It was deep August, at the height of the pandemic, when photographer Dimitris Chorianopoulos went on a long journey from Athens to Xanthi. At 51, he met his biological family for the first time, seeing his mother and eight siblings for the first time. Half a century had passed, but there was something infinite in those last hours. For all. At Xanthi Thanasis, Triantafillidis, aged 66 at the time, checked over and over again the final details of his younger brother’s admission.

In the midst of all this, protocols for COVID had to be followed. He ensured that the tables in the yard were at the necessary distance so that everyone was wearing masks, and advised all parties to restrain their enthusiasm and avoid excessive cordiality. Their mother was 93, they had to be careful. As soon as a car with Athenian numbers appeared around the corner, the instructions were taken for granted. “As soon as my wife and I came out, everyone jumped on us and started kissing. Only my mother kissed me five times,” recalls Dimitris. The tables merged together, forming one for the feast of the few to follow.

Dimitris grew up in Kavala, the only child of a wealthy family. His father had a lingerie factory and at that time, in the 70s, he was driving around in a Mercedes. He was also a communist and never boasted of his wealth. If anything characterized him, it was that everyone loved him and that he adored his son. “Both of my parents loved me very much, but my father especially gave me the feeling that if I got into something, he would die. He treated me very well, one day he scolded me, he wept because of his suffering.” And Dimitris, however, had a soft spot for him. Every time he went on tour to meet his clients, the kid thought he was leaving forever. He eventually left when Dimitris was 23 years old. From cancer.

Dimitris Chorianopoulos almost always knew that he was adopted. “I remember my mom and I hugging in bed — I must have been under 4 years old — and she told me. I remember knowing what that meant, but it didn’t make much sense to me. I knew it was my mom, it was my dad, I didn’t feel alienated, scared or with strangers at all.”

As a child, he told his friends about it, but he never discussed it with his parents again. He also never felt the need to look for his biological parents.

The domino of the events that brought him to this celebration in Xanthi was caused 10 years ago by his high cholesterol. He lived in Athens with his family for many years. “The doctor asked my family history, but I told him I didn’t know since I was adopted. A few days later, my wife Katerina informed my mother that I had high blood pressure and cholesterol, and we needed to find information about my biological parents. Then my mother told her that she knew this family.” When Katerina told him the news, he dryly replied, “I don’t care.” “I didn’t want to know. I thought I had nothing to do with them. Blood relations meant nothing to me.”

“The next few days (after the first short video call) I walked around with a smile plastered on my face like a fool. I was very touched by their own reaction.”

Years have passed. Before Christmas 20, Dimitris loses his mother, which saddens him. Some time later, on the way to Nafplio, they talked to his aunt about adoption. “That was the first time we talked about this issue. He told me that my parents knew my biological parents, that they were good people from Xanthi, very poor, and that the adoption was arranged by my grandmother.” no one knew yet where he would lead, set in motion. “My wife researched and found out that adopted children usually look for their biological family when they lose both adoptive parents. So he tried to slowly but surely give me new information. “You have 8 brothers, “he told me one day. I was furious. This unknown family began to form in my head. At some point, he revealed to me that their last name was Triantafillidis.”

Dimitris remembered that his Facebook friends were Andreas Triantafillidis from Xanthi. “We did not know each other closely, but we had a lot in common, he was also a photographer, like me, went in for mountaineering, and we talked several times. On first contact, he asked me if my father had a lingerie shop in Kavala. I told him yes and he told me that his father knew him. Dimitris’s mind didn’t leave. But as soon as he learned the name of his biological parents, he immediately contacted Andreas in the chat. “Are you related to a large family that gave the child up for adoption?” she asked him bluntly. “Yes, Dimitris,” he replied. “I am the son of your brother Thanasis. He made me find you on Facebook.” As it turned out, his brothers knew all along who he was and where he was, but as much as they wanted to contact him, they waited for him to make the first move. They didn’t want to interfere in his life.

Since then, the information has gone like a snowball. Prior to his birth, his biological family lived in extreme poverty. His father, an oil painter, worked here and there. Eight children, the oldest is 19, where can I get food for everyone? When his mother became pregnant with Dimitris, a neighbor and a priest asked her if she would agree to do the Christian act and give him up for adoption to a couple who cannot have children. He agreed. His mother gave birth to him in a clinic in Thessaloniki, from where Dimitris left with foster parents. Two roads that diverged to merge 50 years later.

The first contact was by video call. It was the beginning of the 21st century. “I asked my sister Maria to arrange it. It took her 10 minutes. “Tomorrow at 7 pm,” he tells me. Everyone was dying to see me. Those who arranged something else canceled it.” Dimitris was terribly worried, but at 7 pm. the next day he sat down in front of a computer to contact his family (his biological father died 20 years ago). “In the end he didn’t have a good signal, we said hello and hung up. But for the next few days, I walked around with a smile on my face like a fool. I didn’t know how I felt, I just knew that I was very touched by their reaction. The day I showed up, Thanasis’s daughter, Avgi, the French teacher, was having a treat at the school!

Online meetings continued, and August face-to-face meetings began to be scheduled. “When I got out of the car and my mother hugged me, the first thing she said to me was: “Your parents were very good people, and Dimitra (s.s. his stepmother) asked me not to appear.” She was afraid that I would not ask her for the reason she told me. “I grew up well, don’t worry,” I reassured her. He began to closely observe his brothers. “We all have constriction on the outside of our eyes,” he says. How does he feel today? “I lost my mother and found another. I grew up as an only child and now I have eight brothers and sisters. I feel like I have a family.”

Difficulties and dangers of the search

“We won’t just knock on mom’s door”

According to the law (2447/96), every adopted person after reaching the age of majority has the right to search for his roots. In fact, all assistance should be provided by social services or organizations involved in the adoption. However, as Maria Theodoropoulou, the founder of the Roots Research Center, who was trained in this type of search, told K, “so far, it has been done so that the services call the biological mother and inform her that there is a search for the child he once made” . Due to bureaucratic coldness, the result was often that the biological mother refused any contact.

She, who is also adopted and is in search of her biological family, says the process requires delicate handling. “As we explain to people who ask us to help them in their search, we are not going to knock on a woman’s door and say: “Mom, you gave birth to me.” Many years have passed, perhaps he created another family, which he usually did not talk about that event. That’s where we intervene, find the mother, talk to her, explain to her, she tells us how she sees it, and we continue to bring both parties into contact.”

Those who begin this process should keep in mind that there is a possibility that their mother is no longer alive. Then the matter becomes more difficult, since it is necessary to find brothers, if any, “to whom we must explain in a good way that their mother once gave birth to a child out of wedlock, which, of course, is not bad. and we should never judge people for what they once did.”
As Ms. Theodoropoulou says, each case is individual and has its own difficulties. This may be a child out of wedlock, it may be a gypsy family or a foreign woman with many children who may live in countries where the search for biological parents is not provided. This applies to women who are victims of adoption. “Even they are still interested in meeting their children – it’s a matter of finding them. It is worth saying that the gypsies, as a rule, agree to be reunited with their children and even treat them very decently. It so happened that my mother said to me at the meeting: “Sit down, I’ll wash myself, change my scarf, and I’ll come looking for you.” According to her, gypsies never change their minds like others. “Has it ever happened that the biological parent asks himself:“ What does he want now? To get property? No, we answer, he wants to know you because you gave birth to him.

The biological family does not have the right to search for their child (with some exceptions, such as health and inheritance issues). According to Ms Theodoropoulou, adoptive parents do not have to worry if their child expresses a desire to get to know their biological family. “Everyone has their share of love. Wanting to see who gave birth to you, to know your brothers and sisters, if they exist, is a human need. I have adoptive parents who accompanied their adopted child to meet his biological family. I have there were emotional moments. I saw the gypsy mother lean in to her stepmother’s ear and thank her.”