Speros Demetrios Athans

Speros Demetrios Athans was born 1883 in Turkey. Raised in the Greek Or­tho­dox Church, Ath­ans left home at age 15, af­ter his fa­ther’s death. He spent two years on the is­land of Cor­fu, Greece, and two more in Egypt, then went to Great Bri­tain, where he worked as a sail­or. In 1903 he went to Am­er­i­ca, and dur­ing im­mi­gra­tion pro­cess­ing, some­one gave him a New Tes­ta­ment in Greek. A year lat­er, he joined a Naz­a­rene church in Chi­ca­go, Il­li­nois. He then en­rolled in a Bi­ble school and un­i­ver­si­ty. While in school in Ca­li­for­nia, he be­gan to stu­dy Span­ish and to work with the La­ti­no com­mu­ni­ty. In 1910 he de­cid­ed to work in ev­an­gel­ism. In 1931, he joined the Me­thod­ist mis­sion­ary work in La­tin Am­er­i­ca, re­tir­ing in 1949.

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