The Exodus of Messolonghi is an event that embodies the spirit of the Struggle for Independence: faith in Freedom, Resistance, choosing death over surrender, and the struggle for dignity.

The celebrations are centered on the Holy City of Messolonghi, but the message and significance of the Exodus are nationwide.

The Benaki Museum honors the anniversary with a major exhibition dedicated to the Holy City and the heroism of its defenders at the Benaki Museum of Greek Culture.

Through approximately 200 exhibits, representative paintings, drawings, engravings, books, and objects, an extensive sample of the iconography of Messolonghi, the national liberation struggle, and Philhellenism is presented.

The six sections of the exhibition, through original works of art, engravings, archives, documents, and ephemera from the period, present pre-revolutionary Messolonghi, the philhellenic movement, the siege of the city and the Exodus, the Battle of Navarino, and the Great Powers. A separate section is dedicated to two great figures associated with Messolonghi, Markos Botsaris and Lord Byron.

The majority of the exhibits in the exhibition, many of which are being shown for the first time, come from the Benaki Museum collection and are supplemented by material from the John Robertson collection and other private collections.

The exhibition MESOLONGHI 1826- 200 years since the Exodus is accompanied by a bilingual catalogue (Greek/English) funded exclusively by the Municipality of the Holy City of Mesolonghi.

The following authors contributed to this edition: Roderick Beaton, Olga Giannakogeorgou, Antonis Diakakis, Spyridoula Dimitriou, Panorea Benatou, Pantelis Boukalas, Xenia Politou, Stavroula Polonifi, John Robertson, Konstantinos I. Stefanis, and Aristides Hatzis.