Beata Maria Kitsikis Panagopoulos

June 27, 1925 - April 27, 2023

Beata Maria Kitsikis Panagopoulos, 97, died peacefully in Paris, France on April 27, 2023.

Beata Maria was born in Athens, Greece, June 27, 1925, the daughter of loving and accomplished parents, Nicolas and Beata Kitsikis. After graduating from high school in 1943, she studied architecture at the Athens Polytechnic School and archaeology at the University of Athens. In 1947, she left Greece to escape the dangers of the impending Greek civil war. She went to the University of Chicago where she received both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in medieval art history. There, she met Epaminondas (Nondas) Panagopoulos, who received his Ph.D. from UChicago. The two embarked on a loving 48-year adventure in a new world. They moved to California in 1956, raised a family, and used all their resources to return regularly to Greece.

In the 1960s, she returned to graduate school, receiving her Ph.D. in Medieval Art History from the Sorbonne University in Paris. She became a professor in the Art Department and New College at San Jose State University in 1970, where she taught until her retirement in 1988. She was the author of “Cistercian and Mendicant Monasteries in Medieval Greece” (University of Chicago Press), the only comprehensive study of the most outstanding extant Gothic monasteries built after 1204. She published many other academic articles as well.

From 1982 to 1986, she was Kress Professor and the director of the Gennadius Library at the American School of Classical Studies, Athens, Greece. In 1982, she received the Academy of Athens annual award for the humanities, and in 1992, she received the Hellenic American Professional Society of California’s Axion Award.

She is survived by her son, Peter of San Francisco, Calif.; her daughter, Beata Domenica of Cambridge, Mass.; her grandson, Thanos (wife Pamela) of Summit, NJ; great grandchildren, Nicholas and Theodorus of Summit, NJ; and her sister, Elsa SchmidKitsikis (husband Christian) of Geneva, Switzerland. She was predeceased by her husband, Nondas, and her brother, Dimitri Kitsikis.

She was passionately devoted to her family, her research, and her homeland of Greece.

A celebration of her life will be held in September, 2023 in Athens, Greece.

Anyone who wishes to honor Beata is requested to make a contribution to the E.P. Panagopoulos Scholarship Endowment of the History Department at San Jose State University by going online to https:// tinyurl.com/PanagopoulosScholarship-Fund / Please select “Choose a Giving Opportunity--Other” and list “E.P. Panagopoulos Scholarship Endowment” in the Special Instructions box.