200 Years of the Exodus of Messolonghi

A scene from the Greek War of Independence in 1826. Along the upper edge of the design, the commemorative inscription "200 XRONIA APO THN EΞOΔO TOY MEΣOΛOΓΓIOY" is engraved, with the year 2026 and the palmette of the Greek mint below it. The issuing state "ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΗ ΔΗΜΟΚΡΑΤΙΑ" appears along the lower edge.

In the early morning hours of 10 April 1826, around 9,000 people — fighters, women, children, and the elderly — attempted to break out of besieged Missolonghi. The town in western Greek Aetolia had for years been a symbolic centre of the Greek War of Independence against the Ottoman Empire. After several phases of siege and a months-long blockade by Ottoman and Egyptian forces under Ibrahim Pasha, the defenders' position had become untenable: food supplies were exhausted and no relief mission arrived. The breakout — Greek: Έξοδος, Exodos — turned into a massacre: part of the Ottoman force had learned of the plan, many of those fleeing were killed, and only a few escaped into the mountains. Missolonghi subsequently fell to the besiegers.

The event triggered a wave of outrage and philhellenic engagement across Europe. Poets, intellectuals, and volunteers from various nations had already supported the Greek cause for years — Lord Byron had died in Missolonghi in 1824. The Exodus lent the struggle for freedom new moral urgency and accelerated diplomatic intervention by the European great powers, culminating in the 1827 Battle of Navarino and, finally, the 1830 recognition of the independent Greek state. Missolonghi has since been regarded as the "sacred city" of modern Greece. On the 200th anniversary of the Exodus, Greece commemorates this key event of the War of Independence in 2026 with a commemorative coin.