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Specialty Definition: Greek

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Specialty Definition: Ancient Greece

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

zh-cn:古希腊

The history of Ancient Greece is one of the oldest fields of academic research in the modern university, and reflects centuries of traditional humanist scholarship before that.

With the revival of interest in the study of the Greek language and Greek literature in Italy during the 15th century the literary remains of Greek civilization from Homer to the Greek Church Fathers of early Christianity were well-known to scholars. However, in the 18th and early 19th century the sceptical attitudes applied to the Bible in scholarly biblical criticism came to be applied to Greek literature, so much so that scholars dismissed everything before the first Olympic games in 776 BC as legend. The excavations of Heinrich Schliemann, who began excavating Troy in 1870, changed all that. Archaeology has recovered information that enables not only scholars to treat every surviving text from the ancient world in a critical way, but allows students to find a middle ground between uncritical acceptance of the legends and mythology of Greece on one hand, and dismissing them entirely.

See also

Minoan civilization

Mycenaean civilization

Hellenic Greece

Hellenistic Greece

classical antiquity

Greek Mythology

Greek alphabet

Timeline of Ancient Greece

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Ancient Greece."

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Byzantine Empire

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

Timeline
Byzantine Empire
Date	Event
330	Constantine I makes Constantinople his capital.
527	Justinian I becomes Emperor.
532-537	Justinian builds the church of Hagia Sophia
1054	The Church in Constantinople breaks with the Church in Rome
1204	Constantinople is captured by crusaders
1261	Constantinople is liberated by the Byzantine emperor Michael Palaeologus.
1453	Ottoman Turks take Constantinople. End of Byzantine Empire

The Byzantine Empire or Eastern Roman Empire was the eastern section of the Roman Empire which remained in existence after the fall of the western section. The life of the empire is commonly considered to span AD 395 to 1453. During the thousand years of its existence, it was known simply as the "Roman Empire." The Byzantines considered themselves to be Romans (Rhomaioi) and the legitimate continuation of the Roman Empire, although much of its religion, language, and culture was in actuality Greek. Latin remained the official language until the 7th century. Surrounding lands and empires (such as the Persians and Arabs to the east, Europeans to the west, and Russians to the north) called them Roman as well, and it was considered a great insult to refer to the empire as "Greek.", because "Greek" meant "Pagan". The empire was not referred to as "Byzantine" until the 17th century, when historians began to distinguish the medieval entity from the (in reality quite different) ancient empire. This name comes from the ancient Greek colony of Byzantium.

Origin

The division of the Empire began with the Tetrarchy (quadrumvirate) in the late 3rd century AD with Emperor Diocletian, as an institution intended to more efficiently control the vast Roman empire. He split the empire in half, with two emperors ruling from Italy and Greece, each having a co-emperor of their own. This division continued into the 4th century until 324 when Constantine the Great managed to become the sole Emperor of the Empire. Constantine decided to found a new capital for himself and chose Byzantium (today's Istanbul) for that purpose. The rebuilding process was completed in AD 330. Constantine renamed the city Nova Roma (New Rome) but in popular use it was called Constantinople, meaning Constantine's City. This new capital became the centre of his administration. Constantine was also the first Christian emperor. Although the empire was not yet "Byzantine" under Constantine, Christianity would become one of the defining characteristics of the Byzantine Empire, as opposed to the pagan Roman Empire.

Another defining moment in the history of Roman/Byzantine Empire was the Battle of Adrianople in 378. This defeat, along with the death of Emperor Valens, is one possible date for dividing the ancient and medieval worlds. The Roman empire was divided further by Valens' successor Theodosius I (also called "the great"), who had ruled both beginning in 392. In 395 he gave the two halves to his two sons Arcadius and Honorius; Arcadius became ruler in the East, with his capital in Constantinople, and Honorius became ruler in the west, with his capital in Milan. At this point it is common to refer to the empire as "Eastern Roman" rather than "Byzantine."

Byzantine Imperial eagle

Culture

Although the empire was still considered Roman, in reality the general prevailing cultural identity of the Eastern Roman Empire was Greek. Greek was not only the everyday language, but also the language of the church, of the literature and of all commercial transactions. The empire was a multinational state, including Greeks, Armenians, Jews, Egyptians, Syrians, Illyrians, and Slavs, but its Greek culture radiated from large centers of Hellenism such as Constantinople, Antioch, Ephesus, Thessalonika and Alexandria. Though it was not as pronounced at this time, the Eastern Empire was developing its own style of Christianity, under such scholars as John Chrysostom.

Early History

The Eastern Empire was largely spared the difficulties of the west in the 3rd and 4th centuries, in part because urban culture was better established there and the initial invasions were attracted to the wealth of Rome. Throughout the 5th century various invasions conquered the western half of the empire, but at best could only demand tribute from the eastern half. Theodosius II expanded the walls of Constantinople, leaving the city impenetrable to "barbarian" attacks. Zeno I ruled the east as the empire in the west finally collapsed in 476. Zeno negotiated with the Goths, ending their threats to the east but leaving them in control of the west.

The 6th century saw the beginning of the conflicts with the Byzantine Empire's traditional early enemies, the Persians, Slavs, and Bulgars. Theological crises, such as the question of Monophysitism, also dominated the empire. However, the Eastern Empire had not forgotten its western roots. Under Justinian I, and the brilliant general Belisarius, the empire even regained some of the lost Roman provinces in the west, conquering much of Italy, north Africa, and Spain. Justinian updated the ancient Roman legal code in the new Corpus Juris Civilis, although it is notable that these laws were still written in Latin, a language which was becoming archaic and poorly understood even by those who wrote the new code. Under Justinian's reign, the Church of Hagia Sophia was constructed in the 530s. This church would become the centre of Byzantine religious life and the centre of the still-developing Eastern Orthodox form of Christianity.

Justinian left his successors an empty treasury, however, and they were unable to deal with the sudden appearance of new invaders on all fronts. The Lombards seized Northern Italy, the Slavs overwhelmed much of the Balkans, and the Persians invaded and conqured the eastern provinces. These were recovered by the emperor Heraclius, but the unexpected appearance of the newly converted and united Muslim Arabs took Heraclius by surprise, and the southern provinces were all overrun. Mesopotamia, Syria and Egypt were permanently incorporated into the Muslim Empire in the 7th century.

Hellenizing Era

What the empire lost in territory, though, it made up in uniformity. Heraclius fully Hellenized the empire by making Greek the official language, and he took the title Basileus ("king") instead of the old Roman term Augustus. The empire was by now noticeably different in religion than the former imperial lands in western Europe, although the southern Byzantine provinces differed significantly from the north in culture and practiced monophysite (rather than Orthodox) Christianity. The loss of the southern provinces to the Arabs made Orthodoxy stronger in the remaining provinces. Heraclius divided the empire into a system of military provinces called themes to face permanent assault, with urban life declining outside the capital while Constantinople grew to become the largest city in the world. Attempts by the Arabs to conquer Constantinople failed in the face of the Byzantines' superior navy and their monopoly of the still mysterious incendiary weapon Greek fire. After repelling the initial Arab assault, the empire began to recover.

The 8th century was dominated by the controversy over iconoclasm. Icons were banned by Emperor Leo III, leading to revolts by iconophiles within the empire. Thanks to the efforts of Empress Irene, the Second Council of Nicaea met in 787 and affirmed that icons could be venerated but not worshipped. Irene also attempted a marriage alliance with Charlemagne, which would have united the two empires, but these plans came to nothing. The iconoclast controversy returned in the early 9th century, but they were restored once more in 843. These controversies did not help the disintegrating relations with the Roman Catholic Church and the Holy Roman Empire, which were both beginning to gain more power of their own.

Golden Era

The empire reached its height under the Macedonian emperors of the late 9th, 10th and early 11th centuries. During these years the Empire held out against pressure from the Roman church to remove the patriarch Photius, and gained control over the Adriatic Sea, parts of Italy, and much of the land held by the Bulgarians. The Bulgarians were completely defeated by Basil II in 1014. The Empire also gained a new ally (yet sometimes also an enemy) in the new Russian state in Kiev, from which the empire received an important mercenary force, the Varangian Guard.

Like Rome before it, though, Byzantium soon fell into a period of difficulties, caused to a large extent by the growth of the landed aristocracy, which undermined the theme system. Facing its old enemies, the Holy Roman Empire and the Abbasid caliphate, it might have recovered, but around the same time new invaders appeared on the scene who had little reason to respect its reputation - the Normans, who conquered Italy, and the Seljuk Turks, who were mainly interested in defeating Egypt but still made moves into Asia Minor, the main recruiting ground for the Byzantine armies. With the defeat at Manzikert of emperor Romanus IV in 1071 by Alp Arslan, sultan of the Seljuk Turks, most of that province was lost. The final split between the Roman and Orthodox churches occurred at this time as well, with their mutual excommunication in 1054.

End of Empire

The last few centuries of Byzantine life were brought by a usurper, Alexius Comnenus, who began to reestablish an army on the basis of feudal grants (pronoia) and made significant advances against the Seljuk Turks. His plea for western aid against the Seljuk advance brought about the First Crusade, which helped him reclaim Nicaea but soon distanced itself from imperial aid. Later crusades grew increasingly antagonistic. Although Alexius' grandson Manuel I Comnenus was a friend of the Crusaders, neither side could forget that the other had excommunicated them, and the Byzantines were very suspicious of the intentions of the Roman Catholic Crusaders who continually passed through their territory. The Germans of the Holy Roman Empire and the Normans of Sicily and Italy continued to attack the empire in the 11th and 12th centuries. The Italian city states, who had been granted trading rights in Constantinople by Alexius, became the targets of anti-Western sentiments as the most visibly example of Western "Franks" or "Latins." The Venetians were especially disliked, even though their ships were the basis of the Byzantine navy. To add to the empire's concerns, the Seljuks remained a threat, defeating Manuel at Myriokephalon in 1176.

Frederick Barbarossa attempted to conquer the empire during the Third Crusade, but it was the Fourth Crusade that had the most devastating effect on the empire. Although the intent of the crusade was to conquer Egypt, the Venetians took control of the expedition, and under their influence the crusade captured Constantinople in 1204. As a result a short-lived feudal kingdom was founded, (the Latin Empire) and Byzantine power was permanently weakened.

Three Byzantine successor states were left - the Empire of Nicaea, Epirus, and Trebizond. The first, controlled by the Palaeologan dynasty, managed to reclaim Constantinople in 1261 and defeat Epirus, reviving the empire but giving too much attention to Europe when the Asian provinces were the primary concern. For a while the empire survived simply because the Muslims were too divided to attack, but eventually the Ottomans overran all but a handful of port cities. The empire appealed to the west for help, but they would only consider sending aid in return for reuniting the churches. Church unity was considered, and occasionally accomplished by law, but the Orthodox citizens would not accept Roman Catholicism. Some western mercenaries arrived to help, but many preferred to let the empire die, and did nothing as the Ottomans picked apart of the remaining territories.

Constantinople was initially not considered worth the effort of conquest, but with the advent of cannons, the walls, which had been impenetrable except by the Crusaders for over 1000 years, no longer offered protection from the Ottomans. The Fall of Constantinople finally came after a two-year siege by Mehmed II on May 29, 1453. By the end of the century the remaining cities, such as Trebizond and Mistra, had also fallen.

The Byzantine empire played an important role in the transmission of classical knowledge to the Islamic world. Its most lasting influence, though, lies in its church. Early Byzantine missionary work spread Orthodox Christianity to various Slavic peoples, and it is still predominant among them and the Greeks. The start and end dates of the capital's independence, 395 to 1453, were originally the defined bounds of the Middle Ages.

See also List of Byzantine Empire-related topics, Roman Empire, Roman Emperors, Byzantine Emperors, Latin Empire, Empire of Nicaea, Byzantine currency, Byzantine architecture and Byzantine aristocracy and bureaucracy.

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Byzantine Empire."

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Eastern Orthodoxy

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

Eastern Orthodox Christianity (or "Eastern Orthodoxy") refers primarily to church traditions descending from the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium. The church of Rome, the Roman Catholic Church, represents the "Western" tradition. The formal division of the Church into separate Eastern and Western churches is regarded as having occurred in 1054 in what is known as the Great Schism. Both churches claim to be the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, and reject the other's claim to this title. The designation "Orthodox" reflects the additional claim of the Eastern church to have retained unchanged the original church traditions of teaching and worship. "Catholic" meanwhile reflects the claim by church leaders who are in communion with Rome to an all encompassing authority on christian matters.

The "Eastern" churches with the largest number of adherents, according to the primary and narrow sense of "Eastern Orthodox," are the Russian and the Greek Orthodox. As English speakers in the West sometimes use the term, however, "Eastern Orthodoxy" is meant to include the "Oriental Orthodox" churches. These were established many centuries prior to the Great Schism and in fundamental aspects are as dissimilar from the narrowly defined "Eastern Orthodox" churches as they are from the Roman Catholic Church. Oriental Orthodox churches include the (arguably) "monophysite" Coptic Church. The "Nestorian" Assyrian also often is included among this group, though it does not belong to the Oriental Orthodox Communion.

Eastern Orthodoxy traces continuous apostolic succession back to the five major centers of Christianity in the early church: Rome, Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria, and Constantinople.

The primary causes of their differences with Rome include the Filioque clause, papal claims to complete authority over all Christians, and other doctrinal and liturgic innovations of Rome. Catholics introduced other dogmas later that Eastern Orthodoxy also considers heretical, among them papal infallibility, the immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary and purgatory. Catholics consider the Eastern Orthodox to be schismatics; the Eastern Orthodox consider Catholics to be both schismatics and heretics.

The various churches of the Eastern Orthodox Communion are not wholly independent but exist in full communion with one another. The Oriental Orthodox Churches are not members of this communion, nor are groups such as the Old Believers or the Greek Old Calendarists.

History

From its founding the church spread quickly throughout most of the Roman Empire, despite much official opposition. Widespread, organized persecution finally stopped in 311 when Emperor Constantine I so ordered it in the Edict of Milan. From that time forward, the Byzantine emperor exerted various degrees of influence in the church. Sometimes this was seen as positive, as in the calling of the Ecumenical Councils to resolve disputes and establish church dogma on which the entire church would agree. Sometimes this was seen as negative, as when Patriarchs (usually of Constantinople) were deposed by the emperor, or when the emperor sided with the iconoclasts in the eighth and ninth centuries.

There were several doctrinal disputes from the 4th century onwards. Some of them led to the calling of Ecumenical councils to try to resolve them. The Church in Egypt (Patriarchate of Alexandria) split into two groups following the Council of Chalcedon (451), owing to a dispute about the relation between the divine and human natures of Christ. Eventually this led to each group having its own Pope. Those that remained in communion with the other patriarchs were called "Melkites" (the king's men, because Constantinople was the city of the emperors), and are today known as the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria, led by Pope Petros VII, while those who disagreed with the findings of the Council of Chalcedon are today known as the Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria, led by Pope Shenouda III. There was a similar split in Syria. Those who disagreed with the Council of Chalcedon are sometimes called "Oriental Orthodox" to distinguish them from the Eastern Orthodox, who accepted the Council of Chalcedon. The Oriental Orthodox are also sometimes referred to as "monophysites" or "non-Chalcedonians", although today the Coptic Orthodox Church denies that it is monophysite and prefers the term "miaphysite", to denote the "joined" nature of Christ.

An important symbol for the eastern Orthodoxy and its spread north to the Slavic peoples was the construction in the 530s of Hagia Sophia, a most impressive church building in Constantinople, under emperor Justinian I.

In the seventh century the areas covered by the churches of Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem were conquered by Muslim Arabs, and the native Christians were treated as second-class citizens. Westerners tend to think of Christianity as dominant in society for a long period of history, but this has definitely not been the case for Christians in three of the five ancient churches, who have been in Muslim-dominated societies for 13 centuries. It was the Muslims who first opposed the Christian use of icons, though many Christians swiftly came to the same conclusion. The use of icons was defended and upheld at the Seventh Ecumenical Council. The end of that council is still celebrated as the "Triumph of Orthodoxy" in Orthodox churches today, and icons remain a central part of Orthodox faith and practice.

In the ninth and tenth centuries, Orthodoxy made great inroads into Eastern Europe and Russia. This work was made possible by the work of Saints Cyril and Methodius, who translated the Bible and many of the prayer books into Slavonic. They found themselves competing with missionaries from the Roman diocese in places like Moravia and Bulgaria. After being driven out of Moravia, they were later welcomed in Bulgaria, in part because they prayed in the people's native language rather than in Latin, as the Roman priests did. Today the Russian Orthodox Church, in spite of 70 years of persecution under the atheistic government of the USSR, is the largest of the Orthodox Churches.

In the 11th century the Great Schism took place between Rome and Constantinople, which led to the Church of the West, the Roman Catholic Church, to become distinct from the Churches of the East, although, in practice, contacts were maintained informally for many years. There were doctrinal issues like the filioque clause and the authority of the Pope involved in the split, but they were exacerbated by cultural and linguistic differences. The final breach is often considered to have arisen as a result of the sacking of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade in 1204. The split was between the Greek East and the Latin West.

To further exacerbate matters, the Fourth Crusade had the Latin Church directly involved in a military assault against the Byzantine Empire, Constantinople, and the Orthodox Patriarchate thereof. The sacking of the Church of Holy Wisdom and establishment of the Latin Empire in 1204 is viewed with some rancor to the present day.

In 1453, the Byzantine Empire fell to the Ottoman Turks. By this time Egypt was also under Muslim control, but Orthodoxy was very strong in Russia; and so Moscow, coined the Third Rome, became the new center of the church at that time.

Structure / Organization

Bishops, priests and deacons

Since its founding, the Church spread to different places, and the leaders of the Church in each place came to be known as episkopi (overseer), which became "bishop" in English. The other ordained roles are presbyter (elder), which become "prester" and then "priest" in English, and diakonis (servant), which became "deacon" in English (see also subdeacon). The bishop of the most important city of a region (Metropolis) was sometimes called a "Metropolitan", and smaller local churches looked to those in large cities for leadership. The East (Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and Eastern-rite Catholic churches) has always allowed married priests and deacons, provided the marriage takes place before their ordination. If divorced or widowed, priests and deacons are not allowed to remarry unless they also cease being priests or deacons. Bishops are always celibate as they are selected from the ranks of monks (who take a vow of celibacy). Bishops, priests, and deacons have always been men. There was an office of deaconess; these were women that assisted other women in the Christian community. However, they did not receive ordination in the sense that deacons do, nor did they exercise jurisdiction.

Church Jurisdictions

The different Orthodox churches can generally be said to be united in faith and in liturgy, but not in polity. There is no single Pope or similar office that corresponds to the Roman Catholic Pope, nor is there a standing synod of bishops or patriarchs. In general, the church is organized along national and regional lines in hierarchical fashion, with the "top" hierarchs or patriarchs recognizing and remaining in communion with the other patriarchs. From about the fourth century the most important churches were Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem. The bishops of Rome and Alexandria had the title "Pope", while those of the other three cities were called "Patriarchs". Today there are approximately 15 separate autocephalous jurisdictions who remain in communion with Constantinople and each other; these are the "canonical" Orthodox Churches. Churches which call themselves Orthodox but are not in communion with these are termed "non-canonical" Orthodox Churches.

Orthodox Christians believe that they have preserved apostolic succession from the first Apostles. While Rome traces its papacy back to the Apostle Peter, Alexandria, for example, traces its papacy back to Mark the Evangelist, who founded the church in Alexandria in AD 40. (In Alexandria, two primates call themselves "Pope" and claim to be the successor of the apostle Mark: the Eastern Orthodox Patriarch of Alexandria, also called the "Pope of Africa", and the Coptic Pope. Those two lines of succession separated from each other in a schism in AD 451. Roman Catholics also have a high-ranking bishop called the "Patriarch of Alexandria" in that city, but he does not claim the title of "Pope".)

Orthodoxy in North America

The Russian Orthodox Church sent missionaries to Alaska beginning in the 18th century. Among the first was St. Herman of Alaska. This established missionary precedence for the Russian Orthodox Church in the Americas, and Eastern Orthodox Christians were under the omophor (Church authority and protection) of The Patriarch of Moscow. The Russian Orthodox Church was devastated by the Bolshevik Revolution. One side effect was the flood of refugees from Russia to the United States, Canada and Europe. Among those who came were Orthodox lay people, deacons, priests and bishops. In 1920 Patriarch Tikhon issued an ukase (decree) that Orthodox Christians under his leadership but outside of Russia should seek refuge with whatever Orthodox jurisdiction that would shield them from Communist control. The various national Orthodox communities thus were permitted as an emergency measure to look towards their immigrant homelands for ecclesiastic leadership rather than be tied to Russia. Some of the Russian Orthodox remained in communion with Moscow and were granted autocephaly in 1970 as the Orthodox Church in America (OCA). However, recognition of this autocephalic status is not universal, as the Ecumenical Patriarch (under whom is the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America [1]) and some other jurisdictions have not officially accepted it. The reasons for this are complex; nevertheless the Ecumenical Patriarch and the other jurisdictions remain in communion with the OCA.

Today there are many Orthodox churches in the United States and Canada that are still bound to the Greek, Antiochian, or other overseas jurisdiction; in some cases these different overseas jurisdictions will have churches in the same U.S. city. However, there are also many "panorthodox" activities and organizations, both formal and informal, among Orthdox believers of all jurisdictions. One such organization is SCOBA, the Standing Conference of Orthodox Bishops in America, which is comprised of North American Orthodox bishops from all jurisdictions.

There is a general acknowledgment that the situation should not continue as it is indefinitely, and that at some point all the Orthodox churches in the U.S. will need to be united under a single Metropolitan or Patriarch. There is also a general acknowledgment that this can be taken care of slowly over time. In June of 2002, the Antiochian Orthodox Church granted autonomy to the Antiochian Archdiocese of North America. Some observers see this as a step towards greater organizational unity in North America. (Note that this future American Orthodox Church will be a church of Americans, for people who consider themselves Americans and speak primarily or only the English or Spanish languages; people who retain their original nationality and/or whose primary language is not English will most likely remain members of their churches, and their churches' activities will continue).

Theology

General flavor and phronema

In general, the Eastern Orthdox approach to scriptural interpretation and theology is patristic. That means that every effort is made to continue believing and practicing the same theology that Christ gave to the Apostles and that the Apostles gave to the early Church Fathers. Theological innovation is always met with suspicion; if an idea is truly different than what the Church has always believed and taught, it is likely heretical. It is acceptable to elaborate and more fully explain traditional theology, however. The last major theological milestone took place in the 14th century at the Hesychast Councils. There, St. Gregory Palamas explained how God can be both utterly transcendent, yet make himself known to men.

Phronema refers to how something "smells" or "feels". The Western church (i.e. Roman Catholicism and Protestantism) generally has a legal flavor to much of its theology. Sin is understood primarily as a legal violation, and salvation is legal forgiveness for the legal offenses. Also, the West tends to first look at God in his unity, then in his three persons. The Eastern church generally has a much more relational flavor. Sin leads to relational separation from God, and repentance involves restoring the relationships between the penitent and God, and between the penitent and humanity. God is viewed first as three persons in perfect relationship with each other, then as a unity sharing a single divine essence. The doctrine of the Trinity is the basis for most if not all of Eastern Orthodox theology.

It should perhaps also be mentioned that the Western churches have been especially influenced by Augustine and, to a lesser extent, Tertullian. Although Augustine was an early church father, writing in the fourth century, he had very little influence in the East. First of all, he wrote in Latin rather than Greek. At the time, Latin was commonly spoken in the West, but Greek was the main language of the Byzantine Empire. His writings weren't translated to Greek until the fourteenth century. Consequently, Western doctrines that are based on Augustine's views are typically not shared by the East. Eastern theologians tended to rely more on Greek philosophers than did the west, often borrowing their categories and vocabulary to explain Christian doctrine. In the first few centuries after the fall of Rome, knowledge of Greek in the West dropped considerably, and so the Western church was generally less aware of the Greek philosophers. These gradual differences contributed to the growing gap between the Eastern and Western churches.

Asceticism and Theosis

Asceticism is the set of disciplines practiced to work out the believer's salvation, and further the believer's repentance. Ultimately, it is believed, salvation comes only by the grace of God, but God's grace and right belief are expected to produce changes in behaviour. Changes in behaviour can also influence beliefs. Asceticism can include anything from taking part in prayers with the church, fasting, almsgiving, or even working hard not to lose one's temper or similar acts of restraint and self-control. Corporate prayers are generally prayed as a "liturgy", which literally means a "work of the people." One prayer that is very widely used and is the subject of much discussion of spirituality is the Jesus Prayer.

Theosis, or divinization, is the process of becoming more like God and more united with God. It is the goal of the Christian life. It means becoming all that people were originally created to be. It is not something to wait for passively, but something to be taken by force, by hard work done in one's soul.

The four chief activities of the believer are:

• The Mystery of Repentance (or confession)
• The Mystery of the Eucharist
• Fasting
• Almsgiving

Mystery of Repentance

In the earliest days of the Church, Christians confessed their sins to each other publicly, and publicly forgave each other, announcing God's forgiveness. This was possible in part because only believers were meeting together, and they were close-knit communities in which everyone trusted each other. As time went on, and more people came into the Church, some people attending were seekers or catechumens rather than faithful members, and believers began to feel uncomfortable confessing in public. Then the practice developed of members quietly confessing to God (typically in front of an icon of Christ blessing the icon's beholder) in the presence of an elder or priest, who would offer counsel and confirm God's forgiveness. This would take place in the context of a series of prayers said by the priest and penitent together, often including Psalm 51 and other scriptures and prayers. Repentance is essential preparation for receiving the Eucharist.

Mystery of the Eucharist

The Eucharist is at the center of Eastern Orthodoxy. In practice, it is partaking of the bread and wine in the midst of the Divine Liturgy with the rest of the church. The bread and wine are thought to be the genuine Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. The Eastern Orthodox Church has never described exactly how this occurs, or gone into the detail that the Roman Catholic and Protestant churches have in the West. The doctrine of transubstantiation was formulated after the Great Schism took place, and the Eastern church has never formally affirmed or denied it, preferring to state simply that it is a mystery and sacrament. Believers are encouraged to partake regularly, and once a year at the very least. One recent book describing the role of the Eucharist in Eastern Orthodoxy is For the Life of the World by Fr. Alexander Schmemann.

Fasting

The practice of fasting is one of many Jewish practices the earliest Christians kept, and which Orthodox Christians continue to keep to this day. Fasting typically involves abstaining from meat, dairy, and wine rather than abstaining from all food. Seafood and oils are permitted on certain days and weeks of the fast. Thus, on the harshest of days the fasting guidelines resemble vegan vegetarianism with all frying/cooking done simply with water (no oil), and most vegetarian recipes are appropriate during fasts. Monastaries typically have stricter fasting rules. The time and type of fast is generally uniform for all Orthodox Christians living within a particular jurisdiction; the times of fasting are part of the ecclesial calendar. In this way, the whole church fasts together, and the whole church feasts together (when the fast is broken). Young children, women who are pregnant or breastfeeding, and people with other medical needs are often encouraged not to follow the usual fasting guidelines, but to work out alternatives with their priest or spiritual elder. Also, if someone wishes to follow a stricter fast, they are generally encouraged to do so only under the guidance of their priest or spiritual elder.

The major fasting periods are Great Lent (40+ days leading up to Pascha (Easter), the Feast of the Resurrection); Winter Lent (also known as Philip's Fast or Nativity Fast, 40+ days leading up to Christmas or the Feast of the Nativity); about 15 days leading up to the Feast of the Dormition of the Theotokos (the falling asleep of the Virgin Mary) on August 15; the Apostle's Fast, leading up to the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul, Prime Apostles; a few other shorter fasts; and on Wednesdays and Fridays during most of the rest of the year. Wednesday fasts are in remembrance of Judas Iscariot's betrayal of Jesus Christ and of the prostitute who anointed Jesus with ointment, and Friday fasts are in remembrance of Christ's crucifixion and death. There is also a complete fast (all food and drink) from the beginning of Sunday (traditionally this is Saturday sundown following Jewish custom, though many parishes observe the beginning of the day at midnight) until after reception of the Holy Eucharist on the same day, and similar fasting before receiving the Eucharist on other days. The exact number of fasting days often varies from year to year, as the dates of various feasts change, but usually more than half of the days in a year are spent in some form of fast. See the Eastern Orthodox section of the liturgical year article.

Fasting without prayer was often called the "fast of demons" by the Church fathers, since the demons neither eat nor pray. Therefore, fasting should always be accompanied by prayer. Also, fasting is connected with almsgiving, since avoiding meat is intended partly to free up money that can then be used to feed the poor and provide for other charitable causes.

Almsgiving

"Almsgiving" refers to any charitable giving of material resources to those in need. Like fasting, it is a practice carried over from Judaism and reinforced by Christ, the authors of the New Testament, and has remained a prominent teaching. It is often coupled with fasting (see above), as consuming less food and less expensive food should free up more resources that can be given. It is also connected to the Eucharist, in which thanks is given for all things, and it is acknowledged that all things ultimately belong to God. Almsgiving is one of the most practical Orthodox Christian practices.

(scattered notes to be fleshed out later, help welcome)

Lutheran Bishops led by Melanchthon sent delegates to the Patriarch of Constantinople to explore ecumenical possibilities, but the discussions went nowhere. Both sides remained cordial and brotherly, but fundamental doctrinal differences came to light, specifically regarding Holy Tradition, The Procession of the Holy Spirit, free will; Divine predestination, justification, The number of sacraments, Baptism by immersion (Orthodox) vs. sprinkling or pouring (Lutheran), and the immediate performance of Chrismation and the giving of the Eucharist to those baptized (Orthodox), the meaning of the change in the Eucharist, and the use of unleavened bread, infallibility of the Church and of the Ecumenical Councils, veneration, feasts, and invocation of saints and their icons and relics, fasts and other ecclesiastical traditions. Ultimately, the dialogue was broken off [1].

In the sixteenth century, Pope Gregory I called for a switch to the Gregorian calendar. However, like the Protestants of that time (and till the mid eighteenth century in England), the Orthodox rejected this call, and so remained on the Julian calendar. By far the majority of Orthodox worldwide remain on the Julian Calendar. However, today, many Orthodox, particularly in the West, have switched to a Revised Julian Calendar, which mostly matches the Gregorian Calendar, but places Easter and related feast days (e.g., Ascension, Pentecost) on the same day as does the Julian Calendar. The actual algorithms for calculating the date of Easter used by both calendars are quite complex, as are the algorithms for calculating the Jewish date of Passover. See the external link concerning the calendar for further details.

Eastern Orthodox churches

Autocephalous churches

• Orthodox Church of Constantinople
• Orthodox Church of Alexandria
• Orthodox Church of Antioch
• Orthodox Church of Jerusalem
• Russian Orthodox Church
• Serb Orthodox Church
• Romanian Orthodox Church
• Bulgarian Orthodox Church
• Georgian Orthodox Church
• Orthodox Church of Cyprus
• Church of Greece
• Polish Orthodox Church

• Albanian Orthodox Church
• Czech and Slovak Orthodox Church
• Orthodox Church in America

Autonomous Churches

• Orthodox Church of Mount Sinai (under the Patriarch of Jerusalem)
• Finnish Orthodox Church (under the Patriarch of Constantinople)
• Estonian Orthodox Church (under the Patriarch of Constantinople)
• Japanese Orthodox Church (under the Patriarch of Moscow)
• Chinese Orthodox Church (under the Patriarch of Moscow)
• Ukrainian Orthodox Church (under the Patriarch of Moscow)

Churches not in Communion with Constantinople

• Belorussian Autocephalous Orthodox Church
• Church of the Genuine Orthodox Christians of Greece
• Macedonian Orthodox Church
• Old Believers
• Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia
• Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church

External Links

• The Orthodox Ecclesiastical Calendar
• Orthodox Research Institute
• list of patriarchs of most patriarchates

Work in progress

These are some things I'd like to see this article cover in greater detail:

• liturgical prayer (in general, Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, Divine Liturgy of St. Basil the Great)
• Eucharistic theology, in relation to both theosis and dealing with communion issues and heresy
• How evangelism looks

I don't know if much should be said about what a Divine Liturgy looks like, or use of the liturgical calendar? Julian, Revised Julian and Gregorian Calendars? I'd love to include statistics on these and other pages about the current size of the various groups and recent growth rates and trends.

See also:

• liturgical year
• monasticism
• hesychasm
• Christianity
• History of Christianity

  Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Eastern Orthodoxy."

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Ethnic Greek

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

As an adjective, Greek means of, or relating to Greece, its people or its culture. As a noun, it means a native or inhabitant of Greece.

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Ethnic Greek."

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Greece

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

The Hellenic Republic, Hellas for short and commonly known as Greece, is a country in the southeast of Europe on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula. Bounded on land by Bulgaria, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, and Albania to the north, to the east by Turkey and the waters of the Aegean Sea and to the west and south by the Ionian and Mediterranean Seas. Regarded by many as the cradle of Western civilisation, Greece has a long and rich history during which it spread its influence over three continents.

Ελληνική Δημοκρατία

Elliniki Dhimokratia

(In Detail)
National motto: Eleftheria i thanatos (Greek: Liberty or Death)
Official language	Greek
Capital	Athens
President	Kostis Stephanopoulos
Prime minister	Konstantinos Simitis
Area  - Total  - % water	Ranked 94th 131,940 km² 0.86%
Population  - Total (2001)  - Density	Ranked 70th1010,964,020 80.5/km²
Independence - Declared - Recognised	From the Ottoman Empire March 25, 1821 1828
Currency	Euro¹, Greek euro coins
Time zone	UTC +2
National anthem	Imnos pros tin Eleftherian
Internet TLD	.GR
Calling Code	30
(1) Prior to 2001: Greek drachma

History

Main article: History of Greece

The shores of the Aegean Sea saw the emergence of the first civilisations in Europe, namely the Minoan and Mycenaean civilisations. After these has subsided a Dark Age followed until around 800 BC a new Hellenic Greece emerged. It was this Greece of city-states that established colonies along the Mediterranean, resisted Persian invasions and whose culture would be the basis of Hellenistic civilisation that followed the empire of Alexander the Great (king of Macedonia).

Militarily Greece itself declined until it was conquered by the Romans from 168 BC onwards, though Greek culture would in turn conquer Roman life. A province of the Roman Empire, Greek culture would continue to dominate the eastern Mediterranean and when the Empire finally split in two the Eastern or Byzantine Empire, centred on Constantinople, would be Greek in nature, as well as encompassing Greece itself. From the 4th century to the 15th century the Eastern Roman Empire survived eleven centuries of attacks from the west and east until Constantinople fell on May 29, 1453 to the Ottoman Empire. Greece had gradually been conquered by the Ottomans during the 15th century.

Ottoman rule remained until in 1821 the Greeks declared their independence. After the Greek War of Independence was concluded in 1828, Greece was then established as a monarchy in 1833. During the 19th and early 20th centuries Greece sought to encompass the Greek-speaking population of the Ottoman Empire, slowly growing in territory and population until it reached its present size in 1947.

After World War II, Greece experienced a civil war that lasted until 1949 after which it joined NATO in 1952. On April 21, 1967 the military seized power in a coup d'état, establishing what became known as the Regime of the Colonels. In 1973 the regime abolished the Greek monarchy. Conflict over the issue of Cyprus led to the collapse of the military junta in 1974 and the establishment of a democratic republic in 1975, following a plebiscite. Greece joined the European Union in 1981.

Politics

Main article: Politics of Greece

The 1975 constitution includes extensive specific guarantees of civil liberties and vests the powers of the head of state in an indirectly elected president, who is advised by the Council of the Republic. The prime minister and cabinet play the central role in the political process, while the president performs some governmental functions in addition to ceremonial duties. The president is elected by parliament to a 5-year term and can be reelected once.

Members of Greece's unicameral parliament (the Vouli ton Ellinon) are elected by secret ballot for a maximum of 4 years, but elections can be called earlier. Greece uses a complex reinforced proportional representation electoral system which discourages splinter parties and makes a parliamentary majority possible even if the leading party falls short of a majority of the popular vote. A party must receive 3% of the total national vote to qualify for one of the 300 parliamentary seats.

Peripheries

Main articles: Peripheries of Greece

Greece consists of 13 administrative regions known as peripheries, which are further subdivided into 51 prefecturess (nomoi, singular - nomos):

Attica: Attica Central Greece: Euboea Evritania Fokis Fthiotis Viotia Central Macedonia Khalkidhiki Imathia Kilkis Pella Pieria Serres Thessaloniki

Crete Chania Heraklion Lasithi Rethimno East Macedonia and Thrace Drama Evros Kavala Rodhopi Xanthi Epirus Arta Ioannina Preveza Thesprotia

Ionian Islands Corfu Kefallinia Levkas Zakinthos North Aegean Chios Lesbos Samos Peloponnesus Arcadia Argolis Corinth Laconia Messinia

South Aegean Cyclades Dodecanese Thessaly Kardhitsa Larisa Magnesia Trikala West Greece Achaea Aitolia-Acarnania Ilia West Macedonia Florina Grevena Kastoria Kozani

Beyond these there is one autonomous region, Mount Athos (Ayion Oros - Holy Mountain), a monastic state under Greek sovereignty.

The nomoi are divided into 147 eparchies (singular eparchia), which are divided into 1,031 municipalities: 130 urban municipalities (dimi) and 901 rural communities (kinotites). Before 1999, there were 5,775 local authorities: 361 demoi, 5,560 koinotites, subdivided into 12,817 localities (oikosmoi).

Geography

Main article: Geography of Greece

The country consists of a large mainland, the southern end of the Balkans, and the Peloponnesus peninsula, separated from the mainland by the canal of the Isthmus of Corinth. With the mostly internal Aegean Sea there are numerous islands, including Crete, Rhodes, Euboea, and the Dodecanese and Cycladic groups. Greece has more than 14,880 kilometres of coastline and a land boundary of 1,160 kilometres.

About 80% of Greece is mountainous or hilly. Much of the country is dry and rocky; only 28% of the land is arable. Western Greece contains lakes and wetlands. Pindus, the central mountain range, has an average elevation of 2,650 m. The legendary Mount Olympus is the highest point in Greece at 2,917 m above sea level.

Greece's climate features mild, wet winters and hot, dry summers. Temperatures are rarely extreme, although snowfalls do occur in the mountains and occasionally even in Athens in the winter.

Economy

Main article: Economy of Greece

Greece has a mixed capitalist economy with the public sector accounting for about half of GDP. Tourism is a key industry, providing a large portion of GDP and foreign exchange earnings. Greece is a major beneficiary of EU aid, equal to about 3.3% of GDP. The economy has improved steadily over the last few years, as the government tightened policy in the run-up to Greece's entry into the EU's single currency, the euro, on January 1, 2001.

Major challenges remaining include the reduction of unemployment and further restructuring of the economy, including privatising several state enterprises, undertaking social security reforms, overhauling the tax system, and minimising bureaucratic inefficiencies. Economic growth is forecast at 3%-3.5% in 2002.

The national central bank of Greece is the Bank of Greece.

Demographics

Main article: Demographics of Greece

Most Greeks (98%) adhere to the Greek Orthodox Church, which is under the protection of the state that also pays the clergy's salaries, and Eastern Orthodox Christianity is the "prevailing" religion of Greece according to the constitution. The Greek Orthodox Church is self-governing but under the spiritual guidance of the Ecumenical Patriarch in Constantinople.

A Greek Muslim minority (of 1.3%), concentrated in Thrace, was given legal status by provisions of the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923 and is Greece's only officially recognised minority.

Culture

Main article: Culture of Greece

• List of famous Greeks
• Greek mythology
• Greek literature
• Greek architecture
• Greek cuisine
• Greek language

Miscellaneous topics

• Communications in Greece
• Transportation in Greece
• Military of Greece
• Foreign relations of Greece
• Tourism in Greece
• List of Greek television channels

See also

• National Statistical Service of Greece
• Bank of Greece
• National Bank of Greece

External links

• Greece Now - Government sponsored e-zine on Greek life
• Government.gr - Official governmental site (mainly in Greek)
• Hellenic Parliament - Official parliamentary site

• world-wide press freedom index Rank 19 out of 139 countries

---

European Union:
Austria  |  Belgium  |  Denmark  |  Finland  |  France  |  Germany  |  Greece  |  Ireland
Italy  |  Luxembourg  |  Netherlands  |  Portugal  |  Spain  |  Sweden  |  United Kingdom

Countries acceding to membership on May 1, 2004:
Cyprus  |  Czech Republic  |  Estonia  |  Hungary  |  Latvia  |  Lithuania  |  Malta  |  Poland  |  Slovakia  |  Slovenia

---

Countries of the world  |  Europe  |  Council of Europe

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Greece."

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Greek

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

• Greece
• Greek language
• Greek alphabet
• Greek literature
• Greek mythology
• Greek philosophy
• ancient Greece
  • Mycenaean civilization
  • Hellenic civilization
  • Hellenistic Greece
• Roman Empire
• Byzantine Empire
• ethnic Greek
• The Greeks (mathematical finance)

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Greek."

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Greek alphabet

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

The Greek language is written in the Greek alphabet, developed in classical times (around the 9th century BC) and used down to the present. Its letters are nowadays used for a variety of other purposes: as mathematical symbols, as names of stars, and so forth.

It is believed that the Greek alphabet was brought to Greece via Phoenician traders. The fact that the Greek alphabet derives from an earlier Semitic script is uncontested, the exact source(s) of the Greek alphabet are however controversial. Sass (94) mentions the Proto-Canaanite and the Phoenician scripts, Coulmas (1989: 142) and Naveh (1979: 55) mention only the Phoenician alphabet. Other theories include as its sources Egypt, Assyria, and Minoan Crete or even many different languages and nations (Polygenetic theory).

The Greek letters and their derivations are as follows (pronunciations transcribed according to SAMPA):

Letter	Name				Pronunciation			Numeric value	Corresponding Hebrew letter	HTML entity
	Greek	Traditional transcription	Pronunciation
			classical	modern	old	classical	modern
Α α	ἄλφα / ἄλφα	Alpha	[alfa]	[alfa]		[a] [a:]	[a]	1	א 'Aleph	α
Β β	βῆτα / βῆτα	Beta	[bE:ta]	[vita]		[b]	[v]	2	ב Beth	β
Γ γ	γάμμα / γάμμα	Gamma	[gamma]	[Gama]		[g]	[j] before [e] or [i]; [G] otherwise	3	ג Gimel	γ
Δ δ	δέλτα / δέλτα	Delta	[delta]	[Delta]		[d]	[D]	4	ד Daleth	δ
Ε ε	ἒ ψιλόν / ἒ ψιλόν	Epsilon	[e psilon]	[e psilon]		[e]	[e]	5	ה He	ε
F (1) (Ϝ ϝ)		Digamma			[w]	-	-	6	ו Waw	Ϝ ϝ
Ζ ζ	ζῆτα / ζῆτα	Zeta	[dzE:ta]	[zita]		[dz]	[z]	7	ז Zain	ζ
Η η	ἦτα / ῆτα	Eta	[E:ta]	[ita]	[E:] [h]	[E:]	[i]	8	ח Heth	η
Θ θ	θῆτα / θῆτα	Theta	[TE:ta]	[Tita]	[t_h]	[T]	[T]	9	ט Thet	θ
Ι ι	ἰῶτα / ἰῶτα	Iota	[iO:ta]	[jota]		[i] [i:]	[i] [j]	10	י Yodh	ι
Κ κ	κάππα / κάππα	Kappa	[kappa]	[kapa]		[k]	[k]	20	ך כ Kaph	κ
Λ λ	λάμβδα / λάμβδα	Lambda	[lambda]	[lamda]		[l]	[l]	30	ל Lamed	λ
Μ μ	μῦ / μῦ	Mu	[my:]	[mi]		[m]	[m]	40	ם מ Mem	μ
Ν ν	νῦ / νῦ	Nu	[ny:]	[ni]		[n]	[n]	50	ן נ Nun	ν
Ξ ξ	ξῖ / ξῖ	Xi	[ksi:]	[ksi]		[ks]	[ks]	60	ס Samekh	ξ
Ο ο	Ὂ μικρόν / ὂ μικρόν	Omicron	[o mikron]	[o mikron]		[o]	[o]	70	ע `Ain	ο
Π π	πῖ / πῖ	Pi	[pi:]	[pi]		[p]	[p]	80	ף פ Pe	π
M (1) (Ϻ ϻ)		San			[z]	-	-	-	ץ צ Sade / Tzade	Ϻ ϻ
Q (1) (Ϙ ϙ)		Qoppa			[k]	-	-	90	ק Qoph	Ϙ ϙ
Ρ ρ	ῥῶ / ῥῶ	Rho	[rO:]	[ro]		[r]	[r]	100	ר Resh	ρ
Σ σ	σῖγμα / σῖγμα	Sigma	[si:gma]	[sigma]		[s]	[s]	200	ש Sin / Shin	σ
ς		Sigma (final)						6 (modern)		ς
Τ τ	ταῦ / ταῦ	Tau	[tau]	[taf]		[t]	[t]	300	ת Taw	τ
Υ υ	ὒ ψιλόν / ὖ ψιλόν	Upsilon	[y: psilon]	[i psilon]	[u]	[y] [y:]	[i]	400	from Waw	υ
Φ φ	φῖ / φῖ	Phi	[fi:]	[fi]	[p_h]	[f]	[f]	500	origin disputed (see text)	φ
Χ χ	χῖ / χῖ	Chi	[Ci:]	[Ci]	[k_h] [ks]	[C]	[C]	600		χ
Ψ ψ	ψῖ / ψῖ	Psi	[psi:]	[psi]		[ps]	[ps]	700		ψ
Ω ω	ὦ μέγα / ὦ μέγα	Omega	[O: mega]	[o meGa]		[O:]	[o]	800		ω
Ϡ ϡ (1)		Sampi			[ss] [ks]	-	-	900		Ϡ ϡ

(1): Letter removed from the alphabet in early times, before the period that is now called "classical".

Because Greek minuscules are from a (much) later date, no historic minuscule actually exists for San. Minuscule forms for the other letters were only used numerically.

But for number 6 modern Greeks use an old digraph called stigma (Ϛ, ϛ) instead of digamma or use στ if it is not available. For 90 they use modern z-shaped qoppa forms (Ϟ, ϟ).

Letter combinations and diphthongs

Letters	Pronunciation
	old	classical	modern
αι		[aI]	[E]
ει	[eI] [e:]	[eI]	[i]
οι		[oI]	[i]
υι		[yI]	[i]
αυ		[aU]	[av] before voiced sound; [af] before voiceless sound
ευ		[eU]	[ev] before voiced sound; [ef] before voiceless sound
ηυ		[E:U]	[iv] before voiced sound; [if] before voiceless sound
ου	[oU] [o:]	[u:]	[u]
γγ (2)		[Ng]	[NG]
γκ (2)		[Nk]	[Nk]
γχ (2)		[Nx]	[NC]
μπ	-	-	[b] at the beginning of a word; [mb] otherwise
ντ	-	-	[d] at the beginning of a word; [nd] otherwise

(2): Some scholars see agma as a phoneme in its own right.

The most notable change, compared to its predecessor, the Phoenician alphabet, is the introduction of vowels, without which Greek — unlike Phoenician — would be unintelligible. In fact many alphabets that contain vowels, notably the Roman alphabet and Cyrillic alphabet, are derived ultimately from Greek. (For alphabets with signs solely used to designate vowels not derived from the Greek, see Old Turkic alphabet, Ethiopic alphabet, Indic alphabets, and Old Hungarian alphabet.) The first vowels were alpha, epsilon, iota, omicron, and upsilon (copied from waw), modifications of either glides or breathing marks, which were mostly superfluous in Greek. In eastern Greek, which lacked breaths entirely, the letter eta was also used for a long e, and eventually the letter omega was introduced for a long o. Vowels were originally not used in Semitic alphabets, but even in the very old Ugaritic alphabet matres lectionis were used, i.e. consonant signs were used to denote vowels.

Greek also introduced three new consonants, appended to the end of the alphabet as they were developed. The consonants were to mainly to make up for the lack of aspirates in Phoenician. In west Greek, actually, chi was used for /ks/ and psi for /k_h/ - hence the value of our letter x, derived from chi. Over the middle ages these aspirates disappeared, so now theta, phi, and chi stand for /T/, /f/, and /x/. The origin of those letters is disputed: According to Miller (53), the Ψ-form kappa comes from the Proto-Canaanite. Kappa probably stood for /k]]/ as well as /k_h/ in early Greek orthography. Later on, the K-like kap was re-borrowed from Phoenician, in order to distinguish /k/ from /k_h/ graphemically (ibid.). Today the sign Ψ stands for /ps/, whereas X symbolizes /x/ that developed from the aspirated velar stop. Ypsilon, too, was re-borrowed from Phoenician, digamma (F) thus is the same letter, simply based on an earlier form (id. 45). Some sources however see Ψ as a real Greek innovation that has no Semitic predecessor. Jensen (426) on the other hand links psi to Y and qoppa/phi and Safatenic letters (Jensen 463).

Other Greek letters of disputed origin are X (Chi), Φ (Phi) and san. Bernal (116) and Brixhe (336) assume that qoppa originally symbolized /k_w_w, k_w_h, g_w/ in Greek. Those phonemes fell together with /p, p_h, b/ and qoppa soon became superfluous. Since pi was the letter for both the aspirated and the non-aspirated phonemes, qoppa came to be the letter that symbolized the aspirated sound. This theory is highly controversial, there are however parallels to this process: the modern sound value of Castilian is explained by the phonetic change from /dz/ over /ts/ to /θ/. Other scholars claim that phi is an original Greek invention. Sampson (102) maintains that thêta (Jensen 462) is the origin of the letter, and Swiggers (265) assumes that the letter is of Cypro-Minoan origin.

Bernal (117) claims that khi is of South Semitic origin; other scholars view it as a symbol that derives from Ξ (xi) (Jensen 462). Sampi, whose name is probably derived from Greek (ô) sán pi ('like pi') (Jensen 462) is possibly a newly developed form of san, a Semitic letter that can also be found in Etruscan. In Ionic Greek, sampi stood for /ts/ (id. 450). Gercke (ibid.) views Ξ as the predecessor of sampi.

The letter san was used at variance with sigma, and by classical times the latter won out, san disappearing from the alphabet. The letters waw (later called digamma) and qoppa disappeared, too, the former only needed for the western dialects and the latter never really needed at all. These lived on in the Ionic numeral system, however, which consisted of writing a series letters with precise numerical values. Sampi (apparently in a rare local glyph form from Ionia) was introduced at the end - to stand for 900. Thousands were written with a mark at the upper left ('A for 1000, etc).

Originally there were several variants of the Greek alphabet, most importantly western (Chalcidian) and eastern (Ionic) Greek; the former gave rise to the Etruscan alphabet and thence to the Roman alphabet. Athens took the Ionic script to be its standard in 403 BC, and shortly thereafter the other versions disappeared. By then Greek was always written left to right, but originally it had been written right to left (with asymmetrical characters flipped), and in-between written either way - or, most likely, boustrophedon, so that the lines alternate direction.

During the Middle ages, the Greek scripts underwent changes paralleling those of the Roman alphabet: while the old forms were retained as a monumental script, uncial and eventually minuscule hands came to dominate. The letter σ is even written ς at the ends of words, paralleling the use of the long and short s at the time. Aristophanes of Byzantium also introduced the process of accenting Greek letters for easier pronunciation.

The Greeks were the first people who generalized the alphabetic designation of vowels. They probably did so unconsciously, but opinions on this topic are characterized by great dissension. It is not clear whether Greeks and Semites made the distinction between vowels and consonants the same way present western civilization does. Bilingualism was probably rather frequent also for economic reasons. Without communication, there is no commerce. This in turn seems to imply that as in the case of other alphabets primarily bilingual or multilingual people are those who adapt alphabets. The Greek alphabet is probably not the result of a unique and isolated adoption, but a multi-layered process based on several Semitic alphabets. Other scripts Miller (52) even mentions graphic Linear B influence may also have played a part. Maybe it is also necessary to examine whether Greeks and Phoenicians made the same distinctions between different Semitic languages that scholars make today.

(see Early Semitic alphabet for bibliography. See also Greek language.)

For extended discussion of problematic Greek letter forms see: http://www.tlg.uci.edu/~opoudjis/unicode/unicode.html

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Greek alphabet."

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Greek architecture

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

The architectural style associated with ancient Greece is seen at its best in the remains of buildings such as the Parthenon and Acropolis in Athens. Such buildings may be found not only in Greece, but throughout the Mediterranean, in regions that were at one time occupied by the Greeks, eg. Sicily.

Greek architecture has three styles or periods, each with its distinguishing characteristics. These are: Doric, Ionic and Corinthian. These styles were also adopted and adapted by the Romanss.

In modern times, many architects have been influenced by ancient Greece, as can be seen in buildings such as the Église de la Madeleine in Paris.

Notable Greek architects (ancient)

• Iktinos
• Kallikrates

.

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Greek architecture."

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Greek cuisine

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

Greek cuisine is the cuisine deriving from Greece mainland and its associated islands. Given the geography and history of Greece, this style of cookery has heavy leanings towards Middle Eastern cuisine. The terrain has tended to favour the production of goats and sheep over cattle, and thus beef dishes tend to be a rarity by comparison. Fish dishes are also common, although today most of the fish is imported since the Mediterranean Sea is quite overfished. Olive oil, produced from the trees prominent throughout the region, adds to the distinctive taste of Greek food. Many dishes use filo pastry. Too much refinement is generally considered to be against the hearty spirit of the Greek cuisine. Traditionally, Greek dishes are served warm rather than hot as easting too hot was deemed unhealthy.

Appetizers

Most of these are served with pita bread -- a round flat wheat bread made with yeast.

• Tzatziki (yogurt with cucumber and garlic puree, used as a dip)
• Taramosalata (fish roe pureed with some boiled potatoes; tarama = fish roe, salata = salad).
• Spanakopita (spinach pie wrapped in filo pastry)
• Tyropita (cheese pie wrapped in filo pastry)
• Saganaki (fried cheese)
• Dolmades (grapevine leaves stuffed either with meat or rice and vegetables)
• Avgolemono soup (made with eggs and lemons

Famous Greek dishes

• Moussaka (eggplant casserole). There are other variations besides eggplant, such as zucchini or rice, but the eggplant version ("melitzanes moussaka") is most popular, so "moussaka" alone is assumed to mean with eggplant.
• Kleftiko: lamb slow-baked on the bone, first marinaded in garlic and lemon juice.
• Souvlaki (lamb and vegetables on skewers)
• Gyros (pork, yogurt, tomato sandwich on pitta bread; this is a popular "fast food").
• Pastitsio (macaroni, meat, and white sauce in the oven)

Desserts

• Baklava (A popular sweet desert, layers of filo pastry with nuts, sugar, honey, cloves)
• Loukoumia
• Creamy yogurt with honey

Drinks

• Ouzo (an 80-proof clear alcoholic beverage that is flavored with anise; it turns milky white with water or ice; the best said to be produced on the island of Lesbos).
• Tsipouro (Mostly home-brewed, a clear drink very similar to Ouzo, often with higher alcohol content).
• Metaxa (a fine brandy; 40% alcohol content)
• Retsina (a white wine that has some pine tar added, originally as a preservative, but nowadays for the flavor; this is an Athens region specialty. It should not be aged.).

See also: cuisine

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Greek cuisine."

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Greek euro coins

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

The euro (EUR or €) is the common currency for most European nations within the European Union, including Greece. The euro coins have two different sides; one common, European side showing the value of the coin and one national side featuring a design chosen by the EU member state where the coin was minted. Each member state has one or more designs unique to that country.

For images of the common side and a detailed description of the coins, see Euro coins.

Greek euro coins feature a unique design for every one of the eight coins. They were all designed by Georgios Stamatopoulos with the minor coins depicting Greek ships, the middle ones famous Greeks and the two large denominations examples of Greek history and mythology. All designs feature the 12 stars of the EU and the year of imprint. Unique to the national side of Greek coins is that the value of the coin is expressed in the Greek alphabet. Also, the euro cent is called the lepton (λεπτο) in Greek, unlike other languages which borrowed the word cent.

Depiction of Greek euro coinage | Obverse side

€ 0.01	€ 0.02	€ 0.05
An Athenian trireme of the 5th century BC	A corvette (or dromon) of the early 19th century	A modern tanker, symbol of Greek enterprise
€ 0.10	€ 0.20	€ 0.50
Rigas Velestinlis-Fereos 1757-1798, Greek poet	Ioannis Kapodistrias 1776- 1831, Greek statesman	Eleftherios Venizelos 1864- 1936, Greek politician
€ 1.00	€ 2.00	€ 2 Coin Edge
		The edge lettering features the words Hellenic Republic in Greek and in Greek script
Picture of a 5th cen. BC 1 drachma coin of Athens (a coin in a coin)	The abduction of Europa by Zeus in the form of a bull

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External links

• European Central Bank (www.euro.ecb.int)
• Bank of Greece (www.bankofgreece.gr)

  Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Greek euro coins."

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Greek language

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

The Greek language (Ελληνικά) is an Indo-European language, born in Greece and once spoken also along the coast of Asia Minor. In classical times there were a variety of spoken dialects, most notably Ionic, Doric, and Attic.

Modern Greek has descended from ancient Greek, and is close enough to the ancient language so that a relatively well educated native speaker of modern Greek can read an ancient text and for the most part understand it. A large number of words and expressions have remained unchanged through the centuries, and have found their way into a number of other languages, including Latin, German, French, and English.

There are many theories about the origins of the Greek language. One theory suggests that it originated with a migration of proto-Greek speakers into Greece, which is dated to any period between 3,200 B.C. to 1,900 B.C. Another theory maintains that Greek evolved in Greece itself out of an early Indo-European language.

The first known script for writing Greek was the Linear B syllabary, used for the archaic Mycenaean dialect. Linear B was not deciphered until 1953. After the fall of the Mycenaean civilization, there was a period of about five hundred years when writing was either not used, or nothing has survived to the present day. Since early classical times, Greek has been written in the Greek alphabet, said to be derived from Phoenician. This happened about the time of Homer, and there is one obscure, fleeting reference in Homer's poetry suggesting that he might have been aware of writing.

Attic Greek was the language of Athens; most of the surviving classical Greek literature is in Attic Greek. Alexander the Great was instrumental in combining these dialects to form Koine Greek (from the Greek word for "common") (sometimes called New Testament Greek after its most famous work of literature). This allowed his combined army to communicate and was also taught to the inhabitants of the regions that he conquered, turning it into a "world language". The language evolved during the Hellenistic period, and for many centuries was the "Lingua Franca" of the Roman Empire. From this descended the Greek that was the official language of the Eastern Roman Empire (or Byzantine Empire) and finally the modern Greek of today. Modern Greek has a more conservative form called Katharevousa, which includes numerous Ancient Greek words pronounced in a modern way, and the spoken form Dhimotiki, which since 1976 is the official language of Greece, instead of Katharevousa.

Greek, like many other Indo-European languages, is highly inflected -- for example, nouns have five cases, three genders, and three numbers, verbs have three moods, three voices, as well as three persons and three numbers and various other forms. Here is the definite article declined:

	SINGULAR			PLURAL
	Masc.	Fem.	Neuter	Masc.	Fem.	Neuter
Nominative (subject)	ho	hê	to	hoi	hai	ta
Genitive (possessive)	tou	tês	tou	tôn	tôn	tôn
Dative (indirect object+)	tô	tê	tô	tois	tais	tois
Accusative (direct object)	ton	tên	to	tous	tas	ta
Vocative (address sb)	ô	ô	ô	ô	ô	ô

Modern Greek has lost the dative (except in a few expressions like en taxei OK), and some of the other forms have changed phonetically. In the following table the left-hand side uses a phonetic form suitable for Modern Greek only, while the right-hand side is the same thing written in the transcription for Ancient Greek, for easier comparison with the table above:

	SINGULAR			PLURAL			|	SINGULAR			PLURAL
	M	F	N	M	F	N	|	M	F	N	M	F	N
Nominative	o	i	to	i	i	ta	|	o	ê	to	oi	oi	ta
Genitive	tu	tis	tu	ton	ton	ton	|	tou	tês	tou	tôn	tôn	tôn
Accusative	to(n)	ti(n)	to	tus	tis	ta	|	to(n)	tê(n)	to	tous	tis	ta

The main phonetic changes between Ancient and Modern Greek are a simplification in the vowel system and a change of some consonants to fricative values. Ancient Greek had five short vowels, seven long vowels, and numerous diphthongs. This has been reduced to a simple five-vowel system. Most noticeably, the sounds i, ê, y, ei, oi have all become i.

The consonants b, d, g became v, dh, gh (dh as in English this). The aspirated consonants ph, th, kh became f, th, h - where the new pronunciation of th is /T/ as in English thin.

Greek has sandhi rules, some written, some not. ν before bilabials and velars is pronounced "m" and "ng" respectively, and is written μ (συμπαθεια) and γ (συγχρονιζω) when this happens within a word. The word εστι "is" in Ancient Greek gains ν, and the accusative articles τον and την in Modern Greek lose it, depending on the start of the next word; this is called "movable nu". In τον πατερα "the father" the first word is pronounced "tom", and in Modern Greek (but not Ancient Greek, which had an independent "b" sound) the second word is pronounced "batera" because "mp" -> "mb".

See also

• Language families and languages
• Greeklish

External Links

• The Perseus Project has many useful pages for the study of classical languages and literatures, including dictionaries.
• Free online resources for learners (both Ancient and Modern Greek)
• SPIonic, public domain greek font.
• Learn Greek Online, if you'd like to learn the beauty of the modern greek (with real audio files, totally free)

Dictionaries to/from other languages

• Greek-Spanish dictionary.

  Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Greek language."

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Greek literature

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

Poetry

• Alcman
• Alcaeus
• Anacreon
• Bacchylides
• Homer:
  • Iliad
  • Odyssey
• Ibycus
• Pindar
• Sappho
• Simonides
• Stesichorus

Drama

• Aeschylus:
  • The Oresteia:
    • Agamemnon
    • The Libation Bearers
    • The Eumenides
  • The Persians
  • Prometheus Bound
  • Seven Against Thebes
  • The Suppliants

• Aristophanes:
  • The Archanians
  • Ecclesiazousae ("The Assemblywomen")
  • The Birds
  • The Clouds
  • The Frogs
  • The Knights
  • Lysistrata
  • Peace
  • Plutus ("Wealth")
  • Thesmaphoriazousae ("The Festival Women")
  • The Wasps

• Euripides:
  • Medea
  • Suppliant Women
  • The Bacchae
  • Alcestis
  • Electra
  • Iphigenia at Aulis

• Plato:
  • The Apology
  • The Republic
  • Phaedrus

• Sophocles:
  • The three Theban plays:
    • Antigone
    • Oedipus the King
    • Oedipus at Colonus
  • Ajax
  • Electra
  • Philoctetes
  • The Trachiniae

• Xenophon:
  • Socrates' Defence
  • Memoirs of Socrates
  • The Dinner-party
  • The Estate-manager

History

• Thucydides
• Herodotus

see also Early Helladic, Middle Helladic, Late Helladic, Hellenic civilization, Hellenistic civilization, literature.

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Greek literature."

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Greek mythology

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

Greek mythology is the set of legends which come from the religion of ancient Hellenic civilization. These stories were familiar to all ancient Greekss and, although some thinkers professed skepticism, they provided the people with both rituals and history.

See also: Greek religion, Roman mythology, Roman religion, paganism

In Greek mythology, the gods in the Greek pantheon are given human form, but are first and foremost personifications of the forces of the universe. As such they are more or less unchanging, and while they sometimes seem to have a sense of justice, they are often petty or vengeful. The gods' favors are won by sacrifices and piety, but this does not guarantee them, for the gods are known to be prone to frequent changes of mind. Their anger is harsh and their love can be just as dangerous.

The world of Greek mythology is quite complex. It is full of monsters, wars, intrigue, and meddling gods. And there are heroes to help overcome these problems. Men and women were much greater in those days, of course, though the Greeks did not see any wide gulf between their history and their religion (see, for example, The Iliad and The Odyssey). Such beliefs can be compared to the way in which, for instance, some Christian creationists today equate the Bible literally with their history. The Greeks saw themselves as the direct descendants of the mythological heroes and their culture. In addition to the continuing use of and allusion to mythology in literature, Greek mythology today makes for some wonderful stories that remain enjoyable.

Greek mythology continues to be an important cultural reference long after the Greek religion with which it was entwined ceased to be practiced. There was, to be sure, a Christian move to deface or destroy idols and other images that reflected the public cult of the gods when Christianity replaced paganism as the official faith of the Roman Empire. Literature posed a harder problem to the Christians; it would be impossible to erase the influence of Greek mythology there without casting aside the Iliad and the other works of Homer, Theocritus, Vergil, Ovid, and hundreds of other authors that none but a few zealots were willing to cast aside. Greek mythology thus has persisted for more than a millennium after Greek religion became extinct. Even the most Christian literature is often filled with allusions to Greek and Roman mythology, as a glimpse at Milton's Paradise Lost makes plain:

By younger Saturn, he from mightier Jove

His own and Rhea's Son like measure found;

So Jove usurping reign'd: these first in Crete

And Ida known, thence on the Snowy top

Of cold Olympus rul'd the middle Air

Thir highest Heav'n; or on the Delphian Cliff,

Or in Dodona, and through all the bounds

Of Doric Land; or who with Saturn old

Fled over Adria to th' Hesperian Fields,

And ore the Celtic roam'd the utmost Isles.

--Paradise Lost, book I

List of Greek mythological characters

Some important mythical places:

• Elysium
• Hades
• Helicon
• Hyperborea
• Lethe
• Olympus
• Styx
• Tartarus

Sources: Ovid, The Metamorphoses -- Apuleius, The Golden Ass -- Homer, The Iliad and The Odyssey -- Hesiod, The Theogony

External link

• Timeless Myths provides information and tales from classical literature.

  Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Greek mythology."

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Greek numerals

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

Greek numerals are a system of representing numbers using letters of the Greek alphabet.

The earliest system of numerals in Greek was acrophonic, operating much like Roman numerals with the following scheme: Ι = 1, Π = 5, Δ = 10, Η = 100, Χ = 1000, and Μ = 10000.

Starting in the 4th century BC, the acrophonic system was replaced with a quasi-decimal alphabetic system, sometimes called the Ionic numeral system. Each unit (1, 2, ..., 9) was assigned a separate letter, each tens (10, 20, ..., 90) a separate letter, and each hundreds (100, 200, ..., 900) a separate letter. This requires 27 letters, so the 24-letter Greek alphabet was extended by using three obsolete letters: digamma (ς) for 6, qoppa (ϙ) for 90, and sampi (ϡ) for 900. An acute sign (´) is used to distinguish numerals from letters.

The alphabetic system operates on the additive principle in which the numeric values of the letters are added together to form the total. For example, 241 is represented as σ´μ´α´ (200 + 40 + 1).

Letter	Value	Letter	Value	Letter	Value
α´	1	ι´	10	ρ´	100
β´	2	κ´	20	σ´	200
γ´	3	λ´	30	τ´	300
δ´	4	μ´	40	υ´	400
ε´	5	ν´	50	φ´	500
ς´	6	ξ´	60	χ´	600
ζ´	7	ο´	70	ψ´	700
η´	8	π´	80	ω´	800
θ´	9	ϙ´	90	ϡ´	900

See also: Numeral system, Arabic numerals, Armenian numerals, Babylonian numerals, Chinese numerals, Greek numerals, Hebrew numerals, Indian numerals, Mayan numerals, Roman numerals.

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Greek numerals."

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Greek philosophy

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

Classical (or "early") Greek philosophy focused on the role of reason and inquiry. In many ways it paved the way both to modern science and to modern philosophy. Clear unbroken lines of influence lead from early Greek philosophers, through early Muslim philosophy to the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and the secular sciences of the modern day.

Pre-Socratic Philosophers

The history of philosophy in the west begins with the Greeks, and particularly with a group of philosophers commonly called the pre-Socratics. This is not to deny the occurrence of other pre-philosophical rumblings in Egyptian, Semitic and Babylonian cultures. Certainly great thinkers and writers existed in each of these cultures, and we have evidence that some of the earliest Greek philosophers may have had contact with at least some of the products of Egyptian and Babylonian thought. However, the early Greek thinkers add at least one element which differentiates their thought from all those who came before them. For the first time in history, we discover in their writings something more than dogmatic assertions about the ordering of the world -- we find reasoned arguments for various beliefs about the world.

As it turns out, nearly all of the various cosmologies proposed by the early Greek philosophers are profoundly and demonstrably false, but this does not diminish their importance. For even if later philosophers summarily rejected the answers they provided, they could not escape their questions:

• Where does everything come from?
• What is it really made out of?
• How do we explain the plurality of things found in nature?
• And why can we describe them with a singular mathematics?

And the method the Greek philosophers followed in forming and transmitting their answers became just as important as the questions they asked. The pre-Socratic philosophers rejected traditional mythological explanations for the phenomena they saw around them in favor of more rational explanations. In other words they depended on reason and observation to illuminate the true nature of the would around them, and they used rational argument to advance their views to others. And though philosophers have argued at length about the relative weights that reason and observation should have, for two and a half millennia they have basically united in the use of the very method first used by the pre-Socratics.

Difficulties often arise in pinning down the ideas of the Pre-Socratic philosophers, and in determining the actual line of argument they used in supporting their particular views. This problem arises not from some defect in the men themselves or in their ideas, but simply from their separation from us in history. While most of these men produced significant texts, we have no complete versions of any of those texts. We have only quotations by later philosophers and historians, along with the occasional textual fragment.

Thales

Anaximander

Pythagoras

Heraclitus of Ephesus

Xenophanes, Parmenides, and the other Eleatic philosophers

Leucippus, Democritus and the other Atomists

Protagoras and the Sophists

Socrates

Socrates (470 B.C. - 399 B.C.), an (Athenian) philosopher, became one of the most important icons of the Western philosophical tradition. His made his most important contribution to Western thought through his method of enquiry. See the article on him for more information.

Plato

Plato (c. 427 BC - c. 347 BC), an immensely influential classical Greek philosopher, studied under Socrates and taught Aristotle. His most famous work, The Republic (Greek Politeia, 'city'), outlines his vision of "an ideal" state. He also wrote The Laws and many dialogues featuring Socrates as the main participant. Plato became a pupil of Socrates in his youth, and - at least according to his own account - attended his master's trial, though not his execution. Unlike Socrates, Plato wrote down his philosophical views and left a considerable number of manuscripts. See the article on him for more details.

Aristotle

Aristotle, known as Aristoteles in most languages other than English (Aristotele in Italian), (384 BC - March 7, 322 BC) has, along with Plato, the reputation of one of the two most influential philosophers in Western thought.

Their works, although connected in many fundamental ways, differ considerably in both style and substance. Plato wrote several dozen philsophical dialogues - arguments in the form of conversations, usually with Socrates as a participant - and a few letters. Though the early dialogues deal mainly with methods of acquiring knowledge, and most of the last ones with justice and practical ethics, his most famous works expressed a synoptic view of ethics, metaphysics, reason, knowledge, and human life. Predominant ideas include the notion that knowledge gained through the senses always remains confused and impure, and that the contemplative soul that turns away from the world can acquire "true" knowledge. The soul alone can have knowledge of the Forms, the real essences of things, of which the world we see is but an imperfect copy. Such knowledge has ethical as well as scientific import. One can view Plato, with qualification, as an idealist and a rationalist.

Aristotle, by contrast, placed much more value on knowledge gained from the senses, and would correspondingly better earn the modern label of empiricist. Thus Aristotle set the stage for what would eventually develop into the scientific method centuries later. The works of Aristotle that still exist today appear in treatise form, mostly unpublished by their author. The most important include Physics, Metaphysics, (Nicomachean) Ethics, Politics, De Anima (On the Soul), Poetics, and many others. See the article on Aristotle for more discussion.

Later Classical philosophers

Cicero

Zeno of Citium

Epictetus

Epicurus and Lucretius

Empedocles

The Neo-Platonists

Ammonius Saccas, Plotinus, Porphyry, Proclus, Iamblichus)

Marcus Aurelius

Schools of thought in the Hellenistic period

Cynicism

Hedonism

Eclecticism

Neo-Platonism

Skepticism

Stoicism

The spread of Christianity through the Roman world ushered in the end of the Hellenistic philosophy and the beginnings of Mediaeval Philosophy.

See also: Philosophy, Ancient philosophy

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Greek philosophy."

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Greek religion

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

Greek religion, or rather, Greek religions, is the religion practiced in ancient Greece, and the practical counterpart of Greek mythology. In a wider sense, it was the faith of Rome and the other European cultures of classical antiquity, and the polytheism most people have in mind when they think of paganism.

See also: Greek mythology, Roman religion, Roman mythology, paganism

Overview

It is perhaps misleading to speak of "Greek religion" as a unified system of dogma or ritual; perhaps the most conspicuous aspect of the religions practised in the Greek city states is their variety. Different cities worshipped different deities; Athens had Athena; Sparta, Artemis Corinth was a center for the worship of Aphrodite; Delphi and Delos had Apollo; Olympia had Zeus, and so on down to the smaller cities and towns. Identity of names was not even a guarantee of a similar cultus; the Greeks themselves were well aware that the Artemis worshipped at Sparta, the virgin huntress, was a very different deity from the Artemis who was a many-breasted fertility goddess at Ephesus. When literary works such as the Iliad had conflicts among the gods because their followers were at war on earth, these conflicts were a celestial reflection of the earthly pattern of local deities. Eventually, the worship of major deities spread from one locality to another, and most larger cities boasted temples to several major gods; the identification of different gods with different places remained strong to the end.

The variety in Greek religion is also caused by the long history of Greece. Greek religion spans a period from Minoan and Mycenean periods to the days of Hellenistic Greece and its ultimate conquest by the Roman Empire. Religious ideas continued to develop over this time; by the time of the earliest major monument of Greek literature, the Iliad attributed to Homer, a consensus had already developed about who the major Olympian gods were. Still, changes to the canon remained possible; the Iliad seems to have been unaware of Dionysus, a god whose worship apparently spread after it was written, and who became important enough to be named one of the twelve chief Olympian gods.

In addition to the local cults of major gods, various places like crossroads and sacred groves had their own tutelary spirits. There were often altars erected outside the precincts of the temples. Shrines like hermai were erected outside the temples as well. Heroes, in the original sense, were demigods or deified humans who were part of local legendary history; they too had local cults, and often served as oracles for purposes of divination. What religion was, first and foremost, was traditional; the idea of novelty or innovation in worship was out of the question, almost by definition. Religion was the collection of local practices to honour the local gods.

Worship

The most widespread public act of worship in ancient Greece was sacrifice, especially the blood sacrifice of animals. The temples of the Greek religion generally were not public gathering places where people gathered socially for collective indoor prayer; most temples were little more than boxes that held a cult idol of the deity. Rather, the temples were part slaughterhouse and part barbecue; oxen, sheep, horses, swine, dogs, various birds, and almost every kind of beast, be it fur, fish, or fowl, were offered as sacrificial victims to one deity or another, again depending chiefly on local custom. When we are told in studies of mythology that "horses are sacred to Poseidon" or roosters to Hermes, what this meant first and foremost was that these animals were customarily offered as sacrifices to those gods. Most sacrificial victims were food animals; for these, the usual practice was to offer the god the blood, bones, and hide of the victim, while the worshippers kept and ate the rest.

The Roman formula expressed the attitude of worshippers to their gods in the formula do ut des; I give sacrifices, so that the god will reward me in return. Public worship was aimed at pleasing the gods so that the gods would send rain, good harvest, military victories, and other public blessings. Private sacrifice was offered for personal goals. Prayer was highly formulaic and ritualized. Most places did not have professional full-time clergy; priests were local officials whose priesthoods were not full time jobs. Major religious sites such as the oracles of pilgrimage brought in enough spiritual tourism to need a full time clerical staff.

Theology

Theology did not come naturally to a faith this diverse and essentially local. At the time of the Homeric epics, the Greeks were familiar enough with their neighbours to be aware that the next city-state over worshipped a different subset of gods. The Homeric Hymns tell us something about the belief and worship of various gods, but apart from the (often variable) family trees of the gods, there is little attempt to provide an overarching system of belief.

One of the earliest attempts to give a theology to the Greek religion is found in the works of the poet Hesiod, whose Theogony provides a creation myth focusing on deified abstractions like Night and Time. The decision as to which deities were considered major enough to number among the Twelve Olympians who were the chief gods of the pantheon was no doubt a political decision, at least in part. Because most of the gods were originally local, and inconsistent stories were told of them from one locality to another, the faith of the ancient Greeks resisted systematization, at least at first. Socrates and other philosophers were accused of atheism by the populists of Athens when they pointed out the difficulties in accepting the received ideas about the gods as a whole. Yet Socrates' view of the gods was ultimately to triumph; as time went on, the traditional piety of the sacrificial rites tended to be dismissed as a sort of folklore, while those who were philosophically minded tended to believe in abstract, remote, and genteel gods who vaguely acted to uphold social norms and public virtues.

The virtues fostered by Greek religion were chiefly respect for the gods, who were majestic (sebastos, σεβαστος) and sublime (semnos, σεμνος) Given the variety of rituals and traditions in the Greek religious state, the believer was obliged to hold the faiths of his neighbours in a similar regard to those of his own city. Those who broke the boundaries of the sacred were considered to be rendered impure thereby. These rules held even in the absence of other circumstances; for example, Orestes was pursued by the Furies for the murder of his mother Clytemnestra to avenge her murder of his father Agamemnon, even though Orestes slew him in what he considered to be his duty. Still, the sacred boundaries and laws must be upheld, and Orestes was unable to win free from the Furies until he was absolved by Athena and performed a quest imposed by Apollo.

Late in the history of classical religion, the Neo-Platonists and the Roman emperor Julian attempted to organize classical paganism into a systematic belief system, which they gave the name of Hellênismos to: the belief system of the Greeks. Their failure to do so stemmed from the essentially local and traditional nature of the religion they sought to protect. Since classical paganism even at that late date was chiefly a matter of following a local tradition, rather than commitment to an overarching belief system and body of doctrine, their rear-guard attempt to create an overarching structure or body of doctrine was fatally flawed.

Mystery religions

Those whose spiritual leanings were not satisfied by the public cult of the gods could turn to various mystery religions. Here, they could find religious consolations that the traditional cultus could not provide: a systematic religious doctrine, an attractive afterlife, a communal worship, and a band of spiritual fellowship. Some of these mysteries, like the mysteries of Eleusis and Samothrace, were ancient and local. Others were spread from place to place, like the mysteries of Dionysus. During the Hellenistic period and the Roman Empire exotic mystery religions like those of Osiris and Mithras became widespread.

Extinction; revival

With the onset of Christianity, the Greek religions died out. (The vast majority of modern Greeks are Greek Orthodox.)

Many neo-pagan religious paths, such as Wicca, use aspects of ancient Greek religions in their practice; Greek reconstructionism focuses exclusively thereon.

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Greek religion."

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Greeks

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

The name by which Hellenes are known in Latin literature (Graeci or Greeks in English).

Aristotle and Apollodorus first write about Graeci, who seem to be the same people as Selle from Epirus. The name becomes known to Latins with the colonization of Italy from Greek settlers. While Greeks call themselves Hellenes, the Romans begin to call them Graeci, the name of the specific Greek colonists.

During the Roman era the name Hellenes is not used anymore. The Greeks, along with the rest of the people from the Roman provinces, call themselves Romans.

After the fall of the Western Roman State in 395 A.D. and the beginning of the Middle Ages in Western Europe the Latin term for the Greeks is used broadly. In Eastern Roman State a change takes place. While in general the citizens of the Byzantine Empire are called Romans, the Greeks assume the name Graeco to distinguish themselves from the rest of the Byzantines. After the schism the name Graeco meant orthodox and Latin meant Catholic. After a while the two terms assumed a national character as well.

After the independence of the modern Greek state from the Ottoman Empire the term Graeco or Greek was abandoned totally by the Greeks themselves. The new country was officially named Hellenic republic (or 'Hellas") and the people "Hellenes". The rest of the world calls them Greeks nevertheless and their country Greece.

Greeks is also a financial term for the set of measures derived from the Black-Scholes option pricing formula. The name is used because most of the parameters are denoted by Greek letters.

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Greeks."

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Hellenes

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

According to Thucydides, Hellenes were called the people of Hellas. Greek mythology states that were named after Hellene. A more scientific approach places the origin of the name in Epirus, the land of the Dorians, where people were called Selle or Helle. The spread of the worship of Zeus in the rest of Greece (the basis of which was in Dodoni), the Dorian tendency to form amfictionies and the increasing popularity of the Delphic religion lead to the use of the name in a way that denoted the people that today is known as Greeks. Before that the Hellenes (or Greeks) were distinguished in phylae such as Achaians, Dorians, Ionians, etc.

In 212 AD the Roman emperor Caracalla gave people from Roman provinces equal rights to those of the citizens of Rome and the right to call themselves "Romans". The name Hellenes, which by then had become a synonym of attachment to old religions, was replaced by the name Roman.

The name Hellenes began to mean Greek again around the 11th century AD. where the Byzantine Empire was already a "Greek state".

After the independence of modern Greece from the Ottoman Empire the new founded country was named officially "Hellenic Republic" (or 'Hellas") and the people "Hellenes". The name by which the country and the people are broadly known, though, is Greece and Greeks respectively.

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Hellenes."

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Hellenic Greece

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

Hellenic Greece is the ancient civilization of Hellas in what is modern Greece. The people are called Hellenes.

After the collapse of Mycenae around 1100 BC, the Greek cities fell into decline and the country entered into a dark age such that the classical Greek alphabet reflects nothing of the Mycenaean syllabary.

Around 800 BC, the Hellenic civilization began to arise, and by 600 BC they were using standardized coinage.

Culture

Social divisions were rigid in Hellenic society and slavery was common.

Economy

The metics oversaw Hellenic commerce and banking and formed part of the governmental bureaucracy.

Government

The basic unit of Hellenic civilization was the polis, or city-state. Hundreds of these filled Greece, and others, called apoikia, were founded around the Mediterranean, especially in Italy and Asia Minor, but also in North Africa and Sicily. Usually, a polis was ruled by an oligarchy. Towards the end of the seventh century a number of dictatorships were established (see Pisistratus).

In the seventh and sixth centuries many cities came to be ruled as democracies. The best known of these is the Athenian democracy. In these, the ability to vote, hold office, and own property were restricted to citizens, and so excluded slaves and resident foreigners.

Military

By about 650 BC, the military was based around hoplites (heavy infantry), organized into rough phalanxes which usually had eight or more rows. The hoplites' shields were held nearly touching, each covering its carrier's left side and his neighbor's right side. Because it was important for more than just individual defence, losing one's shield was the ultimate symbol of cowardice and could be considered treason.

Hoplites were provided mainly by the middle class, which usually included most of the citizen population. Wealthier individuals might fight as cavalry, and poorer ones as peltasts, archers, or slingers, but these were not very important in Hellenic militaries until fairly late. In the few naval powers, poor citizens would row the warships (pentekontors and triremes), and the wealthy might command them.

Religion

Hellenic temples were typically oblong pillar-framed buildings decorated with sculpted figures.

Technology

Hellenes produced iron in clay-lined stone furnaces with stoppered holes that were positioned on hilltops, in order to make use of winds. Slaves fed the furnace crushed charcoal, limestone, and ore and removed slag from the bottom. They would then cool the furnace and remove the bloom which would be heated and hammered until wrought iron was the final product.

History

Hellenic civilization reached the peak of its power duing the 5th century BC. In 478 BC, following the defeat of the Persian invasion, Athens assumed leadership of an alliance known as the Delian League, which would later come to be known as the Athenian Empire. Sparta, the other great power in Greece and leader of the Peloponnesian League, feared the growth of Athenian power and sparred with Athens throughout the middle of the century. Finally, the two sides fought in the Peloponnesian War, from 431 BC-404 BC., which involved virtually every state in Greece, including colonies in Asia, Italy, and Sicily. The war ended in the decisive defeat of the Athenian Empire.

Sparta made an attempt to assure her own supremacy in the Aegean, but in the end Persia managed to recover the Greek cities on the coast of Asia Minor, and starting with the King's Peace in 386 BC even began dictating affairs on the mainland. Athens built up a second confederacy and recovered a position equal to Sparta's, and then Thebes became for a moment the supreme power under Epaminondas. After his death, Greece was left weak and exhausted by continual warfare, leading to its conquest by Macedonia.

The usual periodization practiced by modern historians is to see the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC as dividing the Hellenic period from the Hellenistic. The shift from "Hellenic" to "Hellenistic" represents the shift from a culture dominated by ethnic Greeks, however scattered geographically, to a culture dominated by Greek-speakers of whatever ethnicity, and from the political dominance of the city-state to that of larger monarchies.

See also

• Greek Mythology
• Greek alphabet
• Hellenistic civilization
• Timeline of Ancient Greece

  Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Hellenic Greece."

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Hellenistic Greece

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

The shift from "Hellenic" to "Hellenistic" in the history of the Mediterranean world represents the shift from a culture dominated by ethnic Greeks, however scattered geographically, to a culture dominated by Greek-speakers of whatever ethnicity, and from the political dominance of the city-state to that of larger monarchies. In this period the traditional Greek culture is changed by strong Eastern, especially Persian, influences.

Modern historians see the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC as dividing the Hellenic period from the Hellenistic. Alexander and the Macedonians conquered the eastern Mediterranean, Mesopotamia, and the Iranian plateau, and invaded India; his successors held on to the territory west of the Tigris for some time and controlled the eastern Mediterranean until the Roman Republic took control in the 2nd and 1st centuries BC. Most of the east was eventually overrun by the Parthians.

Following Alexander's death, there was a struggle for the succession, known as the wars of the Diadochi (Greek, "successors"). These ended in 281 BC with the establishment of three large territorial states:

• the Ptolemaic dynasty in Egypt based at Alexandria
• the Seleucid dynasty in Syria based at Antioch
• the Antigonid dynasty in Macedonia and the mainland of Greece

  Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Hellenistic Greece."

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History of Greece

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

For the history of ancient Greece, see Mycenae, Hellenic Greece, and Hellenistic Greece.

The Greek War of Independence from the Ottoman Empire began in 1821 and concluded with the winning of independence in 1828. The first ruler of independent Greece was the governor Kapodistrias, who was murdered in 1831. With the support of England, France, and Russia, a monarchy was established with the signing of the Treaty of London on May 7, 1832 which created an independent Kingdom of Greece. Otto of Wittelsbach, Prince of Bavaria was chosen as its first King in 1833. Otto ruled as an absolute despot, and this led to more and more civil unrest until in 1843 the people and the army of Greece revolted and demanded a constitution. Otto was forced to grant it, and Greece became one of the first European states with a written constitution. Otto's continuing absolutist rule and disrespect for the new constitution led to the deposition of the King in 1862. The Great Powers chose a prince of the Danish House of Glücksburg, a son of King Christian IX of Denmark, as his successor. He became George I, King of the Hellenes.

The Megali Idea (Great Idea), a vision to unite all Greeks living within the borders of the declining Ottoman Empire with the newly independent Greek State, exerted strong influence on the early Greek state. At independence, Greece had an area of 47,515 square kilometers, and its northern boundary extended from the Gulf of Volos to the Gulf of Arta. The Ionian Islands were added in 1864 as a gift from Great Britain to the new King George I; Thessaly and part of Epirus in 1881; Macedonia, Crete, Epirus, and the Aegean Islands in 1913; Western Thrace in 1918; and the Dodecanese Islands in 1947.

Greece entered World War I in 1917 on the side of the Allies. After the war, Greece took part in the Allied occupation of Turkey, where many Greeks (more than two million) still lived. In 1921, the Greek army attacked Turkey from its base in Smyrna (now Izmir), and marched toward Ankara. The Greeks were defeated by Turkish forces led by Mustafa Kemal (later Ataturk) and were forced to withdraw in the summer of 1922. Smyrna was sacked by the Turks, and more than 1.3 million Greek refugees from Turkey poured into Greece, creating enormous challenges for the Greek economy and society and effectively ending the Megali Idea.

Greek politics, particularly between the two World Wars, involved a struggle for power between monarchists and republicans. Greece was proclaimed a republic on March 25, 1924, but George II returned to the throne in 1935, and a plebiscite in 1946 upheld the monarchy. It was finally abolished, however, by referendum on December 8, 1974, when more than two-thirds of the voters supported the establishment of a republic.

Greece's entry into World War II was precipitated by the Italian invasion on October 28, 1940. That date is celebrated in Greece by the one-word reply — ochi ("no") — of Prime Minister Joannis Metaxas to the surrender demand made by Mussolini. Despite Italian superiority in numbers and equipment, determined Greek defenders drove the invaders back into Albania. Adolf Hitler was forced to divert German troops to protect his southern flank and attacked Greece on April 6, 1941. By the end of May, the Germans had overrun most of the country, although Greek resistance was never entirely suppressed. German forces withdrew in October 1944, and the government in exile returned to Athens.

After the German withdrawal, the principal Greek resistance movement, which was controlled by the communists, refused to disarm. A banned demonstration by resistance forces in Athens on December 3, 1944 ended in violence and was followed by an intense, house-to-house battle with Greek Government and British forces. After three weeks, the communists were defeated and an unstable coalition government was formed. Continuing tensions led to the dissolution of that government and the outbreak of full-fledged civil war in 1946. First the United Kingdom and later the United States gave extensive military and economic aid to the Greek government.

Communist successes in 1947–1948 enabled them to move freely over much of mainland Greece, but with extensive reorganization and American material support, the Greek National Army was slowly able to regain control over most of the countryside. Yugoslavia closed its borders to the insurgent forces in 1949, after Marshal Tito of Yugoslavia broke with Stalin and the Soviet Union.

In August 1949, the National Army under Marshal Alexander Papagos launched a final offensive that forced the remaining insurgents to surrender or flee across the northern border into the territory of Greece's communist neighbors. The insurgency resulted in 100,000 killed and caused catastrophic economic disruption. In addition, at least 25,000 Greeks were either voluntarily or forcibly evacuated to Eastern bloc countries, while 700,000 became displaced persons inside the country.

After the 1944-1949 Greek civil war, Greece sought to join the Western democracies and became a member of NATO in 1952. From 1952 to late 1963, Greece was governed by conservative parties: the Greek Rally of Marshal Alexandros Papagos and its successor, the National Radical Union (ERE) of Constantine Karamanlis. In 1963, the Center Union Party of George Papandreou was elected, and governed until July 1965. It was followed by a succession of unstable coalition governments.

On April 21, 1967, just before scheduled elections, a group of colonels led by Colonel George Papadopoulos seized power in a coup d'état. Civil liberties were suppressed, special military courts were established, and political parties were dissolved. Several thousand political opponents were imprisoned or exiled to remote Greek islands. On November 25, 1973, following an uprising of students at the Athens Polytechnic University, General Dimitrios Ioannides replaced Papadopoulos and tried to continue the dictatorship.

General Ioannides' attempt in July 1974 to overthrow Archbishop Makarios, the President of Cyprus, brought Greece to the brink of war with Turkey, which invaded Cyprus and occupied part of the island. Senior Greek military officers then withdrew their support from the junta, which toppled. Leading citizens persuaded Karamanlis to return from exile in France to establish a government of national unity until elections could be held. Karamanlis' newly organized party, New Democracy (ND), won elections held in November 1974, and he became prime minister.

Following the 1974 referendum which resulted in the rejection of the monarchy, a new constitution was approved by parliament on June 19, 1975. Parliament elected Constantine Tsatsos as President of the republic. In the parliamentary elections of 1977, New Democracy again won a majority of seats. In May 1980, Prime Minister Karamanlis was elected to succeed Tsatsos as president. George Rallis was then chosen party leader and succeeded Karamanlis as Prime Minister.

On January 1, 1981, Greece became the 10th member of the European Community (now the European Union). In parliamentary elections held on October 18, 1981, Greece elected its first socialist government when the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK), led by Andrea Papandreou, won 172 of 300 seats. On March 29, 1985, after Prime Minister Papandreou declined to support President Karamanlis for a second term, Supreme Court Justice Christos Sartzetakis was elected president by the Greek parliament.

Greece had two rounds of parliamentary elections in 1989; both produced weak coalition governments with limited mandates. Party leaders withdrew their support in February 1990, and elections were held on April 8. ND won 150 seats in that election and subsequently gained two others. After Mitsotakis fired his first Foreign Minister, Andonis Samaras, in 1992, Samaras formed his own political party, Political Spring. A split between Mitsotakis and Samaras led to the collapse of the ND government and new elections in September 1993.

On January 17, 1996, following a protracted illness, Prime Minister Papandreou resigned and was replaced as Prime Minister by former Minister of Industry Constantine Simitis. In elections held in September 1996, Constantine Simitis was elected Prime Minister. PASOK won 162 seats, New Democracy, 108.

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "History of Greece."

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Synonyms within Context: Greek

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Image Slideshow: Greek

Photos: Greek More pictures...

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Photo Album: Greek

Thumbnail	Description & Credit	Thumbnail	Description & Credit
	Here the disease has manifested itself as a cutaneous ulceration, which has begun to turn black, hence the origin of the name "Anthrax", after the Greek name for coal. Credit: CDC.		Tarpon Springs was established as a sponge fishing port in 1890. In 1905 Greek fishermen arrived. It is still an active fishing port. Credit: Fisheries.
	Portrait of the author - Daniel Schwenter, scholar; a mathematician and linguist familiar with Greek, Latin, Arabic, etc. "Geometriae practicae novae et auctae tractatus I[-IV] ..." by Schwenter, Daniel, 1585-1636. Vol II, page 1. Published posthumously in 1641. Credit: Treasures of the Library.		Ornamental Plaster and cast-iron details. Measured drawing delineated by Harry Weir and A.H. Town, February 1934. (Reproduction Number: HABS, MS-17-6, sheet 7 of 7) Completed in 1840, D'Evereux is an excellent example of the Greek Revival style, an architectural style popular throughout the United States, and especially in the South, before the Civil War. The style is loosely based on the architecture of ancient Greece. The builders of D'Evereux applied Greek and Roman architectural motifs to everything from the ironwork of the servants' quarters to the woodwork and the ceilings of the main house. Many of the architectural ornaments, such as the ones shown here, were inspired by ancient urns, buildings, and other artifacts found at the ancient Roman cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii. Credit: Library of Congress.
	[Medicine - Greek and Roman] : [Carrying dead to Hades]. Credit: National Library of Medicine.		Under attack by German JU 87 dive bombers, at the Greek naval base at Salamis, 23 April 1941. In the lower left, in the floating drydock, is the destroyer Vasilefs Georgios. Kilkis, the former USS Mississippi (Battleship # 23), was sunk in this attack. The floating dock and destroyer were also sunk (reportedly on 20 April ?), but Vasilefs Georgios was subsequently raised and placed in service by the German Navy as Hermes (ZG-3). Credit: NAVY.
	Sunk at the Greek naval base at Salamis, after she was hit by German air attacks on 23 April 1941. Photographed from a German Heinkel HE 60 seaplane after the base was occupied by the German Army. Note bomb damage to the nearby pier. Kilkis was the former USS Mississippi (Battleship # 23). Credit: NAVY.		Unidentified complex of buildings, main building in form of a Greek cross flanked by two smaller buildings. Sketch site plan; Jeweled pendant also in form of Greek cross. Sketch. Credit: Library of Congress.
	A Greek in an outhouse. Credit: Library of Congress.		Greek or Roman warrior brandishing spear. Credit: Library of Congress.
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits.

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Digital Photo Gallery: Greek
 

"Greek Coast" by Andi Teuscher Commentary: "The shore of Monemvasia, Greece, with medieval town wall."	"Greek House" by Karin Jonsson Commentary: "A greek house."
Source: photographs selected by the editor, with permission from the photographers.

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Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.

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Source: compiled by the editor from Icon Group International, Inc.

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