by Christos Zabounis

The news of Antonis Lymberis’ passing found me at the archaeological site of the Temple of Horus. In the telephone conversation we had, a little later, with the creator of “Mancode”, Thalis Pitoulis, we agreed that the least we could do would be to honor his memory on our website, mancodestyle. Listening to the tour guide extol the achievements of the ancient Egyptians for so many days, I had no difficulty in drawing a parallel with the magazines of the deceased. If I needed only one cosmetic adjective to characterize the great publisher, it would be pioneering. Let me cite just one example to support my point of view. In 2001, when I visited the director of “Paris Match”, Olivier Royant, in Paris, when I showed him an issue of “Life&Style” that I edited with his wife Elena Makri, his comment was highly complimentary. “Do you publish such magazines in Greece?” In the following years, I was fortunate enough to serve, because it was a term of office, next to a high-level teacher of the press. Although “well-schooled” by my international career, I did not feel for a moment around him that I was working in a Balkan country, with a provincial mentality. Quite the opposite. The quality of his publications, the photographic productions that always passed through his lens, and his exhausting perfectionism, were some of the virtues that led him to the top of his profession. Another element of his character that brought us together was his civic ethos. He had good manners and treated the hundreds of employees of Lymberis Publications as members of his family. He had made, moreover, a safe choice for his own family, safe because his wife and my friend, Elena, demonstrated rare virtues when the fall came. “We see the good,” said the Evangelist John, and Antonis Lymberis went about his life of transit applying the above saying. He saw the good and did good not only to the undersigned, but also to the majority of the people he associated with and collaborated with.
Rest in peace Antonis.