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Some key dates

330: Emperor Constantine transfers the capital of the Roman Empire to Constantinople.
380: Christianity becomes the official religion of the empire.
1054: The break between Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism is formalised by the mutual anathema and the Great Schism between the two Churches.
1204: Fourth Crusade; the loot of Constantinople produced within the Orthodox commonwealth a negative image of the Roman Catholic Church and further extended the divisive lines between East and West, in terms of politics and culture.
1453: Fall of Constantinople and transition from the Byzantine to the Ottoman Empire. During Ottoman rule, the Patriarchate of Constantinople assumed the ecclesiastic and political administration of the Orthodox community, guaranteeing its submission to the Sultan.
1821: Beginning of the Greek Independence struggle in the Peloponnese against the Ottoman Empire. The Ecumenical Patriarch is executed by the Sultan, despite the fact that he had condemned the uprising.
1822: The National Assembly of Epidaurus proclaims Greece’s independence.
1831: The Great Powers officially recognize Greece as an independent state.
1833: King Otto (son of Ludwig I of Bavaria) arrives in Greece to rule under English, French and Russian trusteeship. The Church of Greece is established by the State with the status of a legal person under public law. Because of this uncanonical act, the Greek Church was considered schismatic by its legitimate canonical authority, the Patriarchate of Constantinople.
1850: Repeal of the schism between Constantinople and Athens.
1850-1900: "New" territories, including Thessaly and the Ionian Islands, are gradually integrated into the Greek state.
1912-1913: War breaks out in the Balkan States. The territories of southern Macedonia and Epirus are incorporated into Greece.
1923: Treaty of Lausanne and "exchange of populations" between Greece and Turkey. All the Christian Orthodox subjects of Turkey, except those living in Istanbul and the islands of Imvros and Tenedos, were obliged to emigrate to Greece.
1941-1944: Greece under Nazi occupation. Creation of a strong partisan movement.
1944: Liberation of Athens.
1944-1949: Outbreak of the Greek Civil War between the Right (a part of which collaborated actively with the Nazis) and the Left.
1946-1974: The Communist Party is banned.
1967: Military coup d’état.
1974: Fall of the military junta.
1975: New Constitution. Establishment of democratic party-politics.
1981: Greece becomes a member of the European Community. Andreas Papandreou heads the country’s first socialist government.
2001: Joining the Euro area.
2009: Financial crisis. Greece under the supervision of the “Troika” (the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the IMF, International Monetary Fund).
2012: National Elections. Reformulation of domestic politics. End of bi-partisanism. The political situation has changed: The left (SYRIZA) proclaims itself “loyal opposition”. Great electoral success for the neo-Nazi ‘Golden Dawn’ party.
2015: National elections. Alexis Tsipras leads the country’s first left-wing government.
2023: National elections. The first religious (fundamentalist) party (Niki) in Greece’s history enters the Greek Parliament.

D 27 July 2023    AAlexandros Sakellariou AKonstantinos Papastathis

CNRS Unistra Dres Gsrl

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