1.
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Athens
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The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Athens is an archdiocese of the Catholic Church located in the city of Athens in Greece. The seat is the neoclassic Cathedral Basilica of St. Dionysius the Areopagite, the See of Athens is one of the oldest Christian bishoprics, dating back to Hierotheos the Thesmothete in the mid-1st century AD. 800, it was raised to a metropolitan see, in 1205, the city was captured by the Crusaders, who had conquered Constantinople and dissolved the Byzantine Empire the year before. The Crusaders largely maintained the order they found, appointing Catholic bishops to replace the Orthodox prelates. The last Latin Archbishop, Nicholas Protimo, fled to Venetian-held Euboea, the Catholic see was held by titular archbishops thereafter. On 23 July 1875, the see was restored as the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Athens, ministering to the Roman Catholic inhabitants of the Greek capital, Roman Catholicism in Greece List of Roman Catholic dioceses in Greece
2.
Athens
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Athens is the capital and largest city of Greece. In modern times, Athens is a cosmopolitan metropolis and central to economic, financial, industrial, maritime. In 2015, Athens was ranked the worlds 29th richest city by purchasing power, Athens is recognised as a global city because of its location and its importance in shipping, finance, commerce, media, entertainment, arts, international trade, culture, education and tourism. It is one of the biggest economic centres in southeastern Europe, with a financial sector. The municipality of Athens had a population of 664,046 within its limits. The urban area of Athens extends beyond its administrative city limits. According to Eurostat in 2011, the Functional urban areas of Athens was the 9th most populous FUA in the European Union, Athens is also the southernmost capital on the European mainland. The city also retains Roman and Byzantine monuments, as well as a number of Ottoman monuments. Athens is home to two UNESCO World Heritage Sites, the Acropolis of Athens and the medieval Daphni Monastery, Athens was the host city of the first modern-day Olympic Games in 1896, and 108 years later it welcomed home the 2004 Summer Olympics. In Ancient Greek, the name of the city was Ἀθῆναι a plural, in earlier Greek, such as Homeric Greek, the name had been current in the singular form though, as Ἀθήνη. It was possibly rendered in the later on, like those of Θῆβαι and Μυκῆναι. During the medieval period the name of the city was rendered once again in the singular as Ἀθήνα, an etiological myth explaining how Athens has acquired its name was well known among ancient Athenians and even became the theme of the sculpture on the West pediment of the Parthenon. The goddess of wisdom, Athena, and the god of the seas, Poseidon had many disagreements, in an attempt to compel the people, Poseidon created a salt water spring by striking the ground with his trident, symbolizing naval power. However, when Athena created the tree, symbolizing peace and prosperity. Different etymologies, now rejected, were proposed during the 19th century. Christian Lobeck proposed as the root of the name the word ἄθος or ἄνθος meaning flower, ludwig von Döderlein proposed the stem of the verb θάω, stem θη- to denote Athens as having fertile soil. In classical literature, the city was referred to as the City of the Violet Crown, first documented in Pindars ἰοστέφανοι Ἀθᾶναι. In medieval texts, variant names include Setines, Satine, and Astines, today the caption η πρωτεύουσα, the capital, has become somewhat common
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Greece
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Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, historically also known as Hellas, is a country in southeastern Europe, with a population of approximately 11 million as of 2015. Athens is the capital and largest city, followed by Thessaloniki. Greece is strategically located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, situated on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, the Republic of Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to the northeast. Greece consists of nine regions, Macedonia, Central Greece, the Peloponnese, Thessaly, Epirus, the Aegean Islands, Thrace, Crete. The Aegean Sea lies to the east of the mainland, the Ionian Sea to the west, the Cretan Sea and the Mediterranean Sea to the south. Greece has the longest coastline on the Mediterranean Basin and the 11th longest coastline in the world at 13,676 km in length, featuring a vast number of islands, eighty percent of Greece is mountainous, with Mount Olympus being the highest peak at 2,918 metres. From the eighth century BC, the Greeks were organised into various independent city-states, known as polis, which spanned the entire Mediterranean region and the Black Sea. Greece was annexed by Rome in the second century BC, becoming a part of the Roman Empire and its successor. The Greek Orthodox Church also shaped modern Greek identity and transmitted Greek traditions to the wider Orthodox World, falling under Ottoman dominion in the mid-15th century, the modern nation state of Greece emerged in 1830 following a war of independence. Greeces rich historical legacy is reflected by its 18 UNESCO World Heritage Sites, among the most in Europe, Greece is a democratic and developed country with an advanced high-income economy, a high quality of life, and a very high standard of living. A founding member of the United Nations, Greece was the member to join the European Communities and has been part of the Eurozone since 2001. Greeces unique cultural heritage, large industry, prominent shipping sector. It is the largest economy in the Balkans, where it is an important regional investor, the names for the nation of Greece and the Greek people differ from the names used in other languages, locations and cultures. The earliest evidence of the presence of human ancestors in the southern Balkans, dated to 270,000 BC, is to be found in the Petralona cave, all three stages of the stone age are represented in Greece, for example in the Franchthi Cave. Neolithic settlements in Greece, dating from the 7th millennium BC, are the oldest in Europe by several centuries and these civilizations possessed writing, the Minoans writing in an undeciphered script known as Linear A, and the Mycenaeans in Linear B, an early form of Greek. The Mycenaeans gradually absorbed the Minoans, but collapsed violently around 1200 BC and this ushered in a period known as the Greek Dark Ages, from which written records are absent. The end of the Dark Ages is traditionally dated to 776 BC, the Iliad and the Odyssey, the foundational texts of Western literature, are believed to have been composed by Homer in the 7th or 8th centuries BC. With the end of the Dark Ages, there emerged various kingdoms and city-states across the Greek peninsula, in 508 BC, Cleisthenes instituted the worlds first democratic system of government in Athens
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Ieronymos II of Athens
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Ieronymos II is the Archbishop of Athens and All Greece and as such the primate of the Autocephalous Orthodox Church of Greece. He was elected on 7 February 2008 and he was born Ioannis Liapis in Oinofyta, Boeotia. Ieronymos holds degrees in archaeology, Byzantine studies, and theology from the University of Athens and he has undertaken postgraduate studies at the University of Graz, the University of Regensburg and the University of Munich. In 1981 he was elected Metropolitan Bishop of Thebes and Levadeia, in addition to his pastoral ministry, Ieronymos has been pursuing his work on Christian archaeology and has published two major textbooks, Medieval Monuments of Euboea, and Christian Boeotia. In 1998, he contested the election to the throne of the archbishopric of Athens. On 7 February 2008, Ieronymos was elected the new Archbishop of Athens and All Greece by the Holy Synod of the Church of Greece and he formally took office on 16 February 2008. As of 2016, Ieronymos, is involved in a dispute with Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople over who has authority over certain parts of Greece. On 16 April 2016 he visited, together with Pope Francis and Bartholomew I of Constantinople, list of Archbishops of Athens Timeline of Orthodoxy in Greece Archdiocese of Athens Official website
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Metropolitan Cathedral of Athens
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The Metropolitan Cathedral of the Annunciation popularly known as the Mētrópolis, is the cathedral church of the Archbishopric of Athens and all Greece. Construction of the Cathedral began on Christmas Day,1842 with the laying of the cornerstone by King Otto, workers used marble from 72 demolished churches to build the Cathedrals immense walls. Three architects and 20 years later, it was complete, on May 21,1862, the completed Cathedral was dedicated to the Annunciation of the Mother of God by the King and Queen. The Cathedral is a three-aisled, domed basilica that measures 130 feet long,65 feet wide, inside are the tombs of two saints killed by the Ottoman Turks during the Ottoman period, Saint Philothei and Patriarch Gregory V. Saint Philothei built a convent, was martyred in 1559, and she is honored for ransoming Greek women enslaved in Ottoman Empires harems. His body was rescued by Greek sailors and eventually enshrined in Athens, to the immediate south of the Cathedral is the little Church of St. Eleftherios also called the Little Mitropoli. In the Square in front of the Cathedral stand two statues, the first is that of Saint Constantine XI the Ethnomartyr, the last Byzantine Emperor. The second is a statue of Archbishop Damaskinos who was Archbishop of Athens during World War II and was Regent for King George II and Prime Minister of Greece in 1946. The Metropolitan Cathedral remains a landmark in Athens and the site of important ceremonies with national political figures present, as well as weddings and funerals of the rich
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Dionysius the Areopagite
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Dionysius the Areopagite was a judge at the court Areopagus in Athens who lived in the first century AD. As related in the Acts of the Apostles, he was converted to Christianity by the preaching of the Apostle Paul during the Areopagus sermon, according to Dionysius of Corinth, quoted by Eusebius, this Dionysius then became the first Bishop of Athens. He is venerated as a saint in Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches, in the early 6th century, a series of famous writings of a mystical nature, employing Neoplatonic language to elucidate Christian theological and mystical ideas, was ascribed to the Areopagite. They have long recognized as pseudepigrapha, and their author is now called Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. Dionysius has been misidentified with the martyr of Gaul, Dionysius, however, this mistake by a ninth century writer is ignored and each saint is commemorated on his respective day. St. Dionysus Institute in Paris Early centers of Christianity#Greece Corrigan, Kevin, Harrington, works written by or about Dionysius the Areopagite at Wikisource Hieromartyr Dionysius the Areopagite the Bishop of Athens Orthodox icon and synaxarion
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Greek language
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Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, native to Greece and other parts of the Eastern Mediterranean. It has the longest documented history of any living language, spanning 34 centuries of written records and its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the major part of its history, other systems, such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary, were used previously. The alphabet arose from the Phoenician script and was in turn the basis of the Latin, Cyrillic, Armenian, Coptic, Gothic and many other writing systems. Together with the Latin texts and traditions of the Roman world, during antiquity, Greek was a widely spoken lingua franca in the Mediterranean world and many places beyond. It would eventually become the official parlance of the Byzantine Empire, the language is spoken by at least 13.2 million people today in Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Albania, Turkey, and the Greek diaspora. Greek roots are used to coin new words for other languages, Greek. Greek has been spoken in the Balkan peninsula since around the 3rd millennium BC, the earliest written evidence is a Linear B clay tablet found in Messenia that dates to between 1450 and 1350 BC, making Greek the worlds oldest recorded living language. Among the Indo-European languages, its date of earliest written attestation is matched only by the now extinct Anatolian languages, the Greek language is conventionally divided into the following periods, Proto-Greek, the unrecorded but assumed last ancestor of all known varieties of Greek. The unity of Proto-Greek would have ended as Hellenic migrants entered the Greek peninsula sometime in the Neolithic era or the Bronze Age, Mycenaean Greek, the language of the Mycenaean civilisation. It is recorded in the Linear B script on tablets dating from the 15th century BC onwards, Ancient Greek, in its various dialects, the language of the Archaic and Classical periods of the ancient Greek civilisation. It was widely known throughout the Roman Empire, after the Roman conquest of Greece, an unofficial bilingualism of Greek and Latin was established in the city of Rome and Koine Greek became a first or second language in the Roman Empire. The origin of Christianity can also be traced through Koine Greek, Medieval Greek, also known as Byzantine Greek, the continuation of Koine Greek in Byzantine Greece, up to the demise of the Byzantine Empire in the 15th century. Much of the written Greek that was used as the language of the Byzantine Empire was an eclectic middle-ground variety based on the tradition of written Koine. Modern Greek, Stemming from Medieval Greek, Modern Greek usages can be traced in the Byzantine period and it is the language used by the modern Greeks, and, apart from Standard Modern Greek, there are several dialects of it. In the modern era, the Greek language entered a state of diglossia, the historical unity and continuing identity between the various stages of the Greek language is often emphasised. Greek speakers today still tend to regard literary works of ancient Greek as part of their own rather than a foreign language and it is also often stated that the historical changes have been relatively slight compared with some other languages. According to one estimation, Homeric Greek is probably closer to demotic than 12-century Middle English is to modern spoken English, Greek is spoken by about 13 million people, mainly in Greece, Albania and Cyprus, but also worldwide by the large Greek diaspora. Greek is the language of Greece, where it is spoken by almost the entire population
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Greek Orthodox Church
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Historically, the term Greek Orthodox has also been used to describe all Eastern Orthodox Churches in general, since Greek in Greek Orthodox can refer to the heritage of the Byzantine Empire. Over time, most parts of the liturgy, traditions, and practices of the church of Constantinople were adopted by all, thus, the Eastern Church came to be called Greek Orthodox in the same way that the Western Church is called Roman Catholic. Orthodox Churches, unlike the Catholic Church, have no Bishopric head, such as a Pope, however, they are each governed by a committee of Bishops, called the Holy Synod, with one central Bishop holding the honorary title of first among equals. Greek Orthodox Churches are united in communion with other, as well as with the other Eastern Orthodox Churches. The Eastern Orthodox hold a doctrine and a common form of worship. The most commonly used Divine Liturgy of the Orthodox Church was written by Saint John Chrysostom, others, are attributed to St. Basil the Great, St. James, the Brother of God and St. The majority of Greek Orthodox Christians live within Greece and elsewhere in the southern Balkans, but also in Lebanon, Cyprus, Anatolia, European Turkey, and the South Caucasus. In addition, due to the large Greek diaspora, there are many Greek Orthodox Christians who live in North America, Orthodox Christians in Finland, who compose about 1% of the population, are also under the jurisdiction of a Greek Orthodox Church. Thus, they may attend services held in Old Russian and Old Church Slavonic, the Church conducts its liturgy in Koine Greek in the areas of Albania populated by the ethnic Greek minority, alongside the use of Albanian throughout the country. The Greek and Eastern Churches online Constantelos, Demetrios J. Understanding the Greek Orthodox church, its faith, history, the Orthodox Eastern Church Hussey, Joan Mervyn. The orthodox church in the Byzantine empire online Kephala, Euphrosyne, the Church of the Greek People Past and Present Latourette, Kenneth Scott. Christianity in a Revolutionary Age, II, The Nineteenth Century in Europe, The Protestant,2, 479-484, Christianity in a Revolutionary Age, IV, The Twentieth Century in Europe, The Roman Catholic, Protestant, and Eastern Churches McGuckin, John Anthony. The Encyclopedia of Eastern Orthodox Christianity, media related to Greek Orthodox Church at Wikimedia Commons
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Episcopal see
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An episcopal see is, in the usual meaning of the phrase, the area of a bishops ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Phrases concerning actions occurring within or outside an episcopal see are indicative of the significance of the term. The word see is derived from Latin sedes, which in its original or proper sense denotes the seat or chair that, the word throne is also used, especially in the Eastern Orthodox Church, both for the seat and for the area of ecclesiastical jurisdiction. The term see is also used of the town where the cathedral or the residence is located. Within Roman Catholicism, each diocese is considered to be a See unto itself with an allegiance to the See of Rome. The idea of a See as an entity is somewhat complicated due to the existence of the 23 Particular churches of the Roman Catholic Church. The Western Church and its Eastern Counterparts all reserve some level of autonomy within their particular See, the episcopal see of the Pope, the Bishop of Rome, is known as the Holy See or the Apostolic See, claiming Papal supremacy. The view of the Catholic Church contrasted by the Eastern Catholic idea of Pentarchy, followed by Eastern Orthodox opposition to papal supremacy
