Greek Orthodox Christian Research Articles

The Beast Computer of Brussels: An American Invention That Conquered the World

Abstract In 1972, the American Pentecostal preacher David Wilkerson produced a fifty-minute film, The Rapture, depicting “the return of Jesus Christ.” Subtly alluding to the apocalyptic “mark of the beast” (Revelation 13:16–18), the film featured a gigantic computer called “the Beast.” Located in Brussels, the Beast controlled global commerce by tracking every human on earth with numbers “invisibly ‘laser’ tatooed on the forehead or the back of the hand.” Within months of the film’s release, American Evangelical Protestant networks were reporting the existence of the beast computer as an actual fact and spread the story worldwide. By the 1980s, Greek and Russian Orthodox Christians, skeptical of the European Community, eagerly integrated the beast computer into their own eschatologies. The legend demonstrates the dynamism of the American evangelical imagination, which created this flexible symbol of globalization and technology, as well as the power of the global networks that disseminated it.

Anatolian genetic ancestry in North Lebanese populations

Lebanon’s rich history as a cultural crossroad spanning millennia has significantly impacted the genetic composition of its population through successive waves of migration and conquests from surrounding regions. Within modern-day Lebanon, the Koura district stands out with its unique cultural foundations, primarily characterized by a notably high concentration of Greek Orthodox Christians compared to the rest of the country. This study investigates whether the prevalence of Greek Orthodoxy in Koura can be attributed to modern Greek heritage or continuous blending resulting from the ongoing influx of refugees and trade interactions with Greece and Anatolia. We analyzed both ancient and modern DNA data from various populations in the region which could have played a role in shaping the current population of Koura using our own and published data. Our findings indicate that the genetic influence stemming directly from modern Greek immigration into the area appears to be limited. While the historical presence of Greek colonies has left its mark on the region’s past, the distinctive character of Koura seems to have been primarily shaped by cultural and political factors, displaying a stronger genetic connection mostly with Anatolia, with affinity to ancient but not modern Greeks.

Vaccination Hesitancy Among Greek Orthodox Christians: Is There a Conflict Between Religion and Science?

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic vaccines werehighly anticipated in order to help contain the spread of the virus and mitigate its impact. However, when the vaccination program began, some minorities were reluctant to get vaccinated for numerous reasons. Specifically, at that time in Greece many priests were opposed to getting vaccinated and proceeded to discourage their flock, in stark contrast to the decisions of Greek Orthodox religious leaders who endorsed the vaccination program. It is clear that the COVID-19 pandemic doesn't solely affect the health system but also other parts of society such as politics, the economy and, last but not least, religion and worship. In the current article, we aim to present the notions and attitudes that led many Greek Orthodox Christians to be hesitant about getting vaccinated or even to become a part of the movement actively against vaccination that has been growing during this pandemic.

The Effects of Greek Orthodox Christian Fasting during Holy Week on Body Composition and Cardiometabolic Parameters in Overweight Adults.

This study investigated whether Greek Orthodox Christian fasting during Holy Week can change body composition and cardiometabolic parameters in overweight individuals, and whether these changes are maintained one week after fasting cessation (FC). Body composition and physiological and biochemical parameters were measured before, immediately after (n = 23) and one week after FC (subgroup of n = 10). Fasting resulted in decreased body weight, waist circumference, waist-to-hip ratio, body mass index and total body fat, as well as blood glucose, total cholesterol and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels. Nutrition analysis showed a decreased protein and saturated fat intake during fasting. FC (n = 10) resulted in a decreased carbohydrate intake and increased protein and cholesterol intake compared to fasting. Fasting resulted in decreased blood glucose, total cholesterol and LDL cholesterol levels but returned to pre-fasting levels after FC. Greek Orthodox Christian fasting during Holy Week is beneficial for body composition and some aspects of cardiometabolic health. However, these favourable changes are not maintained one week following fasting.

Tracing conflict: remembering and forgetting during the pilgrimage to Saint George Koudounas

The paper explores a number of sacred practices connected to the celebration of Saint George during the pilgrimage to the Greek-Orthodox Christian monastery of Saint George Koudounas on the island of Prinkipos (Büyükada, Istanbul). The aim is to study the embodied materialisation of memory in conflicting geopolitical landscapes. Before the population exchange of the 1920s and the further displacement of the Greek-Orthodox with the Istanbul pogroms of the 1950s and 1960s, the island was part of the multi-cultural environment of Istanbul, with Greek and Armenian minorities as protagonists in its life. After the twentieth century ‘unmixing’ of populations, this reality has drastically changed, with most of the Christian sacred spaces being destroyed, abandoned, desacralised, or re-sacralised. Yet, the pilgrimage to Saint George Koudounas is still considered one of the most significant religious events of Istanbul, with thousands of pilgrims participating in it. The paper suggests that pilgrimage as a historical and cultural construct allows a space for a performative negotiation of memories from the violent transformation of the country. Remembering and forgetting meet in the activation of practices (walking, weaving, and praying) and objects (small bells, threads, and candles) during the pilgrimage performed by both Muslims and Christians.

Narrating the Nation? National Identity and the Uncanny in De Bernières’ Birds without Wings

Informed primarily by Bhabha and Kristeva's theories of national identity and the uncanny, the article examines the themes of nation building, migration and the uncanny in Louis de Bernières’ Birds Without Wings. It also explores the cosmopolitan nature of the late Ottoman Empire, as portrayed by de Bernières, from the perspective of critical cosmopolitan theory and Bhabha's concept of vernacular cosmopolitanism. The novel depicts the fortunes of a South-West Anatolian village, populated primarily by monoglot Turkish-speaking Greek Orthodox Christians and Muslims, through a turbulent historical period, from the First World War to the 1923 declaration of the Republic of Turkey and the subsequent population exchange between Greece and the new Turkish state. Despite the Christian and Muslim villagers’ arguably hybrid identities, forged in the context of a cosmopolitan Ottoman Empire, and their largely shared culture and harmonious co-existence, they are eventually forced to redefine themselves as ‘Greeks’ and ‘Turks’. The Turkish-speaking Christian villagers, exiled to Greece, have an uncanny, unsettling effect on a Greek national identity largely constructed with Turkey as its principal Other; the experience of the new Turkish citizens left behind in the decaying, half-deserted village is an equally unhomely one.

The Importance of Agriculture in Medieval Jewish Life: The Case of Crete

This article describes how Jews in medieval Crete were involved in, and knowledgeable about, agricultural practices. It pushes back against a persistent view in the scholarly literature that medieval Jews were alienated from the land, and that their disproportionate involvement in trade hastened the Commercial Revolution. The study attempts to show that Cretan Jews took halakhic strictures on agriculture seriously, and that, as a result, they farmed differently from their Greek Orthodox and Latin Christian peers. By examining Jewish texts from the Hellenic territories of the Venetian Republic, the article makes the case that stereotypes of Jews as merchants betrays abundant evidence that medieval Jews were deeply engaged in cultivating the land.

The Idea of Patriarchate of the UGCC in the Ukrainian Diaspora on the Eve of the Second Vatican Council

The article covers the development of the idea of ​​patriarchal status in 1945-1962 within the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in the diaspora, focusing mainly on the third wave of Ukrainian emigration. After the Second World War, about 250,000 Ukrainian refugees found themselves in Western Europe (DP camps), from where in 1947-1955, they moved to the countries of North and South America, Western Europe and Australia. The growing role of the Church, which continued to play a significant role in their lives after their resettlement to the countries mentioned above, marked the experience of their stay in the DP camps. The DP camps became a place of a closer rapprochement between Ukrainian Greek Catholics and Orthodox Christians, one consequence of which was the appeals of a Ukrainian Greek Catholic bishops with a proposal to create a joint patriarchate with Ukrainian Orthodox, which would be in unity with Rome. On the other hand, the expansion of the geography of the presence of the UGCC and the founding of new metropolises in Canada and the United States brought to the fore the question of the unity of all structural units of this Church at the global level, which, as some believed, could have been secured by the patriarchal institution. Finally, the patriarchate was considered by the post-war Ukrainian emigration as a means of preserving the unity of the diaspora in the face of assimilation and disintegration. Furthermore, in the future, as an institution that could effectively help the Church revive at home after independence. The last aspect of the patriarchal idea had a significant impact on the emergence of the Ukrainian patriarchal movement, and its closeness to the goals set by the third wave of Ukrainian emigration provided that movement with a high level of massiveness and passionate vigorousness for the movement.

Subjective Quality of Life, Religiousness, and Spiritual Experience in Greek Orthodox Christians: Data from Healthy Aging and Patients with Cardiovascular Disease.

The goal of this study is to examine subjective quality of life-life satisfaction, religiousness, and spiritual experience in healthy younger and older adults, as well as in older patients suffering from severe cardiovascular disease, while examining the role of marital status, employment and socioeconomic status, existence of social network, urbanicity, education, depression, and personal opinion about the country's current socioeconomic situation. Results revealed that there are no age differences and that the role of demographic variables as predictors of religiousness, spiritual experience, and quality of life-life satisfaction don't seem to be very strong. Marital status, employment, and religiousness moderately predict quality of life-life satisfaction. Quality of life-life satisfaction, religiousness, and spirituality are not strongly interconnected in this Greek Orthodox Christian sample. Future cross-cultural research should further investigate the role of other psychological and social parameters that may have a stronger predictive role in quality of life of older adults.

The Long Genocide in Upper Mesopotamia: Minority Population Destruction amidst Nation-Building and “International Security”

“Genocide in Kurdistan” most often refers to events that are recognized as having occurred in Iraq during the late 1980s and early 1990s. Scholars also connect it with events in Turkey’s early years as a republic. This article describes how some scholars’ expansive conception of Kurdistan encompasses regions that also witnessed genocides as large as or larger (in quantitative terms) than these two cases. Armenians, Assyrians, Yezidis, Mandaeans, Shi’i Arabs, and Greek Orthodox Christians witnessed extermination campaigns at various points in Ottoman, Persian, Iraqi, and Turkish history. What is remarkable about Upper Mesopotamia is that these genocides may have reduced native populations in absolute numbers, as compared with ancient or early medieval figures, and to a greater extent than after the genocides of the Kurds or other groups. Like the work of Raphael Lemkin, this article’s analysis will not be limited to the period since the Genocide Convention entered into force. Instead, it presents evidence of continuities between the denationalization strategies, official pretexts, and regions mentioned in histories of the various genocides in Upper Mesopotamia.

From Ottoman colonial rule to nation statehood: Schooling and national identity in the early Greek school

After Ottoman colonial rule, education in Greece became an important institution for the ideological construction of a Greek national identity. This paper looks at schooling in Greece just prior to the Greek Revolution and immediately after Greek Independence, and how the Greek national school system assisted in the construction of a Greek national identity. This paper is divided into several sections. The introductory section discusses how a newly independent Greek nation-state struggled to unite the Greek people under a collective national identity. While most people at the time identified with their families, communities, and Greek Orthodox Christian religion, after Greek independence people began to see themselves as members of a broader Greek nation. The section that follows provides a discussion of Greek education during Ottoman colonial rule, and how a type of Greek identity (centered around the Greek Orthodox Christian faith) was maintained through the Greek Orthodox mileu. The Greek Church ran schools, and taught Greek children how to read and write, as well as the virtues of the Orthodox Christian faith. Section three of the article looks at Greek education during the early years of the Greek nation-state. In this section the general contours of the Greek educational system are delineated. The section also discusses how the organization of the Greek national school system was borrowed from extant school models found in Western Europe. Section four describes the Greek national curriculum and how the national curriculum would help to teach future generations of Greek citizens what it meant to be Greek. This is further reinforced in the Greek school textbook, which is part of the discussion in section five. Section five concludes with the role of education and its implications in uniting nations from around the world.

Karamanlidic literature and its value as a source for spoken Turkish in the 18th and 19th centuries

Karamanlı literature consists almost exclusively of translations, mostly from Greek and French, but a minor part is transliterations (or rather adaptations) of Ottoman literature. Because the bulk of its readers, who constituted a rather marginal group in Ottoman society, most probably were not very familiar with Ottoman literary traditions, Karamanlı literature has no aspirations of being erudite and elegant in the same way as contemporary Ottoman literature, but is written with the functional aim of reaching as many Turcophone Greek Orthodox Christians as possible. Accordingly, Karamanlı texts are closer to spoken Turkish than most contemporary Ottoman texts, but the question is to what extent the language is influenced by Greek, which most of the authors must have known alongside Turkish. The article concentrates on two texts, the Ḥāǧetnāme by Seraphim, Metropolitan of Ankara (1756), and Evangelinos Misailidis’ novel Temāšā-yı Dünyā (1872), and gives a short synopsis of their contents. It also discusses the linguistic characteristics of these texts, the first of which shows some Central Anatolian dialect features, while the second one most probably is closer to Istanbul vernacular. Examples of possible Greek syntactic elements are taken up and discussed.

“Shorty” by Mikhail Naimy

Mikhail Naimy was born in 1889 in Baskinta, Lebanon to a Greek Orthodox Christian family, which farmed the rocky soil in the al-Shakhrūb region. Naimy was educated in Russian Orthodox mission schoo...

Filling in the ‘floating gaps’ in the history of the Greek Orthodox community of Ayvalık: A study in cultural memory

Abstract During the second half of the eighteenth century there was a significant increase in the Greek Orthodox Christian population in the region of the western coast of Asia Minor, which was accompanied by the establishment of new settlements and the growth of existing ones, as Ayvalık. In the following article we will study both the formation of this city’s ‘tradition of origin’ and its various transformations in the course of time. Ayvalık’s cultural memory was neither fixed nor unified since members of subsequent generations, as well as members of different sociocultural groups, often tended to fill the emerging ‘floating gaps’ according to their, sometimes, competing political agendas. In doing so, they formed nostalgic narratives by making use of certain elements of local and national history, myths and legends, folk tradition, religion and culture in order to mobilize groups and form identities.

The Witness of Bartholomew I, Ecumenical Patriarch. Edited by William G.Rusch. William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2013.

The Witness of Bartholomew I, Ecumenical Patriarch. Edited by William G.Rusch. William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2013.

From the Archive to the Field: A Report on Summer 2014 Asia Minor Travel Seminar: The Greek Orthodox Christians of Ottoman Cappadocia (July 20-August 11, 2014)

From the Archive to the Field: A Report on Summer 2014 Asia Minor Travel Seminar: The Greek Orthodox Christians of Ottoman Cappadocia (July 20-August 11, 2014)

Orthodox Christians in the Late Ottoman Empire: A Study of Communal Relations in Anatolia by Ayşe Özil (review)

Reviewed by: Orthodox Christians in the Late Ottoman Empire: A Study of Communal Relations in Anatolia by Ayşe Özil İpek K. Yosmaoğlu (bio) Ayşe Özil, Orthodox Christians in the Late Ottoman Empire: A Study of Communal Relations in Anatolia. New York: Routledge. 2013. Pp. xv + 186. 11 Illustrations, 5 maps. Cloth $140. Appearing almost simultaneously with Nicholas Doumanis’s Before the Nation: Muslim-Christian Coexistence and Its Destruction in Late Ottoman Anatolia (Oxford, 2012), this book is a welcome addition to the growing English-language literature about the Greek Orthodox communities of the Ottoman Empire. Özil taps into a rich selection of primary sources, including the collections of the Center for Asia Minor Studies in Athens; the Greek Foreign Ministry and State Archives; Archives of the Greek Educational Association; the Prime Ministry Ottoman Archives; Ottoman Court Records; and the British National Archives. Some of this material had remained virtually untapped, and the author does an admirable job of parsing these sources to further our understanding of what she calls “the notion [of community] in practice” (15)—specifically, in this instance, the koinotites of Greek Orthodox Christians in northwestern Asia Minor and not the Orthodox Christians, writ large, of the empire, despite what the title suggests. The author’s focus is on the province of Hüdavendigar that extended from the shores of the Marmara Sea in the north to the west-central Anatolian hinterland in the south, including a stretch along the Aegean around the town of Ayvalik (Kidonies). Building on the work of scholars such as Richard Clogg, Haris Exertzoglou, Socrates Petmezas, Eleni Frangakis-Syrett, and Edhem Eldem, among others, Özil acknowledges, and proceeds to challenge, a common misperception in conventional narrative histories of the Ottoman Empire, namely that the (Greek) Orthodox mainly comprised a class of “merchant bourgeoisie.” She emphasizes the diversity and social stratification within the Greek Orthodox community, not only across the empire, but also in relatively more homogenous administrative entities such as the Hüdavendigar province. Moving beyond the well-worn paradigm of a monolithic Rum milleti, the book, in the author’s words, “tries to understand what the community was about by exploring the notion in practice. … [It] takes a relational approach and treats the Christian presence under the Ottomans as a variable set of contexts and situations” (15). In order to accomplish these objectives, Özil turns her focus to “institutions,” an understanding of which, she argues, is necessary to make sense of communal relations (17). The book is organized in five chapters following this institutional framework, in the following order: local administration; local finances and taxation; legal corporate status; law and justice; nationality. Özil’s most significant contributions are in the sections where she carefully defines the post- Tanzimat (administrative reforms staring in the 1840s) koinotita as a vital institution of local governance for the Greek Orthodox subjects. While discussing at length its membership structure and relationship with the church, the author nevertheless notes the limitations of the koinotita and the simultaneous existence of other, less formal ways of communal organization. Another important intervention of the author is her discussion of the “legal corporate status” of non-Muslim millets in the Ottoman Empire, including Orthodox Christians, which presumably allowed their highest-ranking religious authority to govern these groups with a great degree of autonomy, easily lending itself to the construction of a sense of collective identity. These assumptions were central to the static and old-fashioned view of millets and [End Page 203] the millet system—to the extent that one can speak of a system as such—as the kernel of nations and national resistance to the Ottoman yoke. Özil does not merely add to the old discussion of whether or not there were autonomous millets in the Ottoman Empire; instead, she directly tackles questions concerning the authority accorded to communities in addressing internal legal disputes. By using examples of such disputes over communal ownership of real estate, she demonstrates that any notion of communal “corporate legal status” is false. Furthermore she shows that until the legislation of March 1913, which allowed “the registration of immovable property in the name of institutions,” communal property was deeded to individuals—a...

Ethno-Religiosity in Orthodox Christianity: A Source of Solidarity & Multiculturalism in American Society

This study will analyze the processes of community organization implemented by Eastern Orthodox Christian ethno-religious groups, and Greek Orthodox Christian communities in particular, to establish themselves in American civil society. It will be argued that the symbiotic relationship formed between ethnicity and religion in this tradition, as well as the democratized grassroots mode of community organization that American civil society fosters, contributes to a strong sense of belonging amongst members of the ethno-religious Orthodox Christian congregations. In turn, this sense of belonging has produced a multi-layered mechanism for solidarity-building in these communities. It will then be suggested that in addition to contributing to America’s religious diversity, the preservation of ethno-linguistic heritage by the various Orthodox Christian churches simultaneously contributes to America’s poly-ethnicity and linguistic diversity as well. Last, it will be argued that the continued survival of ethno-religiosity in American Orthodoxy can either lead to further isolation amongst the separate ethnic congregations, or it can alternatively open avenues for the cultivation of a form of Orthodox Christian multiculturalism that supports neither homogeneity nor isolationism.

The Genocide against the Ottoman Armenians: German Diplomatic Correspondence and Eyewitness Testimonies

This contribution documents and analyses the genocide of 1.5 million Armenians in the Ottoman Empire during 1915 and 1916 and is based mainly on the German diplomatic correspondence of the time, which is preserved at the Political Archives of the German Foreign Office, in Berlin. In the introduction, I refer to the Turkish nation state building process during 1912–1921 and its effects on the Christian populaces of the Ottoman Empire. In the second part, I focus on the various, apparently coordinated, measures directed against the Ottoman Armenians. A special subsection is dedicated to the clandestine intelligence organization Teşkilat-ı Mahsusa (Special Organization), which planned, implemented, and largely conducted the destruction of the Armenians in such a conspiratorial way that its activities escaped even the attention of Turkey’s most important military ally, Germany. The final part discusses Germany’s involvement in the destruction of Ottoman Armenians, Aramaic-speaking Christians, and Greek-Orthodox Christians against the background of 50 years of scholarship in history and genocide studies.

Searching of the Concept in Tirilye: An Architectural Design Studio

Tirilye is one of the most ancient towns in Bursa Province of Turkey, situated 12km on the west of Mudanya. It is almost located on the Marmara Sea shoreline. The area, which was inhabited since 5th Century BC, was formerly known as Tρίγλɛια, Trigleia or Bρύλλɛιον, Brylleion in ancient Greek. Trilye has been an important religious center for Greek Orthodox Christians and is a first level protected area since 1980 because of the Byzantine and Ottoman architectural monuments. It is also considered as an open-air museum with various historical buildings. Thus the site is not only an important place with its’ history, but also it is one of the precious places of Turkey to have an architectural search on new forms and concepts on an existed historical area. With 20 students of the Faculty of Architecture, Department of Architecture of Yildiz Technical University, The Design Studio 4 has been searched to find the best places and related architectural concepts to create new architectural forms on Tirilye, during the spring semester of 2013-2014 educational year. Thus the paper will have the long process of the Design Studio 4, with the best 5 projects of 20 different location and concept proposal projects to Tirilye.