Every year on October 28, students at Greek Orthodox mission schools in Luweero, Uganda, take to the streets waving Gree...

Every year on October 28, students at Greek Orthodox mission schools in Luweero, Uganda, take to the streets waving Greek flags to mark OXI Day, the anniversary of Greece's refusal to surrender to Axis forces in 1940. The tradition is led by Father Antonios Mutyaba, a Ugandan-born Orthodox priest who has made the commemoration a cornerstone of his schools' mission. Father Antonios runs three boarding schools in the Luweero region that provide education, food, shelter, and medical care to more than 1,200 impoverished and orphaned children. He told Greek Reporter that he celebrates October 28 first to honor Greece, and second to drive home a lesson about freedom that he says Ugandan children rarely hear. "Children in Uganda learn to always say 'Yes,'" he explained. "I teach them that sometimes they should say 'No,' as the Greeks told the fascist powers in 1940." The students march outside the schools and then gather at the local church for the commemoration. Father Antonios frames the day not as a piece of distant Greek history but as a universal lesson in resisting oppression and demanding democratic rights. He has also formally asked Ugandan authorities to designate October 28 as the "Day of Democracy" across the country. Father Antonios was born in Uganda but lived with a Greek family as a child, later studying agronomy in Athens and theology at the Seminary of St. Matthew in Chania, Crete, where he was ordained. He returned to Uganda in 2004 with his wife Charitini and their four children. He now serves as the spiritual leader of more than 100,000 Greek Orthodox Christians across the country. Today, 86 years after Greece said no, the message is still being taught in a church courtyard in East Africa. #OXIDay #Greece #Uganda