One year after the catastrophe, Lazaros began the slow work of reconstructing his documentary self. The earliest replacement credential in the family archive is this one: a typewritten letter from the Secretary of the Faculty of Medicine of the Université de Paris, dated July 26, 1923, authorizing the issuance of a duplicate Doctor of Medicine diploma to Lazaros Jeannopoulos. The original had burned in Soma along with everything else. The lower-left pen annotation reads simply “M. Jeannopoulos.”
Full text (translated from French)
“Sir,
I have the honor to inform you that, by decision of the 13th of July of the current year, the Minister of Public Instruction has authorized the delivery of a duplicate of the Doctor of Medicine Diploma which you were deemed worthy of by the Faculty of Medicine of Paris on the 2nd of July [year-reading uncertain — see below].
However, no decision will be taken unless you have paid the regulatory fees for the delivery of this duplicate.
Consequently, I would be obliged if you would kindly send me the sum of 51 francs representing the fees and charges.
Yours faithfully,
The Secretary of the Faculty [signature]“
Why this matters
Lazaros’s own 1924 handwritten CV (file 097 in the Lazaros archive) gives his education as Half-Gymnasium of Axar 1893-1896, Gymnasium of the Evangelical School of Smyrna 1896-1899, MD School of Medicine of the National University of Athens 1899-1903, and three years Paris postgraduate training in general medicine / obstetrics / urology / syphilology thereafter. This Paris diploma duplicate letter is the primary-source confirmation of the Paris training capstone of that CV — the formal French diploma at the end of his Paris postgrad years.
The year-reading question
The typewritten year of the original diploma on the 1923 letter reads visually as “1896”, but this is incompatible with Lazaros’s own CV — which dates his Half-Gymnasium years as 1893-1896 (i.e., he was still in secondary school in July 1896, age 22). The most plausible reconciliation is that the typewritten year is actually “1906” — three years after his 1899-1903 Athens medical schooling, consistent with the CV’s “3 years Paris postgraduate” line. Belle-Époque French typewriter fonts can render a 0 and an 8/9 with some visual overlap, and an OCR-style reading of an aged carbon-copy letter is consistent with either 1896 or 1906. The 1906 reading is preferred on biographical-coherence grounds; the original document image is preserved for direct inspection.
Either way, this document establishes that Lazaros earned a Doctor of Medicine diploma from the Faculty of Medicine of the Université de Paris — the apex of Belle-Époque European medical training. The CV’s Paris postgrad years are now documented in primary form.
Why he needed a duplicate
Lazaros’s original Paris diploma would have been destroyed in the 1922 Asia Minor catastrophe along with the rest of his Soma household. The 1925 Greek Refugee Compensation Committee property itemization records he abandoned an estate worth approximately 3,330 Turkish gold lira (≈22 kg of gold) — house, medical practice, instruments, library, professional credentials, all gone in the flight to Mytilene. (Lazaros’s CV explicitly notes that his elementary, secondary, and Smyrna gymnasium diplomas were all marked “Has been burned”; the Athens medical diploma is the only one that survived.)
By mid-1923, in his Mytilene refuge year, Lazaros began reconstructing his documentary identity. He wrote to the Faculty of Medicine of Paris asking for a duplicate of his Paris-issued diploma. The Minister of Public Instruction approved his request on July 13, 1923, and the Faculty Secretary responded on July 26, 1923 authorizing the duplicate upon payment of 51 francs in fees.
Slots into the 1923-1924 credentials portfolio
This is the earliest credential-replacement document in Lazaros’s pre-emigration assembly. The full sequence:
| Date | Document |
|---|---|
| July 26, 1923 | ★ Faculté de Médecine de Paris diploma duplicate authorized (this document) |
| December 26, 1923 | Soma Refugees Association ID booklet with photograph — Mytilene |
| January 3, 1924 | Mytilene Gendarmerie Passport Control endorsement (1st Mytilene→Athens trip) |
| January 15, 1924 | American Consul Athens visa |
| January 18, 1924 | ★ Ecumenical Patriarchate testimonial — Metropolitan Chrysostomos of Ephesus |
| March 3, 1924 | Mytilene Prosecutor criminal-record clearances (Lazaros + Eftyhia) |
| March 6, 1924 | Soma Community Elders farewell testimonial (Mytilene) |
| March 6, 1924 | Medical Association of Lesbos farewell (Mytilene) |
| March 12, 1924 | Vryoula Refugees / Ephesus Protosynkellos declaration (Athens) |
| March 13, 1924 | Smyrna Metropolitanate Locum Tenens testimonial (Athens) |
| March 18, 1924 | SS Themistocles departure → New York |
A multigenerational medical lineage
Lazaros’s training stands at the root of an elite medical lineage that ultimately included his brother Takis (Panagiotis), who also obtained University of Paris medical training in 1934-1936, his sons John Lazare and Constantine, his brother Achilles (“Alfred A. Johnson”), and on into a third generation of physicians. The Paris connection traces directly back through this 1923 letter — for both Lazaros and Takis, the Faculty of Medicine of the Université de Paris appears as a primary educational waypoint, separated by nearly four decades of family medical practice.
