Greek Orthodox Church in the context of "Hellenism (modern religion)"

Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. Located on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, North Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to the east. The Aegean Sea lies to the east of the mainland, the Ionian Sea to the west, and the Sea of Crete and the Mediterranean Sea to the south. Greece has the longest coastline on the Mediterranean basin, spanning thousands of islands and nine traditional geographic regions. It has a population of over 10 million. Athens is the nation's capital and largest city, followed by Thessaloniki, Patras and Heraclion.

Greece is considered the cradle of Western civilisation and the birthplace of democracy, Western philosophy, Western literature, historiography, political science, major scientific and mathematical principles, theatre, and the Olympic Games. The Ancient Greeks were organised into independent city-states, or poleis (singular polis), that spanned the Mediterranean and Black seas. Philip II of Macedon united most of present-day Greece in the fourth century BC, with his son Alexander the Great conquering much of the known ancient world from the Near East to northwestern India. The subsequent Hellenistic period saw the height of Greek culture and influence in antiquity. Greece was annexed by Rome in the second century BC and became an integral part of the Roman Empire and its continuation, the Byzantine Empire, where Greek culture and language were dominant. The Greek Orthodox Church, which emerged in the first century AD, helped shape modern Greek identity and transmitted Greek traditions to the wider Orthodox world.

Greek Cypriots (Greek: Ελληνοκύπριοι, romanized: Ellinokýprioi) are the ethnic Greek population of Cyprus, forming the island's largest ethnolinguistic community. According to the 2023 census, 719,252 respondents recorded their ethnicity as Greek, forming almost 99% of the 737,196 Cypriot citizens and over 77.9% of the 923,381 total residents of the area controlled by the Republic of Cyprus. These figures do not include the 29,321 citizens of Greece residing in Cyprus, ethnic Greeks recorded as citizens of other countries, or the population of illegally occupied Northern Cyprus.

The majority of Greek Cypriots are members of the Church of Cyprus, an autocephalous Greek Orthodox Church within the wider communion of Orthodox Christianity. In regard to the 1960 Constitution of Cyprus, the term also includes Maronites, Armenians, and Catholics of the Latin Church ("Latins"), who were given the option of being included in either the Greek or Turkish communities and voted to join the former due to a shared religion.

The Church of Greece (Greek: Ἐκκλησία τῆς Ἑλλάδος, romanized: Ekklēsía tē̂s Helládos, IPA: [ekliˈsi.a tis eˈlaðos]), part of the wider Greek Orthodox Church, is one of the autocephalous churches which make up the communion of Eastern Orthodox Christianity. Its canonical territory is confined to the borders of Greece prior to the Balkan Wars of 1912–1913 ("Old Greece"), with the rest of Greece (the "New Lands", Crete, and the Dodecanese) being subject to the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. However, most of the dioceses of the Metropolises of the New Lands are de facto administered as part of the Church of Greece for practical reasons, under an agreement between the churches of Athens and Constantinople. The primate of the Church of Greece is the archbishop of Athens and All Greece.

Christianity in Cyprus is the largest religion in the country, making up 78% of the island's population. The largest Christian denomination is the Greek Orthodox Church, while the rest are smaller communities of Anglicans, Roman Catholics, Latin Christians, Maronites, Armenian Apostolics, and Greek Evangelicals.

Christianity in Turkey has a long history, dating back to the early origins of Christianity in Asia Minor and the Middle East during the 1st century AD. In modern times the percentage of Christians in Turkey has declined from 20 to 25% in 1914, to about 2% in 1927, to 0.2–0.4% today. Sources estimate that the Christian population in Turkey ranges between 203,500 and more than 370,000. However, the exact number remains unclear due to the absence of a religious census in the country. The percentage of Christians in Turkey fell mainly as a result of the late Ottoman genocides: the Armenian genocide, Greek genocide, and Assyrian genocide, the population exchange between Greece and Turkey, the emigration of Christians that began in the late 19th century and gained pace in the first quarter of the 20th century, and due to events such as the 1942 Varlık Vergisi tax levied on non-Muslim citizens in Turkey and the 1955 Istanbul pogrom against Greek and Armenian Christians. Exact numbers are difficult to estimate, as many Turkish former Muslim converts to Christianity often hide their Christian faith for fear of familial pressure, religious discrimination, and persecution.

This was due to events which had a significant impact on the country's demographic structure, such as the First World War, the anti-Christian genocides of Greeks, Armenians, and Assyrians perpetrated by Turkish Muslims, and the population exchange between Greece and Turkey, and the emigration of persecuted Christians (such as Assyrians, Greeks, Armenians, etc.) to foreign countries (mostly in Europe and the Americas) that began in the late 19th century and gained pace in the first quarter of the 20th century, especially during World War I. Signed after the First World War, the Treaty of Lausanne explicitly guarantees the security and protection of both Greek and Armenian Orthodox Christian minorities. Their religious institutions are recognized officially by the Republic of Turkey.

The Convention Concerning the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations (Greek: Σύμβαση για την Ανταλλαγή των ελληνικών και τουρκικών Πληθυσμών, romanized: Symvasi gia eis Antallagi ton ellinikon kai tourkikon Plithysmon, Turkish: Türk ve Yunan Nüfuslarının Mübadelesine İlişkin Sözleşme), also known as the Lausanne Convention, was an agreement between the Greek and Turkish governments signed by their representatives in Lausanne on 30 January 1923, in the aftermath of the Greco-Turkish War of 1919–1922. The agreement provided for the simultaneous expulsion of Orthodox Christians from Turkey to Greece and of Muslims from Greece (particularly from the north of the country) to Turkey. These involuntary population transfers involved approximately two million people, around 1.5 million Anatolian Greeks and 500,000 Muslims in Greece.

Filoti (in Greek: Φιλώτι or Φιλότι; officially: Φιλότιον) is a semi-mountainous village of central Naxos, Greece, with a population of 1,617 residents (census 2021), located at the foot of Mt. Zas (1,004 m), at an altitude of 400 meters, about 18.2 kilometres (11.3 mi) from the city of Naxos. It is located on the slopes of two hills and consists of three settlements, Rachidi, Klefaros and Lioiri. Its stand out is the Orthodox church of Panagia Filotitissa that is dedicated to the Assumption of the Virgin, a basilica built in 1718 in the place of an old Byzantine church. The economy of the village is mainly based on livestock products, secondarily in agriculture and tourism. It has a Primary School (since 1838), a Professional High School, a Multipurpose Regional Doctor, a Citizen Service Center (KEP), a Post office, a dentist and a pharmacy.

Together with Kalandos (pop. 10), constitutes the Municipal Community of Filoti (pop. 1487), which belongs to the municipal unit of Drymalia, of the municipality of Naxos and Lesser Cyclades, of the regional unit of Naxos (of the former county of Cyclades), in the administrative region South Aegean, Greece.

Mytilene (/ˌmɪtɪˈliːni/; Greek: Μυτιλήνη, romanized: Mytilíni [mitiˈlini] ) is the capital of the Greek island of Lesbos, and its port. It is also the capital and administrative center of the North Aegean Region, and hosts the headquarters of the University of the Aegean. It was founded in the 11th century BC.

Mytilene is one of the two municipalities on the island of Lesbos, created in 2019; the other is West Lesbos. Mytilene is built on the southeast edge of the island. It is the seat of a metropolitan bishop of the Greek Orthodox Church.

Ayvalık Islands (Turkish: Ayvalık Adaları, Latin: Hecatonnesi, Ancient Greek: Ἑκατόννησοι, romanized: Hekatonesoi), are the group of islands around Ayvalık district of Turkey in Balıkesir Province in the Northeastern Aegean Sea. There are 22 islands and numerous rocks in the group, with Cunda Island, now a peninsula, being the largest. People live only on Cunda and Lale Islands. Cunda and Lale islands are linked to Ayvalık on the mainland, by a causeway enabling transportation by car. Cunda also has a ferry link from the main town, Alibey, to Ayvalık during the summer.

A Greek Orthodox metropolis was established, based in Cunda island, for some months in 1922.

In the year before the First Council of Constantinople in 381, Nicene Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire when Theodosius I, emperor of the East, Gratian, emperor of the West, and Gratian's junior co-ruler Valentinian II issued the Edict of Thessalonica in 380, which recognized the catholic orthodoxy, as defined by the Council of Nicea, as the Roman Empire's state religion. Historians refer to this state-sponsored church using a variety of terms: the catholic church, the orthodox church, the imperial church, the Roman church, or the Byzantine church, with some also used for wider communions extending beyond the Roman Empire. The Eastern Orthodox Church, Oriental Orthodoxy, and the Catholic Church all claim to stand in continuity from the Nicene Christian church to which Theodosius granted recognition. Political differences between the Eastern Roman Empire and the Persian Sassanid Empire led to the separation of the Church of the East in 424. A doctrinal split within the imperial church led to the independence of early Oriental Orthodoxy, while the fall of the Western Roman Empire initiated the gradual separation between Eastern and Western Christianity, culminating in the East-West schism of 1054. The Western Church evolved into the Latin Catholic Church while the Eastern Church that remained under the patronage of the Eastern empire and evolved into the Greek Orthodox Church.

Earlier in the 4th century, following the Diocletianic Persecution of 303–313 and the Donatist controversy that arose in consequence, Constantine the Great had convened councils of bishops to define the orthodoxy of the Christian faith and to expand on earlier Christian councils. A series of ecumenical councils convened by successive Roman emperors met during the 4th and the 5th centuries, but Christianity continued to suffer rifts and schisms surrounding the theological and christological doctrines of Arianism, Nestorianism, Miaphysitism, and Dyophysitism. In the 5th century, the Western Roman Empire decayed as a polity; invaders sacked Rome in 410 and in 455, and Odoacer, an Arian barbarian warlord, forced Romulus Augustus, the last nominal Western Emperor, to abdicate in 476. However, apart from the aforementioned schisms, the church as an institution persisted in communion, if not without tension, between the East and West. In the 6th century, the Byzantine armies of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I recovered Italy and other regions of the Western Mediterranean shore. The Byzantine Empire soon lost most of these gains, but it held Rome, as part of the Exarchate of Ravenna, until 751, a period known in church history as the Byzantine Papacy. The early Muslim conquests of the 7th–9th centuries would begin a process of converting most of the then-Christian world in the Levant, Middle East, North Africa, regions of Southern Italy and the Iberian Peninsula to Islam, severely restricting the reach both of the Byzantine Empire and of its church. Christian missionary activity directed from the capital of Constantinople did not lead to a lasting expansion of the formal link between the church and the Byzantine emperor, since areas outside the Byzantine Empire's political and military control set up their own distinct churches, as in the case of Bulgaria in 919.

Hierocles (Greek: Ἱεροκλῆς Hierokles) was a Byzantine geographer of the sixth century and the attributed author of the Synecdemus or Synekdemos, which contains a table of administrative divisions of the Byzantine Empire and lists of the cities of each. The work is dated to the reign of Justinian but prior to 535, as it divides the 912 listed cities in the Empire among 64 Eparchies. The Synecdemus is thus one of the most invaluable monuments which we have to study the political geography of the sixth century East. The work of Hierocles along with that of Stephanus of Byzantium were the principal sources of Constantine VII's work on the Themes (De Thematibus). Hierocles was published by Parthey (Hieroclis Synecdemus; Berlin, 1866) then in a corrected text, by A. Burckhardt in the Teubner series (Hieroclis Synecdemus; Leipzig, 1893). The most recent major publication was by E. Honigmann (Le Synekdèmos d'Hiéroklès et l'opuscule géographique de Georges de Chypre; Brussels, 1939).

The Synecdemus of Hierocles should not be confused with a Greek Orthodox prayer book by the same name.

Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church (Griechenkirche zur Heiligen Dreifaltigkeit) is a Greek Orthodox Church Cathedral in the first district of Vienna, Austria, in the historic Greek neighborhood of Vienna's Innere Stadt. The neighborhood has also been known as the "Fleischmarkt".

Since 1963 the cathedral has been the seat of the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Austria (the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople: the Metropolis of Austria and Exarchate of Hungary and Middle Europe).

The persecution of Christians can be traced from the first century of the Christian era to the present day. Christian missionaries and converts to Christianity have both been targeted for persecution, sometimes to the point of being martyred for their faith, ever since the emergence of Christianity.

Early Christians were persecuted at the hands of both Jews, from whose religion Christianity arose, and the Romans who controlled many of the early centers of Christianity in the Roman Empire. Since the emergence of Christian states in Late Antiquity, Christians have also been persecuted by other Christians due to differences in doctrine which have been declared heretical. Early in the fourth century, the empire's official persecutions were ended by the Edict of Serdica in 311 and the practice of Christianity legalized by the Edict of Milan in 312. By the year 380, Christians had begun to persecute each other. The schisms of late antiquity and the Middle Ages – including the Rome–Constantinople schisms and the many Christological controversies – together with the later Protestant Reformation provoked severe conflicts between Christian denominations. During these conflicts, members of the various denominations frequently persecuted each other and engaged in sectarian violence.

Urums (/ʊəˈruːm/, /ʊˈruːm/; Greek: Ουρούμ, Urúm; Turkish and Crimean Tatar: Urum, IPA: [uˈɾum]) are several groups of Turkic-speaking Greek Orthodox people native to Crimea. The emergence and development of the Urum identity took place from 13th to the 17th centuries. Bringing together the Crimean Greeks along with Greek-speaking Crimean Goths, with other indigenous groups that had long inhabited the region, resulting in a gradual transformation of their collective identity.

Pontic Greek culture includes the traditional music, dance, architecture, clothing, artwork, and religious practices of the Pontic Greeks, also called Pontian Greeks (Pontic: Ῥωμαῖοι (Romaīoi=Romans)). Pontians are an ethnic group indigenous to the Pontos in modern-day Turkey. They have lived in the area for thousands of years, since the 8th century BCE. The majority were displaced in the early 20th century CE after the Greek genocide and the population exchange between Greece and Turkey; most Pontians today live in the diaspora. Small pockets of Muslim Pontian communities remain in Turkey. Although Pontians speak many different languages, the Pontic Greek language, Romeika, is especially important to their culture. Most religious Pontian Greeks practice Greek Orthodoxy, but a minority adhere to Sunni Islam or other Christian denominations. Folk dances such as the serra, traditional music instruments such as the Pontic lyra, religious celebrations, traditional clothing, and the land itself remain important to Pontian diaspora communities.

Although their culture has been heavily influenced by Greek culture, Turkish culture, and the cultures of various minorities in Turkey such as Armenians and Lazes, Pontian culture contains unique aspects. The dominant culture of the countries where Pontians live has continued to shape Pontian culture since the formation of the diaspora. For example, many Pontians in Greece only speak Greek instead of Romeika, while Soviet Greeks have adopted Russian and Ukrainian dishes into their cooking. Pontian cultural societies around the world aim to preserve and transmit Pontian traditions, especially folk dances.

Manuel II Palaiologos or Palaeologus (Greek: Μανουὴλ Παλαιολόγος, romanized: Manouḗl Palaiológos, pronounced [ma.nuˈil pa.le.oˈlo.ɣos]; 27 June 1350 – 21 July 1425) was Byzantine emperor from 1391 to 1425. Shortly before his death he was tonsured a monk and received the name Matthaios (Ματθαίος). Manuel was a vassal of the Ottoman Empire, which sometimes threatened to capture his territory outright. Accordingly he continued his father's practice of soliciting Western European aid against the Ottomans, and personally visited several foreign courts to plead his cause. These efforts failed, although an Ottoman civil war and Byzantine victories against Latin neighbors helped Manuel's government survive and slightly expand its influence. His wife Helena Dragaš saw to it that their sons, John VIII and Constantine XI, became emperors. He is commemorated by the Greek Orthodox Church on 21 July.