ROMANITY, OR

BARBARITY?

PART 1. Our national names
PROLOGUE
INTRODUTION
Part A !! Our national names
"a#ter 1 ! T"e t$o tren%s o& t"e
1't" (entur)
"a#ter *! +o, ,ellenes, or Romans?
"a#ter -!! An% t"e .)/antines?
0OOTNOTE+

PROLOGUE
Oute often n varous dscussons I happened to notce
that the term Byzantnsm was beng used wth a
negatve nference. The term Byzantnoogy s used
when someone taks superfuousy. Ths term has been
used thoughtessy, whe the reason for ts
mpementaton and ts prevaence has beng atogether
overooked.

Years ago, anythng reated to the Byzantne arts or the
Byzantne cvzaton was somethng to be scorned.
Naturay, ths vew s beng re-examned nowadays. The
dsdan, the contempt and the sarcasm towards anythng
that pertans to Byzantum, or the use of certan terms
wth a negatve nference are not unreated to the
attempts by Western Europeans to margnaze the Roman
Empre - whch n our tme s abeed Byzantum - as
we as to ther efforts to dgnfy themseves, by regardng
that they are the true successors of the great and
ustrous Roman Empre.


The borders of Greece at 1830, after the revolution
of 1821
against the 400-year Turkish occupation


In reaty, the term Byzantum was coned at the
begnnng of the sxteenth century (1562 A.D.) by the
west European hstoran Heronymus Wof and was
repeatedy used from then on by other western European
wrters, whose am was the dsparagng of the Roman
conscence. Anythng assocated wth Byzantum was
consdered shamefu and contemptbe. In fact,
Byzantum has even been nked to the Medaeva Dark
Ages.

From the hstorca aspect, however, Byzantum - whch
was the orgna name of the ancent Heenc cty founded
by Byzas of Megara (provnce of Heas) - s not mentoned
at a. Instead, t s rather ndfferenty mentoned n
passng, as a cty of the Roman Empre. When the
capta of the Roman Empre was transferred from Rome
to Byzantum, the atter was renamed New Rome, as
compared to the orgna, od Rome. In terms of regon
and fath, the Roman Empre was mosty Orthodox and ts
cvzaton was Heenc (snce Heensm had unversa
proportons), whe the ega system was based on ancent
Roman egsaton. In the Roman conscence, two
anguages were domnant: Heenc and Latn. Ther fath
and ther cutura tradtons were, after a, common.
Anyone who ncorporated these two eements was
consdered a Roman.

The ater conquest of the western part of the Roman
Empre by the Franks brought on many probems. In ther
attempts to convnce that they were the true successors
of the Roman Empre, the Franks woud refer to the
nhabtants of New Rome as heretcs, mpostors and
decevers.
Ths s how the derogatory terms aganst Romanty were
beng |ustfed and we, the successors of Romanty, have
been dspayng toerance wthout harbourng any
suspcons and wthout gvng these terms due
consderaton.

Undoubtedy, the truth s that Romanty s nked to the
gory and the ascent of the human sprt. Despte the fact
that some peope use the term Byzantnsm
dsparagngy, the reaty of the matter s that ths term
engufs the greatest achevements of manknd. When neo-
Romans dscussed theoogca matters, they dd t n order
to preserve humanty and the ways n whch man can
reach God. They ddnt merey entertan vast and
unendng soca, potca or phosophca conversatons;
these were dscussons that deat wth exstenta ssues.
That s why neo-Romans were -and contnue to be- up to
date and aways contemporary, as opposed to the Franks,
(the occupants of the western reaches of the Roman
Empre and masters of the West, where barbarsm and a
provnca sprt regned supreme). When Romanty was at
ts apex, the West had succumbed to a barbaran dark
age, gven that orthodox theoogy was repaced by a
schoastc theoogy, whch mted the human experence
wthn the bounds of human ntegence. Furthermore,
the dmnuton of schoastc theoogy n the West
nowadays, and the rse of apocayptc orthodox theoogy,
are aso tokens of the dfference that exsts between the
two cvzatons and ther ways of vng.

Ths rases the queston: Romanty or Barbarty? The
author of ths book has worked on ths vta ssue. I beeve
that t s qute enghtenng and apocayptc. The reader
can earn many thngs and fnd Roman hstory anayzed,
smpfed and expaned |ust ke many other scentsts
have descrbed t, but moreso fr. |ohn Romandes. Anyone
can dscover the vrtues of beng a neo-Roman. The
author of ths book, Anastasos Phppdes, s an
acquantance of mne, and has been, for many decades. I
frst met hm as a prmary schoo student n Edessa. After
he had fnshed hs studes n the Amercan Coege of
Thessaonk, Anatoa, he went on to the fnanca
department of Yae Unversty n USA.

He worked on extensve postgraduate and doctora
studes concernng fnanca matters and receved hs
Masters degree from the Unversty of Georgetown n
Washngton, and ater on he worked n the USA. That s
how he became acquanted wth the western way of fe,
and as far I know, t dsapponted hm. He studed the
ater Roman way of fe wth great nterest and t
mpressed hm profoundy. That s why he subsequenty
worked on t n a more scentfc way, aong wth the
desre to actuay become better acquanted wth the ater
Roman way of fe. An ob|ectve reader can easy see ths,
by readng hs works. A superfca reader may see ths as
an ant-European book, but the truth s that ths book
shows the festye of the true Europe, whch was
ngraned n the sprt of Romanty. The true Europe reates
to Europe before Charemagne, whereas modern-day
Europe appears to have Charemagne as ts center and
portrays hm as the successor of the founder of The Hoy
Roman Empre of the German Naton.

If someone were to dg the so of Europe, study the
cuture, the customs, the songs, he w dscover n them
the true neo-Roman way of fe. Thus, whenever we refer
to Romanty, we are mpyng the whoe of Europe, as we
as the way of fe whch was nspred by the festye of the
Roman Empre, before ts occupaton by the Franks.

I am convnced that ths book w be a good nstructor for
anyone who wants to cross over the ocean of modern fe
where the Charemagne movements preva, and vst the
harbour of Romanty: the hghest quaty festye that
manknd has ever offered.

Ar("man%rite ,ierot"eos +. 1la("os
!r" #ierotheos is today the $ev" %etropolitan of
&afpaktos and 't" (lasios)


O2ersi/e% ar("ite(ture3 Larion, 0ama4usta,
Bu&a2ento3
almost resem.lin4 sta4e %5(or6.
7e $ere a((ustome% to ima4inin4 %i&&erentl)
t"e "ea2enl) si4n3 89esus "rist #re2ails:
t"at $e "a% on(e seen "o2erin4 a.o2e t"e $alls o&
t"e Re4nant it);
T"e no$ %r) 4rass, is tram#le% on .) 4)#sies< tents;
its mi4"t) to$ers la) s(attere% on t"e 4roun%,
resem.lin4 %i(e tosse% %o$n .) a #otentate $"o
lost t"e 4ame6

0or us, it $as a %i&&erent t"in4 to &i4"t
&or t"e &ait" in "rist
an% &or t"e soul o& man
ent"rone% on t"e la# o& t"e 1ir4in Mot"er ! t"e
8+u#reme De&en%er: !
$"ose &res(oe% e)es .e"el%
t"e )earnin4 o& Romanit)3
t"e )earnin4 o& t"at sea
u#on %is(o2erin4 t"e .alan(e o& =in%ness.

>Geor4e +e&eris?




INTRODUTION
Thrteen years after the ncorporaton of Heas n the
European Economc Communty, there have been
ncreasng ndcatons around us, of a profound
economca and soca crss. Despte the hefty transfers of
funds by the European Communty, Heas appears to be
drftng away from, rather than drawng nearer to, ts
European coeagues. To ths day, the Heenc potca
reacton to ths reaty s mted to attempts at securng
the argest possbe amounts from the European funds. In
other words, the vewpont that s predomnant s that the
probem s purey one of uneven deveopment, whch can
be soved ony when suffcent funds and technca know-
how pour nto Heas from the European Communty.

Our opnon s that the Heenc crss s of a dfferent
nature. It s more of an overa natona dentty crss,
where the emergng prevaence of a foregn cvzaton s
provokng spasmodc and uncontroabe persona
reactons, beyond every mora framework and every form
of herarchy. The transfers of funds w not resove any
probem (not even the mmedate economca one), f we
do not prevousy acqure a reazaton of what our dentty
s, and what the cutura causes are, that dfferentate us
from the rest of the European Unon; causes that can
negate the customary formuas for transcendng the crss.
Uness we do ths, Heas w contnue to be askng for the
others "understandng" wth regard to her probems,
whe our European coeagues w contnue to express
ther ndgnaton over our non-conformance to ther
nstructons.

In our opnon, the crss that we see today s nothng
more than the outcome of an age-od contest between
two words, two cvzatons, and two dfferent perceptons
of fe. However, there s a tendency nowadays to demote
the hstorca dfferences between Heensm and the
West, n our attempt to nvoke a common European
hertage whch supposedy untes the peope of the
European Unon. For exampe, the acceptance of the
Maastrcht Treaty - n absenta of the unnformed Heenc
peope - was accompaned by a propagandstc
bombardment, whose centra message was that Heas
has at ast dscovered ts destny, n Europe. Gven ths
knd of backdrop, any vewpont that opposes the noton
of a unform European Idea and s remnscent of the
hstorca opposton between Heas and Western Europe,
s most assuredy condemned to be margnazed durng
the years to come.


The way to the acceptance of ths neutrazed verson of
Hstory was opened two centures ago by certan Western-
educated Heene schoars who mposed on our peope a
percepton of fe and Hstory entrey opposte to those
that the Heenc peope themseves had preserved durng
the years of the Turksh occupaton. The systematc
dstorton of our cutura physognomy has nowadays
reached the extreme stage of schzophrena.

We observe and anayze ourseves, our Hstory and our
regon, through a Western pont of vew. In other words,
we ook at ourseves n a mrror that doesnt refect us, but
ony an mage of us, desgned by Western Europeans.
Thus, t s ony to be expected, that we w not be abe to
sove our true probems, f we can't even recognze them
n our dstortng mrror.


The resut of ths dstorton, but aso proof of our cutura
dfference, s the contnung msapprehenson regardng
Heas pace n Europe. Thus, we have Heenes feeng
fattered whenever they hear offca foregn guests
prasng the country that gave brth to democracy,
phosophy etc., and yet, these same Heenes nsst on
overookng the fact that those foregn guests are the
ones that aso regard todays Heas as a decadent
country - an embarrassment to Europe. Whe Heenes
want to boast that they beong to the West, Western
Europeans see us as an annoyng remnant of the East
nsde ther Communty.

These msapprehensons often ead us nto ma|or natona
ssues, even nto natona catastrophes, when Neo-
Heenes refuse to comprehend the Europeans reacton to
our |ustfed natona demands. Thus, as a State, we are
contnuousy perpexed by the foregners stance towards
the Grand Idea, the catastrophe of Asa Mnor, the
Cyprus ssue and more recenty, the Macedonan ssue.
In our opnon, t s unfortunatey nevtabe that the
ncreasng natonast tensons n Europe today w be
brngng us new surprses n the near future, on account of
the msguded expectatons that we have of foregners.
Aready, durng the ast two years, we have been
wtnesses to an ncredbe - for European coeagues- ant-
Heenc sentment, as dspayed n pubcatons of the
Western press.
And as far as Western Europeans are concerned, t s ony
natura for them to harbor whatever vews they mght
have. The probem es n our own gnorance of the
dfferent hstorca background on whch they |udge
matters.

Our study conssts of an effort to hstorcay detect the
advent of the dfferent vewpont through whch the
Heenes and the western Europeans see Heas. Some of
the more mportant probems regardng our natona
dentfy cannot be addressed, uness we are famar wth
the roots of our hstorca dfferences wth the West.

An exampe of such a probem s -as we sad before-the
opnon that Westerners have about todays Heas. It s
an opnon of deep contempt, as the mons of our
compatrots abroad have had the chance to day
ascertan for themseves. Neo-Heenes are of the opnon
that ths contempt has ts roots n the Turksh occupaton,
when foregners vstng Heas had observed for
themseves the ocas tremendous ag n progress, as
compared to the West. To the extent that Heas st
carres resdues of the Turksh occupaton, Westerners
contnue to mantan ther contemptuous stance towards
her.

Ths percepton s uttery wrong and hstorcay
unfounded. The Westerners opnons of Heas were NOT
shaped durng the Turksh occupaton.
Ths same scorn s observed durng the ast centures
precedng the fa of Constantnope, when the Latn
church had aunched ts a-out campagn to Latnze
Romanty - n ts regon as we as n ts anguage. Ths
same contempt s aso observed durng the tme of the
Crusades. And shoud we desre to seek ts deeper roots,
we w have to go back even further, to the begnnng of
the Medaeva perod, from the 5
th
to the 9
th
centures,
durng whch tme, the dea of Western Europe was frst
formuated.
Consequenty, the contempt of the Westerners does not
orgnate from todays superorty of the Wests
cvzaton, but from the hstorca dfferences that exsted
as far back as the tme that the western Europeans were
st vng n the darkness of medaeva barbarty.
Ths very essenta pont s deat wth n more deta, n
Part 3 (chapters 6, 7 and 8) of ths study.

A second exampe of a probem that cannot be addressed
-uness the hstorca cause of our dfference wth the West
s researched- s the famar demma as to whether Heas
beongs (cuturay, that s) to the East or the West.1
In our opnon, the reated dscussons on ths matter often
do not take nto account certan eementary hstorca
facts. As we sha see n our study, Western Europe was
born between the 5
th
and the 8
th
centures, when the
barbaran Germanc trbes cashed wth the Heenc-
Roman cvzaton, whose excusve carrer was, at the
tme, the so-caed Byzantne Empre. The Western
European conscence was shaped wthn ths very confct
wth Constantnope, and was defned by t.
From that tme onwards, a Western European was
defned as anyone who was not Chrstan Orthodox; one
who dd not fee that he beonged to the Ecumenca
Chrstan Empre wth Constantnope as ts capta; and
one who dd not acknowedge the cvzaton that was
formed from the synthess of Heensm and Chrstanty n
the Eastern Roman Empre.

If we accept ths basc hstorca defnton, then any and
a dscussons regardng Heas pace n Europe, n the
West or the East, w cease to be of any reevance. To the
Europeans, Heas by defnton does not beong to
Europe, snce she s the her of an opponent tradton - the
opponent cvzaton whch they themseves had to fght
aganst tenacousy, so that they coud become what they
are today. It shoud not escape us, that European
Medaeva hstory between 800 and 1400 A.D. s
essentay a contnuous confct between Latns and
Byzantnes.
But even nowadays, most of the seasona dscussons
regardng the so-caed common European hertage do
not ncude eements of our Roman tradton. On the
contrary, the remnants of ths tradton are ooked upon as
anachronstc mpedments for the fufment of Europes
new cutura profe.

On the other hand, the Heenes see no reason to dentfy
themseves wth ether the East or the West, snce these
two concepts are both defned by an (opponent)
reatonshp wth Heas. That s, the West exsts -n the
cutura sense- ony because t fought aganst - and
annhated - the Heenc-Roman cvzaton, otherwse, a
of Europe woud have contnued to be a Roman provnce.
The East was aso somethng entrey dfferent to the
Heenc-Roman cuture, abet deepy nfuenced by t
durng Medaeva tmes.

The concuson s that -hstorcay- the West and the East
are both defned by ther reatonshps wth Heas, and not
the other way around. Ths s a true fact, for the smpe
reason that Heenes were for at east 1800 years (from
600 B.C. through to 1200 A.D.) undsputedy the most
cvzed naton n Europe. Subsequenty, what happened
was that a the other natons that came n contact wth us
had to take sdes and ether accept or re|ect the eements
of the exstng Heenc cvzaton.

The hstorca framework that we are proposng here w
assst n the understandng of certan probems and
msapprehensons whch w otherwse reman obscure. A
characterstc, recent exampe s Duroses renowned
Hstory of Europe, whch gnted mutpe reactons n
our homeand, the reason beng the absence atogether of
any menton of ancent Heas and Byzantum n the
hstory of Europe. To the Heenes, t s sef-evdent that
ancent Heas and the Byzantum were prmary factors
n the shapng of Europe. To the non-Heenc Europeans
however, Europe begns from the moment that the
Westerners themseves make ther appearance on the
scene; n other words, n the 4th century A.D., wth the
nvasons of the Roman Empre by the Germanc trbes. *
The whoe European dea, whch s so wdey advertsed
n our day, s nothng more than an attempt to reunte the
descendants of those Germanc trbes.

In ths context, t s not very obvous why Heas or
Byzantum shoud beong to Europe. In fact, the entre
course of Europe after the 4
th
century was nothng more
than the expanson of the Europeans (=the barbaran
trbes), to the detrment of the Byzantnes (=the
Romans). Western hstorans of course strve to convnce
us that Romans and barbarans merged and thus
produced todays west-European cvzaton. Ths
vewpont consttutes a wttng dstorton of Hstory, whch
the Westerners have mposed, n order to secure amnesty
for the crmes of ther ancestors and to smutaneousy
usurp the achevements of the Heenc-Roman
cvzaton. We sha have the chance to say more about
ths fundamenta dstortng of Hstory, n chapters 4, 6 and
8 of our study.

The Durose vewpont was heretca, ony nasmuch as
he had gnored Ancent Heas. The omsson of
Byzantum s a common denomnator n the Western
stores of Europe. In eu of the many exampes of ths
fact, we coud menton one nstance whch s qute recent
(1980), n a mut-voume, French Genera Hstory of
Europe (C. Lvet and R. Mousner, Presses Unverstares
de France pubcatons), recenty crcuated n the Greek
anguage (1990) by Papazss Pubcatons. The Heenc
edton s n fact proogued by the Presdent of the Athens
Academy, Mr. G. Vachos, who expressed hs amazement
over the absence of Byzantum theren. But why the
amazement? To anyone who has ved overseas, t s a
we-known fact that for the Westerners, medaeva and
atter-day Heas are not ncuded n that whch s caed
Europe. Even when reasons of courtesy and cutura
purasm demand that Byzantum be ncuded n such
pubcatons, ts roe s nevtaby portrayed as a perphera
one, as though t were some nsgnfcant duchy of the
East and not the most promnent potca and cutura
power of Europe for many centures.

Unfortunatey, the age-od enmty of the West towards the
Romans of Medaeva tmes does not aow them -even to
ths day- to ob|ectvey study such an nnocuous sub|ect
ke medaeva hstory.
As a ast characterstc exampe, we coud refer to the
coectve work Handbuch der Europaschen Geschchte
(Pubshers: Ernst Kert-Cotta of Stuttgart, wth Genera
Pubsher: Theodore Scheder), whch presents European
Hstory from atter antquty unt our tmes, n seven arge
voumes. In the frst voume (whch was pubshed n
1976) the pubsher certfes that ths work s not mted
ony to western and centra Europe, but that t aso
extends to Eastern Europe, n order to ncude the Savc
and Heenc-Orthodox cvzatons. And yet, the frst
voume - whch covers the perod between 400 A.D. to the
mdde of the 11
th
century - of ts tota 1061 pages,
dedcates a meagre 81 pages for Byzantum! Seven whoe
centures of Byzantne Hstory take up amost the same
space as the text that anayses the organzng of the
barbarc trbes durng the 5
th
century (75 pages) !!!! -

We beeve that comments woud be redundant at ths
pont, n the face of these exampes. One has to be bnd,
to not perceve what the European opnon s of us, of our
Hstory and our tradton.

Instead of tryng to convnce West Europeans wth
nferorty-rdden protests and announcements askng to
ncude us n ther Hstory, we shoud have grabbed the
rare nstance of honesty dspayed by them, wth the
opportunty of Duroses Hstory. We shoud have -at ast-
acknowedged that both as peopes and as cvzatons,
the Heenc and the Western European sdes are
confctng sdes, ever snce the frst appearance of
western Europeans n the 4
th
century A.D. It s
subsequenty not at a pecuar, that certan books
express that whch s ngraned n the conscence of every
western European. @ Durose coud have become the
pretext for us to stop and reconsder more serousy what
our poston s, towards a cvzaton that s exceptonay
hoste, exceptonay ant-Roman. A cvzaton that tres
to mpose a unversa mode of man, by emnatng the
memory and the festye of dfferent peopes, ncudng
the Heenc peope.

Our study w attempt to hghght some of the hstorca
causes of the gap between Heensm and the West, by
stressng those that are usuay overooked or purposey
fasfed n offca
European -but aso Heenc- hstorography. We beeve t
s redundant to refer to the cutura dfferences per se;
they have aready been descrbed n a superb manner by
some of the most nspred mnds that our country has
gven brth to durng the ast hundred years, and have
been deposted n the fe works of a certan Per.
Yannopouos, a certan G. Sefers, a certan Ph.
Kontogou.....

Our study s therefore purey hstorca. Part 1 (chapters
1,2 and 3) s necessary dedcated to the carfcaton of
the confuson that was caused by our natona names. In
the past 1500 years, we have been referred to wth four
dfferent names (Romans, Greeks, Byzantnes, Heenes).
The reasons for ths confuson dd not orgnate from our
peope, who aways knew ther one and ony name,
throughout these centures. They orgnated from our
west European enemes, who concocted varous names, n
ther desre to cut us off from our natona contnuty.
These names were used as deoogca means, for the
extermnaton of Heensm.

In Part * (chapters 4 and 5) we sha examne the
shapng of our Roman natona conscence, whch dffers
radcay from the trba, natona deooges of the Western
ands, begnnng from the tme that the Germanc trbes
nvaded western Europe. The two consttuents of ths
Roman conscence are: the supranatona mode of the
State, and the Chrstan fath. An understandng of the
Roman natona deoogy s a necessary step towards
comprehendng the ndvduaty of Romanty versus the
West.

In Part - (chapters 6,7 and 8), we sha present some of
the probems of the Dark Ages (7th - 8th centures),
when an mmense rupture appeared n European Hstory
: a barbaran trbe, the Franks, began a conscous effort to
dstort Hstory, for the purpose of usurpng the Roman
mpera tte. As we sha see, t was from that moment
on, that western Europe made ts choce of renouncng
and turnng aganst the Heenc-Roman cvzaton. From
wthn ths confct, Europe for the frst tme acqured a
conscence of ts own, and western cvzaton was aso
born of t, as a dstncty separate phenomenon. It s
wthn ths rupture, that the sources of our dfference
wth the western Europeans can be found.

From the begnnng of the 9
th
century onwards, Romanty
and the West foowed dvergng courses, as the West now
began to revea ts morta hatred towards anythng
Roman. The externa expressons of ths hatred (the
Schsm, the Crusades, the Franksh domnaton, etc)
were especay reveang for our ancestors, and they
became the determnng factor of Romantys orentaton
thereafter. However, a more anaytca descrpton of ths
perod s beyond the scope of ths study. What concerns
us more at ths pont s the ever-wdenng gap of the
orgna rupture, whch was the source of the confcts that
were to foow.

The pubshng of ths study woud not have been possbe,
wthout the ove and the promptng of the reverend father
Herotheos Vachos, who read the manuscrpt and offered
hs suggestons for ts mprovement. For a of these
thngs, I woud ke to express my warmest thanks.

For the nformed reader, t w aso become obvous that
ths study owes much to the poneer work of fr. |ohn
Romandes, Romanty. In our opnon, the reasons for
Romanty not reachng as many readers as possbe, s
due to varous reasons. Anyway, because father
Romandes vews are sometmes ambguous, we tred to
proceed to an ndependent study of certan other sources,
n order ascertan whch ponts can be verfed. Thus,
wherever we had the potenta to check our sources, we
dd so, wthout needng to reference Romandes. The
concuson reached through ths research s n amost
absoute agreement wth Romandes concusons.

One coud counter-observe that, regardess what the
concusons of such a hstorca study may be, they have
no bearng on the scadng ssues of todays Heenc
socety. We dsagree wth ths vew. It s our beef that,
frsty, Hstory tsef provdes answers to questons that
are beng posed nowadays, precsey because those same
questons had been posed n the past. The entre ssue of
Heas vs. the West s a characterstc exampe of a
probem that perssts for over 1500 years. Especay
durng perods when our natona threats are exacerbated,
t becomes sef-destructve, to have no conscence
whatsoever of the deep-rooted cutura adversty that
characterzes the sentment of Westerners towards us.

Beyond ths, however, hstorca knowedge aso shapes
the vson that we have for the future. The mpresson
that we have of ancent Heas, of Byzantum, or of
western European hstory, defnes - ether conscousy or
subconscousy - what knd of socety we envsage for
ourseves. Perhaps that s what the poet Sefers meant,
when he sad that by erasng a part from the past, one
erases a correspondng part from the future.

The ony way to overcome our probems today s to
redscover our ost hstorca memory and to regan
contact wth what we truy are, wth what our heart truy
desres. Ony then w we dscover that - no matter how
hard we try to deny t by beevng that we are one wth
western Europeans - our everyday fe, our |oys and
sorrows, our hopes, our ceebratons and our
dsappontments feasts are a permeated wth a sensaton
excusvey our own, unknown to the Westerners, whch
can aso be caed Romantys ongng.

Part A ! Our national names

"a#ter 1 ! T"e t$o tren%s o& t"e 1't"
(entur)

We sha begn our study wth a carfcaton regardng the
terms Heenes and Romans, under whch terms there
underes a huge debate. The Heenes of 1994 mght be
amazed, when they dscover that up unt the begnnng of
our century a great deoogca confct had taken pace
between these two words as our natona name. Ths
confct refected the genera confct that exsted between
two deoogca trends n our country, whch had begun n
the 18
th
century, athough ts roots can be traced back,
many centures before.

Ever snce the perod of European Enghtenment, two
dfferent trends appeared among the Heene nteectuas.
The frst one strved to convey the vaues of European
humansm to the ensaved Heenes and to cean up the
anguage and the customs of the peope, foowng the
four centures of Turksh darkness. To attract the support
of foregners, t resorted to utzng the Romantc eras
worshp of antquty, and t enthusastcay propagated
the theory of the raca descent of todays Heenes from
the ancent Heenes. In a tme when promnent names of
Europe such as Goethe, Byron, Sheey, etc., were prasng
the return to an deazed cassca past, the dea that
some pure-booded descendants of Perces st exst
caused quvers of emoton to many nteectua crces n
Europe.


Ths trend had strved to mpose an archac form of the
anguage (Attcan) to the Heenes, so that ther
dentfyng wth the ancent Heenes woud seem even
more rea; at the same tme, t sded fuy wth the vews
of the Western Europeans on medaeva Hstory:, .e., that
the Byzantne Mdde-Ages was a perod of obscurantsm,
of regon and barbarty as Gbbon had caed t, fu of
conspraces, ntrgues n dark paaces and unendng
dscussons on unsovabe and ncomprehensbe
theoogca ssues that were of nterest to no-one. Ths
vewpont s embraced even today by a arge porton of
Heenes. The man representatve of ths trend was
Adamantos Koras , and after hm came Rzos-Nerouos,
Koumanouds and many other supporters of the
katharevousa (=the ceaned form of the anguage).
For exampe, n 1841, Rzos-Nerouos, then presdent of
the Heenc Archaeoogca Socety and former mnster of
Eccesastca affars, had procamed that: B)/antine
,istor) is an almost intert$ine% an% eAtremel)
len4t") series o& insane a(ts an% u4l) 2iolen(e o&
t"e trans#lante% Roman +tate $it"in B)/antium. It
is a (ontem#ti.le 2ariorum o& t"e utmost sBualor
an% t"e "umiliation o& ,ellenes. C

The second trend had even deeper roots, and t s dffcut
to determne ts begnnng; t s much easer to descrbe
ts postons. Frst of a, t dd not ready accept the
modern name Heenes, snce a that our sub|ugated co-
natonas knew was that they were neo-Romans. The
dfference s not merey typoogca, as we sha see n the
foowng chapters. Secondy, the neo-Romans of that tme
dd not fee that they had any drect reatonshp wth the
ancent Heenes. They fet much coser to the Romans of
the medaeva perod, .e., they were Chrstan Orthodox
who were ready to sacrfce themseves for ther fath. |ust
ke them, they woud kewse weep whenever they heard
the Hymn to the Theotokos, To the Defender Genera,
and not whenever they heard the paeans of Aeschyus;
they honoured the memory of the devout Kngs of
Constantnope; ther dream throughout a the years of
savery was the beraton of ther Cty, whch they
acknowedged as the ony centre of the Naton, and
fnay, they dspayed a greater trust n the popuar
anguage and the tradtons of the peope.

Ths trend was represented by many schoars, wthout any
unform program or deoogy. In the matter of the natona
name of neo-Romans, we can refer to D. Katartzs, G.
Typados-Iakovatos and ater on, to many advocates of the
demotc (popuar) anguage, one of whom was Arg.
Eftaots who had wrtten the Hstory of Romanty whch
began n 146 B.C., that s, wth the conquest of Heas by
the Romans! D. Katartzs (1730-1807) n hs work Know
yoursef, n whch he made a hstorca retrospect on the
words Heene and Roman. He concuded that:
(ertain "i4"!an%!mi4"t) men "a2e o2ert"ro$n
e2en t"e rules o& 4rammar, %arin4 to ("an4e t"e
meanin4 o& a $or% an% to (all t"emsel2es ,ellenes,
$it"out re4ar%in4 t"is a %is4ra(e ! 4i2en t"at t"e)
are "ristians D an% a %is"onour D 4i2en t"at t"e)
are Romans ! $"en our 2er) #arents, t"e Romans,
%i% not (on(e%e to t"is, eA(e#t &or one #erson, t"e
trans4ressor (alle% 9ulian, $"o too= #ri%e in (allin4
"imsel& a ,ellene.. E

Typados-Iakovatos of the Eptanese (the seven sands of
the Ionan Sea) durng the decade of 1830
characterstcay wrote: A part of the dea naton has
been freed; t s the provnce of Heas. The remander of t
st awats -the throne of Constantne the Great - and
aong wth ths, yet another, very mnute part of
Romanty, the seven sands, where aso, for thngs to
straghten out, the Roman fag shoud be wavng. 1F
The eader of the demotc (popuar anguage)
movement, Psychars, beeved that $"en, in 1G*1,
Botsaris an% "is li=e $ere .e4innin4 to re2olt, t"e)
$ere o.e)in4 D un.e=no$nst e2en to t"em D to a
Neo!Roman #oliti(al im#ulse. G The nscrpton on
Psychars grave stone s characterstc: 'ing *e a
dirge like the ones + heard you sing ,hen + ,as a
young *an and had gone to the *astic-tree villages
to learn your tongue, the &eo-$o*an one" -ho
kno,s, you *ay a,aken *e suddenly, even fro*
the grave, because so *uch did + love this
language, so deeply did + place it inside *e, deep in
*y heart, *y $o*an heart. ' Besdes, t s
noteworthy, that the famous perodca - the nstrument of
the demotcsts - bore the tte Numas. (Numas was
none other than the second Kng of ancent Rome!).
These two trends were n confct throughout a of the 19
th
century and the begnnng of the 20
th
. A detaed
examnaton of ths confct woud go beyond the scope of
our study. In any case, the expedences hdden behnd
the use of our natona names dd not escape the
attenton of the foregners. In 1857 a ma|or phheene,
French hstoran had sad to Sp. Zambeos: T"e
stran4est t"in4 is t"at t"ese 4ree%) &rien%s o& ours
>t"e Neo!,ellenes?, $it"out loo=in4 to$ar%s
an)t"in4 else eA(e#t t"eir #ersonal .ene&it, (all
t"emsel2es 8,ellenes: in t"e mornin4, &or
"istori(al reasons, t"en at noon t"e) are (alle%
8Romans: &or #oliti(al reasons, an% in t"e e2enin4
t"e) (om#romise .et$een .ot" names, an% (all
t"emsel2es 8Gre(o!Romans:. 1H

What s certan s that even at the begnnng of our own
century, ths matter had st not been soved. In 1901, the
pubcaton of the frst voume The Hstory of Romanty
by Eftaots had caused ntense reactons, not ony for ts
ngustc form, as t was the frst Hstory book to be
wrtten n 'demotc (popuar anguage) form, but aso for
of the use of the term Romanty theren. A huge debate
ensued, whch eventuay dvded the Heene
nteectuas, wth G. Hatzdaks and N.Pots supportng
one sde (whch was opposed to the term Romans) and
K. Paamas and Gr. Xenopouos supportng the other sde.
11

By the ooks of thngs, even after seventy years of
freedom, most of the peope were st not used to the
name Heene. As the poet Paamas had wrtten at the
tme, the name Romeos (=Roman) came more ready to
the ps of the peope, far more than the festve and
cumbersome name "En (=Heene), or even "Enas
(aso Heene), whch s somewhat more dffcut to take
root than the name Romeos (means: Roman, Roms ,
pronounced Rome-ee-os), whch furthermore mantaned
unt recenty ts ancent, pagan nference (....) and whch
st sgnfes, even to ths hour, for most of the peope,
the brave one, the gant. 1*

The poet Paamas had ceary perceved the essence of
ths confct:
.ecause the ter*s /$o*eos0 (=Roman, Roms ,
pronounced Rome-ee-os) and /$o*anity0 have not
reached us directly, straight fro* the ti*e of
1ericles, they ,ere pushed aside, ever so gently,
by the official language.
#ellenes, to fool the ,orld, but in reality, &eo-
$o*ans" 2 na*e is by no *eans so*ething to be
asha*ed of" +f it is not e*braced by a ,reath fro*
a ,ild olive tree of 3ly*pia, it is e4alted by a cro,n
of thorns of *artyrdo*, and it is scented ,ith
thy*e and gunpo,der. When |ustfyng Eftaots for
hs choce of the term Romanty, he concuded: a
purer and *ore profound sense of the language
cannot but find so*ething that is poetically and
*usically tinged, even in a ,ord like /$o*anity05
so*ething ,inged, so*ething gallant to us and
ever so light, that + believe /#ellenis*0, in all its
,eighty, i**obile grandeur, does not possess. 1-

Despte a the above, the harsh poemcs that had
reached the pont of even doubtng Eftaots patrotsm,
ed the atter to desst from ever pubshng the remanng
voumes of hs Hstory. In a Heas that was desperatey
tryng to cover four hundred years of aggng behnd the
enghtened Europe, t woud be nconcevabe for a
vewpont such as ths to be acceptabe: its
i*possible, *y friend, to seek to e*ulate the
6nglish, the !rench, the Ger*ans, and the ancient
#ellenes, and not possess a certain dose of
barbarity inside you5 a barbarity that looks upon
fancy foreign things and is a,ed, and looks at her
o,n treasures and feels asha*ed of the*. 1@

The advocates of the ant-Roman cause had reached the
pont of decarng that as a peope, we are reated ony to
ancent Heas and that the medeva perod s competey
foregn to contemporary Heas. 1C As a matter of fact,
wth the term ancent Heas they meant cassca Heas
- the one that the foregners st ca Heas proper, n
other words, the and south of Thermopyae. For exampe,
Rzos-Nerouos n 1841 argued that that Heas s ony the
tny Heenc State (of 1830). A others that trespass - or
have trespassed - on t are foregners. Consequenty,
Phppos, the vctor of the Heenes at Chaerona, must
aso have been a..... foregner, who had performed
somethng even more devastatng than that vctory: he
had gven brth to Aexander. 1E



Vews such as these had aso acqured a potca
expresson durng the 19
th
century. Accordng to P.
Karods, commssary and hodover of the Hstory of the
Heenc Naton by Paparrgopouos: These ridiculous
and strange beliefs, products of illiteracy and lack
of 7udg*ent, also had a political i*pact in certain
circles of scholars ,ho proclai*ed that the political
inclinations and trends and national ideas of
today8s #ellenes should not reach beyond the
borders of ancient #ellas. 1F

As t s ceary obvous, n a country whose peope knew
that the three quarters of ts naton contnued to ve n
sub|ugaton, such a dstorton of Hstory bore serous
natona dangers. And why shoudnt t, when Koras (one
of the foundng fathers of the modern Greek state) had
opened the way for the acceptance of such a theory, n
hs attempt to umnate the sub|ugated Heenes wth
words such as: The nation is a corpse being
devoured by cro,s" The ho*eland is dead"""""fro*
the ti*e that 1hilippos had trodden on us, and up
to 1493. 1G It s fortunate that the Savomacedonans of
Skop|e have not yet dscovered Koras.....

To be absoutey precse, Koras was not even fond of the
term Heene. In hs famous Daogue between two
Greeks (1805), he wrote: 'o, one of these t,o things
:#ellene8 or :Greek8) is the proper na*e of the
nation" + approved of the ter* :Greek8, because
that is ho, all of the enlightened nations of 6urope
refer to us. And further down: &ot only should ,e
be dee*ed inhu*an, but also foolish in this *atter,
if ,e ,ere to prefer the na*e of the $o*ans
instead of the na*e :Greeks8, to concude:
-ho*soever calls *e a $o*an fro* no, on, + ,ill
look upon hi* as *y ene*y" !ro* this day on, + a*
a Greek. 1'


The term Greek - as ponted out by prof. |ohn Romandes
and as we sha examne n more deta n chapter 7 - s a
natona name that was bestowed upon us by the
enghtened natons of Europe n the 8
th
century, at a
tme when they were st engufed n the deepest
darkness of ther Hstory. Unfortunatey, a concusve
study of the obscure roe of Koras n the shapng of the
neo-Roman dentty st awats ts author.... As for poor,
affcted Heas, after everythng that we sad up to now, t
becomes obvous that the borders of 1830 were by no
means a concdence, as they corresponded to the exact
borders of ancent Heas, as seen by foregners and ther
oca mmcs. The acceptance of the name Heenes had
provded the necessary deoogca ab to a those who
had envsoned a tny Heas, wthn the bounds of 1830...



"a#ter *! +o, ,el l enes, or Romans?

In ths chapter, we w take a short hstorca stro to the
sources, n order to cear up the confuson that the ater
deoogca expedences had accumuated around our
natona name. In ths way, we w dscover the answer to
the probem posed n the prevous chapter. The hstorca
sources w provde a cear pcture and t w truy requre
a strenuous attempt for someone to support a dfferent
vew.

A of the hstorca sources that we have avaabe ead us
to the reazaton that the name En (Heene,
pronounced eh-een) had aready ost ts natona-raca
nnuendo durng the frst post-Chrstan centures. In the
vast metng pot of the mut-raca Roman Empre, a of
the peopes theren had graduay acqured a Roman
conscence. Ths s not a sutabe pace for examnng
how ths occurred; the mportant thng s that t occurred.
Wthout a doubt, the cvzaton of ths Empre was
profoundy affected by cassca and Heenstc tradton. It
was n a way the ecumenca fufment of what Aexander
the Great had envsoned but dd not survve to fuf
hmsef; n other words, to permanenty estabsh Heenc
educaton n every area of the known word.
Contemporary foregn hstorans concede that the Roman
Empre was, fnay, a Heenstc State, whe others even
speak of a Heenc Heensm and a Latn Heensm.
*H

Besdes, ths was the reason the Heenc reactons
towards the Roman conquerors dmnshed over tme and
most certany vanshed after the frst century b.C.. After
the fa of the Heenstc Kngdom of Ceopatra n 30 B.C.,
there are no mentons of ant-Roman revots; an ndcaton
that the Heenes fet at ease wthn ths Heenzed
envronment, whch had furthermore been provdng them
wth a much desred peace and securty, for hundreds of
years.

Wth tme, the Romans aso came to fee the same way.
Proof of ths, was that one of ther great Emperors,
Constantne I, chose as a new co-capta the cty of
Byzantum - a thoroughy Heenc cty n a Heenc-
speakng regon. If the Romans had fet themseves to be
dfferent and hoste towards the Heenes, they woud
naturay not have transferred ther capta there, n
enemy terrtory. The fact s, that n 320 A.D., fve
hundred years after the occupaton of Heas, such raca
dfferences had become competey extnct.

The term En (Heene) had by then acqured a purey
regous sgnfcance and was thus nked to the noton of
doater. It appears that ths about-face had aready
begun to take pace durng the frst post-Chrstan century,
ong before Chrstanty was made the offca regon of
the State. In the Gospe of Mark we read about a certan
woman who had approached Chrst when he was n Tyre,
whom the Evangest says was a Heens, of Syran-
Phoencan natonaty (qv c q yuvq cAAqvi
oupooivikiooo Im ycvci ) (Mark 7: 26). As correcty
observed by P. Chrstou, f the woman was of Syran-
Phoencan natonaty, then the term Heens (=fem.
Heene, pronounced he-ee-nece) must have denoted
her regon. *1 A few years after 300 A.D., Athanasos the
Great, a Heenc-speakng Father and Patrarch of
Aexandra - a par exceence Heenstc cty - had wrtten
a homy tted Aganst Heenes. If ths word had
contnued to mpy the Heenc naton, then t woud have
been entrey absurd: that grand Heenstc center was
turnng aganst- who? We notce the same thng n the
homes of Sant |ohn the Chrysostom, offsprng of
another grand Heenstc cty: Antoch. The word
Heenes defntey denoted the mpous, the doaters.

Nether s the argument correct, whch asserts that the
word (Heene) ost ts natona meanng through force,
because t was supposedy used by Chrstans for ther
opponents. Frst of a, as we can surmse from the
passage n the Gospe of Mark that we mentoned above,
ths change n name had aready taken pace, ong before
Chrstans had acqured any knd of authorty. Moreover,
as Mantouvaou rghty ponts out, the foremost enemes
and persecutors of the Chrstans were the Romans; yet
ths dd not deter the Chrstan nhabtants of the Roman
Empre from contnung to ca themseves Romans. **
Therefore we must concude that the name En
(Heene) had aready ost ts natona nference durng the
tme of Chrstantys predomnance, regardess of what
Chrstans sad. Chrstans had found the new term n
pace; they dd not con t. From that tme on, and
throughout the Mdde-Ages, the word Heene sgnfed
the doater. We contnue to see the term wth ths same
meanng, up to the end of the 18
th
century. For exampe,
n one of hs homes n a vage, Sant Kosmas of Aetoa
had sad: ....2nd + too, *y brethren, ,ho have been
so fortunate as to stand here, in this holy, apostolic
place by the *ercy of our ;hrist, had first of all
asked about you and had learned that by the grace
of our <ord =esus ;hrist, you are not #ellenes5 you
are not i*pious, or heretics, or atheists, but
devout, orthodo4 ;hristians""""""0. *-

The natona name of our ancestors throughout a these
years s Romans, or Romee (in Greek Romi>,
Pronounced Rome-ee-ee Plural for Romeos), n the
popuar form of the anguage. In every one of the
hstorca sources, wthout excepton, the Empre of
Constantnope refers to tsef as Roman, or Romana
(=and of the Romans) n the popuar form of the
anguage, whe ts emperors, up to and ncudng
Constantne Paeoogos, were known as kng of the
Romans. For some strange reasons however, ths
perfecty carfed fact s dsputed by certan contemporary
researchers, who strugge to compose ther own, persona
deoogca fabrcatons.

For exampe, they have been promotng the ob|ecton
that for most peope, the natona meanng of the word
Heene has not been ost, and that the term Roman
that we encounter n a the sources s merey the offca
name attrbuted to the ctzens of the State; a name that
was mposed on them from hgher up, and that t was
not the name that the nhabtants of Heas had
personay chosen as most representatve of what they
beeved themseves to be. *@

But, as Mantouvaou has keeny observed, f that were the
case, then how does one expan the contnung use of the
name Romans (or Romi>, Pronounced Rome-ee-ee
Plural for Romeos) durng the Turksh occupaton, after
the dssouton of the Roman State? *C The Heenes -
now sub|ects of the Ottoman Empre - woud ogcay
have no reason whatsoever to contnue usng the name of
ther former conquerors - the Romans - and contnue to
refer to themseves as Romans. Not uness they actuay
fet they were Romans..... And the truth of course s, that
they dd fee that way, and were very much aware of t,
regardess of what Westerners propagandzed..... From the
nnumerabe exampes that coud be mentoned here, we
w present ony a few, ndcatvey. A of the exampes
orgnate, not from schoars and nteectuas, but from
ordnary, everyday peope.

What most of the peope beeved about the Heenes,
before becomng enghtened by western Europeans,
has been recorded by I. Th. Kakrdes n hs nvauabe
study on fokore The Ancent Heenes n the neo-
Heenc Popuar Tradton. *E Very brefy, the average
person - up to and ncudng the begnnng of the 20
th
century - beeved that the Heenes were an ancent,
doatrous popuaton of gants. Ths s the way they aso
expaned the exstence of the overszed monuments that
used to abound n our and.

These ancent peope were admred for ther strength (n
19
th
-century Cephaona sand, Kakrdes mentons that the
nhabtants had an expresson hey, ths guy s ke a
Heene!) *F, but they certany dd not dentfy
themseves wth them. Besdes, the author referred to
them as Heenes and not Ancent Heenes, obvousy
because there was no chance that they woud be
confused wth another contemporary naton.

In 19
th
-century Sfaka (n the Isand of Crete), the ocas
camed that up there, on the crest of the Samara
mountan, s the oden-day and of the Heenes. Thats
where the Heenes fnshed. And they say that up there s
a treasure, but t was never found. *G

In the regon of Thesprota - and of the 20
th
century n fact
- grandmothers used to te a story a story that began ke
ths: In the oden years, there used to ve n ths regon a
dfferent knd of peope, the Heenes. (.........) Those
Heenes dd not resembe todays peope. They were ta
n stature, ke cypress-trees..... *'

A characterstc, 19
th
century song from the regon of
Eprus says: Angena, Koumenas daughter, has a gaant
husband; He has tresses (ong har) |ust ke a Heenes,
and hs chest s ke a ons... -H

Another famar fok-song says: My mother was a
Chrstan mad, my father a Heene.....

Kakrdes records a tota of 85 narratves or phrases, from
every corner of Heas, where the Heenes have
remaned n our popuar tradton wth the sgnfcance
that we mentoned above.

An nterestng fact s that western Europeans were aso
aware of our rea name and dd not hestate to menton t,
whenever they werent drected by other expedences.
Thus, n the year 1713, at a tme when our schoo books
were teachng us that the Romans had vanshed 1200
years ago, the Venetan prnter of the frst edton of the
famous romantc poem Erotokrtos noted that he was
prntng ths book, havng beng touched by the fervd
ove and reverence that I have had snce my chdhood for
the gorous naton of the Romans. The same person
states that I am Itaan, and totay gnorant of the
anguage, but nevertheess he tred hs best to prnt
books that unt now had been prnted by both Roman
and Itaan prnters, but aso the more unusua and more
usefu ones, whch had not been prnted by any Roman.
The proogue ends wth the prnters request towards the
Roman ords to furnsh hm wth any avaabe
manuscrpts, so that he coud prnt an mproved verson
ater on. -1

In the poem tsef, we fnd the foowng verse:
+n ti*es long past, ,hen #ellenes ruled,
,hose faith had no foundation, or any root"""0
(verse A 19-20)
These nes are n fu accord wth popuar tradton, the
way that Kakrdes recorded t:
There used to be a tme durng whch the Heenes
rued. Not the ancent Heenes, but the Heenes, who
were peope other than us, who had a beef that acked
any foundaton and roots; n other words, they were
athests and doaters.

For severa more proofs regardng the use of the name
Romans/ Romee (neo-Romans), et us go further back
n tme. Four hundred years earer, n the 14
th
century, the
anonymous ant-Heene author of The Chronce of
Moreas knew fu we that the adversares of the Latns -
the nhabtants of Heas -were the Romans. Here are
two characterstc extracts from the Chronce:

7"o "as e2er listene% to a Roman an% .elie2e%
"im, $"et"er &or lo2e, &rien%s"i# or #er"a#s &or a
=ins"i#? Ne2er trust a Roman, on $"ate2er "e
s$ears .)3
7"ene2er "e $ants an% inten%s to utili/e )ou,
t"at is $"en "e $ill ma=e )ou a &rien%, a .loo%!
.rot"er, or an in!la$, so "e (an eAterminate )ou.
(Verses 3932-3937). -*


Or when Lord |effreys (Veardoun ) Lord of Moreas wrtes
to the kng of Constantnope Roberto (de Courtenay
1221-1228):
An% i& ne(essar), "is troo#s, an% li=e$ise "is .o%),
$"ene2er "e %e(i%es an% t"e nee% arises, to "a2e
t"em at "is %is#osal, to .e $it" "im an% to
maintain t"e .attle, to (onBuer t"e Romans an% t"e
troo#s t"at t"e) "a2e.
(verses 2564-2567) --


For our ast exampe, et us go back three hundred more
years n tme, to the 11
th
century.
In the great epc poem Dgens Akrtas whch marked
the begnnng of neo-Heenc terature, the author -
contrary to what one woud expect- does not suspect that
he s a Heene (or a byzantne for that matter, but we
w touch on ths deta n the next chapter). Even at the
very begnnng of the poem, the Arab emr s portrayed as
havng an accurate knowedge of the anguage of the
Romans -@, thus enabng hm to converse wth hs
adversares. Further aong, one of the brothers who came
to take back the daughter that the Emr had kdnapped,
fought a due wth hm and, as he neared the moment of
vctory, the other Saracens counseed the Emr: Seek
ove, and cease the fght. The Roman s awesome, and
may defeat you. -C

In our opnon, the exampes taken from Dgens Akrtas
are especay noteworthy, because they orgnate from a
scenaro that takes pace on the outskrts of the Empre, at
the rver Euphrates, and not n the Empres capta. These
exampes therefore show us that even the rura
popuatons beeved they were Romans, and not
somethng ese. In con|uncton wth everythng that we
mentoned above and wth the nformaton that we have
taken from a the offca sources (hstores, state
records etc.) t s more than evdent that our ancestors
were caed Romans or neoromans (Gr: Rom)
everywhere. Therefore the vew that Chrstou and other
researchers expressed, that the name Romans was
merey ther offca name, and that they personay
preferred a dfferent one (Heenes, Greeks) s entrey
unfounded.

So, our recent ancestors dd not know themseves to be
Heenes. They knew that they were Romans, and that
ther country was caed Romana, as we can see n
varous fok songs, such as The Lament of
Constantnope:
O, God, I wsh the Romans coud aso fght ths way,
and never to have ost, aas, the kngdom.
Or, n another we-known song from the Pontus, tted
Romana has been taken, and aso n the poem Dgens
Akrtas, where the soe name of the State s quoted as
Romana, tens of tmes theren.
For exampe:
The Emr prompty took hs men
and to Romana dd return for hs beoved one.
And whenever he took over Romanan ands,
he woud free a those that he hed captve. -E


The cooqua anguage was named RomIk (Gr:
Pmoiikq, Romehk=of the Romans), n order to
contradstngush t from the ancent Heenc anguage,
whch they smpy caed Heenc. And ths s why there
are so many transatons -from the ancent anguage nto
the popuar one- n whch they menton that they have
transated from the Heenc to the neo-Roman form.
The most promnent precursor of the popuar anguage
form, D.Katartzs, when dsagreeng wth those who wrote
n the archac form, commented n 1783 that: Everythng
that we wrte n the Heenc anguage s a knd of
transaton from the Romaek whch we aways thnk wth
to the Heenc ,whch we thnk wth, ony when we pck up
a pen. -F Therefore, for one to thnk that the Heenc
and the Romaek are the same anguage and not two,
woud be gong aganst ratona ogc. -G Respectvey, D.
Fppdes and Gr. Konstantas who had authored the work
Modern Geography n 1791, menton n ther
presentaton of European anguages that the Romaek
anguage, whch has been unreasonaby and teratey
shunned by some, s very cosey reated to the Heenc
anguage, and s one of ts daughters, whch cosey
resembes t, because amost a of ts words are derved
from the Heenc tongue. -'

Ths s the reason for the exstence of dctonares, from
the Turksh occupaton onwards, wth ttes such as
French-Roman, Itaan-Roman etc..@H And, so that
there may not be the sghtest doubt, there are
dctonares such as the Lexcopouo of Smon Portus
(Pars, 1635), whch s tted Roman-Heenc-Latn. In
Portus dctonary, the Latn word fabua -for exampe-
s transated nto Heenc as myth and n Roman as
paramythe.(Paramythe s aso the word used n
modern day Greek)

As expected, we were named Roum (pronounced
Room = Romans) by the Setzuk Turks who had begun
to conquer terrtores of the empre from the 11
th
century,
|ust as the Ottomans had kewse caed us Roum. The
and that they conquered they named Roum-I (Room--
ee = and of the Romans), and t s from there, that the
name Roume s derved, whch, up unt 1912 denoted
European Turkey (amost a of the Bakans) and not ony
Manand Heas, as one can dscern from maps of that
tme. The exampes that confrm the use of ths name are
nnumerabe. Indcatvey, we can menton the decree
ssued by the Vzer n Apr of 1821 (after the ynchng of
the Ecumenca Patrarch Gregory) for the Turksh Prefect
of Hadranoupos. In t, the patrarchate s referred to as
the Constantnope-based Patrarchate of the Romans,
and the revouton of 1821 as the movement beng
prepared amongst the Roman Naton. @1 The Turks n
other words were aso famar, ke us, that they had
conquered (neo-) Romans. Even today, the Romans of
Constantnope are caed Roum by the Turks. However,
snce the neo-Heenes preferred to change ther natona
name, the Turks took advantage of ths and gave us the
name Yunan, thus dfferentatng the (neo-)Romans of
Constantnope from ther co-natonas n Heas.

Cosng ths chapter, we must stress that the entre
dscusson about our natona name s not smpy a
nomnastc one. The name Romans corresponded to a
natona conscence dfferent to the one that we see n
Western peopes; dfferent to the one that was transferred
to the mnature State of Heas after 1830. In the second
part of ths study, we sha try to present the basc
coordnates of ths Roman natona conscence whch, to
a arge degree was ost durng the 160 years of free
vng. In the ast two centures, mmense efforts were
made by western-bred schoars of Koras knd, for the
emnaton of the Roman conscence and, despte the
reactons, the name Romi (pronounounced Rome-ee-
ee) was fnay dspaced.

The confct between the two trends ended n a synthess
whose foundatons were paced by K. Paparrgopouos,
wth hs monumenta work Hstory of the Heenc
Naton. In there, the Byzantne perod was embedded n
the perenna course of the Heenc naton and created
the neo-Heenc natona deoogy of an unnterrupted
contnuaton of the race. However, the compex-rdden
regurgtaton of Western deas of the Enghtenment was
contnued by many schoars, whch, as a resut, brought
about the fasfcaton and reentess sanderng of our
medaeva hstory. Even n our tme, n the year 1975, the
extremey popuar and overy advertsed author, Yanns
Skarmbas had wrtten: the agony of the Heenc naton
dd not begn wth the sackng of the Cty..but many
centures before the sackng, thanks to the crushng of the
mtary power of Athens by the Macedonan dynasty (Kng
Phppos and Aexander the Great) at the batte of
Chaerona. And further aong: Was (Constantne)
Paeoogos a Heene? Was Aexander the Great an
Athenan? Racay, there was no knshp whatsoever
between us. Both of them were our conquerors. @*

Infuenced by such deas, a arge porton of the Heenc
peope today s ncned to deny ts natura descent from
Byzantum and contnues to confuse the obscurantc
western Dark Ages wth Heenc-Orthodox Romana. That
s why we deemed t necessary to outne n the 5
th
and
the 6
th
chapters of ths study some of the fundamenta
dfferences between Byzantum and the West durng the
medaeva ages. Moreo2er, e2en t"ou4" our o&&i(ial
,istor) em.o%ies t"e B)/antine #erio%, our
national li&e "as .een %ominate% &or t$o (enturies
.) an un(ontrolla.le $ors"i# o& antiBuit), $"i("
looms (omi(al, e2en in t"e e)es o& $"i("e2er
&rien%s in t"e 7est. Especay when neo-Heenes,
who, carred away by ther antquty worshp, actuay
beeve that they can defend ther natona rghts,
excusvey wth arguments from the tme of Perces and
Aexander the Great, the resut touches the boundares of
natonay dangerous.

Most (ertainl) to%a), in 1''@, t"ere is no issue o& a
(on&li(t re4ar%in4 our t$o national names. Bot" o&
t"em no$ "a2e t"e eAa(t same meanin4. But $e
s"oul% .e a$are t"at D"istori(all)! t"e term
8Romeos: (=Roman, pronounced Rome-ee-os) covers
somethng much broader than the term Heene, and of
course the name Roman aso provokes assorted ogca
assocatons as compared to the name Heene, both to
us as we as to foregners. Furthermore, f our am was to
defne our natona dentty, the word Heene cannot
cover the broader sgnfcance of the name Romeos
(Roman) of the medaeva perod and the Turksh
occupaton. T"e name 8,ellene:, $"i(" $as re2i2e%
as our national name %urin4 t"e 1'
t"
(entur), is t"e
#ro%u(t o& t"e 8Enli4"tenment: an% t"e out.rea=
o& nationalisms in Euro#e. On the contrary, as we sha
see further aong, the Romans were proud ctzens of a
supra-natona State whch embraced and extended over
many regons, far beyond the boundares of ancent or
modern Heas. It had extended tsef, not as a conqueror,
but as the bearer of the one and ony, Ecumenca
Chrstan Empre on earth.



"a#ter -!! An% t"e .)/anti nes?
Before movng on to tracng the eements of the Roman
natona conscence, we need to cear up one more
msapprehenson that Western bbography has nsttuted,
regardng the name of our medaeva ancestors.
As we are tod, ths era s caed Byzantne, and our
ancestors are certan mysterous Byzantnes who came
from nowhere and who vanshed magcay, even though
we seem to have preserved ourseves durng the 400
years of savery.
It has aso been tod by the sources that there never
exsted n hstory a peope who caed themseves
Byzantnes, or ther naton Byzantum. The term was
coned, after the dssouton of the so-caed Byzantne
empre n 1562, by Heronymus Wof, who began to coect
hstorca sources n a work that he tted Corpus
Hstorae Byzantnae.

The reasons for conng a new name were purey potca.
In every way possbe, the Romans remembrance of ther
past had to be erased from ther natona conscence.
Most of a, ther and had to cease beng dentfed wth
the Roman Empre. From there on, both western
Europeans and neo-Romans woud be nformed that
there used to be a certan Byzantne Empre. In ths
way, the western Europeans woud have succeeded n
mposng that whch they had been covetng ever snce
the 8
th
century, .e., to be acknowedged as the true hers
of the Heenc-Roman cvzaton and State. The
nventon of the word Byzantnes was, n other words, a
voent fasfcaton of Hstory that was dctated by our
adversares. The fact that neo-Heenes accepted the
term Byzantnes and that we are beng taught t at
schoo, s ndcatve of the bnd, compex-rdden
emuaton that pervaded post-beraton Heas. Ths
counterfetng of Hstory has, however, created an
unsovabe probem for western hstorans: when dd
Byzantne Hstory begn?

From tme to tme, varous dates have been proposed,
rangng from 284A.D. (the rse of Docetan to power -
proposed by E. Sten), to 717 A.D. (the rse of Leo III
Isaurus - proposed by Cambrdge Medeva Hstory). In-
between soutons were consdered to be 330 A.D. (the
foundng of Constantnope), 395 A.D. (the dvson of the
Empre nto Eastern and Western, by Theodosus I), 476
A.D. (the fna dssouton of the Western Empre), or 610
A.D. (the rse of Heracus and the Heenzng of the
State). It s of course stressed by a researchers that
every hstorca dvson s arbtrary, and that such
dvsons are sub|ectve and are used ony for educatve
reasons.
A of ths s correct, but t doesnt expan why we shoud
agonzngy search for a new name, when we coud have
very we caed the Empre wth ts proper name: Roman
Empre or Romana (=and of the Romans). Its
character may have undergone change at a certan pont
n tme, perhaps when Chrstanty was mposed, and we
coud have thus been taught about the Roman Empre,
whch was foowed by the Chrstan Roman Empre, but
one shoud not concoct strange neo-termnoogy that
carres very specfc deoogca vbes. Lets use an
exampe, n order to perceve the magntude of the
hstorca counterfetng that s beng mposed wth the
term Byzantne.

If, wth the use of a tme machne, we coud pace
ourseves n the cty of Thessaonk of 330 A.D. and
address a random passer-by as a Byzantne, you can be
certan that the passer-by woud wak away and ook for a
more educated person to converse wth. Because he
hmsef woud know he was a Roman ctzen, a member of
the Roman Empre, wth a the cout of the Roman
tradton behnd hm. If you were to te hm that from now
on, our books woud be cang hm a Byzantne and not
a Roman, he woud revot, and woud be rght to do so,
snce nothng had occurred that woud force hm to
change hs natonaty.

If we attempted to say the same thng to a ctzen of
Thessaonk n 530 A.D., we woud agan get the same
response. And f we were to nsst but how can you be a
Roman? Rome has been n the hands of the Goths for 54
years now, from 476 A.D., and our books te us that the
Roman Empre has ceased to exst, our astonshed ctzen
woud repy: yes, perhaps Rome has faen, but the rest
of the Empre to a arge extent remans free; t s
governed by New Rome (Constantnope), whch has been
the co-capta of the Empre for 200 years and that any
day now, our ensaved brothers w be free once agan.
And he too woud be correct n sayng so, because a few
years ater, the armes of |ustnan woud berate Itay.
Ths s a sutabe tme to note that the term berate
shoud be preferred, as opposed to conquered or re-
conquered (reconqusta), whch are presenty beng used
as though deang wth an aen enemy of Itaans and wth
the mperast desgns of an ambtous potentate. The
armes of |ustnan were wecomed by the sub|ugated
feow-natona Romans as berators: when Bessarus
reached Carchedon, he found the cty umnated and ts
orthodox popuaton ceebratng the defeat of the Aran
Vandas. As the hstoran Prokopos reports: ..an% t"e
ar("e%onians, "a2in4 o#ene% $i%e t"eir 4ates,
e2er) one o& t"em lit t"eir lam#s an% all o& t"e (it)
4lo$e% .ri4"tl) $it" t"e &lames t"rou4"out t"at
ni4"t, an% t"e remnants o& t"e 1an%als sat as
su##li(ants in t"e tem#les. @-
The same knd of recepton was reserved by Rome, whch
had actuay nvted Bessarus to come.

Anyway, t s rratona to beeve that the occupaton of a
porton of a country can obge the remanng, free parts of
that country to change ther name. After a theoretca
occupaton of Thrace (northern Greece) by Turks, woud
the rest of Heas be obged to stop beng caed Heas
and begn to be caed -for exampe- Peasga? And yet,
we have faen nto precsey such an absurdty, by
abeng as Byzantne the Eastern Roman Empre; that
st free part of the vast Roman Empre, after the fa of
Rome.

One ast attempt to address a ctzen n Thessaonk of
630 A.D., or any other date up to 1430 A.D.( when
Thessaonk fnay fe to the Turks), n the same manner
as we proposed above, woud have brought the same
resut. Even though our schoo books persstenty teach
that the character of the Byzantne empre changed at
the begnnng of the 7
th
century (around the tme of
Heracus) and was transformed nto a purey Heenc
State, our frend woud st reman puzzed. Both he and
hs forefathers aways spoke the Heenc anguage, as dd
the ma|orty of the ctzens of the Eastern Roman Empre,
but that dd not mean they fet ess Roman than ther
Latn compatrots n the Western parts of the Empre.
Besdes, the Roman Empre had aways been bngua. For
exampe, as eary as 57 A.D., the Aposte Pau had wrtten
n the Heenc anguage hs famar Epste to the
Chrstans of Rome, whe thrteen of the frst sxteen
Popes of Rome were Heenc-speakng. In the churches of
Rome, the servces were performed n the Heenc
anguage, up to at east the end of the thrd century,
possby even ater. @@ Anyway, t s a known fact that
from the end of the 3
rd
century b.C. up to the 3
rd
century
A.D., every educated Roman was bngua. @C

The ony change observed n the 7
th
century was that the
Heenc anguage graduay became the offca anguage,
n pace of Latn. Ths happened for purey practca
reasons, snce the porton of the empre that remaned
free was Heenc-speakng. |ustnan ceary mentons n
one of hs Neares that these aws were wrtten n
Heenc because n that way, they woud be better
understood by the popuaton: 7e %i% not (om#ose
t"e la$ in t"e &ore&at"ers ton4ue D t"e Latin one D
.ut t"e (ommon an% ,elleni( one, so t"at it mi4"t
.e re(o4ni/a.le .) e2er)one, t"an=s to t"e ease o&
inter#retation. @E ( ! "!#$ % &'#'($ %
# #)*# +#,-./*,# &&. 0 1 ('#$ ('
2&&.1', 3+, .+'# )# ,#' -#3'*# 1'
)4,'# 5 ,*#,5678
Furthermore, as P. Charans notes, ths event - whch
today appears especay sgnfcant - occurred so
mperceptby, that even the ctzens of the empre
probaby ddnt notce t. @F Most assuredy, the use of
the one anguage or the other dd not sgnfy a change n
the natona conscence of the State. Any smpstc
vews that nk the anguage to the natona conscence
mght perhaps be befttng to oder tmes, but not n the
20
th
century. We know for sure that we have no ndcaton
whatsoever from wthn the sources that any change n
natona conscence had taken pace durng the 7
th
century.
As for the term Byzantne, t dd not enter nto broad use
unt the 19
th
century. The renowned Brtsh hstoran Gbbon
wrote hs famous Decay and Fa of the Roman Empre at
the end of the 18
th
century and fnshed hs work n 1453,
whch was the year that he beeved was the fa of the
Roman Empre.

In our opnon, athough the term does not appear to serve
any purpose, t does however coud the proper
understandng of medaeva Hstory.
For exampe, apart from everythng that we have
mentoned so far regardng the dffcutes n tracng the
begnnng of the Byzantne Empre and ts Heencty,
probems aso appear when attemptng to anayze ts
externa poces. Thus, many hstorans mantan that the
mperastc |ustnan deoogy of the 6
th
century was
succeeded by a defensve deoogy from the 7
th
century
onwards whch focused on the preservaton of terrtores.
But f we put asde the term Byzantne and brng to mnd
that we are takng about the free regons of the Roman
Empre, then |ustnans pocy ceases to be mperastc,
nasmuch as he had merey amed at beratng the
sub|ugated Romans of Itay and Afrca.

The more we move towards the 8
th
and 9
th
centures, the
more we notce that probems on account of the usage of
the term Byzantne seem to mutpy. As we sha see n
chapters 7 and 8, Westerners nsst that Roman Itay had
revoted aganst the Byzantne domnaton at the tme,
and t had preferred to pace tsef under the barbarc
occupaton of the Franks. By usng the word Byzantne,
western hstorans ntroduce a natonastc separaton of
Roman feow-countrymen of Itay and the East, and they
speak of a Byzantne expansonsm n southern Itay,
when a of the Romans of the West were struggng to rd
themseves of the barbarc yoke of the Franks.
A comca aspect here s that the same hstorans
eventuay acknowedge Byzantne nfuences n Itaan
art durng that perod, and they strugge to fnd the
channes through whch Byzantne art nfuenced the
West. In other words, they are struggng to expan how
Roman art appeared n.... Roman Itay.
A of these superfuous probems accumuated, ony
because our western European adversares had, at a
certan pont n tme, wanted to gve us a name that woud
aenate us from our Hstory. For centures, they strved to
attrbute to ths name every possbe negatve nference;
for exampe, the word byzantnsm, whch they
naturazed n every European anguage and ater,
transferred t nto Heas. And to a arge extent, they
succeeded: neo-Heenes nowadays beeve that
Byzantum destroyed the Heenc cvzaton, so they try
to dstance themseves from everythng remnscent of
Byzantne.J
Thngs woud have been qute dfferent, f we smpy used
the proper natona names. That woud have demanded a
speca effort on the part of the Westerners, f asked to
expan how t was possbe for Romans themseves to have
destroyed ther own Heenc-Roman cvzaton.
Fnay, the use of the term Byzantne nstead of neo-
Roman (RomIkos) at the begnnng of the 19
th
century
served ony the potca desgns of western Europeans.
Wth ths method, whenever any neo-Romans (Greeks, to
the foregners) were berated, they coud not pursue the
re-estabshment of ther empre; they woud have to smpy
have to be satsfed wth the boundares of ancent Graeca,
n whch they were confned - as we know today - thanks to
the treates that formed the Heenc Kngdom n 1830..



J Perhaps ths s the reason that the neo-Heenc State was unabe to
fnd a snge hstorca personage from the one-thousand year od
Byzantne perod who was worthy enough to be depcted on ts cons:
Of the 12 cons and paper notes that are n crcuaton nowadays, 4 of
them depct faces beongng to ancent hstory, 2 from ancent mythoogy
(!) and 6 from our modern hstory.


PART *3 T"e s"a#in4 o& t"e Roman (ons(ien(e
"a#ter @ !! T"e su#ra!national +tate
"a#ter C !! T"e "ristian 7orl%
a? Politi(al i%eolo4)
.? aesaro!Pa#ism
(? T"eo(ra()
Notes

"a#ter @ !! T"e su#ra!national +tate

In ths chapter we sha be examnng the natona
conscence of our forefathers, from 300 A.D. onwards. Ths
s the same natona conscence that had been preserved
up unt the days of Heas beraton n 1830 and whch
had furthermore dfferentated us from western Europeans
to a very arge degree. In order to better comprehend ths
Roman natona conscence we need to examne the
natona conscence of the Romans of the 4
th
, 5
th
and 6
th
centures, when the confcts between the Romans and the
barbarc trbes began; n other words, between our
ancestors and the ancestors of contemporary western
Europeans. Ths s not an easy feat to perform nowadays,
snce, n order to obtan a cear pcture of that era, we
must put asde the modern concepts that we mght have
stamped ndeby nsde us that stem from the meanng
Naton- State. Naton-States are characterzed by the
common bonds of bood - anguage - tradton - hstory,
whch dfferentate them from other naton-states.

The Roman Empre was an entrey dfferent thng. It was
the most powerfu of a the potca organsms that had
ever appeared n the Hstory of manknd unt that tme;
and furthermore, after the ncorporaton of Heas and the
gradua formaton of the Heenc-Roman cvzaton, t
was aso the ony carrer of cvzaton n Europe and the
Medterranean. Throughout the vast expanse of the
Empre, there had been no other cvzed State. Even
though there exsted a muttude of natons, and an
assortment of anguages and regons wthn the Empre,
a of these dfferences were nsgnfcant, when compared
to the dfference between a Roman and a barbaran -
between cvzed and prmtve. (Up unt the mdde
of the 4
th
century, none of the barbarc trbes had even
dscovered wrtng; the Goths had ony |ust acqured an
aphabet at the tme).

In ths mut-natona State, ts ctzens (as we as those
nhabtants who had not yet become ts ctzens by 212
A.D., but who had done so at the tme) were proud of ther
Romancty and ther educaton. Raca and natona
descent graduay ceased to be determnng factors for
the shapng of a coectve conscence, and Romancty
became enveoped - whch s what s usuay observed n
such cases - n a metaphysca coak. Rome was
ncknamed the eterna cty and the peopes fath n ts
eterncty was deep and unshakeabe. K1L

Even the barbarans themseves stood n awe before that
coossa potca and mtary structure. Ther dream was
not to demosh t - we have no such ndcatons - but
rather, they coveted becomng ts members. K*L

They woud enst themseves n the Roman army as
mercenares and woud ong for a taste of ther weathy
neghbors ma|esty. Perhaps the ony contemporary
exampe that can hep the reader to understand ths
feeng s the emgraton to Amerca. Amerca s, kewse,
an amghty, weathy, mut-natona country n whch an
mmgrants every prevous natona prde s extngushed,
n expectaton of the prde of becomng an Amercan. The
dream of every desperate peasant from Savador and
Guatemaa s not the destructon of what he s ookng
forward to; hs desre s to be accepted by Amercans as
an equa - to become a partcpant n ther kngdom.
Ths s how we must envsage the orgna reatons
between the barbarans and the Romans. Many of them
actuay dd manage to rse through the mtary ranks; n
fact, one of them, Steechon, reached the stage of hodng
n hs very hands the defence of Itay tsef, around 400
A.D., bearng the tte of Magster Mtum.

The spendor of the Roman Empre and the respect of the
barbarans were preserved ong after the fa of Rome.
Besdes, even ts (ncorrecty) aeged fna conqueror,
Odoacer n 476 A.D., dd not dare to substtute the
emperor Romuus-Augustus, whom he had overthrown.
We stress ncorrecty, because there was nothng fna
about ths conquest. Sxty years ater, the Roman army
under Bessarus and Narses berated the cty once
agan. The ony fna thng that occurred n 476 A.D. was
the aboton of darchy, whch had been the egacy of
Theodosus I snce 395 A.D. From then on, there was ony
one Emperor of the Romans, wth Constantnope as the
Seat of the Throne. Unfortunatey, the use of the
mseadng term Byzantne hnders us from seeng
thngs as they truy were, thus we read about the
Byzantne conquest of Itay durng the tme of
|ustnan.... Odoacer had sent the mpera standards to
the emperor of the eastern Roman Empre Zenon, from
whom he requested to be gven the tte of patrcan and
be aowed to govern the West n the emperors name.

The same thng was observed wth Odoacers vctor, the
Ostrogoth Theodorc (who was rased n Constantnope),
kng of Itay from 493 to 526 A.D. Theodorc had mnted
cons excusvey n the name of the emperor of
Constantnope and had adopted the name Favus. To the
emperor Anastasos he had wrtten: Regnum nostrum
mtaton vestra est, unc exempar mper (Our regn s
an mtaton of yours, the exempary, unque empre) K-L

Oute frequenty, the barbarans woud attempt to emuate
the externa characterstcs of Roman rtua. Gregory,
bshop of Turensum (Tours) has preserved for us the
descrpton of the procamaton of Codovc (Covs or
Codwg) as kng of the Franks as consu n 508 A.D.: The
emperor Anastasos sent etters to Codovc, to bestow
consushp on hm. Codovc stood n the church of sant
Martn, draped n a coak and mtary mante, and was
crowned wth a dadem. He then mounted hs horse and
dstrbuted wth hs own hands sver and god cons to the
crowd that was standng at the door of the church of sant
Martn and up to the cathedra of Tours. And from that
day on, he was pronounced Consu or Augustus. K@L
The fegned attempt of a barbaran chef to foow Roman
rtuas - even down to the estabshed dstrbuton of cons
- needs no further comments. It s more than obvous,
that the utmate dream of every barbaran was to be abe
to resembe a Roman.

Even more characterstc was the stance of the
Longobards, who, between 570 - 600 A.D. succeeded n
fnay Itay fnay fang to the barbarans. Further away
from Rome, n the terrtores of Ravenna, Napes, Caabra
and Scy, the remanng Romans n the western part of
the Empre were, from then on, fnay sub|ugated. Even
though more than 200 years had passed from the tme
that the Roman Empre began to dspay ts weaknesses n
the presence of the barbarans, the conquerng
Longobards st dd not dare ca themseves masters of
Itaan so. The Longobard Pau the Deacon, when wrtng
the hstory of hs peope n 780 A.D., mentons (n a wdey
commented phrase) that the Longobards remaned n Itay
as guests (hospes / hosptes) of the Roman andords.
KCL

The fact that ths word was used - nstead of the word
patron that befts a feuda system - s an ndcaton that
the Romans had not ost ther ttes as andowners. The
temporarness that the word hospes mpes cannot
have but one expanaton: If the weapons of the
Longobards had ndeed rrevocaby subdued the Romans
n the terrtory that we mentoned, then ths (Longobard)
hestance must, n our opnon, be attrbuted to the
persstent spendor of the Roman egend.

An even more mpressve eement, however, whch
evdences the appea of Roman authorty, was the use of
the tte Roman Emperor by barbaran cheftans such as
Charemagne and Otto I n the 9
th
and 10
th
centures, a fu
400 - 500 years after the fna fa of the Western Roman
Empre. It appears that even then, n the conscence of
every medaeva man, the ony ega, supreme authorty
contnued to be the Roman emperor. He aone had the
soveregn rght to power over a the Chrstans of the
Word. We sha revert to the detas of Charemagnes
coronaton as emperor, n the 8
th
chapter.
In cosng ths secton, we woud ke to repeat that the
Roman Empre was a State n whch t was mpossbe for
raca and natona fanatcsms to deveop, n the form that
manknd encountered from 1800 A.D. onwards. In the
supra-natona Roman Empre wth ts varety of
natonates proudy partcpatng n the dea of
Romancty, any former barbaran coud become a
Roman, provded he embraced the Heenc-Roman
educaton and tradton. Through marrages and nter-
marrages, many barbarans were ncorporated nto Roman
socety. Steechon, whom we mentoned prevousy, had
marred the nece of the emperor Theodosus the Great.
Chrstanty, whch had graduay become predomnant
throughout the Empre, gave the fna bow to a
ethnc/natonast dscrmnatons.
From then on, the supra-natona Roman deoogy - now
wdespread thanks to the Chrstan teachng of
brotherhood between a men - was preserved for
centures n the Byzantne empre, whch was aso a
supra-natona State. Ths s why there s absoutey no
meanng to the dscussons that st preoccupy hstorans,
even today, as to how Heenc the Byzantne empre
was (see for exampe the confctng opnons of Mango,
Charans, and Karayannopouos). From a natona
perspectve, t was nether Heenc, nor Byzantne; t
was Roman and supra-natona. (Cuturay of course t
was undoubtedy the ony carrer of Heenc cvzaton).
Equay vod of any content are the quarres reated to the
stance of the Syrans - or ater on the Savs - towards the
Heenes; n the Byzantne empre, anyone coud
become an emperor or a patrarch, regardess of ther
geographca or raca descent. Aready, by the 8
th
century,
we fnd a Sav, Nketas, had been eected Patrarch of
Constantnope. KEL
And f we contnue further, to the personages that the
Romans respected most of a - the sants - we w see
that they orgnated from every corner of Romana, even
though they may not have been at a famar wth the
Heenc anguage. R. Brownng characterstcay mentons
sant Dane the Styete, who ved atop a coumn, (styos
= coumn, par) near Constantnope, between 460 and
493 A.D., whom the emperors Leo and Zenon reguary
vsted and consuted. Ths sant Dane never earnt the
Heenc anguage. Hs words were transated from the
Syran anguage, by hs pups. KFL
Equay mpressve s the fact that sant Demetrus - patron
sant of Thessaonk durng the Sav rads of the 6
th
, 7
th
and
8
th
centures - ater became (as Oboensky notes) one of
the most popuar sants of the medaeva Sav word. KGL
The Romans mantaned that same supra-natona
conscence, even after ther sub|ugaton by the Turks. A
separate study woud be abe to show that ths ecumenca
concept was expressed by Rghas Ferraos, when he caed
upon a the Bakan peopes to unte. Rghas dea coud
not have orgnated soey from the sprt of Enghtenment
of that era, whch tended to stress the sef-determnaton
of each naton. It had far deeper roots, n the common
Roman (Byzantne) tradton of the peope of that regon,
where the most mportant thng was not raca descent,
but the Orthodox fath and Heenc educaton. K'L
Of course, for the western Europeans wth ther mted
Hstory and ther barbaran tradton, a these thngs are
not that easy to comprehend. Ths s why they ncessanty
strve to expan the achevements of a peope based on
nave raca crtera, whereby certan peopes or soca
casses - due to ther boodne - are more nobe than
others. In fact, durng the 19
th
century, the more
scentfc raca theores had reached the pont of
cassfyng peope based on the capacty of ther skus
(hence the round-headed, ong-headed, etc. types).
It was wthn ths racst mentaty - whose consequences
manknd has pad for very deary durng the 20
th
century -
that the FamereyerJ -type theores are aso stuated;
theores that so devastatngy affected the Heenes 150
years ago. Unfortunatey, the westernzng of Heas
msed a great number of our hstorans nto gvng
answers n the westernzed context that Famereyer had
nsttuted. In other words, the entre attempt was focused
on provng that yes, the same bood as Perces s st
runnng through our vens to ths day, nstead of re|ectng
as entrey fase and worthess any dscusson that begns
wth raca nstead of cutura characterstcs. Ths too s an
ndcaton of how mperceptby the western, ant-Roman
mentaty nftrated atter-day Heas.

JTranslator &ote? 9:e German
an;:ro<olo=is; and :is;orian >aco? P:ili<
@almeraAer (BCDE-BFGH7 claimed ;:a; modern
Iellene did no; descend from Pericles nor
Jocra;es, ?u; from JlaKic and Ll?anian ;ri?es
M:ic: :ad inunda;ed ;:e Greek <eninsula in
;:e G;: cen;urA LN, ;o ;:e <oin; ;:a; ;:eA
?ecame JlaKs8 Iis racis; ;:eorA, Mas ?ased on
O<ure-?loodO descend ra;:er ;:an cul;ure and
ciKiliPa;ion8
But, et us go back to the era that we were examnng,
after the barbarc nvasons. Beyond what we aready
mentoned, the Romans were very much aware that the
barbarans who dd not accept ths cutura ncorporaton
woud reman a foregn ob|ect wthn the Empre, even
though they nhabted ts former terrtores. Ths cear-cut
(cutura, not raca) dfferentaton contnued for centures,
even though western hstorans want to beeve that
Romans and barbarans eventuay merged together, thus
creatng the West European cvzaton. The truth s that,
for the perod of tme that we have evdence at our
dsposa, the sub|ugated Romans preserved ther dentty,
whe the western European cvzaton began to take
shape by destroyng both the matera as we as the
sprtua monuments of the Heenc-Roman word.
Let us now take a coser ook at what happened to the
Romans of the conquered regons from 476 A.D. onwards.
When the Ostrogoth Theodorc (who, by the way, shoud
be noted s referred to as Great n western
hstorography!) overthrew Odoacer and became soveregn
ord over Itay (493 A.D.), he dd not mpose Gothc
admnstraton and egsaton on the Romans. The
emperor Anastasos had acknowedged hm as rex and
Theodorc nsttuted dua admnstraton: the Ostrogoths
governed a of the non-Roman popuatons, and the
Roman offcas the Romans. K1HL
Shorty after the death of Theodorc, t"e Roman arm) o&
9ustinian li.erate% Ital) an% re!unite% t"e em#ire.
Ths freedom however dd not ast very ong. As of 568
A.D., new barbarc trbes, the Longobards, domnated the
Itaan pennsua, ootng and destroyng everythng n ther
path. The few Roman ctzens that survved were turned
nto vassas, or sem-free and farmers. Athough we have
very mted nformaton as to ther stuaton durng ths
perod, we can surmse that the dstance between Romans
and barbarans contnued to be mantaned durng ths
status quo of barbaran occupaton. There are three man
reasons for ths beef:
The frst reason was the cutura dfference, as outned
above. Secondy, there were regous dfferences between
them aso. The Ostrogoths, the Vsgoths, the Vandas and
the Longobards mantaned the Aran beefs, whereas ony
the Franks had embraced Orthodoxy from the start. Ths
meant that even n areas where they ved together,
Romans and barbarans were st not n cose communon.
Fnay, the thrd - and most mportant - reason that the
barbaran trbes dd not become assmated was that ther
dfferences had been waterproofed by ther dfferng
ega tradton; The aws governng the Germanc trbes
(Longobards, Franks, etc.) were persona n concept,
whereas the Roman aws were geographca. K11L
Ths meant that - for exampe - a Longobard woud be
|udged on the bass of Longobardc aw, regardess of
where he resded. On the other hand, accordng to Roman
|ustce, a ctzens resdng on the ands of the Roman
Empre, regardess of ther natonaty, woud be |udged by
Roman aw, an eement that heped to emnate a ethnc
dfferences. Germanc egsaton thus payed an mportant
roe n the deveopment of the ethnc conscence of the
barbarc trbes, snce t dstngushed between the dfferent
peopes very austerey. Thus, ega tradton had, n ths
manner, aso contrbuted towards the emnaton of the
Roman conscence n the West, and towards the brth of
natonasm - and even more so of racsm, whch has not
ceased to comprse a permanent, ngraned eement of
Western socetes ever snce.
The sub|ugated Romans had ressted ths cutura
backsde. From the segments of Longobard |ustce that
have been preserved (exampe, the aw of Lutprand, kng
of the Longobards, 712-744 A.D.), t appears that the
Romans had contnued, 150 years after ther sub|ugaton
to the Longobards, to be sub|ect to ther own system of
|ustce. For exampe, there s a aw that says whomsoever
draws up contracts, whether accordng to the aws of the
Longobards or accordin= ;o ;:e laMs of ;:e Romans, must
not draw them up opposng those aws. Aso, accordng to
the same |ustce system, f a Longobard woman were to
marry a Roman, she forfeted her rghts and the offsprng
of that marrage were to be consdered Romans and
thenceforth sub|ect to Roman aws. K1*L

Let us focus more carefuy on the ast provson of
Lutprands egsaton, whch, n our opnon, s of mmense
sgnfcance.
Frst of a, t s a pont worth notng and of extreme
mportance that Roman aws were famar - and that they
contnued to appy - for the Romans.
Furthermore, the provson states ceary that both peopes
remaned separate, n a strct reatonshp of conqueror-
conquered. In fact, a Roman was not aowed to rse to the
ranks of nobty through marrage (whereas we
mentoned earer that n the Roman State, a barbaran
coud rse through the ranks through marrage or any
other manner), unmpeded. But, ther wfe woud ose a
her rghts and woud fa to the ranks of the (most
probaby vassa) Romans. It s worth notng here that the
Longobards, n observng an od Germanc tradton, had
nsttuted a standard prce (wergd) for the prce of a
persons fe. Ths prce was pad whenever someone ked
or wounded someone ese. It s characterstc, that the fe
of a free andowner was 300 sod (=the standard Roman
god con); the prce for a free man wthout property was
150 sod, whe the sem-free adus (ths was the
category that most of the sub|ugated Romans beonged to)
was a mere 60 sod. K1-L
The conquered Romans strugged desperatey to preserve
whatever they coud of ther cvzaton under ths status
quo of barbaran occupaton. In these attempts, they were
aways supported by the st free regons of the Empre.
As mentoned above, the st free regons n Itay were
Ravenna and ts surroundng areas, Rome and the greater
part of southern Itay. The mpera authorty was
represented n those regons, by the Exarch of Ravenna.
The entre hstory of Itay, from the death of |ustnan (567
A.D.), through to the perod of Lutprands egsaton, s
one bg seres of wars and compromses between Romans
and Longobards. K1@L
Resstance aganst every knd of barbaran became a basc
natona characterstc that branded the conscence of the
Romans, throughout Medaeva tmes. It s not easy for
one to hstorcay prove that the man natona ob|ectve of
the Empre after 400 A.D. was one of defence; the
defendng of ther cvzaton n the face of consecutve
barbaran nvasons. Indeed, the ony war that coud be
characterzed as aggressve durng the 1100 years of
Chrstan Romana was Heracus war aganst the Persans.
Ony then dd the Empre go beyond the boundares that t
had nherted from doatrous Rome. A the other wars
were waged for reganng Roman terrtores and beratng
sub|ugated Romans n Itay, n northern Afrca, n the
mdde East, n the Bakans....
Wth the passng of tme, t became obvous that the
beraton of a the Romans had become an mpossbe
feat. It s wthn ths btter reazaton that one shoud seek
the seeds of the yearnng of Romanty - ts deoogy of an
unredeemed homeand and the feeng of beng wronged,
but aso ts franess opposte the aspratons of foregners
- a of whch have shaped atter-day Heensm, up to the
20
th
century....
Romantys yearnng and the supra-natona character of
the Roman State, beyond any raca dscrmnaton,
comprsed the two most mportant factors n the shapng
of our natona conscence. Both of these factors are totay
foregn and atogether ncomprehensbe n the West. It s
therefore not dffcut to perceve that many of the present-
day msunderstandngs and dsappontments between neo-
Heenes and western Europeans are attrbuted to ths
dfferent outook. In the chapter that foows, we sha
have the opportunty to anayze the roe payed by the
thrd ma|or dfference between us and the westerners: the
Orthodox Chrstan fath.


"a#ter C !! T"e "ristian 7orl%

a? Pol i ti (al i %eol o4)
The second sgnfcant coordnate of the Roman natona
conscence - after Romancty - was Chrstanty. From
300 A.D. onwards, the gradua expanson of Chrstanty
gave a fresh new character and purpose to the Empre.
The bendng of Chrstanty and Romancty dd not take
ong n producng a new potca deoogy that was to
reman predomnant for many centures n the free
(eastern) regon of the Empre.
Accordng to ths deoogy, the Chrstan Roman Empre
envsaged a terrestra manfestaton of the Kngdom of
God. The concdence n tme of the foundng of the
Empre by Augustus and the Incarnaton of Chrst was not
by chance. Orgen was the frst to procam that God had
chosen that moment n Hstory to send Hs Son nto the
word, at a tme when Rome had succeeded n brngng an
unmpeded unty and peace to a peopes. K1CL
In hs ceebratory speech for the thrty years of
Constantne the Greats regn, Eusebus of Caesara had
expressed the same theory; .e., at the precse tme when
the regn of the Romans had been mposed on a the
peopes and a the age-od enmtes between natons had
subsded, t was at that same perod of tme that the
knowedge of one God was reveaed to the peope, and
peace came to regn throughout the and. K1EL
Ths remembrance survved wthn the Orthodox Church,
throughout the pursung centures up to ths day, n the
we-known gorfcaton hymn that s sung at Vespers, on
the eve of Chrstmas:
@nder the *onarchy of 2ugustus in the land,
the polyarchy of the peoples did cease5
and upon Aour incarnation by the 1ure (irgin,
the polytheis* of idols ,as abolished"""
@nder one, te*poral kingdo*
,ere all the cities 7oined,
and in one leadership of Bivinity
did the nations co*e to believe.
And, because the Kngdom of God coud not be anythng
ese but one and ndvsbe, the Chrstan Roman Empre
had to ncude a the Chrstans of the word. The
barbaran peopes that graduay became Chrstans took
ther pace n a wordwde herarchy, at the head of whch
was the Roman Emperor.

He was the one who woud adopt certan foregn
cheftans and address others as frends. Durng a ater
tme, for exampe, the wordwde herarchy was as
foows: after the Emperor of Constantnope, there
foowed hs sprtua chdren, such as the Armenan and
Bugaran cheftans. After them foowed hs sprtua
brothers, such as the cheftans of the French and the
Germans. Then there were hs frends - the emr of
Egypt, the ruers of Engand, of Vence and of Genoa. And
fnay, there were hs serfs, who were the
msceaneous, mnor oca cheftans of Armena, Serba,
etc. K1FL

Ths potca deoogy had never been questoned, not
even by the barbarans (the Franks), who, n the 9
th
century had tred to become the substtute of
Constantnope as the centre of unversa power. It s
characterstc how Chraemagne was set on beng
crowned emperor of the Romans, n the beef that ths act
woud have automatcay rendered hm the substtute of
the emperor of Constantnope who was at the top of the
pyramd. We can therefore see how ths was not a
strugge to destroy the pyramd, but ony to seze ts apex.
Accordng to Heen Ahrweer, the congruence of Romans
and Chrstans was fnazed as the offca deoogy at the
tme of |ustnan n the mdde of the 6
th
century, wth the
portraya of the emperor on the god con of the Empre
(the sodus), hodng n one hand the gobe wth a cross
on t (whch symbozed ecumencty), and n the other
hand, the standard or a crucfx-shaped scepter (symbo of
Roman and Chrstan authorty n the word). K1GL

The fact s, on the cons that had crcuated on the
occason of the nauguraton of Constantnope n 330
A.D., depcted on one sde was a femae fgure
(symbozng New Rome), hodng a gobe and the Cross.
(On the obverse sde was a depcton of Od Rome, n the
form of a woverne wth ts twn cubs, wth the Pantheon
of doatrous Romes gods overhead). K1'L

From the 4
th
century onwards, the Roman soders no
onger defended ther potca hypostass ony, but ther
Chrstan fath as we. Over tme, these two eements
became nseparabe. Severa centures ater, Leo VI (886-
912 A.D.) characterstcay wrote to the commanders of
the army that t s ther obgaton to be ready to sacrfce
ther fe for the homeand and the uprght (orthodox)
Chrstan fath, as do ther soders who, wth ther cry
The Cross sha Conquer, fght ke soders of Chrst our
Lord, for parents, for frends, for the homeand, for the
entre Chrstan naton. K*HL


A reverberaton of ths congruence w agan be observed,
unchanged, 1000 years ater, n the Romans that fought
for the hoy fath of Chrst and the freedom of the
homeand. Ths was the outcome of a convcton that
began at the turnng pont of Chrstantys Hstory - the
reveaton of the message that appeared n the sky, before
the eyes of Constantne the Great : IN THIS (the sgn of
the Cross) BE VICTORIOUS. Wthn ths potca deoogy,
where a Chrstans comprsed a Unversa famy, the
wars waged by certan Chrstan trbes aganst
Constantnope dd not consttute a natona confct n
the form that we know today. On the contrary, t was
regarded as an nsurrecton aganst the ega authortes,
or, n other words, an nterna cvan quarre. Ths s
how the wars of the Empre wth the Savs for exampe
(after ther Chrstanzaton) were confronted. One such
characterstc ncdent s the Byzantne-Bugaran war
under Symeon, at the begnnng of the 10
th
century.

Negotatons on behaf of the Empre at the tme were
undertaken by the Patrarch Nchoaos Mystkos, who
addressed Symeon as a chd of mne and tred to
dssuade hm, by cang hs expedton a scanda (n the
evangeca sense of the term). And f Chrst had sad that
t s to hs beneft, f one scandazes others even for
somethng mnor, to te a m-stone around hs neck and
fa nto the sea rather than contnue to scandaze, then
what can we say - Nchoaos wrote - about ths scanda,
whch s not somethng mnor, but one that opposes the
kngdom whch stands above a other wordy authortes;
the ony kngdom on earth that was founded by the Kng
of a? K*1L

In a of the Nchoaos Mystkos correspondence wth
Symeon, the correaton of the Roman kngdom to the
Chrstan Kngdom that was founded on earth by the Kng
of a s very evdent. Besdes, as Oboensky notes,
Symeon was from hs part contendng and
smutaneousy emuatng the Empre, ayng waste the
Byzantne domnon and promotng the transaton of
Heenc terature nto the Sav tongue because he
wshed to reate to the cutura tradtons of Byzantum,
especay as he was aready a sem-Heene by way of
educaton, havng spent hs chdhood years n
Constantnope. K**L

Fnay, we shoud not forget that the Savc name for
Constantnope was Tsargrad (teray, the Cty of
Tsars/Caesars, or, the Regnant Cty). To them,
Constantnope was not |ust any other capta; t was the
regnng cty - the summt of wordwde herarchy. Ths
ecumenca conscence began to form graduay, under
the nfuence of the Orthodox Church, whch had gven a
new meanng to the supra-natona character of the
Roman Empre. Accordng to the teachng of the Church,
the dvson between natons was the resut of mans sn
and hs arrogance, whch ed hm to the constructon of
the Tower of Babe. Wth the advent of Chrst and the
foundng of the Church, the fathfu were gven the
potenta (and the destnaton) of transcendng ethnc
dvsons and to thenceforth beong to a seect breed, a
rega presthood, a hoy naton, as the Aposte Peter had
named the peope of God. K*-L


As underned by fr. Herotheos Vachos, n ths passage,
whch I beeve comprses a foca pont n the New
Testament, t s more than obvous that the words
peope and naton are reeved of any raca nference
and are nstead reated to the charsmatc reatonshp
between God and man that was attaned through the
ncarnaton of Chrst. K*@L

Ths s kewse why Pau had procamed that there s
nether |ew nor Heene, nether bondsman nor free,
nether mae nor femae; for a of you are n |esus
Chrst. (Gaatans 8:28). Especay ndcatve from ths
pont of vew s the Kontakon (speca, bref hymn) that s
sung durng the Pentecost, n whch s mentoned the
orgna dvson of manknd nto natons and the
transcendence of ths dvson, wth the foundng of the
Chrstan Church:

7"en ,e %es(en%e% to (on&oun% t"eir ton4ues,
t"e Almi4"t) %is#erse% t"em into nations.
But $"en ,e %istri.ute% t"e ton4ues o& &ire,
,e $as summonin4 e2er)one into unit).
An% $e, a((or%in4l), 4lori&) t"e Most ,ol) +#irit.
K*CL

The ecumenca conscence of the Orthodox fathfu, whch
the barbarans n the West swfty destroyed, woud
thereafter survve n the Bakans, throughout the
medaeva and Ottoman eras, up to the mdde of the 19
th
century.

It was necessary for the entre arsena of the Wests
Enghtenment to be dscharged nto Heas (and for
Russan Pan-Savsm to be mposed on Bugara), for
natonast phenomena to appear and for the ecumenca
Chrstan conscence to be smothered here aso.K*EL

In our tme, we have the doubtfu prvege of observng
the tragc outcome of the fna predomnance of the
Western dea of a natona state n the Bakans and, as s
usuay the case wth western hypocrsy, a Bakan
peopes have now become the recpents of scornfu
comments, for havng at ast assmated western
perceptons....

The fresh destnaton that the Chrstan word theory gave
to the state greaty dfferentated the Chrstan Roman
Empre from the subsequent great powers of Hstory.
Thus, the reatng of the Empre to a terrestra Kngdom of
God appears n forms that may seem strange nowadays.
For exampe, t has been observed that the coser we draw
to the end of the Empre, n 1453, an apocayptc vson
of the end of Hstory ncreasngy captvates the
Byzantnes. Durng ths ast perod of Byzantum,
eschatoogca terature on the end of the cvzed word
and the regn of the Antchrst appeared to be fourshng.
Graduay the peope began to reate the end of
Byzantum to the end of the word n whoe. K*FL

Ths trend was the resut of the Chrstan Empres
deoogy, whch aso determned ts ob|ectve. As stressed
n the prevous chapter, and contrary to todays Great
Powers, terrtora expanson was not the ob|ectve of the
Empre. Romana was constanty on the defensve for
1100 years, the ony excepton beng Heracus batte
aganst the Persans (whch nonetheess came as a
response to the Persan assaut aganst Constantnope).
The Byzantne wars served ony to preserve ts
cvzaton from the successve barbaran onsaughts that
came from the East, the North and the West. As expressed
so exqustey by the poet Sefers:

For us, t was a dfferent thng to fght
for the fath n Chrst
and for the sou of man
enthroned on the ap of the Vrgn Mother - the Supreme
Defender -

Nether was matera prosperty the purpose of the
Empre. The rches of Constantnope may have been
fabed, yet the vson pro|ected by the Chrstan fath was
far beyond matera weath. The Romans standards for
emuaton were not the weathy merchants or andowners;
ther deas were the andess monks, the hoy gerons
(eders) who had teray no possessons whatsoever. They
were the ones that the peope foowed; they were the
ones who coud convnce and rouse the popuace.

The purpose of the Empre was - we sha repeat t once
more - the materazng of the Heaveny Kngdom. The
more that the peope dstanced themseves from the true
fath, the more the State drew further away from the
Heaveny Kngdom and was faced wth deteroraton and
decadence. The cumnaton of ther aenaton from the
true fath was to be crowned by the domnaton of the
Antchrst, whose arrva was aso the harbnger of the
Second Comng of Chrst and therefore the dssouton of
the Chrstan Word. Ths expans Heen Ahrweers
observaton that we mentoned above.

When referrng to the Chrstan character of the Roman
Empre, of Romanty, after the 4
th
century, we rsk makng
two mstakes, repeatng two myths, havng been
nfuenced by deveopments n Western Europe. These are
two myths that Western hstorans have dssemnated
thoughtessy durng oder tmes, by pro|ectng Western
experences onto the Eastern Roman Empre. Fortunatey,
recent research s sowy pecng together a more accurate
pcture of that era, and ths s assstng us n better
understandng our past as we as our deep-rooted
dfferences wth the West. One of the two myths s
Caesaro-Papsm; the second myth s the theocratc
formaton of the State. Let us now turn our attenton to
these two probems.

.? aesaro! Pa#i sm

Caesaro-Papsm s the theory of the Churchs sub|ugaton
to the potca powers - n our case, to the emperor. Up
unt recenty, western hstorans beeved that ths term
descrbed the reatons between State and Church
throughout the eeven centures of Byzantne Hstory.
On ths admsson, an entre edfce of anayses and
nterpretatons of varous hstorca probems was erected.
For exampe, the hstoran M. |uge had stated: Caesaro-
Papsm must undoubtedy bear the chef responsbty for
the preparaton of the Schsm.K*GL

S. Domedes nssted that the emperor governed the
Church |ust as he governed the State....by appontng
bshops. K*'L The extreme yet characterstc formuaton
of ths vewpont beongs to Gbbon: the Greek patrarch
was a domestc save vng under hs masters gance,
who, wth ony a gesture coud transfer hm from the
monastery to the throne and from the throne to the
monastery K-HL

Havng taken ths vew for granted, the greatest European
hstoran of the 20
th
century, Arnod Toynbee, dedcated an
entre chapter of hs monumenta work A Study of
Hstory on the causes of the fa of Orthodox Chrstanty.
K-1L For Toynbee, the cause was excusvey the Churchs
subordnaton to the emperor. That was why Orthodox
Chrstanty was supposedy extngushed, as opposed to
Western Chrstanty whch, even ten centures down the
ne, contnues to domnate the gobe.

Hstorcay speakng, the vew that the Church was
subordnate to the emperor acks any knd of bass. The
term Caesaro-Papsm or whchever synonymous
aternatve t may have s entrey unknown n the
sources. The examnaton of the sources that we have at
our dsposa can hardy support the theory of
subordnaton. As stressed by H. Gregore, the peope of
Byzantum never wtnessed the dethronement of three
Ecumenca Patrarchs by one emperor ony, as was the
case wth Henry III, who dethroned three Popes. It never
wtnessed any bshops fghtng at the head of ther own
armes, or any nstances of smony as scandaous as those
that appeared n the West. Contrary to what s
frequenty repeated out of gnorance, the fact s that the
Popes were the ones who had faen nto servtude, whe
the Patrarchs of Constantnope were the ones who were
ndependent.K-*L

In practce, the emperor aways had an nterest n
eccesastc affars and was the ony one who had the rght
to convene an Ecumenca Counc. He furthermore
attended to the unty of the dogma, at tmes even
mposng certan debatabe vews. However, wth tme,
the Church earnt that resstance aganst the emperor n
sprtua matters was both egtmate and effectve. In the
7
th
century, both Emperor and Patrarch had agned
themseves wth the heresy of Monotheetsm for severa
decades. Ony one sotary monk had bravey stood up
aganst them: Maxmus the Confessor. Over tme,
Maxmus vews were recognzed as orthodox and the
Church contnued aong hs tradton, wthout the emperor
beng abe to mpose hs opnon.

From then on, Maxmus exampe (but aso of other, earer
theoogans) became a gude for the Church. Durng the
severe crss of the Iconomachy, nether the decrees nor
the persecutons or the exes were abe to overthrow the
opposng vew of the conophes. A broad resstance
movement fnay overthrew the mpera endeavors of
one hundred and twenty years. It truy needs a speca
knd of magnaton (or pre|udce) for one to abe a State a
Caesaro-Papst one, n whch t was mpossbe for the
regous vews of the emperor to be mposed on the
popuaton.

As observed by Gregore, after the 9
th
century the
Orthodox fath had become estabshed; n other words, t
had trumphed over the emperors. There was no onger a
trace of prevous potcs, not even of the Iconomachy.
K--L The fna and most powerfu ndcaton of the
(non)exstence of Caesaro-Papsm s found n the perod
between the 13
th
and the 15
th
centures. Varous
unfcaton emperors proved to be entrey poweress n
ther attempts to unfy the churches, wth a the potca
benefts that ths woud have entaed. Generay
speakng, one s mpressed by the popuaces profound,
non-potca focusng on the fath durng ths perod, to
the detrment of the potca beneft that mght have been
ganed through regous concessons to the West.


For the Westerners (and the western-crazed) neo-
Heenes, ths focusng seems ogca. In commentng on
the famous expresson by the grand duke Lukas Notaras,
It s far better to see a Turksh head-dress prevang n
the mdde of the cty, than a Latn capuche (monks
hood), a predomnant representatve of the Western
sprt, Heen Gykatz-Ahrweer, had wrtten n the past:
these words ndcate the bndness that the church, the
peope and the Byzantnue government tsef had
succumbed to, who had fnay become convnced that the
words of the Church had to preva over the words and the
nterest of the State. K-@L

But for the Romans, the expanaton was smpe. They
were peope wth a deep-seated fath, who dd not see the
Church as an oppressve nsttuton, but as a component
of ther very exstence. Orthodoxy was one of the features
that defned ther natona hypostass. Furthermore, they
were fuy aware of the cutura baggage that they carred
on ther shouders. Over and above any natona dea,
they paced the preservaton of ther cvzaton, ther way
of fe.


One can dscern here once agan the dfferng ponts of
vew between Romans and Western Europeans: for the
atter, the defendng and expandng of ther raca, ethnc
State was of prmary mportance. To the Romans, what
was more mportant was somethng far bgger - somethng
that surpassed the boundares of a race or a naton: the
hertage of the entre Heenc-Roman Chrstan cvzaton
and the Orthodox fath whch was the ony thng that
offered them a hope for eternty. And, as stressed above,
they beeved very deepy that f they aenated
themseves from Orthodoxy, then ther State woud cease
to be the terrestra reazaton of the Heaveny Kngdom,
therefore t too woud soon be ost, |ust ke everythng
ese that s pershabe n ths matera word.
Subsequenty, t was never n the thoughts of the Romans
- and coud not be, by defnton - that there coud be a
confct of nterest between State and Church, as
Ahrweer beeves. On the contrary, they frmy beeved
that by preservng ther fath they woud reman
unconquerabe, even f they ost ther natona hypostass.
Besdes, they had pror proof of ths. Every Easter, the
Orthodox woud hear (and st hear, to ths day) the
ceebratory hymns that are sung durng Matns on
Resurrecton Day:

Now, everythng s fed wth ght,
both the heavens and the earth and the underword;
et a creaton therefore ceebrate
the rsng of Chrst, upon whch t s frmy set.

Shne brght, shne brght, o new |erusaem....
Sng now, and re|oce, Zon.....

When |ohn Mansoor from Damascus wrote these nes, one
hundred years had aready passed from the tme that hs
homeand was permanenty sub|ugated by the Arabs. And
yet, these verses are not verses of a man vng n savery.
They are hymns that overfow wth freedom, hope and
ght; they are the words of a person who has remaned
sprtuay unshacked because he s permeated wth an
nner freedom that s entrey unfamar to the West. So
unfamar, that for Mrs. Ahrweer, the defendng of ths
shnng fath s ndcatve of the bndness that the peope
had succumbed to.

In competng ths reference to caesaro-papsm, we can
say (as Yannakopouos has so accuratey ponted out) that
n the Chrstan-Roman deoogy, the two nsttutons co-
exsted harmonousy. Contrary to what was observed n
the West, there was never any acute bsecton between
the potca and the sprtua spheres. K-CL The Romans
beeved that the emperor had to be a Chrst-emuator,
and they knew that the we-beng of the peope coud not
be reazed by an emperor who went contrary to ther
fath.

One ast queston remans to be asked. Why dd Western
hstorans begn to appy the term caesaro-papsm when
referrng to Byzantum? One ogca answer, whch has
been mped by Yannakopouos, s that, |udgng from ther
own experence of the Popes potca power, and not
seeng anythng anaogous n the Orthodox Patrarch, they
magned that the Patrarch was sub|ect to the emperor.
Ths s what ther own hstory showed: snce the Pope was
constanty entanged n potca-mtary confcts wth
regents and emperors, he woud sometmes end up
vctorous and at other tmes defeated. There was no
thrd choce. And snce the Patrarch had no secuar and
mtary power, they assumed that he had been
permanenty defeated by the emperor, who had
consequenty transferred a of these powers to hs own
person, thus smutaneousy becomng a Caesar and a
Pope. Ths unprecedented concuson has been
perpetuated, even up unt our tme, havng become one
of the toos n the Wests nexhaustbe deoogca armory
aganst Heensm.

(? T"eo(ra()

By theocracy, we mean a potca system n whch
regon has domnated every aspect of pubc fe.
Exampes of theocratc states are: the ancent kngdom of
Israe (durng the tme of the |udges), the Papa State unt
ths day, and Iran of the 1980s decade. In each of these
cases, the uppermost regous offca s smutaneousy
the uppermost ruer of the State.

Byzantum s frequenty ncuded amongst Hstorys
theocratc regmes. For most authors, ths s consdered
sef-evdent, and a |ustfcaton of the term s not deemed
necessary by them. However, n our opnon, the ssue of
the Byzantne States theocratc nature s especay
compex. A more comprehensve examnaton of the topc
woud demand a speca study and woud devate from the
framework of the present pro|ect. We woud however ke
to pont out, very succnty, some of the aspects of ths
probem, whch coud comprse the startng pont of such a
fuer study.

To begn wth, t s not at a sef-evdent that Byzantum
shoud be consdered a theocratc State. Abet the term s
amost unanmousy acceptabe, dfferent authors mean
dfferent thngs when they refer to t. For exampe,
Runcman had gven the tte Byzantne Theocracy to
one of hs treatses, whch was nothng more than an
overvew of eccesastc Hstory. K-EL. Other western
authors use the term n a sense that s very cose to the
meanng of Papo-caesarsm; n other words, they assert
that the Church had mposed ts own vews on a the
mportant potca and soca ssues of the Empre - that
the Church essentay governed the State.

To avod the confuson that the ack of defnton of the
term theocracy causes to most authors, we propose four
crtera, by whch the exstence and the degree of
theocracy n a State can be detected:


1. When potca and regous authorty are found n
the same person.
2. When regous canons (reguatons) are mposed on
the entrety of the States egsaton.
3. When pubc admnstraton s undertaken by
regous offcas.
4. When educaton s montored by the regous
herarchy.

As strange as t may appear, Byzantum does not
compy wth any of the above four crtera of a theocratc
State. Let us examne them, n order:

1. That the Pope and the Caesar were two separate
persons s naturay a known fact. In the prevous
secton, we had the opportunty to expan that nether
of the two had absoute power over every facet of
pubc fe. In other words, no Homen had ever
governed from the Patrarcha Throne, over the entre
State. Furthermore, no bshop whatsoever had ever ed
any knd of mtary corps nto batte, as was the rue n
the West.

2. In the area of |ustce, Byzantum contnued ts
great Roman tradton. The basc axs of egsaton
throughout ts centures-od hstory contnued to be
Roman |ustce, the way that |ustnan had codfed t.
Over tme, amendments were added to t, whch were
mposed by changng soca condtons, and the
nfuence of Chrstanty. Thus, the fna synthess was a
much more humane adaptaton of Roman |ustce.
Anyway, ths a pertaned to the secuar (non-
eccesastc) sphere of the State. The aw schoos and
the courts had nothng to do wth the Church, and the
|udges were certany not bshops, as was the case n
the West. (The bshops coud act as |udges n certan
speca cases, f t was a request of the accused;
however, ths was more ke a humane concesson,
whch dd not ater the essence of the otherwse
secuar |ustce system.)

3. As a resut of ts unnterrupted cutura contnuance,
Byzantum aways ensured an educated bureaucracy,
whch handed a state affars. On the contrary, n the
West (as we sha see more anaytcay n the foowng
chapter), from the 6
th
century onwards presented a
huge vod n educaton. A characterstc resut of the
decne n teracy n the West s that there were no
onger any educated, non-eccesastc men, who coud
hande even the most eementary admnstratve
needs. Thus, from the 7
th
century onwards, Western
Europe had to rey excusvey on the cergy for ther
dpomatc, admnstratve and educatona functons.
By that tme, n the court of Charemagne (end 8
th
century), practcay a of the famar schoars - wth
the excepton of Enhard - were cergymen (Aqun, Pau
the Deacon, Peter the Deacon, Paunus, e.a.). Ths was
a deveopment wth coossa repercussons n Western
hstory; not ony because t was preserved for 100
years and had eft ts mark on the character of the
West, but aso because t gave rse to a savage
antcercast sprt, whch broke out durng the years of
the Enghtenment and the French Revouton. It was
ths reacton that eventuay shaped the current stance
of the Western European towards Chrstanty. The
Western European woud have been a far dfferent
person, f he ddnt carry nsde hm a those centures
of oppresson, on account of the Latn Churchs
monopozng of pubc fe. A of these thngs are of
course entrey unfamar to the Romans, gven that
the secuar character of Roman admnstraton was the
basc characterstc of Byzantum, throughout ts
entre exstence. And ths s why antcercast
messages were never successfu n our and. K-FL

4. As far as educaton s concerned, we can dscern
three types of schoos n Byzantum: pubc schoos,
prvate schoos and monastc semnares. In the atter,
ony the chdren who had dedcated themseves to
monastcsm were aowed to attend. In fact, the
Ecumenca Counc of Chacedon (451 A.D.) had strcty
forbdden attendance of these schoos by the aty, and
as far as we can te, ths rue had been adhered to,
wthout excepton. K-GL

Thus, the ma|orty of our predecessors of Romana were
educated n secuar schoos, as opposed to what was
happenng n the West durng the same perod. As we
know, the compete coapse of the Heenc-Roman
cvzaton n the West had, for many centures, resuted
n an eevaton of the Church to beng the excusve carrer
of educaton. The ony educaton that one coud acqure
was the one that the monasteres aone provded. In
contrast to ths, educaton n Byzantum was chefy
focused on cassca tradton. Aong wth the Hoy Bbe,
Homer was aso a compusory readng, whom the students
had to earn by heart, and expan word for word. K-'L


Pseos J brags about how he had earnt a of the Iad by
heart when he was st very young. K@HL . Anna Comnene
quotes Homerc verses sxty-sx tmes n her Aexas,
qute often wthout feeng the need to add the
carfcaton the Homerc words...... K@1L To get an dea
of the cutura chasm that separated Romans and the
West, t suffces to remnd the reader that the West
became acquanted wth Homer for the frst tme n the
14
th
century, when, upon the request of the Petrarch and
Boccaco (a Roman of southern Itay), Patus transated
the Iad and the Odyssey nto Latn. K@*L

C Translator<s Note3 Qic:ael Psellos or
Psellus - GreekR S'4$& T,&&)5, Qik:aUl
Psellos - Mas a VAPan;ine Mri;er,
<:iloso<:er, <oli;ician, and :is;orian8 Ie
Mas ?orn in BEBC or BEBF, and died
some ;ime af;er BECF8 Wou can find more
info, :ereR8
:;;<RXXen8Miki<edia8or=XMikiXPsellos

T"e se(ular ("ara(ter o& e%u(ation %urin4 t"e
millennial "istor) o& t"e em#ire is also "i4"li4"te%
.) t"e &a(t t"at t"e Uni2ersit) o& onstantino#le
$as a +tate institution t"at $as ne2er un%er t"e
Muris%i(tion o& t"e "ur(". Accordng to ts foundng
Act (under Theodosus II, n 425 A.D.), ts professors were
pad by the State and were n fact exempt of taxaton.
K@-L. It s characterstc, that the unverstys program dd
not ncude the esson of theoogy at a, snce the purpose
of State educaton was to educate State personne and
offcas. K@@L

As we had mentoned at the begnnng of ths secton, the
ssue of theocracy n Byzantum s a huge one and
cannot be exhausted here. From the few thngs that were
outned above, however, t must have become obvous
that the composton of the Chrstan Roman Empre was
qute dfferent to that whch s presented by varous
popuar, smpstc vews. At the rsk of becomng
tresome, we sha once agan say that unfortunatey, we
often fa nto the mstake of reatng the obscurantst,
theocratc, western medaeva era wth the correspondng
era of Byzantum. As we have seen, however, ther
dfferences were huge and essenta ones at that.
Iteracy, ack of freedom, a regous oppresson that
cumnated n the Hoy Inquston, bshops wth mtary
mght that ed forces consstng of monks nto batte... a
of these thngs are totay unknown n our and and our
cvzaton.

In part, ths aso expans the Romans stubborn resstance
to the attempts of mposed westernzaton, whch we can
observe from 1204 A.D. to ths day. In the foowng
chapter, we w have the opportunty to examne other
aspects of the cutura chasm between the Romans and the
Westerners durng medaeva tmes - a perod whch s
often referred to as Dar= A4es for a of Europe. As $e
s"all see, i&, $it" t"e term 8Euro#e: $e are re&errin4
onl) to its $estern #art, t"en, t"e ("ara(teri/ation
8Dar= A4es: is a.solutel) (orre(t. I& $e in(lu%e t"e
Roman Em#ire D 8B)/antium: ! t"en $e oursel2es
.e(ome 2i(tims o& an o.s(urantist (ultural
im#erialism o& t"e 7est.



J Perhaps ths s the reason that the neo-Heenc State was unabe to
fnd a snge hstorca personage from the one-thousand year od
Byzantne perod who was worthy enough to be depcted on ts cons:
Of the 12 cons and paper notes that are n crcuaton nowadays, 4 of
them depct faces beongng to ancent hstory, 2 from ancent mythoogy
(!) and 6 from our modern hstory.

PART -3 T"e (las" $it" t"e 7est
"a#ter E ! T"e Dar= A4es
"a#ter F ! T"e &irst a##earan(e o& t"e
8Gree=s:
"a#ter G ! "arlema4ne an% t"e autonomi/in4
o& t"e 7est &rom Romanit)

E#ilo4ue
0ootnotes

BIBLIOGRAP,Y
a? ,elleni( lan4ua4e
.? Ot"er lan4ua4es

APENDIN3 MAP+

"a#ter E! T"e Dar= A4es
In Western hstorography, the centures between the 6
th
and the 11
th
are usuay referred to as The Dark Ages. It
was a perod of tme for whch we have very few sources,
whch, nevertheess, st gve us enough nformaton to
form an dea of the stuaton n Western Europe at the
begnnng of the Medeva era (for exampe, the works of
Gregory of Tours n 590 A.D., of so-caed Fredegar n 660
A.D., of Pau the Deacon n 780 A.D. etc.) It was a Europe
that was waowng n gnorance, where the knowedge
that had accumuated over the 1500 years of Heenc and
Heenc-Roman cvzaton were rapdy dsappearng.
Heenc educaton vanshed n Gau around 500 A.D. and
n Span around 600 A.D. K1L Even the renowned Isdore of
Seve (who was ater acknowedged as one of the eadng
experts on the medeva West) had no knowedge of the
Heenc anguage.
The works of the great phosophers and poets had
dsappeared atogether: n 750 A.D., nobody had access to
Arstote or Aeschyus, for the smpe reason that those
who coud mnmay read and wrte coud be counted on
ones fngers... Subsequenty, the copyng and
preservaton of manuscrpts was not n the east feasbe.
Besi%es, t"e .ar.ari( ("ie&tains o& t"e Lon4o.ar%s,
t"e 0ran=s an% t"e Teutons "a% no interest in
an)t"in4 else, .e)on% $a4in4 $ars. Charemagnes
regn was the one, mnor excepton, as he had housed a
few educated persons n hs court. From that pont on,
Western hstorans made a ot of fuss over nothng, when
referrng to Carongan renassance and other, smar
pompous statements. Upon the demse of Charemagne,
the promoton of teracy n Franca and Germana ceased
once agan. Also lost &or man) (enturies $as t"e
Romans< te("ni(al =no$le%4e, su(" as t"e
(onstru(tion o& roa%s an% .ri%4es. In 820 A.D.,
Charemagnes bographer, Enhard, wrote wth evdent
prde about how hs kng succeeded n budng a brdge
over the rver Rhne - an otherwse routne |ob for Roman
technoogy.
Aristotle remaine% un=no$n in t"e 7est, u# until
t"e 1-
t"
(entur); t"us, 8%is(o2erin4: "im set o&& a
re2olution in 7estern Euro#ean t"ou4"t. As a matter
of fact, the nave western Europeans of that perod had
come to beeve that they hed n ther hands a mghty
weapon, wth whch they coud promote phosophca and
theoogca thought much further than the pont the
Greeks had taken t.
It was at ths precse |uncton that the arrogance of
Schoastcsm aso appeared, to whch the Latn church
became attached for entre centures, havng
acknowedged t as the supreme theoogca achevement
of the human sprt. T"e &a(t t"at in onstantino#le
Aristotle "a% ne2er .e(ome o.solete an% t"e
,elleni(!s#ea=in4 0at"ers o& t"e Ort"o%oA "ur("
"a%, o2er t"e (enturies, (reate% a "i4"!Bualit)
s)nt"esis o& ,ellenism an% "ristianit), $ere
o2erloo=e% .) 7estern "istorians, as mere 8&ine
#rint:.
It woud be of consderabe nterest to take a ook at the
state Western Europe was n durng ths perod, from the
scant sources that we mentoned prevousy. B) C'H
A.D., durng the tme of Gregory of Tours wrtngs, the
Heenstc tradton had vanshed n the terrtory of Gau.
In the ten books of Gregorys Hstorae Francorum, not
e2en a tra(e o& ,elleni( literature a##ears to eAist.
An endess aternaton of saughters and ootngs
permeates hs entre work, thus gvng an mpresson that
dstressed even the author. Everythng around hm s
crumbng and dsappearng, whe he strves - amost
desperatey - to savage for the comng generatons the
events of hs tme. Ths s what he wrtes n hs
ntroducton: In t"e (ities o& Gaul, literar) $ritin4
"as lessene% to su(" a %e4ree, t"at it "as
essentiall) %isa##eare% alto4et"er. Many are those
who compan of ths, not ony once, but agan and
agan... What an mpovershed perod ths s, they are
heard sayng. If, among our peope, there s not a snge
one who can wrte n a book the thngs that are happenng
today, then the promoton of educaton s truy dead for
us. K*L

Nevertheess, the wrtngs of Gregory of Tours at east
ndcate that he had severa Latn sources at hs dsposa:
a transaton of Eusebus Chronces, Orosus, Sdonus,
Aponarus et a. K-L Thus, hs Hstory of the Franks
does possess a certan nfrastructure, a certan ogca
sequence, and the events are set out n a reatvey ordery
manner. Alt"ou4" t"e ,elleni(!Roman (i2ili/ation
$as no lon4er #reser2e% aroun% "im, still, its
remem.ran(e an% its literar) st)le "a2e .een
#reser2e%. Gregory s the ast known Roman hstoran n
Gau .
A &e$ %e(a%es later, t"in4s .e(ame mu(" $orse. In
the Franksh Chronce by Fredegar (practcay the soe
exstng source for 7
th
century France), whch was
composed around 660 A.D., the reader fnds t hard to fnd
hs way among the fragmented narratons of the author.
Varous Franksh courts succeed one another; freaks of
nature (foods, meteortes, etc.) are ntertwned wth the
narraton of a certan dpomatc msson; the sma and
nsgnfcant are mnged wth the arge, wthout any
attempt to cassfy anythng crtcay, and the author
frequenty stands n awe and wonder at the
ncomprehensbe thngs of a far broader word, of whch
he knows nothng. When readng Fredegar, one s gven
the mpresson that manknd has gone back 1500 years, to
the tmes before Homer, to the tme when man had not yet
put the word around hm n order and coud not yet form
an overa pcture and a ogca sequence to what was
gong on around hm. Everythng s remnscent of Greek
mythoogy - a pre-hstorc perod, where man s merey
prey to certan unreasonng powers, ncapabe of resstng
or comprehendng what s happenng to hm. And t s not
at a strange that Western European mythoogy reates to
ths precse perod: the egends of the Nbeungen, of Kng
Arthur, etc. And yet! Ths pre-hstorc era had ended for
Europe, 1200 years earer, when the Heenc sprt had
shone forth, from Iona (Asa Mnor) and Attca (manand
Heas). And now, 7 whoe centures after Chrst, Western
Europe was forced to go back so many centures and start
from zero, on account of the barbarans predomnance n
Western Romana...

In Gau, (whch s of speca sgnfcance, on account of the
roe t woud pay durng Charemagnes tme), the 7
th
century ends wth the tota coapse of the ast
admnstratve estabshment that was eft: the Church.
Bet$een EFH an% F'H A.D., a 2ast em#tiness is
o.ser2e% in t"e .is"o#ri(s. 0or nearl) 1CH )ears, no
.is"o#s (an .e &oun% in &ormerl) &louris"in4 (ities
su(" as Marseilles, Nimes, Limo4es, Bor%eauA,
Anti.es, Gene2a, Arles, an% man) more. A((or%in4
to Pirenne, t"is em#tiness $as so #re2alent, t"at it
(oul% not .e attri.ute% to a (ir(umstantial
%isa##earan(e o& "istori(al sour(es. More key, t
shoud be attrbuted to a common, deeper reason. K@L It
a##ears t"at t"e (ities an% ur.an li&e in 4eneral "a%
%e4enerate% to su(" a %e4ree t"at in t"e en%, t"e)
$ere no lon4er in a #osition to e2en maintain a
.is"o#. Ths aso consttuted the fna bow that fnshed
off the Heenc-Roman cvzaton n that terrtory. The
decne of the urban way of fe was accompaned by the
coapse of the system of economy and commerca
transactons. There s an abundance of bbography on ths
sub|ect (many by French hstorans) and t woud be
totay out of the scope of our study to repeat the fndngs
detaed theren. At any rate, the pcture that s formed s
one of a western Europe that has returned to a cosed, sef-
contaned economy, whose outcome was a sgnfcant
decne n ts vng standards. Where there used to be
Roman shps on reguar tradng routes between Aexandra
and Rome or Syra and Marsees, now each regon kept to
tsef and had to be content wth oca produce. Products
such as papyrus and sk vanshed n the West and were
transformed nto an excusve prvege of free Romana.
However, the pont that made the dfference between free
Romana (a.k.a. Byzantum) and the West even more
reveang was ther numsmatc crcuaton. 7"ile
onstantino#le (ontinue% to (ir(ulate its 4ol%en
(oin (the sodus), in F
t"
an% G
t"
(entur) 0ran(e,
mone) "a% essentiall) (ease% to .e in (ir(ulation.
In G
t"
(entur) (ontra(ts, #ri(es $ere o&ten $ritten in
units o& (ereals or (attle.KCL
Ths meant that money had ceased to crcuate and the
economy had regressed back to the stage of barterng, of
exchangng commodtes. Ths was a prmtve stage that
Europe had eft behnd, as far back as 600 B.C. wth the
frst appearance of Heenc cons, and t caused mmense
dffcutes n the economy of the and. In order to
understand the dfference between the Franksh and the
Romanan percepton on ths matter, t suffces to remnd
the reader that Constantnope had mantaned ts god
con unaduterated from the tme of Constantne the
Great, up unt 1078 A.D. Durin4 t"ese FCH )ears, t"is
8(oin: (om#rise% t"e onl) relia.le (urren()
t"rou4"out Euro#e, an% e2en .e)on% it >e.4., t"e
Ara.ian ali#"ates?. T"e +oli%us, $"i(" $as its
Latin name, (ontaine% a stea%) @.@G 4rams o& 4ol%
an% $as t"e esta.lis"e% (urren() &or international
transa(tions; it $as t"e 8Dollar o& t"e Me%iae2al
#erio%:, as it $as a#tl) name%. Servces, saares,
produce, taxes and at tmes even ransom payments to
enemes, were a covered by currences that had a
steady vaue, for eght whoe centures. It was the ongest-
survvng exampe of numsmatc stabty n the entre
hstory of Europe.
So far, we have focused on a descrpton of Western
Europe durng the Dark Ages for two reasons: Frsty,
because n ths way, the contrast to the
Byzantne(Eastern Roman) Empre s presented more
vvdy, gven that t contnued to mantan and cutvate
the Heenc-Roman cvzaton under condtons of
fnanca prosperty that were totay unknown to the West.
Secondy, because t was durng ths very perod of
barbarsm and darkness that saw the brth of the
extremey audacous Franksh aegatons on the
superorty of ther theoogy and cuture. As $e s"all see,
t"ese alle4ations $ere a((om#anie% .) a
s)stemati( &or4er) o& ,istor) as $ell as .) a
relentless slan%erin4 o& t"e &ree Romans. T"e
2ili&i(ation o& 8B)/antium: $as (onsi%ere% a
ne(essit), as it $oul% 2eil t"e eAtent o& 7estern
Me%ie2al .ar.arism, 4i2en t"at t"e 2er) eAisten(e
o& Romania<s (i2ili/ation >$it" t"e ine2ita.le
(om#arisons t"at it e2o=e%? $as (ontrast enou4" to
t"e .ar.arism o& t"e 7est. The Western deoogca
form eventuay prevaed n Europe, from that tme and up
unt ths day, thanks to the mtary supremacy of the
Franks. It s therefore mportant to bear n mnd the
cutura (or, rather, the prmeva) settng n whch the sef-
awareness of the Western cvzaton that confronted the
Heenc-Roman one was born.

It was precsey ths Franksh deoogca settng that
guded many Western hstorans n ther evauaton of the
mdde ages of Byzantum. These hstorans attempted
once agan to mpose ther own experences and ther own
wordvew throughout Chrstan Europe. ,en(e, t"e)
li=e$ise 4a2e t"e name 8%ar= a4es: to an
analo4ous #erio% o& t"e Eastern Roman Em#ire.
,o$e2er, 4i2en t"at t"e Em#ire "a% li2e% moments
o& trium#" %urin4 t"e E
t"
(entur) >t"e (onstru(tion
alone o& t"e im#ressi2e "ur(" o& t"e ,ol) 7is%om
o& Go% D,a4"ia +o"ia! rule% out t"e element o&
%ar=ness 6? an% 4i2en t"at it "a% also 4i2en .irt"
to some o& t"e most illustrious names o& t"e mi%%le
a4es, %urin4 t"e '
t"
, 1H
t"
an% 11
t"
(enturies >P"otius,
)ril, Met"o%ius, onstantine Por#")ro4ennetus,
Mi("ael Psellus?, t"e 0ran=is" (on(e#t o& 8%ar=
a4es: "a% to .e limite% to t$o (enturies onl)3 t"e
F
t"
an% t"e G
t"
.
Of course darkness was to be found durng those years
ony n the mnds of the petty ruers who had sprung forth
out of the goom-and-moud-covered Bavaran woods, to
reca Perces Yannopouos expresson. The defendng
Roman Empre watched ts terrtores dwnde after the
mpressve onsaught of the Arabs, but t st, nonetheess,
managed to keep them n check and thus preserve ts
cvzaton.
There was of course an nteectua recesson durng ths
perod, possby attrbuted to the fact that the Empre
prmary focused on mtary organzaton (the mtary
Themes appeared n the 7
th
century, n charge of whch
they had paced generas). It was a perod of regroupng
for the state, whch had not ony ost the West, but aso
Syra, Paestne, Egypt and North Afrca. The fnanca
consequences were enormous. By osng Egypt, the Empre
was osng ts tradtona suppy of gran. At the same tme,
as Prenne had underned, the Saracen prates who had
domnated the Medterranean Sea had cut off a
communcatons between the sectons of the once Roman
ake. For the frst tme after 900 years, the Medterranean
had ceased beng an open route of communcaton and
was now beng transformed nto an mpervous border
between hoste natons.
Perhaps the greatest catastrophe was brought on by the
Iconomachy, whch kept the State dvded for 120 years. It
s a fact that we do not have very much nformaton from
ths perod. Few sources have been saved to date, the
most compete one beng Theophanes Chronography.
A the same, ths stuaton probaby does not reate as
much to the cutura decne of etters, as t does to the
Iconomachy confct, where each sde woud destroy the
works of the other as soon as t rose to power. Ths was a
form of cv war that eft countess runs n ts path.
Ne2ert"eless, t"e #i(ture t"at emer4es &rom $it"in
(ontem#orar) resear(" testi&ies at least to a
(ontinuit) an% not a la#se in e%u(ation %urin4 t"ese
(enturies. T"e Uni2ersit) o& onstantino#le
(ontinue% to o#erate. 7e =no$ o& #ro&essors su("
as Geor4e "ero2os(os an% +te#"anos AleAan%reus
$"o tau4"t 4rammar, Aristotle an% Plato %urin4 t"e
mi% F
t"
(entur). KEL A((or%in4 to Lemerle, $"o "a%
ma%e eA"austi2e attem#ts to re(onstru(t t"e
e%u(ational #ro4ram o& t"ose (enturies, one %oes
not o.ser2e an) %is(ontinuation in .ot" elementar)
an% se(on%ar) e%u(ation; not e2en an) remar=a.le
("an4es to t"e stru(ture or t"e #ro4ram, &rom t"e
en% o& t"e E
t"
(entur), t"rou4" to t"e .e4innin4 o&
t"e '
t"
.
From the year 700 onwards, we ack nformaton on hgher
educaton. Most key there was a crss, wthout ths
however mpyng that hgher educaton had ceased to
exst. The bographes of Tarasus (Patrarch 806 - 815), of
Nkephoros (Patrarch 806-815) and of St. Theodore Studte
brng to ght certan data on the exstence of hgher
educaton n the mdde of the 8
th
century. Nkephoros
studes were (n the foowng order): grammar, rhetorc,
astronomy, geometry, musc, arthmetc and he competed
hs educaton wth phosophy. As Lemere beeved, ths
woud have been the uppermost educaton standard of
that era. KFL
In fact, Nkephoros Bography, whch was savaged,
(ontains a len4t") se(tion $"ere Buite lar4e
eA(er#ts o& Aristotelian #"iloso#") are &oun%. T"is
#ro2es t"at t"e stu%) o& Aristotle ne2er (ease% in
onstantino#le, e2en %urin4 t"e 8%ar= a4es:. A few
decades ater, a grandose revva of etters recommenced
n the Empre, wth Photus as the most promnent
personage, who, n hs Lbrary had cted and commented
on some 280 books, whch he had read hmsef. Ths
revva woud obvousy not have been possbe, f a these
works had not been savaged and studed n
Constantnope. Fnay, we must not forget that t was
durng these dark ages, that the most subme of a
poetc works of medaeva tmes was wrtten, n our
anguage: the Akathest HymnJ.
CYL s<ecial :Amn of <raise and ;:anks, Mri;;en in
:onour of ;:e IolA Zir=in and offered in a s;andin=
<osi;ion in c:urc:, and no; sea;ed ([aka;:es;7\
It s understandabe, how the above portrat cannot be
compared to the Franksh-governed Western Romana,
where compete teracy obstructed the repcaton and
preservaton of manuscrpts. Even the educated Franks
of Charemagnes tme dd not possess those authors by
whch cassca cvzaton s defned: nether Homer, nor
Aeschyus, nor Sophoces, nor Thucyddes, nor
Demosthenes, nor Eucd, whe of Patos twenty sx works,
they were aware of ony one, Tmaeus. KGL Besdes, t s
characterstc that Charemagne, abet son and grandson
of a Franksh kng, was nevertheess terate, and t was
ony durng hs od age that he attempted to earn to read
and wrte.
The cutura abyss that separated Romana from Franca
was not mted ony to teracy and to fnanca prosperty.
It extended to every knd of human actvty. When prncess
Theophano (nece of Emperor |ohn Tsmsks) marred Otto
II and went to Germany, t"e Germans .e(ame utterl)
s(an%ali/e% .e(ause s"e .at"e% an% $ore 4arments
ma%e &rom sil=. One German nun had actuay nssted
that she had seen n a vson that these atrocous habts
woud be sendng her to he. K'L A &e$ )ears later, "er
(ousin Maria Ar4)re s"o(=e% t"e 1enetians, $"en
s"e .rou4"t &or=s to 1eni(e &or t"e &irst time. K1HL
Equay abysma was the dfference between the two
words, wth regard to the pace of women. One
characterstc event suffces to depct the cutura gap that
exsted between Romana and the West: n 1125, n the
hospta of the monastery of Pantocrator n Constantnope,
the resdent mae physcans served together wth one
&emale #")si(ian, &our &emale assistant doctors and
two femae reserve assstants. K11L Durng the same
perod, some Western theoogans dd not thnk hghy of
women.
These barbarans, therefore, were the ones who decded to
bud a Western Europe, both n opposton to Romana,
and n order to mpose ther own cvzaton on the
Romans. As of the 9
th
century, they began to pester the
Romans wth a seres of works entted Contra errores
Graecorum (Aganst the Errors of the Greeks), n whch
they supposedy proved the countess dogmatc and
other errors of the Greeks. Nowadays, the descendants
of those barbarc trbes are strvng to persuade the st
unconvnced neoRomans that we a share the same
common cutura hertage, therefore we are supposedy
obged to agree to concessons, even n matters
pertanng to our natona rghts, for fear of dspeasng
them. The progressve westernzaton of Heas has
obvousy made the acceptance of such demands a ot
easer.
It s often sad that the man contrbuton of Byzantum
to humanty was the preservaton of ancent Heenc works
of poetry, phosophy, etc. Athough ths s correct,
Byzantum dd offer much more than ths, and t aso
created a superb synthess of Heensm and Chrstanty.
Nevertheess, wth the constant repetton of ths phrase,
we are perhaps forgettng another absoutey essenta
dmenson of the matter, namey: why dd the works of
cassca educaton dsappear n the West but were
preserved n the East? If, accordng to the Western vew,
Romans and barbarans had merged and fnay formed the
Western European cvzaton, how s t that the Heenc-
Roman works were ost n the West? When two natons
merge, the new synthess contans eements from both
sdes. In fact, when one of the two s obvousy superor n
cuture to the other, t s to be expected that ts educaton
w domnate over the others educaton. We know that, to
a arge extent, somethng ke ths had ndeed occurred,
durng the synthess of the Romans wth the Heenes,
whch produced the Heenc-Roman cvzaton.

The great tragedy of European Hstory es n the fact that
the cash between Romans and barbarans n the West dd
not brng about the same resuts. The Heenc-Roman
cvzaton rapdy dsappeared durng the 6
th
and 7
th
centures, as we saw above. There s ony one expanaton
for ths, and our understandng of t consttutes a centra
pont for the understandng of the geness of the western
cvzaton. Oute smpy, Romans and barbarans never
dd merge n the West. They remaned soated, because
barbarans were, wth very few exceptons, ncapabe of
embracng the Heenc-Roman cvzaton; ncapabe of
apprecatng anythng beyond certan externa rtuastc
eements. The more profound knowedge of human nature,
of the word, of the end of Hstory, and a that the wsdom
of the Heenc-speakng Fathers of the Church had to offer,
were consdered (and contnue to be consdered) by them
to be nothng more than Byzantnsms, that s, pontess
and ncomprehensbe theoogca conversatons. The
Romans hopes that the Germanc trbes woud eventuay
accept ths accuturaton stumbed on the arrogance and
the potca schemng of the Franks. On the demma of
Romanty or barbarty, Western Europe favoured
barbarty, from the very begnnng of medaeva tmes.
Thus, nstead of enterng a new era of prosperty,
revtazed by the new trbes that were enterng ts cutura
sphere, Western Europe nstead tumbed back nto
prehstorc darkness and was forced to start from scratch.
From there onwards, the barbarans sowy began to set up
ther own cvzaton, startng from n, from prmtvsm.
Most of them soon dsappeared. Names, whose very
menton spawned fear durng the 5
th
and 6
th
centures are
nowadays nothng more than sounds wthout any
hypostass: the Ostrogoths, Vsgoths, Erues, Vandas,
Gepdes, Swebes, Longobards and many others, a
dsappeared wthout eavng any trace, wth one excepton:
the Franks. The Franks not ony managed to wpe out the
Heenc-Roman cvzaton n the parts of Romana that fe
under ther occupaton; they even managed to survve to
ths day, as the protagonsts of Western European Hstory.
Ths s the reason that Western Europe s what t s, and
not a contnent based on the Chrstan, Heenc-Roman
cvzaton. And more than ths: the Franks succeeded n
usurpng the very name Europe, severng t from the
ony cvzed naton of the tme - the Romans. Through
persstent and ong-term attempts, they actuay managed
to aso convnce many Romans that ony the Franks and
ther descendants beong n Europe, and that the
Romans are somethng foregn, somethng nferor. When
ths pan s successfuy fufed, there w be no dfferng
opnon eft to revea the dstorton of Hstory and the
crmes of Western Europeans aganst the hghest
cvzaton that our contnent has ever borne. Even worse,
a the compex-rdden Romans w themseves be rushng
to destroy ther own cvzaton, mporng Westerners to
gve them certfcates of Europeansm, thus rrevocaby
deprvng humanty of the potenta to dscover a fe far
dfferent to that of the mass, neurotc and aenated
exstence that the West has to offer.

These smpe observatons woud have been redundant,
had the Westerners not succeeded n aterng the true
pcture to such an extent that nowadays t s consdered a
tautoogy that the Western cvzaton was born from the
Heenc-Roman one. It s therefore necessary to repeat a
few, smpe truths, so that ths confuson can be dspersed
once and for a. And above a, we need to remember that
the reason ancent works n the West were ost, s ony
because someone destroyed them. The someone was
not the Romans - on the contrary, we know that the free
Romans of the East were the ony ones who preserved
them. Those works were destroyed by the barbarans, the
Franks and the others. Thus, when we say that
Byzantum preserved the works of antquty, the
sgnfcance of ths observaton s not that these works
were savaged by the free Romans; ths woud be ony
natura and sef-evdent. The mportant thng s that
certan others, certan non-Romans - the barbaran
ancestors of Western Europeans - preferred to cash wth
the Heenc-Roman cvzaton and to destroy and
obterate these works.

The choce to destroy everythng foregn, everythng
unfamar, remaned a basc trat of the West n a of ts
contacts wth other cvzatons. However, those who are
surey better quafed to comment on ths observaton
woud be the Incas, the Aztecs, and North Amercan
Indans .

"a#ter F T"e &i rst a##earan(e o& t"e
8Gree=s:
In the 8
th
century the word Greeks - Graec appears for
the frst tme as the natona name used to defne the
Heenc-speakng denzens of the Roman Empre. In the
past, the word had been used to express the word
Heenes n Latn. K1-L Afterwards, however, t was ost
as a natona name, snce the natona sgnfcance of the
word Heene dsappeared. The name Graec (and ts
dervatves Greek, Grec, etc.) was estabshed once agan
after the 8
th
century n a of the Western European tongues
for descrbng the Heenc-speakng Romans. Let us
examne a tte more carefuy, from wthn the sources,
how ths neoogsm came to be.
In Chapter 3 we mentoned how the sub|ects of the
Byzantne Empre consdered themseves Romans and
how the Empre contnued to ca tsef Roman, unt ts
termnaton by the Turks. Ths was exacty what a the
other peopes aso knew them to be, who had any knd of
contact wth the Empre up unt the 8
th
century. For
exampe, the Arabs, who had conquered vast terrtores
after 630 AD, were qute aware that they were conquerng
Romans (Roum n Arabc, as n Turksh too, ater on).
Even today, 1300 years ater, there are, accordng to ther
own estmates, about 1.200.000 Orthodox Chrstans vng
n Syra and Lebanon, who speak Arabc, but decare
themseves to be Roum Ortodox. Not Syran or Lebanese
(after a, these are not consdered ethnc dfferences
wthn the unform Arabc naton) but Roman Orthodox -
descendants of the conquered Romans of the 7
th
century -
who managed to preserve ther regon and natona
dentty for 1300 years, and who st shed a tear today,
whenever they encounter another Roman.

It was ony natura that we were aso named Romans by
the barbarc peopes who setted n Western Romana.
Thus, the Franksh Chronce by Fredegar mentons Phocas
(602 - 610) as a Roman patrcan who acceded to power
n 602. K1@L Further down, the Chronce prases Heracus,
the vanqusher of Persans, wth a rare dspay of
spendour: The Emperor Heracus was mpressve n
appearance, handsome, ta, braver than the others, and a
great warror. He woud often k ons at the hppodrome
and wd boars n remote ocatons . K1CL Ths was the
perod when the Chrstan Word contnued to be unfed,
wth the Roman Emperor as ts head.

Even after Heracus death, the Empre contnued to be
caed Roman. In secton IV, 66 by Fredegar, we read that
Heracus was succeeded by Constantnes son, durng
whose regn the Roman Empre was savagey ooted by the
Saracens. However, nether n Fredegars Chronce nor n
those of hs Hodovers (who kept records up unt 760) do
we meet (not even once) the word Greeks as reference to
the Byzantnes. It s obvous that up unt 760, the Franks
had not yet decded to fasfy Hstory by namng the free
Romans of the Empre Greeks. On the contrary, they
acknowedged that the Empre was one, and that Rome
beonged to t, as can be seen n Fredegars Hodover
(paragraph 37) where he recounts the wars between Franks
and Longobards n 754, foowng Pope Stephens appea to
the Franks for ad. (More detas on these events w be
gven n the next chapter.) Throughout ths Chronce, one
can st dscern a respect and a frendy cmate n the
references to the Empre. Whe Fredegars Hodovers
never used the word Graec, twenty years ater, n 780,
thngs began to change. The Franks wth Charemagne
have now sub|ugated the Longobards and have created a
kngdom that extends over present-day France, Germany,
Swtzerand, Austra and Northern Itay. In Hstory of the
Longobards by Pau the Deacon, who resded n the court
of Charemagne, certan curous neoogsms began to make
ther appearance. Oute nexpcaby, the free Romans
began to be caed Greeks.

The narraton up to the tme of Heracus presents no
probems: Heracus, son of Heraconus, assumed the
governance of the Roman naton. K1EL In fact, Tberus,
who acceded to the throne n 578, s ceary referred to as
the ffteth emperor of the Romans, n an unnterrupted
successon from the Octavan Augustus. K1FL Then, a of
a sudden, the Greeks make ther appearance around
650: When the Gree=s arrved n those days to punder
the sanctuary of the Hoy Archange |Mchae|, whch was
stuated on mount Garganus, Grmwad |duke of the
Longobards| attacked them wth hs army and saughtered
them. K1GL Further aong, however, when referrng to
Constantne IV, he wrtes that the governance of the
Empre of the Romans was undertaken by Constantne,
son of emperor Constantus, who regned over the
Romans for seventeen years. K1'L He repeats the same
words for Constantnes successor, |ustnan II, who
undertook the government of the Romans and
mantaned t for ten years. K*HL.
Needess to say that n a these references to the Romans
of Itay, Pau the Deacon mantans ther proper name,
regardess whether they are the rebeng sub|ects of the
Longobards (for exampe Padua n 599 K*1L) or free
ctzens who had preserved ther property (for exampe
Casss, whch was restored to the Romans by command
of Lutprand n 724 K**L).
Pau the Deacons Hstory of the Longobards contans
certan garng contradctons, whch have been expoted
for centures by Western propaganda. Thus, when Emperor
Constas goes to Itay (662) and begns hs new beratng
war aganst the Longobards, Pau the Deacon wrtes that
the Longobards sent a messenger who was arrested by
the Gree=s and brought to the Emperor. K*-L In other
words, the Romans are suddeny transformed nto Greeks.
They remaned Greeks for as ong as they remaned n
Itay, where the author descrbes scenes of great
trbuatons for the ctzens of Rome and of Southern Itay.
Even the sacred vesses and the treasures beongng to
the churches of God were transported far away, by the
avarce of the Gree=s, through an mpera command.
K*@L And further down: When the Beneventnes and ther
provnces were rd of the Gree=s, kng Grmwad decded
to return to hs paace n Tcnum. K*CL

Oddy enough, after a of these events, the narratve
contnues to refer to Romans and to an emperor of the
Romans n Constantnope, up unt the regn of Leo II n
695. In other words, for as ong as the Roman army under
Emperor Constas was warrng aganst the Longobards and
freeng the ensaved Romans, t was not (accordng to Pau
the Deacon) a Roman army, but a Gree= army. As soon as
the emperor returned to Constantnope, he became a
Roman once agan. These descrptons woud have a
been regarded as qute amusng, f they had not been
wrtten wttngy, and, even worse, f they had not been
embraced by amost a the Western hstorans. However,
gven that these had been wrtten wttngy, and because,
as we know today, the adoptng of forged natona names
aways serves darker ob|ectves, t s necessary to provde
some knd of nterpretaton.
In our opnon, there s ony one possbe nterpretaton for
ths contradcton. It s the one that Romandes suggested.
At some pont after 750, the Franks conceved a coossa
mperast pan: the creaton of an empre that woud
ncude Itay and, of course, the cty-egend: Rome. In
order to mnmze the obstaces, they had to cut off the
Romans of Itay from ther capta, Constantnope, as we
as from ther feow countrymen n the rest of the Roman
Empre. So they started, graduay but systematcay, to
use the term Graec n order to dfferentate the Heenc-
speakng Romans from the Latn-speakng Romans. K*EL
What used to be an nstrument of Franksh mperasm,
ended up a commony accepted hstorca truth, to the
pont that today the Chrstan Roman Empre s often caed
Greek Empre n Western hstores - and of course the
descendants of the Heenc-speakng Romans are caed
Greeks everywhere.

Forty years after Pau the Deacons death, the fasfcaton
was compete. Enhard, who wrote Charemagnes
bography around 830, dd not hestate to ca Constantne
VI a mere emperor of the Greeks. K*FL However, even n
genera, the entre Roman Empre was nothng but Greek,
accordng to Enhard. In hs descrpton of the boundares
of Franca after Charemagnes conquests, he wrtes that
|he| annexed the whoe of Itay, whch extends . from
Aosta to Southern Caabra, at the pont where the
boundares between the Greeks and the Beneventnes
are. K*GL From that tme on, every Western source has
been referrng to the Heenc-speakng Romans as
Greeks, even up to the present day.

After everythng that has been exposed n the 3
rd
chapter
and ths one, the potca motvatons that dctated the
nventon of varous names for the Romans by the
Westerners must have become evdent:
In the 8
th
century, they needed to cut off the Latn-
speakng Romans from the Heenc-speakng Romans n
order to conquer Itay unobstructed. So they nvented the
name Greeks. In the 16
th
through to the 19
th
century,
they had to prevent the Romans from re-estabshng ther
Empre. Thus, they ncknamed t Byzantne, gven that
there was no-one who woud demand ts re-estabshment.
Ths s why we stressed n the ntroducton that the
natona names were devsed wttngy by the Western
Europeans, as the deoogca means of annhatng
Romanty.
In the next chapter we sha foow cosey the potca and
regous events of the second haf of the 8
th
century, when
the great rft between West and Romanty was formng.
Ths s a partcuary mportant perod, whch has not,
however, been suffcenty covered by Heenc
bbography. K*'L For ths reason, we w need to go nto
more deta than we dd n prevous chapters, so that we
may be abe to study n deta how the Franks managed to
cut off a connectons wth the Roman Empre and come
up wth that fcttous nterpretaton of Hstory that prevas
n Europe to ths day.

"a#ter G ! "arl ema4ne an% t"e
autonomi /i n4 o& t"e 7est &rom Romani t)
It was n the 8
th
century that the rft between the Roman
Empre and Western Europe was fnazed. The Franks now
fet powerfu enough to demand for themseves the
eadershp of the Chrstan Word. Accordng to the
medeva convctons however, whch appeared to be
deepy rooted n the ma|orty of the popuaton, the Roman
Emperor was st at the summt of the known Word. Thus,
the need arose for Charemagne, the most renowned kng
of the Franks, to be crowned emperor of the Romans n
800, n order to egtmse hs authorty.
In the pages that foow, we w foow more attentvey the
events that ed to the permanent separaton of Western
Europe from the Roman Empre, between 750 and 800 AD.
It s our persona opnon, that ths perod s especay
decsve n the shapng of the Western European
conscence and Western cvzaton. It was durng these 50
years, that the West chose the confrontaton wth
Romanty, a confrontaton that has never ceased, even n
our tme. And t was durng Charemagnes regn, that the
West became unted nto a powerfu state, whch has snce
comprsed a vson for Western Europeans, as we as
proof of ther common cutura roots that they contnue
to nvoke to ths day. It s by no means a concdence that
the frst attempt for the re-unfcaton of western
Europeans (the EEC of the Sx) was embarked on by those
countres whose terrtores corresponded exacty to the
domnon of Charemagne.
The begnnng of the 8
th
century found Itay dvded
between the Longobards and the free Romans, whose
capta was Constantnope. Ravenna was the
admnstratve centre of Roman Itay and the free
terrtores ncuded Southern Itay aong wth Scy, Napes
and the Ravenna - Rome passageway wth the so-caed.
Vence and Istra contnued to be Roman.
The wars between Romans and Longobards were
ncessant, and the Empre woud occasonay send an
army to defend ts terrtores, but t s a fact that from 580
AD, when the Avars, the Persans and the Arabs reached
coser to the was of Constantnope, the emphass on
defence turned to the East. Consequenty, t was for purey
geopotca reasons that the Western provnces were
negected to a certan degree. The vacancy n power that
ensued n the West aowed for (f not mposed) the
appontment of the Church as a pont of support for the
sufferng Romans. The Pope took ntatves and became
nvoved n the potca game, n an attempt to secure the
survva of hs feow countrymen. Thus, n 594 AD, Pope
Gregory I requested the Emperors permsson to sea a
peace pact wth the Longobards hmsef, despte the
contrary potca w of Constantnope, whch had
favoured a mtary defeat of the barbarans. The 7
th
century provdes us wth many more exampes of ths knd
of ntatve by the Pope.
To the Westerners and the Western-orented hstorans, t
was these ntatves that sgnaed the begnnng of the rft
between the Empre and the Pope; a rft that woud fnay
ead to the Schsm and an open hostty between the
Empre and the West. The reaty, however, s qute
dfferent. In order to comprehend the Popes roe durng
the 7
th
and 8
th
centures, we have but to turn to exampes
wth Roman Patrarchs and archbshops of more recent
Hstory. One such exampe s the Patrarch of
Constantnope, durng the perod of the Turksh
occupaton. Apart from the regous roe, hs roe had aso
been a natona one. He was the Ethnarch of a the
sub|ugated Romans, who tended -wth whatever means he
had at hs dsposa- to the betterment of the fates of the
entre Race. A second such exampe s the archbshop of
Cyprus durng the Brtsh occupaton, before 1960. Ths s
how we shoud evauate the Popes roe durng those
dffcut years, when the barbarans had fenced n the
Romans from a sdes. The secuar ob|ectves and the
terrtora cams that characterze papa hstory n the
pursuant centures are the resut of the sezure of the
papa throne by the Franks n the 11
th
century, and we
shoud n no way ascrbe these characterstcs to the
Romanan Popes of the 8
th
century.
Deveopments n Itay took an unpeasant turn n the
mdde of the 8
th
century. In 751, the Longobards
sub|ugated Ravenna and n the foowng year they
reached the outer was of Rome. Pope Stephen (752 -
757) attempted to cose a dea wth them, ke hs
predecessors had aso done, and when he faed, he asked
for hep from the Emperor Constantne V. Hep however,
durng ths cruca moment that threatened the very
exstence of Rome, was ate n comng. Accordng to the
Lber Pontfcas (Book of the Pontffs), when Stephen
reased that hep was not gong to come from the mpera
throne, he remembered the actons of hs predecessors
Gregory I, Gregory III and Zacharah and enghtened by
Dvne Grace, he sent a message to Ppn, kng of the
Franks. K-HL
Ppn responded affrmatvey and nvted the Pope to
Franca. Durng the meetng that took pace n 754, Ppn
promsed to hep and to protect the Hoy See, whe the
Pope on hs part gave hs bessng to Ppn as kng, and
gave hs sons the tte of patrcan. K-1L We need to stress
here that the tte of patrcan was not of any partcuar
mportance and t was bestowed from tme to tme on
varous barbarans.
The foowng year, Ppn dd n fact go down to Itay and
vanqushed the Longobards. Upon hs departure, however,
the atter voated ther agreements and began to besege
Rome anew. The Pope sent new, desperate appeas to
Ppn, who returned to Itay, scattered the Longobards, and
devered the Roman terrtores to the Pope. Emperor
Constantne V mmedatey sent hs ambassadors,
demandng the return of the terrtores to the Empre.
Ppn, however, refused to do ths, pontng out - unke
what the former Franksh ruers uphed - that he had not
acted on behaf of the Empre. Thus, the ands of the
former exarchate were eft under the potca |ursdcton
of the Pope.
For Western Europe, ths was a decsve moment n ts
Hstory, snce ths was the way that the Papa state was
created, whch has been preserved n varous forms to ths
day, payng a eadng roe n the potca deveopments of
the contnent. The foundng of the Papa state s usuay
descrbed wth expressons such as the revouton of Itay
n the 8
th
century. Hstorans agree that Rome, deepy
dsapponted by Constantnopes ndfference, had decded
to defect once and for a from the East.
It s hghy unkey that the Romans of 755 coud have
seen thngs n the way that we see them today. In ther
eyes, the Pope, beng a genune Roman Ethnarch, dd what
he coud for the safety of the Orthodox Romans, amd the
desperaton n the Longobard-beseged cty. He turned to
the Orthodox naton of the Franks, n order to save Rome
from sub|ugaton; n fact, not |ust Rome, but the entre
exarchate. In other words, he aso wshed to free the
Romans who had been conquered by the Longobards. After
a, we must not forget that Franks and Romans had aed
n the past, n the 6
th
century, when the Franks had heped
the Romans, not ony aganst the Goths, but aso aganst
the Longobards. It was perfecty norma for the Pope to
turn to them, when he saw no hep comng from
Constantnope. When examnng the stuaton through
ths prsm, we dscern no secuar ambtons by the Pope,
nor are there any mperast pans for domnaton over
Western Europe, as Western hstorans usuay assert. A
these probems came much ater, after the 11
th
century,
and t woud be wrong to pace them n the mdde of the
8
th
century.
It s aso evdent (and ths s somethng that a hstorans
accept), that Constantnope dd not have any serous
concerns about the deveopments n Itay. The occupaton
of Ravenna was seen as a temporary event, whch woud
soon be reversed. The confct between Romans and
Longobards was rdded wth such epsodes durng the 7
th
and 8
th
centures. Ppns handng over of the former
exarchate to the Pope and not to the Empre was most
certany an annoyance, as surmsed from the consecutve
deegatons that were sent to Ppn durng that perod.
It was the Emperors decson to strengthen reatons wth
the Franks, n the hope of neutrazng any potenta
extremst tendences of expansonsm from ther part.
Thus, n 757 he sent the chef deegate Georgos to Ppn,
together wth a huge church organ as a gft. It was the frst
tme that Franca had ad eyes on an organ and the
mpresson t made remaned hstorca. K-*L At the same
tme, he suggested marrage between Leo, the Emperors
son, to Ppns daughter Gsea, athough ths proposton
was never reased. In retrospect, we can say that ths
pocy had a very mted outcome, as the Franks contnued
ther expanson even after Ppns death.
It s noteworthy, how the man Roman source for that
perod, Theophanes Chronography, contans ony a
vague knowedge of what was takng pace n the West
durng the decade of 750 (and even there, we fnd a
chronoogca confuson, snce Theophanes paces Pope
Stephens deegaton to Ppn n 723 - 724). K--L At any
rate, ths mted nformaton supports the vew that we
outned above. Theophanes refers to Stephen as the ate
reposed and he aso |ustfes the Popes acton.
Beyond Theophanes, there s not a snge other Heenc-
speakng source avaabe for the events n Itay, as D. H.
Mer has verfed, who has systematcay researched ths
perod. K-@L Thus, we are obged to draw the detas of
these events from the Lber Pontfcas and the Franksh
Codex Caronus, where the Popes correspondence wth
the Franksh kng s kept. The atter however s of uncertan
genuneness. For nstance, t mentons an epste sent by
Pope Stephen to Ppn where the former asks Ppn to now
rd hm of the Greeks aso, so that the hoy, cathoc and
apostoc Church of God may be freed from the nfectous
decetfuness of the Greeks. K-CL
It makes one wonder why the Roman Pope, who had ony
recenty asked for hep from the Roman Emperor
Constantne V, and who contnued to date a hs
documents accordng to the year of the Emperors regn,
woud speak thus vehementy aganst the Greeks. But as
we sha see further down, there are many other strange
thngs n the Franksh sources of ths perod. They cease to
be strange, as soon as we perceve the successve
forgeres made a posteror by ruthess Franksh dpomacy.
In 757, Stephen was succeeded by hs brother Pau I. The
orchestrated propaganda of the Codex Caronus
contnued. In a etter to Ppn, the new Pope condemned
the Greeks as heretcs, even though he dd not expan
what ther heresy was. He cas them nefandssm,
odbes, pervers (mpous, odous, perverse). K-EL Roman
sources are unaware of such a stance by the Pope. We
need to remember that Emperor Constantne V had
reeased new persecutons aganst the Iconophes durng
ths perod, and wth the Synod of Constantnope n 754,
he had aso ascrbed to Iconomachy the character of an
offca dogma for the frst tme. Monks from the East had
come to Rome seekng refuge wth the Pope, who had
remaned steadfasty Orthodox and an conophe. Coud
ths have been the reason for the condemnaton of the
Greeks?
It seems hard to beeve. Were that the case, the Pope
woud not have condemned the Greeks n ther totaty,
but ony the specfc heretca vews of the Emperor.
Dsagreements between Pope and Emperor were qute a
few n the centures pror to 750, and Orthodox Hstory
acknowedges that qute often, the Pope was rght. One
superb exampe was Pope Martnus I, who, abet tortured
and exed, refused to succumb to Constantnopes
Monotheetsm n the 7
th
century. Martnus was procamed
a sant by the Orthodox Church, and he contnues to be
commemorated to ths day. But never dd a Pope express
hmsef n ths way for the totaty of the Romans of the
East.
Furthermore, n 8
th
century Rome, there were 10 Greek
(.e. Heenc-speakng) monasteres, out of a tota 38
monasteres wthn the cty, where the peope sought
refuge from the Arab yoke or from the Iconomachy
persecutors. K-FL Was t ever possbe for the Pope to
condemn the Greeks n ther entrety, when he had so
many Greek monks under hs |ursdcton, and moreso,
when t s a known fact that Pau I hmsef had donated hs
homestead to the Greek ctzens of Rome n 761, havng
ratfed the donaton by a Synodc bu whch had been
sgned by a the cardnas, and whch had the name of the
donor nscrbed n Heenc etterng? K-GL Fnay, we
shoud note that Pope Pau haed from an od, renowned
famy of Rome. K-'L It woud not have been possbe for
hm to begn cang hs feow countrymen, the Romans of
Constantnope, Greeks, at a tme when every Roman
knew that no Greek naton exsted n the East.
In short, to summarze the stuaton, there s no ogca
expanaton for these expressons by Pope Pau I. Snce
these words have not been confrmed by any other source,
n our opnon, we can consder them as posteror
concoctons by the Franksh ndustry for hstorca
fasfcatons. Ths of course s a matter that needs to be
examned by experts; nevertheess, we need to make a
parenthess here, to remnd the reader that Hstory
accordng to the Franks s rfe wth fasfcatons durng ths
perod.
For nstance, the so-caed pseudo-Isdoran ordnances
(a coecton of canons and papa decrees whch were
crcuated by the Franks at the begnnng of the 9th
century) are renowned. These ncude -no ess- 94
spurous papa decrees, as we as the nfamous Donaton
of Constantne. As noted by V. Stephandes, no other
fasfcaton n the hstory of manknd has been conducted
wth such artfuness, and no other forgery has brought
about such huge resuts. The cted forgeres were not
composed from mere fgments of the magnaton, but
from eements taken from a panstakng study of
theoogca and canonca sources, whch, after beng
sghty dstorted and re-coordnated, produced the desred
resut. K@HL
Furthermore, a few decades ater, t was observed that the
bographes of popes |ohn VIII, Martn I and Adran III (872 -
885), had been removed from the Book of Pontffs (Lber
Pontfcas), an unprecedented knd of omsson, as
noted by Loungs. K@1L
Obvousy, these popes had no pace n Hstory (as fasfed
by the Franks), gven that they had sent congratuatons to
the mpera army whch had drven out the Arabs from
Southern Itay. In fact, Pope |ohn VIII had prompted the
commanders of the army to go to Rome, to defend the
Romans there. K@*L
Subsequenty, t was not at a strange that the Franks
retroactvey erased hs bography, whch obvousy must
have aso ncuded other evdence that woud have
reveaed the Franksh forgeres.
At any rate, an n-depth examnaton of Franksh forgeres
woud demand a partcuary voumnous research that
woud eave modern-day readers speechess. Wth ths n
mnd, we need not search any further, to understand why,
durng that same perod of tme, the Romans of the East
had begun -otherwse nexpcaby- to be referred to as
Greeks n both the Codex Caronus and n Pau the
Deacons Hstorae Langobardorum. Obvousy, t was a
predetermned potca decson that dctated such a
fasfcaton.
Ppn ded n 768 AD and hs kngdom was dvded between
hs sons Chares and Charemagne, accordng to the
German custom. The atter ded three years ater, whereas
the former regned for 46 years and became known n
Hstory as Chares the Great or Charemagne.
In the very frst year of the two brothers regn, the new
Pope, Stephen III, convened the Lateran Synod (769),
many n order to sove the probem of the presence of a
camant of the papa throne. Ths Synod, however,
acqured a speca nterest, n ght of ater deveopments.
For one thng, t was the frst synod to take pace n Rome,
n whch 0ran=is" bshops -12 n number - partcpated,
aong wth 39 Roman bshops (a deta whch, ncdentay,
aso proves that the dstncton between Romans and
Franks was st evdent n 769 AD). K@-L
Wth the Lateran Synod, the Pope had aso aspred to
ncorporate the Franks n the Orthodox camp. By offerng
them for the frst tme the honour of partcpatng n the
Synod, he hoped to keep them more commtted to hm n
vew of future Longobard expansonst ams. Hstory,
however, proved hm wrong, as the Franks soon afterwards
embarked on ther own expansonst wars, wthout showng
any respect towards Orthodoxy or the Romans.
Nonetheess, ths synod aso had a secondary sgnfcance.
One of ts mportant decsons was the uncondtona
support of the veneraton of cons (n fact, epstes by the
Patrarchates of Aexandra, Antoch and |erusaem, whch
were n favour of the veneraton of cons, were rected
durng the synod). At the same tme, however, as n every
synod, the confrmaton of acceptance of the decsons of
precedng Ecumenca Synods was repeated. It was
underned that the correct fath s defned ony by
Ecumenca Synods, and the Symbo of Fath was rected.
K@@L The Franksh bshops unanmousy agreed wth a
these decsons and decaratons. The Chrstan Church
contnued to be one and ndvsbe, even n 770 AD, wth
the excepton of Constantnopes stance on the
Iconomachy ssue.
However, scarcey twenty years had gone by, when the
Franks changed ther stance atogether, re|ectng
everythng that they had accepted durng the Lateran
Synod. They dsregarded the unaterabe status of the
Symbo of Fath, by addng the foque cause. They
re|ected the excusvty of the Ecumenca Synods for
defnng the dogma, by offcay recognzng the
arbtrarness of every secuar eader or Pope, somethng
that ed the Latn church nto authortaran adventures n
the centures that foowed. They aso re|ected the
veneraton of cons, even after Constantnope had
reverted n favour of cons. Havng embarked on such
actons, they began ever snce to assert (and they
contnue to do so) that they were the ones who had
preserved the correct Chrstan fath, as opposed to the
Romans, whom they began to systematcay sander for
many centures, wth ther Contra Errores Graecorum.
But et us take a coser ook, to see what exacty
happened.
Despte the contrary opnon adopted by some hstorans,
t was not the Iconomachy that caused the regous
confct between the Franks and the Empre. A few years
after the Lateran Synod, the stuaton changed n
Constantnope and an conophe Empress, Irene,
convened the 7
th
Ecumenca Synod (Ncaea, 787). As we
know, ths Synod fuy restored the veneraton of cons.
What was the Franks reacton to ths? Instead of hang
the return of the heretca Greeks to the orthodox fath,
they composed a repy, Captuare adversus synodum,
whch re|ected the decsons of the Ncene Synod.
Ths was the tme when Charemagnes mtary successes
gave brth to dreams of word domnaton n the Franksh
court. Indeed, the Franks now fet powerfu enough to cast
asde every pretense: they were not n the east nterested
n any orthodox fath - even the condemnaton of the
Iconomachy n 769 meant nothng more to them than a
means of conquerng Itay. They were not even nterested
n the Pope, as ong as he hed a dfferent opnon: when
Pope Adran receved the Captuare, t must have
shocked hm. He woud not have expected ths knd of a
reacton, gven that hs representatves had partcpated n
the 7
th
Ecumenca Synod, hs epstes had been recorded
n the Synods Mnutes, and the Patrarch Tarasus hmsef
had ponted out how exceptonay focused Adran was, on
the ancent tradtons of the Cathoc (overa) and
Apostoc Church.K@CL He mmedatey composed a repy,
known as Hadranum, and sent t to Charemagne. In t,
he refuted, pont by pont, a the Franksh postons,
adherng to the orthodox decsons of that Ecumenca
Synod. Charemagne, however, had aready made hs own
decsons. Instead of acceptng the Popes carfcatons
and re|ocng - as a Orthodox normay do to ths very day
- over the vctory of the cons, whch decson had been co-
sgned by a fve Patrarchates, he nstead nstructed hs
advsers to compose a new theoogy. Ths s how the
renowned Lbr Caron came to be, whch expressed the
Franksh theoogca postons, as opposed to the Orthodox
ones, n both Rome and n Constantnope.
Dsputes and revoutonary changes occur very rarey n
word Hstory. Usuay, the fow of events s so contnuous,
that one cannot easy dscern where one era ends, and
another one begns. In the Lbr Caron, however, a
hstoran s entted to acknowedge the huge rft that
occurred n European Hstory. If there was one moment
durng whch the separaton of Western Europe from
Romanty was fnazed, t was the decade of 790. The
reasons for the separaton shoud not be sought -as many
beeve- n geographca reasons or ngustc dfferences.
The Romans of Itay and the Romans of the East contnued
to be Romans, whether they spoke Latn, or Heenc. Nor
were there any regous causes, gven that the dspute
over cons had been resoved (abet temporary) after the
Synod of 787. Nor shoud one ook for the reason of the
separaton n the supposed aboton of the Western Roman
Empre n 476, as we expaned n Chapter 4. Fnay, even
the foundng of the papa state n 756 dd not cause the
rft between the West, Rome and the East.
It becomes cear, from everythng that we descrbed, that
the Rome-Constantnope dspute was a temporary one
and that t was setted by the Ecumenca Synod of 787.
And n our opnon, t s odd, how acknowedged hstorans
such as Karayannopouos assert that after the 7
th
Ecumenca Synod any brdgng between the pope and
Byzantum was no onger possbe, hence the pope was
forced to turn once agan to the Franks. K@EL These
hstorans have embraced the Western vew that the
proferaton of the Byzantne domnon throughout the
south of Itay (after the battes between Franks and
Byzantnes n 787) worred pope Adran very much.
K@FL It seems, however, that the very much was
apparenty not that much, snce Adran went ahead and
partcpated n the Ncean Synod, when he coud have
refused the nvtaton on the pretext that Rome no onger
beonged to the Empre; that t was ndependent. In fact,
the very much proved to be rather ess, snce, n spte
of hs worryng, Adran (wth the Hadranum that we
mentoned earer) preferred to oppose those who woud
have protected hm from Byzantne expansonsm - the
Franks.
Instead of regurgtatng the Franksh propaganda, t woud
be far smper to examne the Roman vew, whch, f
anythng, possesses a greater hermeneutc capabty (and
fewer ogca contradctons) regardng the events of the
perod 750 - 800 AD. The pcture that w be formed by
the Roman vewpont s st mosty unknown. However,
the genera axs around whch the mosac fragments are to
be peced together s known to us, and t s none other
than the one we descrbed n ths chapter.
Let us now see exacty what took pace after
Charemagnes decson to confront the Roman Empre and
the Pope. Aready n 787, after the Franks had permanenty
prevaed n Northern Itay, and havng paced Centra Itay
under ther protecton, they turned upon the South. Ther
frst target was the ndependent Longobard ducat of
Benevento, athough of course ther utmate ob|ectve was
to competey annex Southern Itay, so that any Roman
resstance woud be emnated.
Ths dsturbed Constantnope. Unt that moment, t coud
ony observe -weakened as t was- the gradua oss of the
Ravenna exarchate; however, t ooked as though
Campana and Apua contnued to be a non-negotabe ne
of defence for the Empre. Thus, mpera forces anded n
Caabra and aed wth Benevento. K@GL From 787 - 788,
drect confcts began between the mpera army and the
Franks, wth Southern Itay as the enved prze. Dpomatc
reatons between Constantnope and Charemagne were
cut off for ten years, and one of the mraces that took
pace durng ths cessaton was the most famous marrage
by proxy that the mdde ages had ever known, namey,
between the Emperor Constantne VI and Charemagnes
daughter, Rotrude.
In 794, Charemagne convened an overszed Franksh
Synod n Frankfurt, whch egazed the recent theoogca
arbtrarness of hs court. Durng ths synod, the
veneraton of cons was condemned as a non-Chrstan
practce, the tte of Ecumenca for the Ncene Synod of
787 was re|ected, and the foque was nserted n the
Symbo of Fath. Many other actons of Constantnope
were aso condemned, such as the Emperors requrement
to presde over the Synods as an so-aposte etc. K@'L In
genera, we can say that the Franks had chosen
confrontaton at a potca eve, and were now tryng to
adorn ther pans wth sef-desgned regous
dfferences. Ths s the reason that ther arguments have
no speca vaue. As Romandes had apty observed, what
we have here s an exampe of a newy formed group of
Germanc trbes, who began to teach the Romans, before
actuay acqurng any educaton themseves. KCHL
One way or another, the sources that the Franksh
theoogans coud resort to were scant : ony whatever had
remaned after the 300 years of destructons and darkness
that we descrbed n Chapter 6. |udgng by what ther
references revea, they reed many on the work of Pope
Gregory I, as we as the summares of works that had
been preserved by Isdore of Seve. KC1L On the contrary,
the Ncene Synod (as Western hstorans aso accept) had
access to countess sources; some from the Patrarcha
brary and others whch had been brought aong by the
Synods partcpants from ther Metroposes.
References to the sources, as we as to the mpressvey
exhaustve cross-referencng of excerpts, can be found n
the Mnutes of the Ncene Synod, whch have survved to
ths day. KC*L
One of the nnovatons that was ntroduced by the Franks
at the Synod of Frankfurt, became a crtca pont of
frcton n the dspute between the Orthodox Church and
the Latn one; the sogan -so to speak- of the regous
confct between the West and Orthodoxy. We are referrng
to the foque. Ths tny addton of three words (an%
t"e +on) n the Symbo of Fath nspred thousands of
pages to be wrtten, however, the nterested reader shoud
refer to those who are more specazed than us on the
theoogca arguments of the two sdes. We w, however,
menton some hstorca eements on ts geness, snce
they beong to the tme perod that we are anayzng.
To begn wth, we shoud note that even n ths matter, the
Franks had created a myth that has prevaed up to ths
day, even though t s hstorcay unfounded. In other
words, the vew that the foque was the source of the
dfference between the Roman Cathoc and Heenc
Orthodox Church s st domnant.
Ths myth must, fnay, be eradcated. The truth s that a
the Roman Popes were opposed to the foque, from the
moment that t was nserted n the Symbo of Fath by the
Franks. In fact, Pope Leo III (796 - 816), who had frsthand
experence of the Franks pressures on ths matter, dd
somethng that reveaed the true extent of the papa
reacton to the arbtrary Franksh acts.
He arranged so that the orthodox Symbo of Fath (wthout
the foque) be nscrbed on two sver paques (one n
Latn and one n Heenc), whch he then affxed hgh up
on a wa n the cathedra of St. Peter, so that t coud be
read ceary by a the fathfu. Leo had hoped that the
Franks woud not dare desecrate the most sacred centre of
Western Chrstanty.
In 809, the Franks went ahead and offcay recognzed the
foque, wth the Synod of Aachen. Gven that the Pope
contnued to uphod the Orthodox tradton, Charemagne
sent a deegaton to Rome headed by the monk
Smaragdus, n the hope of changng the Popes stance. In
the Mnutes of ths meetng, whch have been preserved to
ths day, t s qute evdent that Leo categorcay refused
to be swayed. KC-L Leos successors aso contnued to
oppose the foque, unt the Franks voenty sezed the
Patrarchate of Rome and permanenty enthroned ther
own Pope (probaby around 1009 onwards). KC@L It was
ony after a Frank ascended the papa throne, that the
Popes began to support the foque and to oppose the
Orthodox poston of the remanng four Patrarchates. Ths
was the reason that the Orthodox Romans ceased referrng
to the Church of Rome as Roman Cathoc after t was
beseged by the Franks: t was nether Roman (n the
natona-cutura sense of the term), nor of course was t
Cathoc, as t was now severed from the cathoc
(Greek, means Overa) Body of the Chrstan Church. It
has snce been referred to as Latn, and ths s the ony
term befts t.
Let us now move on, to the famous coronaton of
Charemagne n Rome, as emperor of the Romans on
Chrstmas day of 800 AD. The events precedng and durng
the coronaton have been the sub|ect of exhaustve
research by medeva hstorans, therefore we ony need to
make a bref menton of t. Besdes, after everythng that
has been exposed so far, our vew s that ths coronaton
represented the concuson, not the begnnng, of the ant-
Roman pocy of the Franks.
Pope Adran ded n 796 and was succeeded by Leo III.
Charemagne arranged to secure the sub|ugaton of the
new Pope, by sendng hm a seres of nstructons and
obgng hm to thenceforth date hs documents, startng
from the date of the Franksh occupaton of Northern Itay.
KCCL The Pope was aso pressured nto gvng up the keys
to St. Peters cathedra, aong wth the banner of the cty of
Rome, to Charemagne.
Western hstorans beeve that ths act was proof of the
Popes preference to the Franks and not to the Empre. Ths
aegaton woud have had some sort of bass, f the papa
state were truy ndependent. But ndependence was
nonexstent, as Charemagnes armes oomed above the
heads of the Romans of Itay. Even Gbbon had observed
ths, when he very accuratey noted that: Charemagnes
power and potcs annhated an enemy (the Longobards),
and mposed a master on the Romans. KCEL Besdes, the
Franks behaved as though they were the ega owners of
the former exarchate. As mentoned n the Codex
Caronus, Charemagne rpped out the mosacs from the
paace n Ravenna and took them to Aachen to adorn hs
own paace. KCFL
In 799, certan reatves of the former Pope Adran,
attacked, abused and mprsoned Leo. Wth the hep of
frends, he managed to escape and eventuay reached
Saxony, where he asked for Charemagnes hep. The atter
decded to take Leos sde. At the same tme, t s certan
that he saw before hm a unque opportunty to further
promote hs ob|ectves. Thus, n the negotatons that
foowed, Chares most probaby demanded qud pro quo
from the Pope, even though the Western sources do not
menton anythng of the knd. Leo, whose very fe now
hnged on Charemagnes support, coud not refuse hm
anythng.
The events that foowed are we-known: Leo returned to
hs throne, whe Chares (entrey by concdence)
announced that he wshed to ceebrate the 800
th
annversary of the Brth of Chrst n Rome. Durng the
Chrstmas servce n St. Peters cathedra, the Pope
crowned Charemagne, anonted hm wth o, and the
spectators accamed hm as ther emperor. Chares began
to mnt goden cons wth hs face engraved on them,
aong wth the monogram of the Pope. The 25
th
of
December 800 s consdered n the West as the date of re-
estabshment of the Western Roman Empre. In the
Franksh chronces of that tme, Charemagne s sted as
the 68
th
emperor, after the Roman Emperor Constantne VI.
KCGL
Charemagnes successors were to bear the tte of
emperor n the varous compostons of the state (the
better-known one beng the Hoy Roman Empre of the
Germanc Naton), up to the begnnng of the 19
th
century.
In fact, the Germans contnued to enumerate ther
emperors, begnnng from Octavan Augustus and up to
Francs II (1806), who was consdered the 120
th
Roman
Emperor. KC'L The Franks deveoped a somewhat washy,
theoretca nterpretaton for the arbtrary acton of
Charemagne, whch they nevertheess mposed for tweve
centures, up unt our tme. The formuaton of ths theory
has been preserved n the Chronce of Laureshen (9
th
century) and we quote t herebeow:
Gven that the tte of emperor ceased to exst
among the Greeks, and because ther Empre was
rued by a woman (meanng Irene), both Pope Leo
and the rest of the Fathers who were assembed n
Rome, as we as the entre Chrstan fod, beeved
that t was ther duty to accam the Franksh kng
Chares as ther emperor, who was the ruer of Rome,
where the Caesars of a the other parts of Itay, Gau
and Germany were aso based. And snce God had
entrusted a of the aforementoned countres to hm,
t seemed proper for hm to aso assume the tte of
Emperor, wth the hep of God and the prayers of a
Chrstans. KEHL
In actua fact, the exact tte that was gven to
Charemagne durng hs coronaton was not made known.
He hmsef never dared to sgn anythng as Emperor of
the Romans (Imperator Romanorum), whch was the
tte of the emperors of Constantnope. After 800 AD, he
smpy added the tte Romanorum gubernans mperum
(=governor of the empre of the Romans) to the exstng
tte of rex Francorum (=kng of the Franks) and rex
Langobardorum (=kng of the Longobards). KE1L Ths
form of tte was unknown n the Roman mpera tradton.
Later on, the Franks asserted that wth hs vountary
choce to crown Charemagne, the Pope had supposedy
transferred the mpera crown from the East to the West,
from the Greeks to the Franks. Invokng ths famous
theory of transato mper (=shftng of the mpera
status), ater popes, such as Innocent III, attempted to
mpose and to vadate ther theocratc ams on the
emperors of the West. KE*L But the sombre Western taes
of never-endng confcts between popes that drected
entre armes and the authortaran Franco-German ruers
w not preoccupy us here.
What does concern us s whether Leos actons were
ndeed vountary. We read Gbbons vew prevousy;
Theophanes n turn, characterstcay wrote that Leo
returned to hs throne (after the events of 799) and that
thereafter, Rome was paced under Franksh contro:
(Leo), when appeang to Chares, the kng of Franks for
support, had rgorousy defended hm from hs enemes
and he (Chares) renstated hm once agan on the same
throne, whe Rome was thereafter paced under the rue of
the Franks. KE-L In other words, for Theophanes, who
wrote |ust 14 years ater, these two events had a cause-
and-effect reatonshp. Leos renstatement aso sgnfed
Romes sub|ugaton to the Franks.
The theores about a supposed ndependent decson were
so nave, that they coud not convnce any Roman of the
East. Theophanes concudes: (Leo) rewarded Chares, by
crownng hm kng of the Romans nsde the church of the
Hoy Aposte Peter, anontng hm wth o from head to toe
and vestng hm wth roya garb and crown. KE@L The
smpe ogca deducton of any unpre|udced researcher,
that Leo recompensed Chares for hs persona hep by
crownng hm kng n Rome, s aready found n
Theophanes work and there s no need for us to resort to
nteectua acrobatcs or compcated scenaros n order
to dscern the truth.
Equay ndcatve s a phrase by Enhard, Charemagnes
advser, whch we w come back to, further down. For the
perod after 800 AD, Enhard wrote: ..(despte the peace
treaty of 812), the power of the Franks aways seemed
suspcous n the eyes of the Greeks and the Romans.
KECL In other words, he admts that those who the Franks
caed Romans (the Latn-speakng Romans) fostered
hoste feengs for the Franks. How was t possbe then,
for them to accam Chares as ther emperor?
Charemagne was nothng more to them than a foregn
conqueror. He was not a Roman, nor dd the Romans want
hm as ther kng.
But t appears that a these sef-evdent facts are not
enough to convnce Western hstorans, so that we can
eventuay do away wth expressons of the type re-
estabshment of the Western Roman Empre. Havng
ved for many centures wth the convcton that they are
members of the Hoy Roman Empre of the German
Naton, Western Europeans fnd t dffcut -and n the ong
run refuse - to recant the fasfcaton of Hstory that ther
ancestors had concocted. Ths s why we stressed n the
ntroducton of our study that the hstorca andmark
that they used as ther begnnng, contnues to be entrey
dfferent to ours, and ther dfferent cutura tradton does
not aow them to restore the hstorca truth, to ths very
day.
To concude our commentary on Laureshens Chronce,
we aso need to pont out the remarkabe ogca error that
the cted excerpt contans. Hs basc argument was that
because of the Greeks ack of an emperor, t was decded
to procam Charemagne as ther emperor. But then, that
woud have made Charemagne emperor of the Greeks!
These are the knds of comca errors that the Franks fa
nto, when they attempt to fasfy Hstory and rename the
Romans of the East Greeks, n order to dfferentate them
from ther feow- Romans of Itay.
The reacton of the Roman Empre to Charemagnes
coronaton was, of course, a hoste one. Charemagne was
seen as the usurper of a tte that beonged ony to the
Roman Emperor of Constantnope. In order to subdue ther
reactons (or to compete hs expansonst pans,
dependng on how one nterprets the events),
Charemagne dspatched an offca deegaton n 802, to
ask for the hand of the empress Irene n marrage, so that
the dawn and the dusk mght be unted, to quote
Theophanes famous expresson. KEEL The overthrow of
Irene from power n October of the same year, however,
postponed every such prospect.
The battes between Romans and Franks recommenced n
804 around the Roman provnces of Vence and Damata,
gven that the Franks expansonsm had by now reached
the Bakans. After repeated cashes, the two sdes sgned a
peace treaty n 812, accordng to whch the two provnces
were to reman Roman. Constantnope n turn
acknowedged the Franksh demands n Croata, and ts
deegaton addressed Charemagne as kng. It s not
easy to opne exacty what ths concesson meant for
Constantnope, as no reated comments were found n the
sources. KEFL At any rate, Franksh power began to wane
after Charemagnes death n 814, and the whoe ssue of
the successors ttes dd not partcuary preoccupy
Constantnope unt the foowng century.
After hs death, Charemagne became the greatest egend
of medeva Western Europe and hs accompshments
woud nspre countess works of terature. The top-
rankng one among them s the great epc of the 12
th
century that marked the begnnng of French terature,
Chanson de Roand (Roands song). To Western
Europeans, he contnues to be the greatest soveregn n
ther Hstory to ths day, and hs regn supposedy
consttutes proof of the common descent of a the peopes
that are presenty caed Westerners. Ths obvousy s
the reason that the ma|estc budng of the European
Unon Counc bears hs name. Equay characterstc s the
fact that there s a egsated Charemagne Prze whch s
awarded (n Aachen) to those who contrbute towards the
European unfcaton dea. Ths prze, whch bears the
name of an enemy and a conqueror of Romanty, has been
even awarded to a top-rankng Heene potcan who
payed a eadng roe n our entry to the EEC. It appears
that the hstorca amnesa whch s sowy spreadng
throughout Heensm w cause us to wngy accept as
members of our hertage a of the hstorca enemes of
Romanty, as ong as our Western European partners ask
us to .
In concudng the ast chapter of our study, we woud ke
to pont out that what s mpressve n the events of 750 -
812 s the fact that the Roman reacton to Franksh
expansonsm was purey a defensve one, not to menton
a passve one. It was not the Romans who decded to
sever ther reatons wth the West, but the opposte. The
Westerners, the Franks, wanted n every way to break off
a potca and cutura tes, and confront the Roman
Empre. Ths s why ther ater propaganda - that a
mergng of Romans and Franks supposedy produced the
Western European cvsaton - s an outrght, mpudent
fasty. Every snge aggressve act orgnated from the sde
of the Franks, who dd not hestate to use every possbe
means, ncudng mtary voence, backmang the Pope,
destructon of budngs, fasfcaton of documents,
aterng natona names, and a ths, n order to sub|ugate,
not merge wth the Romans of Itay. But even n genera,
when readng the sources of that era, one s gven the
mpresson that the rft was stressed far more by the
Franks than t was by the Romans. Theophanes gded
over the event of Charemagnes coronaton n |ust two
nes, to return to the more pressng probems of the
Empre wth the Arabs.
It was of course the Franks prerogatve to cash wth the
Empre. Snce however they chose to secede and create
ther own cutura tradton, t s an extremey audacous
fasfcaton of Hstory to ca ther naton the Roman
Empre, to ca the Romans Greeks, and to mantan that
the Byzantnes destroyed the Heenc-Roman
cvsaton, whose true hers are supposedy the
Westerners.
If, at a theoogca eve, the great rft between the West
and Romanty must be sought among the Lbr Caron
texts, then at an everyday eve, t shoud be found n the
mtary occupaton of Centra Itay, the Exarchate, and n
the attacks aganst the South. That was when the Romans
earned from frst-hand experence the ruthess dsposton
of the Franks, and t was ths knowedge that eft ts
permanent mark on the character and the orentaton of
Romanty. Even from the very begnnng of the 9
th
century,
Enhard, Charemagnes advser and bographer, had
descrbed the Romans sentments after the repeated
aggressve actons of the Franks: When he (Chares)
accepted the tte of emperor, he aroused many suspcons
(wth the emperors of Constantnope), as t was qute
key that he was pannng to take over the mpera power
(.) The prowess of the Franks aways ooked suspcous n
the eyes of the Greeks and the Romans. Ths s aso where
the Greek proverb comes from, and whch contnues to be
quoted, even today (n 830): If a Frank s your frend, then
he s defntey not your neghbour. KEGL
Ths proverb very eoquenty sums up the Romans
mpresson of ther acquantance wth the Franks. The
Romans were therefore gven the opportunty to acquant
themseves wth the prmtve arrogance of the
Westerners, ong before the Schsm and the Crusades;
and t was ong before the Turksh occupaton, that the
Westerners had decded on ther hoste stance towards us.
The mmense rft between the West and Romanty had
been a conscous decson of the Franks, who were n fact
very much aware of the consequences of ther actons, as
the aforementoned excerpt from Enhard reveas. Thus,
the frst appearance of a European awareness concdes
wth the decson of the Franks to be severed from the
Roman Chrstan Word and to seek confct wth the
Heenc-Roman word. As we had aso underned n the
ntroducton, the noton of a Western Europe was born n
the 8
th
century, precsey wthn ths opposton towards
Romanty and because of ths opposton.
Ths s why any dscussons on whether Byzantum (and
ts successor, Heas) beong to Western Europe or not, are
totay redundant.
However, for those who may st have certan doubts
about the true dsposton of the Franks towards the
Romans, these have been preserved for the comng
generatons by Lutprand, bshop of Cremona, who came to
Constantnope n 969 as a deegate of the Franco-German
emperor, Otto I. Hs adventuresome meetng wth the
emperor Ncephorus Phocas was extremey reveang.
When Phocas ponted out that Otto dd not have the rght
to marry (as he wshed) a roya-by-brth prncess of
Constantnope because you are not Romans, but
Longobards, then Lutprand, nstead of attemptng to
enhance hs roe by presentng arguments that supported
the Romanty of the barbarans, expoded nto a voey of
abusve anguage, whch has eft ts mark n Hstory. Let us
cte an ndcatve excerpt of ths response:
The fratrcda Romuus, after whom the Romans were
named, came to be known n Chronography as a whores
offsprng, a bastard n other words, who founded an
asyum (aut"or<s note3 "e means Rome) n whch he
wecomed debtors, fugtves, saves, murderers and
crmnas worthy of the death penaty, and gathered
around hm a swarm of such peope, whom he then named
Romans. It was from these so-caed nobes that those
whom you ca word ruers - n other words emperors -
orgnate. However, we the Longobards, Saxons, Franks,
Lotharngans, Bavarans, Swebes, and Burgundans, have
so much contempt for them, that whenever our anger s
aroused aganst our enemes, we do not drect any other
nsuts at them, except one word: Roman! And under ths
very name of Roman we ncude every knd ncvty,
cowardce, avarce, debauchery, nfdety and generay
every knd of mace. KE'L
Naturay, ths text by the offca envoy of the Franco-
German emperor speaks for tsef about the sentments of
a Westerners aganst us. It aso provdes us wth the
usefu pece of nformaton that up unt 969, the Franks
had obvousy st not decded to become assmated
wth the Romans. The fasfcaton of Hstory must
therefore be attrbuted to a ater era . KFHL
Therefore, t was nether the Turksh occupaton nor the
Crusades that were the cause of separaton between
Heensm and the West; these events merey exacerbated
the exstng dfferences between them. The dfferences
however were pre-exstent and were attrbuted to very
tangbe reasons, whch our ancestors had aready
experenced, durng the 8
th
, 9
th
, and 10
th
centures.
On the demma of Romanty or barbarty, Western
Europe had aready made ts choce n the 8
th
century, and
the consequences of ths choce have snce seaed word
Hstory, to our day.

E#i l o4ue
The gapng vod between Romanty and the West, whose
begnnngs we descrbed n our study, contnued wth
unabated ntensty n the centures that foowed.
Romanty had become famar wth the West and ts ant-
Roman dsposton, from the 8
th
century. In the centures
that foowed, the Franks dd nothng to aay the fears of
the Romans. On the contrary, they contnued to mantan
an uncompromsng stance, demandng our compete
sub|ugaton whenever the opportunty arose.
Mtary confcts were foowed by an exchange of nsuts
(as n the case of Lutprands deegaton n Cremona), to
agan be foowed by more mtary confcts. At the same
tme, on a cutura eve, varous Western authors had
begun to wrte (as of the 9
th
century) endess treatses
entted Contra errores Graecorum aganst the Romans.
Day by day, the two words drew further apart from each
other. The Schsm of 1054 was nothng more than another
characterstc verfcaton of the Franks refusa to
renounce ther theoogca arbtrarness. Later on, new
barbarc trbes from the North competed the sub|ugaton
of the Romans of Southern Itay.
After 1800 years of an ustrous presence, Heensm was
now rrevocaby uprooted from the Itaan pennsua.
At the end of the 11
th
century, the conquerng dsposton
of the Westerners took on an undsgused form, wth ther
so-caed Crusades. Aready wth the frst Crusade, the
uteror motve of certan Latn soveregns had become
evdent, and ths was perceved by Constantnope. As
Anna Comnene wrote n her work Aexad, the ob|ectve
of the Westerners was none other than the conquest of the
Regnant Cty (Constantnope), whch they consdered to
be the natura concuson of ther expedton. KF1L One of
the eaders of the Crusade, Bohemund, dd not hde hs
morta hatred for Romana, and had expressed hs
dedcaton to the pan for ts annhaton, n a passonate
etter addressed to the emperor Aexus, whch s quoted
by Anna Comnena. KF*L
The cmax of the confct came n 1204, when thousands
of hungry vagabonds from every corner of Western Europe
abandoned ther hoves and embarked on a |ourney
(supposedy) for the Hoy Lands. But somethng
happened aong the way, and the destnaton was atered.
The cv confcts between the Romans of ths era aowed
for a these trogodytes to enter Constantnope and sack
t. In a state of shock, our ancestors watched the Western
soders of Chrst brng mues nto the Hoy Bema of the
Hagha Sophas sanctum, and ther anmas sppng on
the foors, eavng ther excrements and bood on the Hoy
Atar, whe a whore that the Latns had brought aong wth
them cmbed onto the patrarchs throne and began to
dance and commt other unspeakabe mpropretes. KF-L
The saughterng and the destructon that foowed
consttute the backest page of Western European Hstory.
God ony knows how many precous works of art, whose
ony copes were preserved n Constantnope, vanshed
forever from the cutura hertage of manknd.
The Franksh regme that foowed after 1204 caused an
unbrdgeabe chasm between the Romans and the
Westerners. Our ancestors had by now fet frst-hand and
throughout a the empre, the Latns dsposton, whch
coud be summed up as the compete annhaton of the
Roman cvsaton and the Heenc anguage. In contrast
to the Turksh occupaton that foowed, whch had
permtted the Romans to keep ther anguage and regon
(and therefore ther dentty), Western domnaton had a
the dstnctve marks of genocde.
Besdes, wherever t dd fnay preva, the Roman
conscence was uprooted n the most voent manner
possbe. One such exampe s Southern Itay, whch was
defntey Heenc for 1800 years. (The sombre hstory of
the heroc but fute resstance of the Romans of Southern
Itay from the 11
th
century to the 16
th
century s
unfortunatey st awatng ts author).
It s worth mentonng that as soon as the Romans
reganed the Cty n 1261, the Pope hastened to offer those
who fought aganst the emperor Mchae Paeoogos the
same absouton of sns that he had gven to the
crusaders who fought aganst the Mosems. KF@L One
must rease that these vews were not ony adopted by
the potca-mtary eadershp of the West. The same
sentments were fostered by enghtened nteectuas
such as the great forerunner of humansm, Petrarch. Here
s what he wrote n the mdde of the 14
th
century: The
Turks are enemes. But these here, the Greeks, are
schsmatcs and even worse than the enemes, so, t s
preferabe that the Turks occupy |erusaem nstead of the
Greeks. KFCL And esewhere: as for these frauds and
Greekngs, I cannot wat to see ths Empre, ths font of
hereses, to be destroyed by our own hands. KFEL
A the above are of course a part of the common
European hertage that nks us to our Western European
partners .
The fact remans, that the ferce resstance of the Romans,
neutrazed a the western attempts to eradcate the
Heenc-Orthodox cvzaton, the one after the other.
Thus, n the 14
th
century, the Franks proceeded to draft a
fna souton (to use the expresson of a we-known
German ruer aganst the |ews). The pan, whch had been
submtted by the Domncan monk Brocardus to the Kng of
France Php VI, ncuded the tota annhaton of the
Romans through a mass kdnappng of chdren, the voent
renouncement of Orthodoxy and a compusory sub|ecton
to the Latn dogma, the burnng of a books that defended
the Eastern Chrstan dogma, and the prohbton of the
Heenc anguage, aong wth the recognton of Franksh
domnaton. KFFL The Romans however refused ths hep
from the West, and chose the esser between the two evs,
namey the Turks.
Hstory vndcated them trumphanty, snce, 400 years
ater they managed to overthrow ther conquerors, havng
preserved both the Heenc anguage and ther Orthodox
fath. Unfortunatey, we cannot say the same for the
mons of our feow Romans of France and Itay, who were
rretrevaby ost, after beng conquered by the Western
barbarans .
After severng tsef from Romanty, the West pursued ts
own course. Ths was the famous course that ed to the
crmes of the Hoy Inquston, to the horrors of save
tradng, to coonzaton and racsm, the prce of whch was
pad by mons of nnocent vctms a over the word. The
promses offered by humansm for a goden age that
woud dawn wth the predomnance of ratonasm and the
progress of scence, were tragcay extngushed n the
Auschwtzes and the Hroshmas that the supremey
cvsed Western countres ed us nto.
In our day, the mpendng danger of a compete ecoogca
coapse of the panet comes to refute most roncay that
promse of an ncessanty ncreasng consumpton, wth
whch the West corrupted every rva cvsaton.
The Romans had no part n, nor any connecton to, a
these crmes of the West. Therefore, they shoud not be
fooed nto erasng ther dfferent hstorca tradton and
rashy accept that they aso share the common European
hertage.
A hertage of a coectve gut for the destructon of the
Heenc-Roman cvsaton, the Hoy Inquston, the
genocde of the natve Amercans, coonzaton, racsm,
gas chambers and nucear bombs s not our hertage, and
we do not have the east desre to have t thrust upon us
by them.
Our hertage, for the past three thousand years, has been
the defence of cvsaton aganst barbarty, the
preservaton of the Truth whch had been reveaed to Man
at some pont n tme and was expressed through our
anguage, the preservaton of hope for a fufed human
exstence, where the yearnng for that sea that the poem
speaks of w fnd an ocean n the baance of goodness,
and where the true word w be n equbrum wth the
expectaton of eternty.
Because Romans know that ther destnaton s to ve
wthn eternty, to partcpate n the never-endng feast
where everythng s fed wth ght, both n heaven and
earth and the underword .
Ths s the hertage that the Romans can present, opposte
the savagery of the West. And ths s the reason why the
demma Romanty or barbarty contnues to be as vvd
as t was 1500 years ago .