He was born in 1792 in Constantinople, then Ottoman Empire (now Istanbul, Turkey). He studied science and taught mathematics and natural history at the Princely Academy of Bucharest, then run by Constantinos Vardalachos. When the Revolution broke out, Kanellos abandoned teaching and fought in the army of Alexander Ypsilantis near Danube. Among others he took the responsibility of the presentation of the positions of the movement of Ypsilantis to the monarchs of the Russian Empire and Germany. After the failure of the movement, he fled to Paris but soon returned to Greece to take part in the revolution. In May 1823 he accompanied Emmanouil Tombazis to Crete, who had been appointed by the Provisional Government to the island. His contribution to the formation of the island's administrative organization, which also aimed at normalizing relations between the rival groups of the Cretan chieftains, was valuable.