Remembering the Orthodox Holocaust

The Armenian Genocide is commemorated on April 24 each year, the Pontian Greek Genocide on May 19. Together with the Assyrians and other Christians under Ottoman rule, the combined total of Orthodox and Eastern Christians massacred by the Muslim Turks from 1894 to 1923 reached 3.6 million.

Still from the film 'Ravished Armenia', based on a survivor's eyewitness account.

While it is essential to remember the Armenian Genocide and to work to stop the Islamic genocide against Christians in the Middle East and Africa being committed today, we must recall that the term 'genocide' is a secular one.

As Christians we commemorate those killed not so much as 'genocide victims', but as Martyrs — Witnesses for Christ — for they were persecuted and killed by the Turkish Muslims primarily because they were Christians, who refused to renounce their faith in Jesus Christ. As the Lord tells us, "You will be hated by all for My Name's sake. But he who endures to the end shall be saved" (MT 10:22), and "The hour is coming when those who kill you will think they offer service to God" (JN 16:2).

Therefore, the Armenian, Assyrian and Greek Martyrs from a hundred years ago are a sign for us today, who are living through a new age of mass Christian martyrdom, which may even result in the extinction of Christians from huge areas in the Middle East and Africa. They call out to us to be zealous and faithful to Jesus Christ to the end, for He has conquered the devil and death itself. They and all the New Martyrs of the 21st Century join to call us to deep repentance, and they admonish us to live fully the Christian life.

'Now one cannot be a half-hearted Christian, but only entirely or not at all.' 

~ Hieromonk Seraphim Rose (†1982) ~

For further reading:

May 19, Pontian Greek Genocide Remembrance Day - Records show a minimum 350,000 Pontian Greeks exterminated through systematic slaughter by Turkish troops, deportations involving death marches, starvation in labor and concentration camps, rapes and individual killings. Entire villages and cities were devastated, while thousands were forced to flee to neighboring countries.

The Orthodox Christian Holocaust: 1894 to the Present - The most significant Orthodox Christian resource on this subject, compiled by the Very Rev. Archimandrite Nektarios Serfes. Includes summaries of genocide against 3.6 million Armenians and Greeks by Turkish Muslims from 1894-1923.

Armenian Church canonizes victims of Ottoman genocide

Islam, via both Turkey and ISIS, threatens 5,000-year-old Assyrian culture with annihilation

Christian Genocide in the Middle East and Public Apathy in America

'Sacrificing and Sacrificed for the Faith' — Martyrdom a Hundred Years Ago and Today

Much more on my Armenian Genocide Resource Page...

Athens allows first mosque in 180 years

"The first official mosque is to be erected in the Greek capital, Athens, ending an almost two-century ban on building a Muslim worship place by the government."

"I am for peace, but when I speak, they are for war." - Psalm 120:7

It remains to be seen what new demands and pressures will be exerted by Islamic supremacists following this historic capitulation by the Greek government, let alone the ever-present threat of Muslim terrorist attacks experienced throughout the Balkans, Europe, Russia... everywhere.


Athens allows first mosque in 180 years

Pravmir, August 22, 2016:

Photo: An annex of the Museum of Greek Folk Art, the Tzistarakis Mosque in the center of Athens, in use until the end of Ottoman rule in 1832.

This month, the government passed a bill to accelerate 10-year-old plans to build a mosque in the Athens neighbourhood of Votanikos.

No new mosque has been built in Athens since the Ottoman Empire’s rule ended over Greece in 1829.

Islam was the official religion of the old Ottoman Empire and up to one million Muslims are still believed to be living in Greece.

In Athens alone, approximately 200,000 Muslims are using an estimated 100 informal mosques, mostly in garages or converted basements, for prayer and other forms of worship.

With the recent arrival of refugees from the Middle East and North Africa this number has risen even further, intensifying the need for more mosques.

Athens is currently the only EU capital without one but that is now set to change.

Islam, via both Turkey and ISIS, threatens 5,000-year-old Assyrian culture with annihilation

• "There is a great parallel between 1915 and what is going on in the Middle East today — in terms of destruction of non-Muslim civilizations and the continuity of Islamic jihad..."
• "Before 1915, the population of the territory that is now Turkey was about 15 million, about 4.5 million of which was Christian (nearly a third). Today... the approximate population of Turkey is 80 million, but there are only around 120,000 Christians, less than 1% of the population.
• "What some people in Turkey proudly say is, 'Elhamdulillah [thank Allah], 99% of Turkey is Muslim.' They brag and boast about it. It should actually put them to shame; we know very well how they made it happen...
• "They murdered more than 300,000 Assyrians and forced almost another 300,000 to be exposed to assimilation in many countries across the world."

See also my special resource page on the Armenian-Assyrian Genocide.

5000-year-old Assyrian Culture Facing Devastation

By Uzay Bulut, Gatestone Institute via AINA, November 29, 2015

Left: A memorial in France commemorating the 1915 Assyrian Genocide in Turkey. Right: An Islamic State member destroys a Christian tombstone in Mosul, Iraq, in April 2015.

The recent invasions and massacres committed by the Islamic State (ISIS) and Al-Qaeda terrorists in Iraq and Syria have brought a persecuted but mostly forgotten people to the attention of the world: the Assyrians.

The Assyrians, a native people of Mesopotamia, have been exposed to massacres before -- throughout history, in fact.

Due to these campaigns of extermination, the demographic character of the region has been changed greatly.

Before 1915, the population of the territory that is now Turkey was about 15 million, about 4.5 million of which was Christian (nearly a third). Today, one can hardly even talk of a Christian minority. The approximate population of Turkey is 80 million, but there are only around 120,000 Christians, less than 1% of the population.

In 1915, a slaughter of minorities took place, the purpose of which was apparently to "Turkify" and Islamize Anatolia into a country with one language, one flag, one religion and one nation. To achieve this objective, all non-Turkish communities -- Armenians, Assyrians, Greeks, Jews, Yezidis, Kurds and others -- were targeted.

But there was a difference between Christians and non-Christians. Non-Christian minorities were to be assimilated; Christians were to be exterminated.

According to the founder and the president of the Assyrian Genocide and Research Center (Seyfo Center)[1], Sabri Atman, there are links between the massacre of the Assyrians and the current massacres of Christians in the Middle East:

Eleven Turkish Muslims baptized into Orthodox Church

Their anonymity has been preserved for obvious reasons.

Mystagogy via Pravoslavie — July 17, 2015

Eleven Turkish citizens, among them a famous Turkish actor, were baptized in May 2015. The baptism was celebrated by the Metropolitan of Attica.

The [original] 13 muslim men and women (between the ages of 30 and 40) were impressed by the beauty of the Orthodox monuments of the island [of Chios], and on their return to Turkey, they decided to read and generally learn about Orthodox Christianity.

This led to them asking a priest to undertake their catechism with the intention of converting to the Orthodox religion.

The Last Divine Liturgy in Hagia Sophia – Constantinople

"They entered the Holy Church with reverence, making the sign of the cross. Father Lefteris said, quietly, with great emotion: 'I enter into your house; I worship towards your Holy Church in fear…'

"He quickly moved towards the Holy Sanctuary, where the Holy Table would have been. He found a small table and placed it within the Sanctuary. He had everything in a small bag; he took everything out, he put on his vestments and began:

“'Blessed is the Kingdom of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, now and for ever, and to the ages of ages'.

“'Amen', replied the Major Liaromatis. The Divine Liturgy had begun in Hagia Sophia, for the first time since the 29 May 1453."

The Last Divine Liturgy in St. Sophia – Constantinople

Londinoupolis via OCP Media — May 29, 2015

Many, even Orthodox, even Greeks, believe that the last Divine Liturgy in St. Sophia, in Constantinople, was celebrated on the 29 May 1453. However, the last Liturgy took place in 1919. The priest who celebrated the Divine Liturgy was Fr. Lefteris Noufarakis, who was from Alones Rethymnou, Crete. He was an army priest in the Second Greek Army Division, one of the two army divisions which was part of the allied expeditionary body in Ukraine. This Army Division went to Ukraine via Constantinople, which then was under ‘allied sovereignty’, after the end of WW I.

A group of Greek Officers, led by the priest, General Frantzis, Major Liaromati, Captain Stamatiou and Lieutenant Nikolaou were observing the City and Hagia Sophia, keeping to themselves their secret, i.e. to celebrate the Divine Liturgy in St. Sophia – a decision taken primarily by the priest. The difficulty of this endeavour was the fact that during that period St. Sophia was a mosque, creating therefore some major issues. This could have created a diplomatic incident between Greece and Turkey. However, Fr. Lefteris had decided that he was going to celebrate the Divine Liturgy in St. Sophia, whatever difficulty came his way.

Greek Media: "Orthodoxy for the USA is like a Red Flag to a Bull"

Some who follow the media closely are positive that the anti-Church campaign in Greece is financed by the USA.

Pravoslavie — May 26, 2015

Thousands in Greece venerate the relics of St Barbara.
The USA hates the veneration of saints and hates the Orthodox
Church, and therefore is promoting depravity and godlessness
in Greece, Russia, and other traditionally Orthodox nations.

(Athens, May 22, 2015)  An anti-Church campaign is continuing in Greece. It flared up after the holy relics of Great Martyr Barbara had been brought to the country. Some who follow the media closely are positive that the campaign is financed by the USA.

“For the USA, Orthodoxy is like a red flag to a bull… This is because Orthodox peoples are friendly towards Russia. That is why in Greece in every way – through media and Non-Governmental Organizations controlled by the USA – godlessness is being promoted and the faith ridiculed. The huge influx of the faithful to the relics of St. Barbara has startled the West and caused the intensification of this propaganda,” experts of the Defencenet.gr Greek portal are convinced, reports AgionOros.

It should be noted that St. Barbara’s relics, which are permanently kept at the San Marco Basilica of Venice, were brought to Greece, and this caused a wave of negative publications in the liberal media. The event has already been called “unprecedented”.

100 Years of Silence

Of the 2.6 million Greeks of Ottoman Turkey in 1914, over 700,000 additional Thracian and Anatolian Greeks were slaughtered, bringing the total Greek deaths to over one million.

Related: The Armenian Genocide

by Thea Halo, Author of Not Even My Name, and A Lid for Every Pot, painter, former WBAI news correspondent.
Huffington Post — May 20, 2015
h/t AINA

In the struggle between denial and silence, silence wins hands down. That is, silence wins out over denial if the genocide of a people is to be complete. For almost 100 years, Pontic Greeks have mourned the loss of the 353,000 fathers, mothers, grandparents, children, friends and community members who were slaughtered outright, or who died agonizing deaths on long death marches to expulsion from 1916 to 1923. My mother was among them. Of the 2.6 million Greeks of Ottoman Turkey in 1914, over 700,000 additional Thracian and Anatolian Greeks were slaughtered, bringing the total Greek deaths to over one million.

Although the Pontic Greeks had settled on the southern shores and in the mountains along the Black Sea since 875 B.C., and other Greeks had settled in Anatolia since 1200 B.C., over 2,000 years before the first Turkish tribes invaded, today it's difficult to find anyone who has heard of the Pontians or Anatolian Greeks, as if they never existed? Ditto for the Assyrians who had settlements in Asia minor dating back four thousand years before the genocide that took the lives of at least 275,000 Assyrians, more than half their population. As with the Pontic Greeks, until recently, it was rare to find anyone who knew Assyrians still existed in the modern world.

Mosque to be built in Athens, Greece - Parliament Amends Law

"This serves as a support to the plan of islamization of the country... to say nothing of the uncontrolled settling of Muslim immigrants...  And then it results in slaughter and bloodshed inside a criminal caliphate that inspires islamists to preach Islam anew."  — Metropolitan Seraphim of Piraeus

AXIOS Metropolitan Seraphim! Allowing Islam a beachhead in Athens will inevitably and quickly lead to serious problems, as can be seen wherever Islam spreads.

Mosque to be built in Athens, Greece - Parliament Amends Law

Pravoslavie — May 21, 2015

(Athens, May 20, 2015)  The Parliament of Greece has made amendments to the state’s legislation allowing the building of a mosque in Athens. The changes were made by the ruling Syriza party (the Coalition of the Radical Left).

In connection with this Metropolitan Seraphim of Piraeus addressed his flock with his arch pastoral speech, reports Romfea:

“The Greek Parliament has once again made Islam a pressing problem, trying to legalize this religion whose law presupposes a death penalty for apostasy (conversion from Islam to another faith).

May 19 – Pontian Greek Genocide Remembrance Day

Records show a minimum of 350,000 Pontian Greeks were exterminated through systematic slaughter by the Turkish Muslims. The Pontian Greek Genocide is part of the wider Orthodox Christian Holocaust, which included the Armenian Genocide, and spanned from 1894 to 1923.

Stella Tsolakidou – May 2015 – Greek Reporter
Posted on OCP Media — May 19, 2015

In 1994, May 19 was selected by the Greek parliament as the day to commemorate the Pontian Greek Genocide by the Turks. The Pontic Genocide is one of the darkest moments in history not only for Greeks, but also for mankind. The Genocide vanished from its ancestral and historic homeland in Pontus a culturally vibrant and unique part of the Greek population that had been fighting for its survival for about 3,000 years.

Records show a minimum 350,000 Pontian Greeks exterminated through systematic slaughter by Turkish troops, deportations involving death marches, starvation in labor and concentration camps, rapes and individual killings. Entire villages and cities were devastated, while thousands were forced to flee to neighboring countries. The Ottoman government’s plan to annihilate the Christian populations living within Turkey, including Greeks, Syrians and Armenians, during World War I was set into force in 1914 with the decree that all Pontian men aged between 18 to 50 would have to report to the military. Those who refused to do so, were ordered to be shot immediately.

Turkey offers to allow restoration of Halki Seminary in exchange for opening a Mosque in Thessaloniki

The Turkish Muslims are holding the shuttered Halki Seminary hostage in order to extort Greece to capitulate and enable the building of mosques in Athens and Thessaloniki. Allowing any mosques in either city would set a dire precedent, and would only bring strife, crime and open jihad to the already struggling Hellenic state.

For background on Turkey's efforts to establish a beachhead mosque in Greece, see Greek Parliament Surrenders to Islam, Orthodox Bishop and Citizens oppose mosque in Athens, as well as my posts here, here and here. 

For more on the historic Halki Seminary, see here, here and here.

The Greek Orthodox were conquered and enslaved by Muslims once already. Let's hope and pray they hold firm against this form of stealth jihad. For resources on resisting mosque expansions, see my post, Challenging Mosques: Tools for Education and Legal Resistance.

Turkey offers to allow restoration of Halki Seminary in exchange for opening a Mosque in Thessaloniki
Pravoslavie — May 12, 2015

(Ankara, May 11, 2015) The Orthodox seminary on the island of Halki (Turkey) may be restored in exchange for opening of a mosque in Thessaloniki, Greece. This condition was laid down by the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

According to Blagovest-info, this information was spread by the Hürriyet Turkish newspaper with the reference to editor-in-chief of one history journal who had discussed the matter with Erdogan in person. The Turkish President said that he was ready to give his consent on reopening of the Orthodox seminary on Halki; however, he added, Greece was not intending to open mosques on its territory at all. Later Metin Kulunk, Member of the Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party, specified that the President meant the Fethiye Cami Mosque in Athens, and not a mosque in Thessaloniki.

Churches in Turkey on the Verge of Extinction

"Turkey... has largely succeeded in destroying the entire Christian cultural heritage of Asia Minor."

Related: 

• Qur’an read inside Hagia Sophia for the first time in 85 years
• Ninth Hagia Sophia Church converted into mosque
• Muslim Prayers at Hagia Sophia: A Sign Calling Us to Repent

by Uzay Bulut

Gatestone Institute via Raymond Ibrahim — April 21, 2015

While Eastern Orthodox Christians recently celebrated their Easter holy week, a historic church in Istanbul — the once magnificent Christian city of Constantinople — is witnessing yet another abuse at the hands of its current authorities.

“The historic Istanbul cathedral and museum, Hagia Sophia, witnessed its first Quran recitation under its roof after 85 years Saturday,” reported the state-run Anatolian News Agency of Turkey. “The Religious Affairs Directorate launched the exhibition “Love of Prophet,” as part of commemorations of the birth of Islamic Prophet Muhammad.”

Even though Christians are a tiny minority in Turkey today, Christianity has a long history in Asia Minor, the birthplace of many Christian Apostles and Saints, including Paul of Tarsus, Timothy, Nicholas of Myra, and Polycarp of Smyrna.

All of the first seven Ecumenical Councils were held in what is today Turkey. Two out of the five centers (Patriarchates) of the ancient Pentarchy — Constantinople (Istanbul) and Antioch (Antakya) — are also situated there. Antioch was the place where, for the first time, the followers of Jesus were called “Christians.”

Turkey is also home to the Seven Churches of Asia, where were sent the Revelations to John. During the centuries that followed, countless churches were established throughout the region.

One of them, Hagia Sophia, was once the grandest cathedral in the Christian world — until the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans on May 29, 1453, followed by a three days of unbridled pillage.[1]

Hagia Sophia was not exempt. Pillagers made their way to the Hagia Sophia and battered down its doors. Trapped in the church, congregants and refugees became spoils to be divided among the Ottoman invaders.

Pictures of Armenian Genocide Centennial Rallies Throughout the World

Photographic coverage of global commemorations of the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide.

Visit our special Armenian Genocide Resource Page...

Flags of the victims of the genocide:

Armenian, Assyrian, Greek (L to R)

AINA — April 25, 2015

"We have made a clean sweep of the Armenians and Assyrians of Azerbaijan" -- Those were the words of Djevdet Bey, the governor of Van Province in Ottoman Turkey, who on April 24, 1915 lead 20,000 Turkish soldiers and 10,000 Kurdish irregulars in the opening act of the genocide of Assyrians, Armenians and Greeks.

Between 1915 and 1918 750,000 Assyrians (75%), 500,000 Greeks and 1.5 million Armenians were killed by Ottoman Turks and Kurds in a genocide that aimed at and nearly succeeded in destroying the Christian communities in the Ottoman Empire.

Christian Genocide in the Middle East and Public Apathy in America: Looking Back on 2014 and Before

The question of lack of American care and response to genocide against Christians in the Middle East and Africa has been raised on this blog, as well as elsewhere. Timothy Furnish recently shared this excerpt from a piece by blogger Matt Walsh in which, as Tim puts it, Walsh "nails this -- NAILS it":

I’m sure there would be outrage of epic proportions if over 100 black Christians in Georgia were gunned down for their faith like they were in Africa just a few weeks ago. I’m sure that if black American Christians were persecuted, we would care. If Chinese Americans or Korean Americans or Arab Americans or any other kind of American Christians were killed for their beliefs, there would be marches in the street and candle light vigils outside their homes. But for the ones dying and suffering in silence far away from our borders? We have concern, yes. But do we have that deep, seething, righteous anger at the pit of our souls? Do we cry out for justice? Do we shed tears? Do we? It doesn’t seem like it, and I don’t know why.

In an early 2014 article by Michael Brendan Dougherty titled, 'The World’s Most Ancient Christian Communities are being Destroyed — and No One Cares', I was struck in particular by this brief quote, which also seems to "nail it":

“The victims are ‘too Christian’ to excite the Left, and ‘too foreign’ to excite the Right.” —French philosopher Regis Debray

I might amend Debray's observation to read that the Christian victims are "too Eastern" to excite American Protestant/Evangelical Christians to action.

It is precisely the deeply traditional, liturgical, Eastern form of Christianity which has been preserved in the Orthodox, Coptic, Assyrian and Chaldean communions which is under renewed attack by the forces of Islam, and which is simultaneously, for the most part, ignored by American Christians who, as a general rule, are so iconoclastic nowadays as to regard Eastern Christians as being somehow sub-Christian or even non-Christian altogether.  If you wish to explore my reasoning on this point, I invite you to read my article, 'Islam's Hatred of Holy Icons — and what that means for Persecuted Eastern Christians' from July 2013.

In any case, the apathy of Americans in general, and American Christians in particular, is part of the deeper meta-narrative revealing itself in our new era of Mass Christian Martyrdom. Dr. Kyrou's outstanding article below is a welcome historical analysis and stirring challenge to us all, and comprises part of this blog's coverage of the 100th Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, and the Glorification of the Armenian Martyrs as Saints taking place this very day.


Christian Genocide in the Middle East and Public Apathy in America: Looking Back on 2014 and Before

by Dr. Alexandros K. Kyrou - January 14, 2015

Source: Hellenic American Leadership Council via Pravoslavie

One of the last diplomats to leave Smyrna after the Turks set the great Anatolian port city ablaze in September 1922 was the United States’ Consul General, George Horton. Reflecting on the carnage and depravity of the Turkish forces tasked by Mustafa Kemal to destroy Smyrna’s Greeks and every physical semblance of their three-millennial presence in the magnificent city on the western littoral of Asia Minor, Horton wrote that “one of the keenest impressions which I brought away from Smyrna was a feeling of shame that I belonged to the human race.” The shame that Horton expressed stemmed from his shock and disgust, both as a witness to the Turks’ genocidal frenzy and as a diplomat aware that several Western governments, including his own, had contributed to the horrors that took place in Smyrna.

'The Smyrna Catastrophe', by Vasilis Bottas

One of the chief reasons that Turkey escaped responsibility for its crimes against humanity was the complicity, albeit indirect, of several of the Western powers in those crimes. 

Armenian Orthodox Church to Canonize All Victims of the Armenian Genocide

Orthodox Patriarchs and Numerous Christian Leaders to Attend Opening Ceremony

Icon of Asia Minor Crucified

As I have written here before, the term 'genocide' is a secular one, but as Christians, we speak of the 'Martyrs', the 'Witnesses for Christ' (the Greek word 'martyria' means 'witness').

The Canonization of the Holy Armenian Neo-Martyrs of the Early 20th Century should be seen as one of the Great Symbols of the 21st Century. The Armenian Genocide — which actually endured from 1894 to 1923, and in which some 1.8 million Armenians were killed by the Muslim Turks — was one large component of what Archimandrite Nektarios Serfes has written of as The Orthodox Christian Holocaust.

During 1914-1922, 1.75 million Greek and Pontian Christians were also killed, and another 100,000 Syriac and Nestorian Christians were slaughtered, bringing the total number of Christians martyred by the Turkish Muslims from 1894-1923 to approximately 3,650,000.

This is a great cloud of witnesses, indeed.

Related:

• Armenian Orthodox Church: Official Projects Commemorating 100th Anniversary of the Genocide
• Metropolitan Tikhon, OCA Delegation depart for Armenia, Georgia
• Broken Promise: Obama Won't Describe Armenian Massacre as 'Genocide'
• Armenian Church to Canonize Martyrs of Genocide; Ankara Unhappy
• The Orthodox Christian Holocaust: 1894 to the Present
• Pontian Greek Genocide Remembrance Day
• 'Ravished Armenia', A Film for Today

Armenian Orthodox Church to Canonize All Victims of the Armenian Genocide
Interfax via Pravoslavie, April 22, 2015

The Armenian Apostolic Church will canonize all victims of the Armenian genocide on April 23.

"The main event is scheduled for April 23: canonization by the Armenian Church of all genocide victims. Over half a million of people will be named as martyrs for faith and the fatherland," Archbishop Yezras (Nersisyan), the head of the Novo-Nakhichevan and Russian Diocese of the Armenian Apostolic Church, said in an interview published in the Monday edition of the magazine Ogonyok.

Still from the film 'Ravished Armenia', based on a genocide survivor's eyewitness account.

Archbishop Yezras said events devoted to the 100th anniversary of the genocide of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire will be conducted in different countries in the next few days. Church services will take place and all organize Armenian communities will hold memorial events, including concerts, the opening of khachkars (traditional memorial steles bearing a cross) and exhibits of archive materials.

One hundred bell chimes will be given in Christian churches.

European Parliament Votes to recognize Armenian, Assyrian, Greek Genocide

After Pope's statement, pressure builds on rapidly re-Islamizing Turkey to acknowledge its past persecution of Christians.

See also: The Orthodox Christian Holocaust: 1894 to the Present

Pravoslavie, April 16, 2015

(Brussel/Istanbul) The European Parliament backed a motion on Wednesday that calls the massacre a century ago of up to 1.5 million Armenians by Ottoman Turkish forces a "genocide", days after Pope Francis triggered fury in Turkey by using the same term.

Although the resolution repeated language previously adopted by the parliament in 1987, it could stoke tensions with EU candidate nation Turkey. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said even before the vote took place that he would ignore the result.

After the vote, the Turkish foreign ministry accused the European Parliament of attempting to rewrite history.

Muslim Turkey agrees that Christian Armenians were killed in clashes with Ottoman forces that began on April 15, 1915, when large numbers of Armenians lived in the empire ruled by Istanbul, but denies that this amounted to genocide.

Metropolitan Amvrosios of Greece: 'We are losing Christian Greece'

Western political and monetary forces "are in every way supporting the development of Islam as a religion [in Greece]; more than that, at the same time they are promoting immigration of Muslims to Greece in great numbers in order to neutralize the Christian orientation of our motherland.”

Pravoslavie — October 20, 2014

“Our country has been unconditionally surrendered to foreign invaders. It is now not so important that the monuments of culture are falling into disrepair—we are losing Christian Greece!” reads the statement of Metropolitan Amvrosios of Kalavryta, cited by the Romfea portal.

“The external forces (namely Angela Merkel, the International Monetary Fund, freemasonry, the Bilderberg group, Zionism) are explicitly (Merkel) or implicitly (through so-called “globalization”) ruling our unfortunate country,” stated Metropolitan Amvrosios.

“Unfortunately, they are in every way supporting the development of Islam as a religion; more than that, at the same time they are promoting immigration of Muslims to Greece in great numbers in order to neutralize the Christian orientation of our motherland,” said the Metropolitan.

The hierarch then described the crimes committed by the jihadists (militant islamists):

Greek Orthodox Metropolitan Amvrosios: 'Your children will surely be slaves of Muslims'

More clear-headed warnings about Islam by another revered hierarch in a traditional Orthodox nation. The Greek people suffered for centuries under brutal Muslim tyranny during the Ottoman period. Numerous Ecumenical Patriarchs, bishops and priests were among the countless thousands martyred by the Turkish Muslims (not counting the Armenian and Orthodox Christian Genocide, which spread from 1894 to 1922, and claimed over 3.5 million lives). The warnings about Islam from Metropolitans Amvrosios and Anthimos (see my recent post) should be taken very seriously by Orthodox Christians everywhere.

Pravoslavie - September 23, 2014

(Athens) Metropolitan Amvrosios of Kalavryta and Aigialeia has spoken out against the “Anti-racist law” passed in Greece.

“With the entering into force of the anti-racist bill, all who talk about the motherland and patriotism will risk jail.

“A priest who will speak up against Jehovah’s Witnesses and other religions from the ambo, may be declared a racist and imprisoned,” said the hierarch, cited by AgionOros with the reference to Rua.gr (”Russian Athens”).

“Soon we will become aliens in our own home country. I do not know whether I will live to see these times, but your children will surely be slaves of Muslims. Greece is disappearing, faith is disappearing… Keep the flame of the motherland and faith. Globalization is not knocking at our doors any more – it has already entered our home,” he added.

http://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/73925.htm

Metropolitan Anthimos of Thessaloniki: 'We are against the presence of Islam in our city'

AXIOS! Bold words from a righteous hierarch, right up there with Archbishop Mark of Germany.

Pravoslavie — September 23, 2014

Thessaloniki, September 22, 2014 — In his interview with the Greek television, one of the most authoritative hierarchs of the Church of Greece made a number of tough statements, reports AgionOros:

“We are against the presence of Islam in Thessaloniki. We have already lost so much… When the Turkish minister entered the Church of Holy Great Martyr Demetrius of Thessaloniki in our city, he announced at once: 'Here is a suitable mosque for Turks'. Another Turkish official came to the historical Greek province of Thrace and called this region ‘a severed hand of Turkey’.”

Metropolitan Hierotheos Vlachos: 'Ferocious Persecution in the Middle East against Christians'

"This past Holy Week and Easter I frequently thought of the Christians in the Middle East... I thought how they must have spent those days like our ancestors who were under terrible enslavement to the Ottomans. How much they must have felt the nails of hate against them, against the Body of the Church that is being persecuted..." 

—Met. Hierotheos of Nafpaktos

EASTER IN THE MIDDLE EAST

By His Eminence Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos and Agiou Vlasiou

MYSTAGOGY — May 9, 2014

The Easter issue of the American magazine TIME was dedicated to Christians who are "persecuted" in the Middle East and Egypt. A few items are suggestive of the situation in these countries in relation to its Christian element. Reference will be made according to reports from Kathimerini.

One critical and important element is that "in the last population census during the Ottoman Empire, one in four residents of the Middle East were Christians. Today, Christians represent less that 5%, and there are strong pressures in countries like Syria or Egypt."

Of course, at this time there are Christians of various Confessions, even Coptic Monophysites, and not only Orthodox Romans.

Also in TIME magazine it is reported that "in war-torn Syria, some Christians are persecuted for their faith, while others had a choice for survival in reference to previous centuries. In today's war-torn Rakka in North Syria, the Islamic organization ISIS asked $650 from Christian families who stayed behind for protection.

At least one in four Christians in Syria fled the country after the outbreak of the Civil War, while in Iraq, about one million Christians fled after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003, leaving behind about 300,000 Christians. If current demographic trends continue, of the twelve million Christians currently residing in the Middle East, in 2020 only half will remain" (Kathimerini Holy Saturday April 19 - Easter Sunday April 20, 2014).

From this data it appears that in the Middle East a ferocious persecution has evolved in the Middle East against Christians, expressed in various ways, namely murder, extortion, displacement, exile, trauma, refugees etc. 

First Good Friday Procession Allowed in Smyrna Since 1922

For historical context, see my article on the The West's Blind Spot Towards Russia, the Burning of Smyrna and the Armenian Genocide.

MYSTAGOGY — April 22, 2014

For the first time since 1922, the Greek Orthodox Church of Agia Photini was granted the permission to hold its Good Friday Epitaphio Service outside on a public street in Izmir, Turkey.

A wonderful turnout was in attendance, including joint-friendship assistance from the Catholic Archdiocese, where the Epitaphio was taken from the Greek Church and escorted over to the Catholic Church of St. John.