Talk:Cyril and Methodius/Archive 5

Smith on Greeks
'''Smith, Anthony Robert (1987). The ethnic origins of nations. Oxford: B. Blackwell. pp. 108. ISBN 0-631-16169-4.'''

In some ways, the Byzantine upper strata proved more successful in creating an ethrnc state, although this was by no means their primary intention, if it was one at all. From the start the Byzantine imperial mythomoteur was dual, at once dynastic and religious. As vice-regent of God and heir of the universal Roman Empire, the Byzantine emperor was more than another dynastic ruler, he carried the nostalgia of the classical work! and the messianic hopes of Orthodox Christianity into battle on behalf of the community of the faithful. But that community became more and more Greek in speech and outlook. Though Latin long held sway in Court and bureaucratic circles, the cultural cement of the empire’s core populations was Greek and its education was in the Greek classics and tongue.

Imperial tradition, Christian Orthodoxy and Greek culture became even more the bases of Byzantium and her Hellenic community, after she had lost most of her western and Asiatic possessions in the seventh century — to Visigoths and then Arabs m Spain and North Africa, to the Lombards in much of Italy, to the Slavs in the Balkans and to Muslim armies in Egypt and the Near East. Political circumstances, and the resilience of Greek culture and Greek education, made her predominantly Greek in speech and character. After the sack of Constantinople in 1204 and the establishment of a Latin empire under Venetian auspices, the rivalry of the Greek empires based on Nicaca, Epirus and Trebizond to realize the patriotic Hellcmc dream of recapturing the former capital further stimulated Greek ethnic sentiment against Latin usurpation. W1cn in the face of Turkith threats, the fifteenth-century Byzantine emperor, Michael Palaeologus, tried to place the Orthodox Church under the Papacy and hence Western protection; an inflamed Greek sentiment vigorously opposed his policy. The city’s populace in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, their Hellenic sentiments fanned by monks, priests and the Orthodox party against the Latin policies of the government, actually preferred the Turkish turban to the Latin mitre and attacked the urban wealthy classes.

But the Turkish conquest and the demise of Byzantium did not spell the end of the Orthodox Greek community and its ethnic sentiment. tinder its Church and Patriarch, and organized as a recognized milliet of the Ottoman empire, the Greek community flourished in exile, the upper classes of its Diaspora assuming privileged economic and bureaucratic positions in the empire. So Byzantine bureaucratic incorporation had paradoxical effects: as in Egypt, it helped to sunder the mass of the Greek community from the state and its Court and bureaucratic imperial myths and culture in favour of a more demotic Greek Orthodoxy; but, unlike Egypt, the demise of the state served to strengthen that Orthodoxy and reattach to it the old dynastic Messianic symbolism of a restored Byzantine empire in opposition to Turkish oppression.

'''Smith, Anthony Robert (1991). National identity. Reno: University of Nevada Press. pp. 28-31. ISBN 0-87417-204-7.  ETHNIC CHANGE, DISSOLUTION AND SURVIVAL'''

The importance of these and other factors can also be seen when we turn to the closely related questions of how ethnies change in character, dissolve or survive. Let me start with ethnic change and with a well-known example, that of the Greeks. Modern Greeks are taught that they are the heirs and descendants not merely of Greek Byzantium, but also of the ancient Greeks and their classical Hellenic civilization. In both cases (and there have in fact been two, rival, myths of descent at work since the early nineteenth century), ‘descent’ was seen in largely demographic terms; or rather, cultural affinity with Byzantium and ancient Greece (notably Athens) was predicated on demographic continuity. Unfortunately for the classicist Hellenic myth, the demographic evidence is at best tenuous, at worst non-existent. As Jacob Fallmereyer demonstrated long ago, Greek demographic continuity was brutally interrupted in the late sixth to eighth centuries AD by massive influxes of Avar, Slav and, later, Albanian immigrants. The evidence from the period suggests that the immigrants succeeded in occupying most of central Greece and the Peloponnesus (Morea), pushing the original Greek-speaking and Hellenic inhabitants (themselves already intermingled with earlier Macedonian, Roman and other migrants) to the coastal areas and the islands of the Aegean. This shifted the centre of a truly Hellenic civilization to the east, to the Aegean, the Ionian littoral of Asia Minor and to Constantinople. It also meant that modem Greeks could hardly count as being of ancient Greek descent, even if this could never be ruled out.’ There is a sense in which the preceding discussion is both relevant to a sense of Greek identity, now and earlier, and irrelevant. It is relevant in so far as Greeks, now and earlier, fellt that their ‘Greekness’ was a product of their descent from the ancient Greeks (or Byzantine Greeks), and that such filiations made them feel themselves to be members of one great ‘super-family’ of Greeks, shared sentiments of continuity and membership being essential to a lively sense of identity. It is irrelevant in that ethnies arc constituted, not by lines of physical descent, but by the sense of continuity, shared memory and collective destiny, i.e. by lines of cultural affinity embodied in distinctive myths, memories, symbols and values retained by a given cultural unit of population. In that sense much has been retained, and revived, from the extant heritage of ancient Greece. For, even at the time of Slavic migrations, in Ionia and especially in Constantinople, there was a growing emphasis on the Greek language, on Greek philosophy and literature, and on classical models of thought and scholarship. Such a ‘Greek revival’ was to surface again in the tenth and fourteenth centuries, as well as subsequently, providing a powerful impetus to the sense of cultural affinity with ancient Greece and its classical heritage. This is not to deny for one moment either the enormous cultural changes undergone by the Greeks despite a surviving sense of common ethnicity or the cultural influence of surrounding peoples and civilizations over two thousand years. At the same time in terms of script and language, certain values, a particular environment and its nostalgia, continuous social interactions, and a sense of religious and cultural difference, even exclusion, a sense of Greek identity and common sentiments of ethnicity can be said to have persisted beneath the many social and political changes of the last two thousand years Seems to me the king of modern anthropology is a Greek nationalist. Who'd have thought.--Anothroskon (talk) 10:15, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

'''Smith, Anthony Robert (2000). The Nation in History: Historiographical Debates about Ethnicity and Nationalism (The Menahem Stern Jerusalem Lectures). Hanover, NH: Brandeis University Press. pp. 42-43. ISBN 1-58465-040-0.''' If it is unclear how far ancient Greeks constituted a nation, as opposed to an ethnic community, an even greater question mark hangs over their relationship with modem Greeks. Most scholars follow Jacob Fallmereyer in denying what is still an article of faith among most contemporary Greeks, that they are the lineal descendants of the Greeks of classical antiquity. Given the massive migrations of Avars, Slays, and Albanians into mainland Greece from the sixth century c.., which pushed the existing Greek population to the coasts and islands, the population of modem Greece is likely to be as ethnically heterogeneous as most other modern nations. Even if it is not possible to prove that modem Greeks are not descended from the Greeks of classical antiquity, the fact that it was only in the tenth century that mainland Greece was recon quered and re-Christianized by Byzantium must make us treat assertions of Greek ancestral continuity with caution (Campbell and Sherrard 1968, chap. i just 1989).

A more promising line of inquiry focuses on cultural rather than demographic criteria: whether we can trace Greek cultural and symbolic continuities through the medieval epoch into modem times. For Paschalis Kitromilides the answer is clear: we can speak only of reappropriations by modem Greek intellectuals of elements of the classical heritage. Even the Byzantine legacy was not taken up until its canonization in the monumental five- volume History of the Greek Nation, written by Konstantinos Paparrigopoulos in the mid-nineteenth century. Kitromilides underlines the novelty of Paparrigopoulos’s idea of the Greek nation as a collective actor, persisting and acting from antiquity through the Byzantine era into the modem epoch; for, until the nineteenth century, Greece and Greeks were subsumed in the far-flung Or. thodox ecumene, as they had earlier been in the polyethnic and polyglot Byzantine empire (Kitromilides 1998; Mango 1980, chap. i).

Against this view, it is still possible to identify some cultural continuities. Kitromilides himself alludes to some of them, when he mentions “inherited forms of cultural expression, such as those associated with the Orthodox liturgical cycle and the images of emperors, the commemoration of Christian kings, the evocation of the Orthodox kingdom and its earthly seat, Constantinople, which is so powerfully communicated in texts such as the Akathist Hymn, sung every year during Lent and forming such an intimate component of Orthodox worship. . .“ (Kitromilides 1998, 31). There are other lines of Greek continuity. Despite the adoption of a new religion, Christianity, certain traditions, such as a dedication to competitive values, have remained fairly constant, as have the basic forms of the Greek language and the contours of the Greek homeland (though its center of gravity was subject to change). And John Armstrong has pointed to the “precocious nationalism” that took hold of the Greek population of the Byzantine Empire under the last Palaeologan emperors and that was directed as much against the Catholic Latins as against the Muslim Turks—an expression of medieval Greek national sentiment as well as a harbinger of later Greek nationalism. But again, we may ask: was this Byzantine sentiment a case of purely confessional loyalty or of ethnoreligious nationalism? (See Armstrong 1982, I74—8I cf. Baynes and Moss 1969, 119—27, and Carras 1983.)

'''Smith, Anthony Robert (1999). Myths and memories of the nation. Oxford [Oxfordshire]: Oxford University Press. pp. 78-79. ISBN 0-19-829534-0.''' 1.Greece Whereas Turkish myths of descent tended to blur the lines between genealogical and ideological impulses and promote an ethnic myth with strong racial and territorial implications, Greek myths were counterpoised to each other in often open rivalry. On the one hand) there was the ‘Hellenic’ myth which can be traced back to the neo-Platonist Pletho in the early fifteenth century, developed by Theophyllus Corydaleus in the early seventeenth century, and finally elaborated by Adamantios Korais in the late eighteenth century; according to it, present-day inhabitants of Greece were descended from the ancient Hellenes, since they shared their language and culture. and only the values of classical Athenian antiquity could therefore serve as the basis for Greek self-renewal today (Campbell and Sherrard 1968:22—43). Language played an important role in this ideological myth; unfortunately the intellectuals disagreed on the appropriate version of Greek. some like Katartzis and Rhigas favouring the more ‘demotic’ forms spoken in the Niorea, and others like Korais throwing their weight behind a ‘purified’ form which was a mixture of classical Greek and the modern Greek spoken by the educated middle classes (Koumarianou 1973). This difference mirrored a split between intelligentsia and peasantry. and he- came intertwined with the claims of the alternative ‘Byzantine’ imperial myth. which the Orthodox clergy and their congregations (most of whom were peasants and shepherds) espoused. In this more traditional image, the restoration of Christ’s kingdom on earth was coeval with the wresting of power from infidels. Turks or Franks, and the restoration of the Byzantine hierocratic imperium (Frazee 1969: 20—25; Sherrard 1959). Within this empire, Greek was the natural language of religious communion and the Greeks would once again become its spiritual and temporal rulers, as, in fact with the advance of the Phanariots in the administration of the Porte, they already appeared to he doing. Here, too, genealogical elements became intertwined with religio-ideological myths; for, despite the fact that the leading ‘princely’ Phanariot families can be shown to have originated in the provinces during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, claims of aristocratic Byzantine ancestry were made by and for them, and their self-image and vision o’ the world was saturated by Byzantinism. Like the Orthodox Patriarihate, they dreamed not of the regeneration of Greece, (with a few exceptions like Rhigas Velestinlis, whose ‘Balkan federation’ was little more than a semi-secular Byzantine democracy), but of the impending restoration of the Byzantine empire and its religious culture (Mango 1973; Stavrianos 1961: ch. 9; Dakin 1972: chs. 1—2).

But, as Rhigas’ example shows, Hellenism and Byzantinism were not mutually exclusive, even though their inspiration and spirit was mutually opposed. In a sense, both were ‘revolutionary since even the restoration of Hyiantium demanded popular mohili7ation (and foreign intervention). Both, too, had dramatic territorial consequences, though here they led in opposite directions. ‘The Hellenic ideal, centered on Athens was western in orientation and based upon mainland Greeik; the Byzantine myth, centered on Constantinople, looked to the east and spanned the area from Moscow to Alexandria (Henderson 1971; Demos 1958). In the event, however, Western intervention, by confining the new Greek state to the Morea and southern central Greece and thereby excluding so many Greek- speaking communities, helped to promote the Megale ided (Great idea). the quest for a much larger, inclusive Greek state stretching into Thrace and Asia Minor, which had been the dream of the Byzantine restoration, with disastrous consequences, both military and economic, for (rLek regeneration (Dakin 1972; Campbell and Sherrard 1968: chs. 4—5; also Jelavich 1977: chs. 5, 12, 18).

Even the Hellenic ideal has been sharply criticized for holding hack economic and educational development in Greece, despite the romantic claims of Korais and his followers; both Hellenism and Byzantinism appear to be backward-looking ideologies. characteristic of the Greek intelligentsia and clergy (Pcpdassis 1958). In their time, however, both myths provided vital foci of identity; even if they collided at times. they helped to rally purely sectional interests—clerical, bourgeois, intellectual, klephtic— into a single struggle for national regeneration. In terms of enhanced dignity, territorial expansion and autonomy, both ethnic myths initiated and guided subsequent policies, even when they later promoted internal divisions. 01 course, the content of the myths differed greatly; their golden ages. the heroes they revered, the reasons for decline they propounded, were entirely divergent. Even the location of origins, in the one case Asia Minor, in the other the Peloponnesus, differed, as did their mythic genealogies of descent. In the end, too, an ideological Hellenism, geared to western thought and rational institutions, won out, mainly through force of external circumstances. Yet, in the origins and development of the Greek nation-state during the nineteenth century, both myths played a vital formative role in identifying the nature of ‘Greek’ character and guiding its regeneration in the light of their theories of origins.

'''Smith, Anthony Robert (1999). Myths and memories of the nation. Oxford [Oxfordshire]: Oxford University Press. pp. 212-215. ISBN 0-19-829534-0'''. GREEKS, ARMENIANS, AND JEWS

The Jewish experience, then, has features that set it apart 1mm those of other peoples. But) is the trajectory of the Jewish people in the modern era unique? Can we find other peoples with a rich sacred history and shared memories distilled in canonical texts and other writings; and who have similarly endured a millennial fate of dispersion in the hope of restoration? There are a number of peoples who can boast a rich sacred history and memories enshrined in canonical texts and liturgies. They include the Orthodox Russians. the Ulster-Scots, the Afrikaners the Muslim Arabs, the Monophysite Amhara and the Catholic Irish. Here we have not only chosen peoples, but peoples with a highly developed and sacred documentary record of their ideals and experiences. Only within the monotheistic traditions can we find that exclusive and strong conception of chosenness, whereby a people of clear ancestral descent is covenanted with its God in a sacred homeland for the fulfilment of its moral duties and hence the salvation of the world.”

Yet even here all these peoples have remained rooted in their sacred homelands for centuries. Though oppressed and colonized by outsiders, they have never been expelled en masse, and so the theme of restoration to the homeland has played little part in the conceptions of these peoples. There are, however, two peoples, apart from the Jews, for whom restoration of the homeland and commonwealth have been central: the Greeks and the Armenians, and together with the Jews, they constitute the archetypal Diaspora peoples, or what John Armstrong has called ‘mobilized diasporas° Unlike diasporas composed of recent mi migrant workers—Indians, Chinese and others in Southeast Asia, East Africa and the Caribbean— mobilized diasporas are of considerable antiquity, are generally polyglot and multi-skilled trading communities and have ancient, portable religious traditions. Greeks, Jews, and Armenians claimed an ancient homeland and kingdom, looked back nostalgically to a golden age or ages of great kings, saints, sages and poets, yearned to return to ancient capitals with sacred sites and buildings, took with them wherever they went their ancient scriptures, sacred scripts and separate liturgies, founded in every city congregations with churches, clergy and religious schools, traded across the Middle East and Europe using the networks of enclaves of their co-religionists to compete with other ethnic trading networks, and used their wealth, education and economic skills to offset their political powerlessness)

But the parallels go further, Greeks, Jews, and Armenians after their subordination to others and emigration or expulsion from their original homelands became Diaspora ethno-religious communities cultivating the particular virtues and aptitudes of their traditions. These included a respect for scholarship and learning, derived from constant study of sacred texts (and in the Greek case some of their ancient secular texts seen through religious filters); and hence a generally high status accorded to religious scholars and clergy within each enclave. Allied to this was a marked aptitude for literary expression—poetic, philosophical, legal, liturgical, linguistic, and historical.

The resulting fund of documentary records encoding shared memories and interpretations increased in practically every generation, enriching the ethno-heritage of these communities. The rise of Diaspora communities in many lands further augmented that heritage through the growing emphasis on the autonomy of each community within a common ethno religious framework, institutionally, that autonomy was greatest in the Jewish case, where it was reinforced by the autonomy accorded to each rabbi and congregation: in the Armenian case, there was a greater hierarchy of priests; while in the Greek case, the Patriarchate in Constantinople and the higher clergy exercised a tighter supervision over the lower clergy in each congregation, at least in theory?

There were also more specific links between the three cthno-rcligious diaspora communities. In Greek Orthodoxy, the Church became the new Israel, and the Emperor a Priest-King after the manner of Mekhizedek, King of Salem. His capital, imperial Constantinople, was the new Jerusalem, with its ‘temple’ in Hagia Sophia, while Greek, the language of’ the New Testament, became the sacred language of a holy Orthodox community in place of Hebrew and the Jews. At the same time, Greeks emigrated to many cities throughout Europe and the Levant, especially after the fall of Constantinople, becoming as polyglot and culturally adaptable as the Armenians and Jews. In many Mediterranean and European cities, Greek Phanariot merchants and traders dominated the commerce of the Ottoman empire, utilizing their kinship networks and social and religious institutions to maximize not only their business and assets, but also their cultural capital. Diaspora Greeks became especially prominent from the eighteenth century in the development of printing and the press, and experienced a major intellectual revival in cities as far afield as Vienna, Venice, Odessa, Paris, and Amsterdam.-Armenians had even closer links with the Jews. The Armenian royal families had converted early to Christianity, claiming thenceforth to be the first Christian nation and the true heir of Israel. Armenians came to regard themselves as a chosen people, their kings and Bagratid nobles claimed Jewish descent, and their models of heroism were drawn from the Jews, notably Joshua and Judas Maccabeus. Like the Jews, Armenians lost their ancient kingdom on the field of battle (Avarayr, 451 CE) and were increasingly persecuted under the late Byzantine emperors after the final split with Greek Orthodoxy at the second Council of Dvin in 554 CE; many Armenians began to emigrate in this period and subsequently under the Muslim Arabs, some as far afield as Russia and India. Like the Jews, they yearned to return to their idealized mountain homeland with its revered sacred centre, Echmiadzin, and its holy mountain, Ararat; hut more and more of them made their fortunes in distant communities as traders and artisans, and experienced both an economic and intellectual revival in the early modern period.

In each case, the concept of chosenness played a central role. For Greeks and Armenians, the myth of ethnic election was both direct and transmitted. It was an act of God who had singled out a special community of His faithful to live according to His holy laws and receive His special blessings, the blessings being conditional on the holding of correct beliefs and the performance of sacred obligations. As with the Jews, the overriding purpose was to become a holy people beloved of God, a people of priests worthy of the status and location which God had bestowed on the community. But, unlike the Jews, Armenians and Greeks saw their election as a reward for receiving the true faith rejected by the Jews. The)’ were therefore required to supplant the Jews as the chosen people, and become the heirs of a people who had fallen from grace. In this sense, the chosen status of Greeks and Armenians was a legacy from the Jewish people, and only much later did the Orthodox community of true believers become imbued with Greek culture and a sense of Greek-speaking community, and to the outside world Orthodoxy became synonymous with Greek culture and origins. In the Armenian case, Gregorian Christianity was soon regarded as the peculiar possession of the Armenian kingdom and people, despite attempts to convert others to Gregorianism, with the result that the status of a chosen people was automatically conferred on the Armenian nation.

More Greek nationalism by the king of modern anthropology. Tsk, tsk, tsk.--Anothroskon (talk) 10:21, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

So you have just shown what modern Greeks think. That's fine. You needn;t have gone to all that trouble. You could have just quoted the great Anothroskon Hxseek (talk) 10:51, 2 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Nope I have just proven that your use of Smith (King Smith if I am not mistaken) was a bad idea since he supports Greek ethnic continuity. Annoying isn't it? I have further proven the thesis of Greek ethnic continuity at least as far as modern anthropology is concerned.--Anothroskon (talk) 11:15, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

What does all this have to do with whether the two brothers were Greek? A scholar talking about mixing populations is nothing new. Yet, it is still irrelevant as to whether we should call any Greek a "Greek". Even he calls Greeks "Greeks" all the time. It is the purity of their lineage he disputes, not their name. He actually is proof that we should use the ethnic name as he does... I really cannot get your point though... You propose that modern Greeks are not pure descendants of the ancient Greeks. I agree... So what? The Byzantine Empire was not an ethnic nation. The nations that comprised it are also named in the primary sources as are the Greeks (Porphyrogenitos calls them "Graikoi"). The thing is that most refs call them plainly Greek directly defining their nationality. Again I fail to see in your refs why someone called a Greek by modern scholars shouldn't be called one here. Modern Slavs also are not pure descendants of the Slav populations of the Middle Ages, nor are the Persians, the Arabs, the Turks, the Chinese etc. Yet, you had no problem calling the brother's mother a possible Slav, nor do we have a problem with calling a Sassanid Persian a Persian. I do not dismiss the essence of your POV regarding nations, even though I find it too "progressive", but it is largely irrelevant as to our issue here. GK (talk) 16:46, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

I commend A. on those extensive blocks of texts. The premise is that there is indeed an arguement for Greek cultural continuity, especially with the re-appropriation of past history by modern Greeks. That is fine, and it is their right to do so. Afterall, I agree that identity is a subjective phenomenon. However, from all that, there is nothing to show that the 7th to 12th century Byzantines identified themselves as Greeks (or at least not predominantly), but rather, as Romans. Here is the fundamental difference. Keeping this in mind, and for the sake of being consistent with other articles about peoples from that period, it would best be to call the brothers Byzantines. It takes nothing away from the idea of Greek continuity, but is merely more accurate and more consistent Hxseek (talk) 11:51, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Hxseek, you miss the point. The question here is not whether the Byzantines identified themselves as Greeks. They did not. They were a multi ethnic state and Greeks were just one of those nations clearly identified. DP's interpretation of Porphyrogenitus for example is totally flawed and is actually a clear example of how the Byzantines understood the existence of the various nations within the empire. Porphyrogenitus (913-959) in his De Thematibus talks abouty the different themata (provinces) and the nations that inhabit them. He calls Hellenes "Graikoi" and clearly states where they live. He also names maybe a hundred other nations. But this is not the point, it being that these two specific Byzantines are held to have been citizens of the Roman Empire of Greek nationality as opposed to other citizens of the Roman Empire of a different nationality. It has nothing to do with Greek continuity. This is why they are called "Greeks", not because they were Byzantine citizens. GK (talk) 12:32, 3 May 2010 (UTC)


 * I disagree on Romania having been a multi-ethnic state, on the contrary it was the ethnic state of the Romans at least following the Arab conquests.So the term Romaios was not just a political appelation but an ethnic one as well. In any event this is besides the point. Yes the brothers were not Hellenes but Greek does not mean Hellene alone, it also means Romaios which is what the brothers were. If you absolutely must not use the word Greek to describe them then as Kaldelis has shown Byzantine is a misnomer and should be avoided. The only way to bring Byzantine back in is to claim conformity with standard English usage but then, as I have shown, standard English usage is fine with Greek as well in that regard.--Anothroskon (talk) 15:54, 3 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Here we disagree Anothroskon. The Romaioi of the Byzantine Empire were very conscious of their ethnic differences, numbered and named the nations (ethnh) in their provinces. There was not a common ethnic identity in the sense that for example an American today is first an American and then an Irish or a Greek. They were usually first Slavs and Armenians and then Romans, although of course for some it could be otherwise. As for the brothers it is what I also suggest. They were "ethnic Greek" citizens of the Roman Kingdom and as such also Romaioi. Should the brothers not currently be regarded as Greek citizens of Byzantium, I would myself object to the use of the word "Greek" denoting their ethnicity. The thing is they ARE acknowledged as Greeks at least by the majority of scholars (not just Romans but ethnic Greek Romans). Greek does not mean "of Greek ethnicity" only when being used in the direct context of Western medieval manuscripts (discussing them transforms "Greeks" to "Byzantines") or when discussing the political and sometimes military structure of the Empire. But I doubt it that any scholar would call a non-Greek citizen of the Empire a Greek. If his exact ethnicity is known or suspected, it is used over "Byzantine". If not, "Byzantine" is used. Of course this in turn is not to suggest that whenever a Byzantine is called a "Byzantine" we do not know his exact ethnicity. Yes, we could use it when we do not care about it. But when a certain writer is called a "Greek" then he is always of Greek ethnicity. Not an Armenian, not a Slav, nor an Illyrian etc. Don't look for "Hellene" in the Byzantine texts, look for "Graikos". GK (talk) 19:59, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Ok, that makes sense Hxseek (talk) 23:10, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

No, not OK.
 * "First, something could be called Hellenic in connection with the geographical region of mainland Greece or, specifically, with the Byzantine “theme” (province) of Hellas. (…) The term “Helladikos” was often used instead to avoid confusion with the pagan Greek (“Hellenes”). Moreover, when Byzantines did begin to refer to themselves as Greeks in a national sense, in the thirteenth century, they were not expanding upon this territorial meaning." (From Anthony Kaldellis: Hellenism of Byzantium, The Transformations of Greek Identity and the Reception of Classical Tradition, Cambridge University Press, 2007, p 184..) Draganparis (talk) 18:50, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

The use of the words Greek, Greeks, Roman and Romans and related words in some Byzantine writers. (Psellus, Prokopius and Anna Comnena are available on Google Books).

Procopius (500-565): Anecdota, Loeb Classical Library, (1935), 2003. The counts are from Google Books., which are probably inexact because other edition (translation) is used,

Greek, 0

Greeks, 0

Roman, 80 times (about)

Romans, 44 times

Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus (905-959):

De Administrando Imperio (DAI), Edited by Gy. Moravsik, translated by Jenkins RJH (1949), new, revised edition, 1967, Dumberon Oaks, Washington DC. Number of indexed entries for Greece or Greeks (as Hellenes) is:

for Ellas: 1,

Ellenes: 3,

Ellenika:1 (allways refering to the thema Hellas).

Number of entries for

Romaioi: 141,

Romaikos: 5; Romaisti: 1;

Romania: 9; Romanoi: 20.

Counts for Greeks:

Graikoi: just once (49.6) (this is one I missed, corrected by GK1973)

So practically almost never Greeks, always just Romans for the citizens of the Empire.

De Tematibus, Ed. Immanuel Bekkerus, (1811), Elibron Classics seies, 2006 Adamant Media Corporation The counts are from Index.

Graikoi, 2 times only, pp. 25, line 10; and 43, line 3 (speaking about Greeks in Asia)(the last one I also missed, corrected by GK1973)

(latin transl.: Graeci)

Graikon, 1 time only, pp. 51, line 8

(latin transl.: Graecos)

Otherwise always only when speaking of thema Hellas: Ellas, Ellenas, Ellas.

Michael Psellus (1017-1096: Chronographia, penguin books, 1966 (English translation; does not mean that Greek original says also "Greek") The counts are from Google Books.

Greek, 3 (for Greek Fire, Greek language and literature, only 1 x for Greek by birth)

Greeks, 2 times (Greeks had great reputation for philosophy; about Greek dids for history)

Roman, about 60 times

Romans, 26 times

Anna Comnena (1083-1153): Alexiad, Penguin books, 2003 (English translation; does not mean that Greek original says also "Greek") The counts are from Google Books.

Greeks, 3 times

Greek, never, just in relation to the Greek Fire and Greek language

Roman over 100 times

Romans over 100 times (did not count precisely)

You can interpret as you think appropriate.Draganparis (talk) 06:05, 5 May 2010 (UTC)


 * I fail to see any use in these numbers.Do you want to propose something? How did you come to them? Are you sure they are right? (...πρώτον μεν τας των γειτόνων οικίας των Γραικών εξεπόρθουν και εις αρπαγήν ετίθεντο... DAI, 59.8) Is this one for example included in these numbers? (..πάντες Γραικοί ονομάζονται και κοινή διαλέκτω χρώνται, πλην Βυζαντίων, ότι Δωριαίων εστίν αποικία...DT,p.43,l.4). This is also not included. Anyways, I appreciate your effort, but I guess that it is of no value to this article to state our opinions regarding the ethnic composition of the Roman Empire. I guess that such a discussion would be much more relevant in other articles. Oh and what is "No, not OK"? Oh.. and in Procopius Caesariensis Historica Arcana (Anecdota), you also did not count well. For example "επικαλούντες τοις μεν ως Γραικοί είεν... 24.2" and other instances... I could go on, but I think that this is enough to at least doubt your numbers, although I suspect that you actually agree with me and Hxseek in this. (note:I did not use a polytonic font above) GK (talk) 12:29, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Very good corrections, I introduced them in the text above. DAI has only 53 pages, so the correct reference is 49.6; DT ref. is also not 43.1.4, but should be given as simply 43.3 (1 stands for the first book of DT). I do not pretend that the count is absolutely correct because I relied either on the index or on the count by the computer relying on Google Books offered and sometimes just English edition. Procopius is particularly problematic since the edition that I used is only English and is not exactly the same as one I used previously (Procopius on line, there, as I remember, was to find 17 "Greece" or "Greeks", and over 70 Romans!! This is substantially different and may be should be proved again.). The connotations are important and they are clearly not implying the ethnicity of the empire (!) but Hellenes from the south or the ancient Greek culture, language, philosophy etc. I will see whether I can correct this later. Kaldellis' citation disproved what Anothroskon's wrote about Kaldellis. Kaldellis in fact disproves GK1973 too (I will use third person as long as GK1973 would not offer an excuse for the previous mockery and insults). In the later Byzantine times, as Kaldellis writes (as I maintained in some earlier edits), the pejorative connotation for "Greeks" disappeared and the Empire was often called Greek Empire. The brothers are Greek in that very sense. Indeed, they may be not ethnic Greeks, since there is no direct proof for this but there are also some indications that they might be Slav. The above counts indicate that the citizens of the Easter Roman Empire were Romans, that to call them Greeks was a very late custom not related to their ethnic origins. That Empire we call today Byzantium and its citizens Byzantines. Some particular person from the thema Hellas may be called Greek of course, but "the people who all speak slave perfectly well" are if not Slav, simply Byzantines. Therefore the list given above IS related to this article very much indeed.Draganparis (talk) 17:36, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

...OK... again jumping to conclusions... Had you made the effort to read the texts I gave you above, you would have seen that the writers clearly talk about a nation in the Roman Empire which they call "Graikoi" and identify them with the descendants of the Hellenes of the old. There is no question as to whether there were Slavs in the Roman Empire. There were. There is no question as to whether there were any Greeks in the Empire. According to the above writers there were and they were officially called "Graikoi". Apart from them there were maybe a hundred more nations. You may fully adopt Kaldellis' opinions, if you think they suit you best, but if you do, you should know that bringing up sources which clearly talk about Greeks and other nations in the Roman Empire is against it, not in favor. Kaldellis has nothing to do with why modern scholars calling Greeks Greeks. He maintains that the Roman Empire was an ethnic state which had substituted all other national identities within the Empire. So, his opinion has nothing to do with why so many scholars call the brothers Greeks TODAY. They call them Greeks because they think they were Greeks, in the same sense that they call Tzimiskes an Armenian. I never claimed that the Byzantine Empire was a Greek Empire, nor that only Greeks inhabited it. And of course all this has nothing to do with the brothes. So, again, if you want to make a point, give us sources which will unambiguously and clearly state what you want to say and not beat around the bush, trying to prove that modern scholars haven't really put much thought into it. As for your googling up the results, it's OK, but you should have told us that you came to these results by original research, since many would think that you found them in some respectable source. My additions are not the only ones you have missed. I have found many more but there is no reason bringing them up, since your effort only shows that there were some people who were called Graikoi both in the 5th and in the 10th century, which is exactly what you are trying to refute. And, please, either remove your OR or clearly state that these are the results you were able to pinpoint yourself through a quick look up at Googlebooks and may considerably vary from the truth. As for this "the people who all speak slave perfectly well" you should know that the source of this is the Slavonic VM and so, this argument really loses some of its credibility if overused. GK (talk) 20:36, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

These numbers that I gave above are mainly cited from the INDEX of the referenced book, so not original research. I indicated now what was Google books search, which was done in parallel.

However, a remark to the ADMINISTRATOR: The above comment of GK contains aggressive, unfriendly expressions and unpleasant slurring tone: a. ..OK... again jumping to conclusions... b. and not beat around the bush c. demand to erase the comments d. obvious intention to remove the opposing edits from the discussion without ever citing own sources.

To the comments of GK:

1. According to the above writers there were and they were officially called "Graikoi". ANSW: Yes, one specific group, but the citizens of the Empire were NOT called Greeks, in general but Romans.

2. why so many scholars call the brothers Greeks TODAY ANSW: Please give us some references other then those provided by the propaganda sites and which you verified, and to prove this please give more text then it is given on these propaganda sites.(I demonstrated above that in the last 4 years the same lists, taken from the propaganda sites, unchanged, were produced at least 4 times, 2 times by Anothroskon).

3. give us sources which will unambiguously and clearly state what you want to say and not beat around the bush. ANSW: Kaldellis, for example, and it was also cited by Anothroskon as fantastic source, what I agree. Or you just do not like him?

4. you should have told us that you came to these results by original research, since many would think that you found them in some respectable source. ANSW: I indicated this above already. Now I added even more precise indication that the INDEX of the books was reported – which is NOT an OR.

5. My additions are not the only ones you have missed. I have found many more ANSW: Show the rest please. I maintain that there are NO much more, or INDEX is incorrect – what I doubt.

6. your effort only shows that there were some people who were called Graikoi both in the 5th and in the 10th century, which is exactly what you are trying to refute. ANSW: No, I am sure there were Greeks (more often called Hellenes). My point was to show that it was a custom to call these citizens Romans (we now refer to them as Byzantines).

7. please, either remove your OR ANSW: Evidently reporting an INDEX of a book is not OR. I did not MAKE that index.

8. Slavonic VM and so, this argument really loses some of its credibility if overused. ANSW: This IS THAT FAMOUS single contemporary evidence, the only that exists. This is why I think we should NOT state that they were Slav, and think that we should NOT state anything at all – and state this what the Encyclopaedia Britannica 2010 stated: just missionaries.

ANSW: But I brought enough proves.


 * First... your criterion regarding insults seems problematic. If you have a problem with my tone then start an ANI case against me.

So... then... Greeks... existed! Wow... Who said that there were no other people in the Empire? Greeks were just a sizable minority.

??? It seems you keep disregarding whatever you do not like. What Anothroskon gave is not taken from Greek propagandistic books. All the sources he gave are valid sources as everybody keeps telling you. It does not matter if you do not like the person who numbered the sources here, you have to prove (and it would be easy, if your accusations had any validity) that he has misquoted the sources. I can give even more but there is no point unless for some reason you are able to disprove the existent ones. Prove us that the sources are misquoted, that they do not write what Anothroskon claims they do and then you may ask for more...

Nowhere in his book "Hellenism in Byzantium: The Transformations of Greek Identity and the Reception of the Classical Tradition (Greek Culture in the Roman World)" does he say anything about Methodius and Cyril and of course his opinion on whether the Roman citizens of the Empire had or had not any other national identity is not proof enough that all scholars who believe that the Roman Empire was not an ethnic state should be ignored. Maybe you can find more who share his conclusions, maybe you cannot, but you will have to show that those who believe that no ethnonym can be used regarding the Byzantines apart from "Byzantines" are wrong and of course then start debating in all respective articles. Why don't you try editing John I Tzimiskes or Basil I? Or does your fervor to bring real academic flavor to Wikipedia starts and ends with whatever Greek? You see, I openly doubt your motives here. I would like to see you campaigning for what you say you believe in, but for some reason you only attack the Greek ethnicity.

Indicating has nothing to do with stating. Yet, I am very flattered to have been able to correct the index of "De Thematibus". Maybe you could provide a link to make it easier for me and other users to check out your sources?

First you only used the index for one of your four "sources", so I could give you more examples from the other books and this would make you wrong and not the index. Secondly, I do not have to, although I really have, because they would not help us out. In order for me to go through the books again there should be some point. I do not need more instances of the word "Greek" in any form to prove that there was a nation called "Graikoi" in the Empire according to the above writers. The fact that the word "Roman" in all its forms is used more frequently is logical. This is the official name of the Empire and its peoples. This is the adjective used in all instances talking about anything of the Roman state. In DAI, the word "Slavs" also is present in many numbers and forms. Does that mean that the Empire was Slav? One has to evaluate the usage of the word, not its presence.

So, we agree. Of course there were Greeks and no, at those times they were not more often called "Hellenes". At the time the word "Hellene" was used to denote Ancient Greeks and anything that has to do with them (as for example the language). Of course it was a custom to call the citizens Romans. If we now lived in the Roman Empire we would do so too. But we do not. And, of course, as you yourself admit here, there were many ethnicities, who officially were called Romans, but they were called by their ethnicity too, if so wished. Yes, when ethnicity was not a matter (for example in military or state matters), they were called either Romans or by the name of the thema they came from. Yet, as I already stated, we do not live in the years of the Roman Empire and nowadays, scholars use other phraseology and in such "barbaric" languages as the 21st century English, which we use here to name things, people, places...

Good. I said "either" "or" and you chose "or". I have no problem with that as long as it is clear that you used 1 index and 3 personal counts.

I miss your point... So, from that quote you think that you could squeeze a conclusion that everybody in the province of Thessaloniki was Slav and so the brothers must have been too and so, we should negotiate? No, you need contemporary sources or clear evidence, like a Slavonic text of the era which will call the brothers "Slav". You need to prove that what you are advocating is at least as academically accepted as calling the brothers "Greek" now, in the 21st century, as English is used by the academic community. We do not teach here scholars how they should choose their terminology, we follow it. And of course you cannot be possibly claiming that MV is the only contemporary evidence of what was going on in the province of Thessaloniki at the time... it is but a minor source, a biography of a saint in Slavonic.

I doubt that. You confuse giving random texts with making a point. You strive to prove that using the word "Byzantine" is OK. We agree, but you need to prove that it is preferable to "Greek". This is what you are campaigning for here. The word "byzantine" is used in the text multiple times, so there is no problem with readers mistaking them for something else. We even categorize them as "Byzantine Saints". You have to bring multiple sources which will object to their Greek nationality, not sources which will choose to call them Byzantines, for if you do not challenge their ethnicity, then all this crusading is in vain.

I do not "keep" anything. An admin ruled that there is no reason for it to change, so now I am defending his ruling, which I also agree to. In another such case, much more heated than this, I was not in favor of using "FYROM", as any "nationalist" would instead of "Macedonia". I supported the country's constitutional name "Republic of Macedonia" and debated for long against users you deem my bodies like Taivo and Future Perfect. When it was ruled that we should plainly use "Macedonia", on the sole reason that this was the term most often used by English speakers, I accepted the decision and never challenged it. I often showed you good will and you blatantly stepped on it. It is you who wrote "(I will use third person as long as GK1973 would not offer an excuse for the previous mockery and insults)" after a comment with no mockery or insult whatsoever, clearly showing that you yourself are unwilling to show good faith. If you want an advice of good will from me, start making some constructive edits in fields you are well versed in and bear no controversy to prove that you are not yet another disruptive account. So many years have passed since you opened the account and any admin who scrutinizes cases against you or your assertions look up your history to see what kind of an editor you are. How will you persuade them that you are sincerely looking to improve Wikipedia when you have no history of constructive editing at all? The same applies to the discussions you engage in. People will look you up and will treat you with suspicion to say the least. Wikipedia is an online community with computer memory and here respect is gained sometimes more difficult than in the outside world. You also promised to various admins that you will occupy yourself with less controversial and easier subjects. These will be the same admins who will judge your next case of disruption (whether it be you or initiated by you) and they will remember your promises. This does not mean that you should totally abandon what interests or intrigues you most, but, in my opinion, you should start occupying yourself with constructive editing. This is as good willed as I can get. You can think over my advice or you can outright dismiss it. It's up to you. GK (talk) 23:20, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Whilst the provided sources clearly mention they were greek, when an issue is contentious, 'higher' sources are needed. Those references mention their ethnicity in passing, and do not debate the issues about Rhomaioi/Greek/ Byzantine. Clearly books, that do, whilst not directly mentioning C & M, highlight the problems with equating Byzantines strighforwardly with Greeks. Kaldelis demonstrates that this is an oversight and a lack of specificity by generalist scholars. Not only do we have discussions by post-modern scholars who argue that the Byzantines, at least before the 12th entury, saw themselves as 'Romans', but we have the words right out of their (eg Constantine Porphyrogenitus, Procopius) mouths. Just because they spoke Greek, and lived in what later becmae the coutnry of Greece, they were not ethnic Greeks, as GK suggests (contrary to the plethora of evidence). They were 'ethnic' Romans. I do not think this is a hard concept to grasp. Anathroskon himself discovered this in his chunks of texts from Smith. identity is subjective, so irrespective of their Greek language, Greek location, and 'biological Greekness" they saw themselves as Romans. Hxseek (talk) 23:43, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Anothroskon probably had "discovered" that long before others. But you Hxseek again give unsupported opinions... Where do you see Constantine Porphyrogenitus or Procopius even remotely claim what you are claiming? I hoped that you would at least try to find out what they said, since DP offered them as "sources". They both talk of "Graikoi" as a distinct nationality in the Empire as they do regarding many other nationailites too. There is no "plethora of evidence" to suggest what you are suggesting now, only wishful thinking. As for your claims about post modern scholars and generalists and how they view things, I guess you do understand that they are not good enough as proof for anything. It is not I who says "Greek" it is the wide "plethora" of scholars out there you have to somehow disprove. Starting with uneducated claims as to how CP and P are describing the ethnic composition of the Roman Empire is not a good sign. I suggest you give De Thematibus a reading and then restate your claims. GK (talk) 23:56, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

I am grateful to GK1973 for once rather unoffending comment. (I still demand GK for the excuses for previous insults and mockery. I HAVE NEVER INSULTED HIM!)

There was an objection that De Thematibus was not correctly cited (?). The sources that I gave are well references and everybody who wants to find them in a library has all necessary information. The INDEX (and my word counting to verify the index) indicate only the frequency of the use of the word. One has to go into “original research” to see the context of use – something what GK forbids – what is false. This is NOT an OR. However, if one would verify couple of uses of the words related to the word “Greek” in these rare Byzantine works, it is evident that the word is used as I said, either to designate the citizens of Hellas (thema), or language and culture or something relating to the Ancient Greeks (Hellenes). Therefore this is directly relevant to the dispute. The VM does NOT state that they were Slav, it states only the circumstances. I cited FULLY all relevant references and it is “disruptive editing” to repeatedly ask for the references that I already gave, often 2-3 times. This includes a series of academic works using Slave.

Here are just 3 again (from my edits from 6 March 2010):

1. Britanica: Encyclopedia Britannica does not state that they were Greeks, states just " brothers who for christianizing the Danubian Slavs and for influencing the religious and cultural development of all Slavic peoples received the title “the apostles of the Slavs.” Both were outstanding scholars, theologians, and linguists. They were honoured by Pope John Paul II in his 1985 encyclical Slavorum Apostoli..” (http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/148671/Saint-Cyril, accessed 6th March, 2010).

2. As I cited Encyclopedia of the Middle states: Cyril and Methodius (826/827 and c820-885). Byzantine missionaries, often called “apostles of the Slaves”. Native of Thessalonica, the two brothers were Byzantine but connected with Slav circles bilingual from infancy.”(Encyclopedia of the Middle Ages, Volume 1, By André Vauchez, Richard Barrie Dobson, Michael Lapidge, James Clark & Co, 2000)

However, the author that all of “ Byzantologists must know:

3. Paul Stephenson, Reader in Medieval History, University of Durham, UK, states: The two brothers, Constantine (b. 826/7) who took the monastic name Cyril) and Methodios (b. 815), were born in Thessalonika, sons of the droungarios Leo and Maria, who may have been a Slav.” From: Paul Stephenson, THE LIVES OF SAINTS CYRIL & METHODIOS, INTRODUCTION, http://homepage.mac.com/paulstephenson/trans/CyrilandMethodios.htm, accessed 6th march, 2010.

In my edit from 2 February you can find, apart from Britannica 2010, the sources that either do not state or state else as Greek. The “propaganda sites references” are just what it states, no more not less – if it is not shown that the one that cites them has seen them. The administrator I guess has slowly understood the problem with such sources and although he accepted them earlier, I at least hope, realises now that they CANOT be used. The value of the source depends, between other things, and this is one of MAIN factors in science citations!, where it comes from.

I will of course do on Wikipedia what I want, and criticising the texts and NOT producing my own long edits is my task for the time being. Please show me the rule which forbids this.

Please do not produce too long disputes and do not repeat yourself and do not push me to repeat myself. The issue is SET for ME for the time being.Draganparis (talk) 06:53, 6 May 2010 (UTC)


 * The fact that Brit doesn't mention something is not the same as mentioning the opposite.
 * It only states they were billingual which would support the hypothesis their mother may have been a Slav. However this is already covered in the article.
 * Stephenson does not write this excerpt himself but merely presents a translation from a text he names Slavic lives of the apostles to the Slavs. It is disingenous to present it as his own words when he clearly labels it a translation.--Anothroskon (talk) 09:02, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes, GK, Graikoi are mentioned, but you are side-stepping the issue. As Draganparis has pointed out, the use of Graikoi is reserved for a minority of inhabitants in the theme of Hellas and some pagans; not for the leading Byzantine stratum, its clergy and acedmics, which were (East) Romans, ie Byantines. Therefore, C & M are best called Byzantines, becasue they are not pagans and not from Hellas. Hxseek (talk) 10:28, 6 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Hxseek, do you quote DP to free yourself from the burden to check what he says? The man is again lying. And what is even worse, he himself has stated above that he found at least one instance of "Graikoi" being used to denote a people OUTSIDE the theme of Hellas. When he talks about the ancient Greeks he says "Hellenes" and of course he does NOT call pagans Hellenes. And of course all this is not an excuse for your refusing to check the sources given. Or did you check them and came to the same conclusion? THAT would be interesting...

"τα δε προς την θάλασσα κατοικούσι Φρύγες τε και Γραικοί..." (=in the lands towards the sea there live Phrygians and "Graikoi")

Writing about the nations inhabiting the Asiatic theme of Opsikion.

and of course

"από του λεγομένου Λεκτου και έως Αβύδου και αυτής της Προποντίδος και μέχρι Κυζίκου και του ποταμού του λεγόμενου Γρανίκου, πάντες Γραικοί ονομάζονται και κοινή διαλέκτω χρώνται, πλην Βυζαντίων, ότι Δωριέων εστί αποικία" (= from Lectos to Abydos and Propontis and unto Cyzicus and the river called Granikos, all are called "Graikoi" and use the same dialect, apart from the Byzantines, since they are a colony of the Dorians.)

Writing about the nations inhabiting the lands he names, again outside the theme of Hellas.

As for DP....I guess you are beyond redemption... GK (talk) 11:18, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Editor GK1973 will now be reported for the INSULT.Draganparis (talk) 11:47, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Wow!!!!! GK (talk) 11:49, 6 May 2010 (UTC)


 * And then a mockery (just above)! A normal scientific discussion turns out to explicit insult (GK1973 writes that I am lying) and an administrator warns me, on my talk page, for inflaming. No, sorry, I changed my mind. This is repeated insult by GK, one of many in the last 3 months which is explicitly supported by an administrator. However, a person who lacks essential culture is not worth any attention. To get rid of such a person from these pages is the business of the administrators. I will mark this insult by GK as “PRIMITIVISM” and stop communicating any more with that person; I recommend such an argument for deletion on moral grounds.Draganparis (talk) 14:08, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Simple men primitivism
I will erase my personal users’ pages now. Since personal attacks and permanent primitivism are unfortunately permitted on these pages, even on the talk page of one administrator (SGGH), without ever issuing a warning to the apparently uncivilized actors GK1973, Simanos and number of others, I must retreat from these pages. Wikipedia remains to be dominated, for the time being and on some particular articles, by ignorant, anonymous and sometimes primitive men. I have to thank to rare editors and administrators, for maintaining coherence and high moral standard in the midst of intellectually and morally inadequate company of some simple, primitive men. Draganparis (talk) 21:49, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

I do not see Love in this discussion. And here you talk about Saints of the Holy Orthodox Church! For them, there was no matter if someone was a Macedonian, Greek, Serb or even a Turko-Bulgarian from Asia!

BECAUSE: "There is not Jew, neither Greek; there is not servant, neither freeman; there is not male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus." Gal 3, 28. The Holy Scripture. I wish you all a nice weekend.GK1972 (talk) 06:10, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

'THAT PERSON, GK1973'' (not GK1972 - this is somebody else), I just found out after so long time!!, yes that person GK, has been changing ALL THE TIME my edits, removing the "positive", friendly sentences from my edits (!!!) to make them look vicious, or has been removing entire friendly edits. How vicious, how terrible mind this must be to do such things. And the Administrator SGGH even new this!!! Draganparis. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.53.139.223 (talk) 08:20, 7 May 2010 (UTC)


 * The argument above of GK1972” is an argument that dates from the early Byzantine times. It is worth mentioning that the editor is probably not the same as GK1973, who falsified my edits and committed violation of general moral rules and certainly violated the rules of Wikipedia and should be banned for life from these pages. To the administrators: So, please consider the criminal and malicious behavior of GK1973 and consider banning him for life. Such indecent person we do not need here.


 * Indeed, I developed the mentioned argument in some discussions not so long ago (also with my students, some of them Greek or Macedonian?). I reiterated that the very Christian orthodox religion of the Empire did not permit much of national development and suppressed also Hellenic element, allowing it to be limited to the thema Hellas. The notion of the Roman Empire was the only one that was used when referring to the “nationality”. This was very much linked to the Christian Orthodoxy and was not only the reason for suppression of the Greek element, but also for pejorative (non Christians) connotations to the word “Greek”, which Kaldellis mentioned in his book, a book that was so useful to bring to this discussion, for which we have to thank to Anothroskon (Anthony Kaldellis: Hellenism of Byzantium, The Transformations of Greek Identity and the Reception of Classical Tradition, Cambridge University Press, 2007). Indeed, the entire Slav world has been teaching since ever, and certainly now that the missionaries were Macedonians. Frequently, the institutions, religious as well as secular, universities for example, that are called Cyril and Methodius, have added to the official name, “Macedonians”. As I mentioned, that they were Macedonians has not been definitely proved and my opinion has been and still is that probably no national denomination should be used in this article on Wikipedia. Obviously, to say “Greek”, as the article states, is false.


 * However, the above edit of “GK1972” may be AGAIN the edit of the same student from my surroundings who inflicted the sockpuppetry condemnation on me recently. I can hardly imagine that somebody else arrived to the same argument independently and almost at the same time. It would be worthwhile that some administrator verifies whether the IP address of the above GK1972 is close to those that I use. Thank you. I retired form Wikipedia, but thes interventions are needed, since the revelation of mischievous behavior of the mentioned editor, I am forced to intervene from retired position. My identity is, as we all know, revealed. Draganparis.


 * I may be feeding the trolls here, but if you are retired from WP, please stop spamming talk pages with rants and accusations. Constantine  ✍  11:29, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

its primitivism to call them "greek" but to call them "macedonian" is not LOL 87.202.48.23 (talk) 04:54, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

N46 edits of 12 May 2010
Can someone check em? They seem Bulgarian POVish, but I could be wrong. Simanos (talk) 18:19, 13 May 2010 (UTC) http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Saints_Cyril_and_Methodius&action=historysubmit&diff=361634159&oldid=360930696 Simanos (talk) 18:19, 13 May 2010 (UTC) The editors from Macedonia should ignore this article and this discussion. We are people who respect the culture and other people and know how to write comments which are published on Wikipedia. That GK if he really was manipulated with the texts of Draganparis does not have to be on this discussion. This is what I think.94.193.123.68 (talk) 12:10, 18 May 2010 (UTC)Pirinec94.193.123.68 (talk) 12:10, 18 May 2010 (UTC)
 * The Draganparis afaire is closed and the details are to find at ANI, Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents. I wish you all happy editing. (Ex Draganparis) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.89.22.127 (talk) 17:27, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Jungleewan behavior
Jungleewan stop vandalizing the article or you'll get banned. If you have something constructive to suggest then do it in this talk page first. This is a sensitive article. Simanos (talk) 20:48, 10 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Simanos should STOP vandalizing and intimidating. The changes of Jungleewan are correct. Methodius DID NOT write Thessaloniki but Salonika; etc. All what Jungleewan corrected was justified. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.67.57.148 (talk) 21:01, 10 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Oh yeah, another single purpose IP account that smells like a certain banned user... Simanos (talk) 13:30, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Jungleewan was banned yesterday... Simanos (talk) 13:33, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Macedonian, please look up the history. Somebody, Simanos or whoever, removes normal discussion and replaces corrects text from the article. You do this to. What is this? Do NOT REMOVE my discussion!!!! Could you explain me why you vandalise these pages, please? You removed valuable discussions: do you want to hide something what is not good to be seen by the other users? Can anybody remove discussions that he wishes, that he does not like?

Then you remove correct version of the article which is supported by long discussion that could be found in the archives. This is vandalism. So please explain. May be this is an official Greek page. If it is, then it is fine. But this should be announced on the page. Please, answer the question: is this page a Greek page promoting Greek version of history? A page edited by the Greek Ministry of Tourism or Information. “Simanos” works there so it is probably one Greek propaganda page? We should know this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.53.139.109 (talk) 11:24, 30 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I only removed the trolling, and personal attacks here in the talk page. Please refrain from personal attack like these above (which I will leave visible for a while only to show to some people) or you will get banned. Simanos (talk) 17:09, 30 June 2010 (UTC)


 * I managed to register to Wikipedia. Great! I am a student and will have next year masters in Byzantine history. All my professor laughed when I said that on Wikipedia I find that Cyril and Methodius were Greeks. They say this is Greek propaganda. This is why I wrote what I wrote before. I verified in the Archives of these discussions. Yes, it is obvious that the missionaries were Slave and Macedonians and that what somebody corrected previously, before Simanos, was correct. My professor (can not name him, he uses Wikipedia) says that Simanos is a Greek official and that all is just rubbish on Wikipedia. I want to contribute to Wikipedia, but if this all is true, and it looks to be true – what is the whole purpose?Tagsmusik (talk) 13:15, 30 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Please refrain from baseless personal attacks or you will be banned. Your "professors" are also wrong as the sources referenced in this article disagree with them. The consensus of this talk page was to put Greek there and remove slavic propaganda, deal with it. Simanos (talk) 17:09, 30 June 2010 (UTC)


 * For Christ's sake!!! Simanos, this is Draganparis again... The IP is Greifswald, Germany. Of course, now he cannot be called a sockpuppeteer since his account has been erased, but it is him. His mistakes and style are very hard to miss... GK (talk) 22:19, 30 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Hahaha, really? That makes sense. I never bought his lies anyway, so I'm not surprised. I really think this page should be semi-protected from IPs again. We've had a dozen vandalisms in the last few days. Simanos (talk) 21:57, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

LOL he just admitted it, I'll remove his slander and lies. Get him banned again please, he lied about retiring too Simanos (talk) 11:59, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

...this person is really suffering from delusions, among others... Simanos an unemployed person who desperately tries to find work in a Greek bank by commenting on Wikipedia (???) and I was banned (???) for attacking him?? Typical rumbles of a troll... GK (talk) 14:03, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Getting quite nervous? You can not erase what you are, can you? What they do here, erase, write, insinuate, deform, they do also on the history pages. This is, this kind of people, what makes Wikipedia desolate place. Tagesmusik is obviously THEIR man over here who was counterproductive making THEM look even more "intelligent" then they really are. They should have given him better instructions. Now they can, because he seams to be registered user. What kind of polluting mafia this is!!! What terrible bad picture they give of the otherwise proud, wise and eternal Greek nation! What a fall. Draganparis —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.67.57.141 (talk) 18:42, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

DP... sockpuppetering is your favorite hobby... random IPs from Greifswald always somehow seem to carry your style and propose the same POV you do, again in the same apologetic, run-down, I-am-a-lonesome-scholar-and-singlehandedly-fight-the-Greek-mafia-which-reigns-over-poor-Wikipedia scenario... If you don't understand that this sharade actually harms your cause and makes you look like a fool, it is your problem. Accusing users of working for the secret services of various nations, of being unemployed agents who try to earn a position by writing in the Wikipedia, by lying that they were banned for harassing you etc is a sure way to have any IP you log in here from permabanned... It is your choice, but consider yourself warned for the millionth time... GK (talk) 19:41, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Don't feed the troll mate. I learned my lesson. Just remove any personal attacks and libel he makes. You can't talk to someone who has "retired" after all can you? :p Simanos (talk) 10:09, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
 * You're right. My bad.. GK (talk) 11:35, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

The deal is that whilst they might have spoken Greek, as well as Slavic, as well as been part of Byzantine civilization, this does not mean they they also did not have Slavic ancestry. As Peter Charanis states well ''In his account of the revolt of Thomas the Slavonian (820) against the Emperor Michael II (820–829) the Byzantine historian Genesius lists a variety of peoples from whom the armies of the rebel had been drawn: Saracens, Indians, Egyptians, Assyrians, Medes, Abasgians, Zichs, Vandals, Getae, Alans, Chaldoi, Armenians, adherents of the heretical sects of the Paulicians and the Athenganoi. Some of these peoples are well known; the identity of others, despite efforts made to determine it, is by no means certain. But in any case, their listing by the Byzantine historian illustrates vividly the multi-racial character of the Byzantine Empire. This was in the ninth century, but the situation was no different for the period before, and it would not be different for the period after. The Byzantine Empire was never in its long history a true national state with an ethnically homogeneous population. If by virtue of its civilization it may be called Greek, it was never, except perhaps during the very last years of its existence, an empire of Greeks.''

I think this clarifies things well Hxseek (talk) 04:00, 6 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Just drop it already Hxseek, the issue was ruled upon by admins. Simanos (talk) 09:35, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
 * What is ruled upon by admins? Byzantine Empire was indeed multi-ethnic. Admins are for enforcing Wikipedia policies valid for all contributors and not for taking side on article disputes. Am I right? --- Nedkoself bias resist 19:33, 6 August 2010 (UTC)


 * That the sources "say" Greek. I'm not going to tell you any more on the matter. Byzantine Empire may have been multi-ethnic, but one of those ethnicities (the dominant one) was Greek. We are talking about 2 persons here, Cyril and Methodius. I was going to remove the troll bait of Draganparis below, but I'm just going to leave it so people can see how ridiculous it all is. Simanos (talk) 18:30, 15 August 2010 (UTC)


 * I am a history student and have bene watching this theater for about 1 year. What they did with somebody I know here illustrates a criminal plot. Look up the archives and you will find it. Don’t you see that Simanos, GK and the rest (Xenovatis, Miskin, Anothroskon, Athenean and similar names are used) are instruments of pure Greek political PROPAGANDA. They are one or two persons acting from multiple sites and distorting history. My advice is to abandon wasting time with Wikipedia and Greek propaganda. Just let them have their monologue of ignorance and despare. My name: !Never!

Simanos, with regard to the general matter of ethnicity in the Byzantine period, you'd have to contend with a multitude of non-Greek, western scholars who argue the same position. Your personal stance is not a reflection of historical reality, but a product of your current political and emotional mindset Hxseek (talk) 08:29, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
 * You can keep trying to insult me and others (and then edit some of your insults), but it only weakens your position. Then again it is so weak and transparent by now that I'm putting you on ignore like that troll that was banned-retired-returned that called itself Draganparis (I'm not saying you're a troll like him). Take care. Simanos (talk) 18:30, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

OMG we're still discussing this. Wasn't a consensus reached a few months ago?--Ptolion (talk) 18:52, 15 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I was absent. Who is "Never"? Some very interesting guy. He gave us the list that was given before. Look up the Archives. But, I see no need to search. The members of the Greek patriotic propaganda will raise their hands. Ptolion is then the next. No, Ptolion, your group arrived at a consensus, may be by the "frappe" in the cafe on the Aristotle's place in Thessaloniki, but the concensus has not been reached by some unbiased community. So we may add Ptolion to the list (Simanos, GK, etc, etc, the patriots par excellence).
 * There is a book by one Greek about the ethnic composition of the Byzantium. Can somebody find it? This may offer a temporary solution to the question. By the way, I came across an Italian professor of history. He maintains that "all the Greeks are in fact Slave because the Slave invasion between 5-10 century just reached the Peloponnese", the language was adopted because of the trade reasons. The old Greeks disappeared. There is some sense in this because the Greeks look either quite middle-eastern, Arabic, Turkish today and physically have nothing in common with the classical Greek sculpture which was REALISTIC. So they are more Turks or Semitic. Or, are indistinguishable from the Slavs (today's Macedonians). So, there were probably no Greeks in Thessaloniki by the time of Cyril and Methodius. What do you think?Tagsmusik (talk) 12:26, 26 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Tagsmusik displays here his racism, in between trying to offend editors. I would delete it, but I want admins to ban him first. According to his Arianism, Turks and Arabs and Semites today have nothing in common with classical Greek sculpture which was REALISTIC. That doesn't even make sense at first reading and has to be analyzed a bit. What is clear is that he secretly hates Jews and others and reminds me of the Nazi propaganda that caricatured them. I won't even bother to answer his baseless vague claims. Simanos (talk) 13:35, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

This article is not a place to discuss the ethnic composition of Byzantium. We should use the terminology used in the most sources, and most sources describe them as just Greek.--Ptolion (talk) 11:04, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

That's not a basis for the continued use of anachronistic and inaccurate terminology. Given that there is clearly an issue here, then more specilaized sources are required. The sources you speak of mention "Greek" in passing without actually discussing the implications f such a label, or its historical accuracy, gievn that the crux of their discussion focusses on something different (ie Chritianity, etc). There is in fact no incontrovertible proof that they were 'ethnic Greeks' as opposed to the swathes of other ethnicities which were inhabiting northern Greece during this time. As has been pointed out, there were Armenians, Slavs, Romans (and few if any "Greeks"). Hxseek (talk) 03:02, 30 August 2010 (UTC)


 * How is there "an issue here"? You will not find sources dealing exclusively with the identity of Cyril and Methodius since that is universally assumed, by western as opposed to slav-nationalist sources, to be Greek. As for the semantic differences between Roman, Greek and Hellene this is not the article to discuss them. The sources say Greek we use Greek. If and when academic consensus changes and they use the term Roman we will follow that. WP should reflect consensus not help to form it.--Anothroskon (talk) 06:48, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Dear Lord, is this still going on? What about linking/changing "Greek" to "Byzantine Greeks"? The later is the article on the "Rhomaioi" aka the Byzantines proper, whether native Greek or culturally assimilated/hellenized, which fits the brothers no matter how you read the sources. And could you please expend your energy somewhere else, like in improving the article? There are 18 citations on their ethnicity (BTW, this rack of citations makes a mockery of WP and should be drastically simplified) and ten for the remaining article. Constantine  ✍  07:04, 30 August 2010 (UTC)


 * It sounds like a good idea and would avoid the pointishness but how would you suggest going about it? Simplifying the sources I mean. As for the compromise of "Byzantine Greeks" the lead could link to the Byzantine section of the Greeks article. Would that work for you as a compromise? --Anothroskon (talk) 14:55, 30 August 2010 (UTC)


 * On the citations, remove any but the most authoritative and/or pertinent to the subject. An apostolic letter of Pope John Paul II is not a credible source on the ethnicity of 9th-century people. Also, any work referring to a modern country and only treats the brothers in passing (e.g. Ukraine: a history, Making peace prevail: preventing violent conflict in Macedonia, Croatia: travels in undiscovered country). For such issues, only philological, ethnographic and historical studies focusing on the particular period should be used. Exceptionally credible overview works related to the field, like the Oxford Dictionary of Christianity etc, can also be used. I remember seeing a ton of sources posted here in the past, choose the four-five most appropriate and authoritative and use them and only them. If necessary, add a small comment with a link to the list of sources. For the compromise, as far as I understand it, the point that is raised against the brothers being unqualifyingly classified as "Greek" rests on the assumed identification with the modern Greek ethnicity. Since a dedicated article on the "Rhomaioi" exists, it is only fair that it should be linked there, saving trouble all around. Constantine  ✍  17:05, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

That sounds reasonable, and its fair to say that too much debate has been expended on this issue Hxseek (talk) 12:11, 31 August 2010 (UTC)


 * May I say something? If they were Greeks, this is fine. Since they most probably were not, but were Slaves, there is a problem.Housfrau (talk) 19:22, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
 * /facepalm Simanos (talk) 19:58, 18 September 2010 (UTC)