Center represents the culmination of Dr. Cardaras’s dedication to public policy, journalism, and the arts. Her work is rooted in the belief that a healthy, free society requires government that serves its people, journalism that “shines a light in dark corners,” and a vibrant, flourishing arts community.
A Greek-born adoptee herself, Dr. Cardaras has been a leading advocate for the restoration of Greek citizenship for the “lost children of Greece”—the approximately 4,000 children adopted abroad between 1948 and 1975. She launched the Nostos for Greek Born Adoptees campaign, which garnered over 75,000 signatures from around the world. Her advocacy was instrumental in the historic passage of the 2025 law that finally restored citizenship rights to this community.
Dr. Athanasios Balermpas
General Secretary, Ministry of Interior, Hellenic Republic
Former Secretary General of Citizenship in Greece (2019–2023)
Athanasios Balermpas was born in Athens in 1966. He holds a Bachelor’s degree (B.Sc.) in Greek Philology from Aristotle’s University of Thessaloniki and a Master’s Degree (M.Sc.) in Sustainable Local Development. He earned his Ph.D. in Architecture from the Department of Urban Planning – Spatial Planning at the National Technical University of Athens. He is fluent in both English and German.
As an active scholar, Dr. Balermpas has participated as a guest speaker in numerous forums and conferences focused on urban environment and cultural issues. He has published several studies in scientific journals and is the author of multiple books on rhetoric, ancient Greece, and history through Livanis and Hellenic Literature Publications. His forthcoming book, The Physiognomy of the Greek Urban Environment Through Literature, is set to be published by EURASIA Publications, and his articles frequently appear in the daily and periodical press.
In his professional career, he has served as President and CEO for various Public Limited Companies within the wider public sector and local government. He currently works as a certified education executive in an International Baccalaureate (IB) authorized educational program. Most recently, from 2019 until 2023, he served as the Secretary General of Citizenship at the Ministry of Interior.
Dr. Eirini Karamouzi
Professor of Contemporary European History
Associate Dean, Research & Innovation
Deree – The American College of Greece
Editor, Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies Journal
Eirini Karamouzi is a Professor of Contemporary European History at The American College of Greece and an associate professor of Contemporary History at the University of Sheffield. She has held fellowships at the London School of Economics, Yale University, University of Oxford, University of Tampere, and the European University Institute.
She is the author of Greece, the EEC and the Cold War: The Second Enlargement (2014), co-editor of The Balkans in the Cold War (2017), and co-editor of Beyond the Euromissiles: The Global Histories of Anti-nuclear Activism (Berghahn, 2025). She has published extensively in the Journal of Contemporary History, Cold War History, and International History Review on issues related to the history of European integration, democracy, and protest in Southern Europe, as well as Greek foreign policy.
Currently, she co-directs an AHRC network grant on global anti-nuclear activism and a Laskaridis-funded project on US–Greek relations in the Metapolitefsi, 1974-2024. Her current research project, supported by the Onassis Foundation and Research England, deals with the historical role of tourism in Greece’s nation branding.
Bio of the moderator
Victoria Hislop
Bestselling Author
Victoria Hislop studied English Literature at Oxford University and afterwards worked in book publishing, PR and journalism. During her time as a journalist, she wrote on education and travel for national newspapers and magazines and was sent on assignments around the world. Inspired by a visit to Spinalonga, the abandoned Greek leprosy colony, Victoria wrote The Island in 2005. She was named Newcomer of the Year at the British Book Awards and the novel became an international bestseller, translated into 40 languages, with over 6 million copies sold worldwide. It was turned into a 26-part Greek TV series which achieved record ratings for Greece.
Her affection for the Mediterranean then took her to Spain, and in The Return she wrote about the painful secrets of its civil war. In her third novel, The Thread, Victoria returned to Greece to tell the extraordinary and turbulent tale of Thessaloniki and its people across the 20th century. Published in 2011 to widespread acclaim, it confirmed her reputation as an inspirational storyteller and was shortlisted for a British Book Award. The Thread is currently in development with a British TV production company. The Sunrise, set in Cyprus and published in 2014, was followed by Cartes Postales from Greece, which is her first work of fully color-illustrated fiction and was also short-listed for the British Book Awards fiction title of the year. It was adapted into a twelve-part drama for ERT1 in 2021.
Those Who Are Loved, published in 2019, tells the story of Greece’s traumatic period of Occupation and Civil War during the 20th century. In 2020, came the sequel to The Island, One August Night, and Victoria was executive producer on the adaptation for Greek state television. Victoria’s first book for children, Maria’s Island (listed by Waterstones as one of the best children’s books of the year) was also published in 2020 – and is an adaptation of The Island for a younger audience. All of Victoria’s novels have hit the number one position in the UK charts, but have also been bestsellers in Greece, China, France, Israel and Norway. She has won several literary awards in France.
As well as studying the Greek language (it is her ultimate ambition to read everything and anything without the presence of a dictionary by her side), she spends her spare time reading, swimming, boxing, playing tennis and, these days, dancing (having been a contestant in Greece’s version of “Strictly” in 2021). She is an ambassador for Lepra, a UK charity that raises money to treat the estimated three million leprosy sufferers worldwide, and is also an ambassador for the National Literacy Trust which promotes reading in the UK. Victoria is Patron of Knossos 2025 which is raising funds to renew the British School of Athens research center in Crete. In 2019, Victoria was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the University of Sheffield, and in 2020 she was given Honorary Citizenship by the Greek President for her promotion of Greece.
Her last novel, The Figurine, was published in the UK in September 2023. A central theme is the looting of archaeological treasures and the meaning of “home”. Hislop’s next novel, The Wine Dark Sea, is expected to be published in September 2026 and will take us to Chios among other places in Greece. A large part of the story is about a mother whose young son was stolen for adoption during the Greek Civil War.