Written by Besnik Imeri, Vlorë, March 24, 2022. Translated by Petrit Latifi.

The emergence of the Eastern Church, initially the Patriarchate and then the Greek Orthodox Church, as the standard-bearer of Hellenization, is a characteristic phenomenon and one of the most interesting facts in the history of the Balkans. Here is what Jean-Claude Faveirial tells us about this:

“…Byzantium ordered to convert to Greek heresy what the apostles had converted to Christianity, to turn into Hellenism those whom Rome had turned into Romans…So, the main issue of Byzantium was to remain the master of Ohrid and not allow the Illyrians to create a separate state…, as well as to turn into Byzantism what Rome had Romanized, and then to replace with it the Greek language, first Latin, and then the local languages, which became provincial, rural, in comparison with the official language accepted by everyone…”[1]

So the beginnings of Hellenization begin together with the schism with a well-studied plan: Greek would replace Latin and the cultural and religious connection with the West would be severed. The Greek language would precede Byzantization and Hellenization. The Byzantine Empire would be a Hellenic empire in language and spirit. “Photis had forbidden the reading of the Gospel in the churches of Constantinople, while Michael Cerularius (the Patriarch of Constantinople, whose war against the Latin churches brought about the official division of 1054) had closed the Latin churches there…The Greek Schism was nothing more than a vile intrigue to separate Illyria from Rome and annex it to Byzantium.”[2]

The enigma is compounded when, with the departure from the stage of history of Old Greek, New Greek was born. Why this exchange? Why was another Greek needed, when the first one had no results?!!! The enigma is further obscured when the creation of New Greek is linked to the Clergy, with the split (schism) into two parts of the Christian Church in the West, Catholic, and the East, Orthodox.

D’Anzhely also gives an idea for the creation of the New Greek:

“…after the year 800 and especially after the first schism of 860 during the patriarchate of Photius, the use of Latin tends to decrease in favor of Greek… The Church of the East, after the schism of 860, sought and boasted of the preference of Greek over Latin and was satisfied with this point. It was in this case that the Church had the idea and with the help of its clergy undertook the formation of the New Greek, the starting point and beginnings of which date back precisely to the end of the 9th century…”[3]

Aristidh Kolia also speaks of a new type of Greek that had appeared in the 12th century, which seemed more like a bastardization of the Old Greek: “…During that period (12th century AD), the people under the Byzantine Empire did not speak the dialect of Attica (Old Greek) at all, except for scholars and scholars who loved Hellenic antiquity. The dominant language was that of the “Ptohopodrom” (the popular Greek language of that time).” [4]

The creation of the New Greek is surrounded by mystery, since it involves the Orthodox Patriarchate of Byzantium. Why the church? If the churches were divided and consequently their languages, respectively, Latin and Old Greek; Why did the Eastern Church not keep Old Greek but created New Greek?!!! To understand this mystery more clearly, let’s look at the other side of the coin, the Western Catholic Church, which kept Latin as its liturgical language and did not adopt Italian, Spanish, or French, which, separately and in contrast to Old Greek, can be called New Latin. The mystery is compounded when this church language was imposed on the people, or more precisely, the language was once found and then the people were found who would speak this language.

The mystery is compounded when you consider that New Greek has no connection with Old Greek, and they even seem like two different languages. They only have the name in common. In this mystery there is a light at the end of the tunnel: Ancient Greek is closer to the Albanian language, or more precisely, it is better understood through the Albanian language, than Modern Greek, despite the fact that the two Greeks have the same name.

Are we facing a great deception? In a comparison made of a number of words of these languages, by many authors, it turns out that those of Ancient Greek are almost the same as those of the Albanian language; while those of Modern Greek have no, or very little, connection with the first two. One of these authors is Aristidh Kolia, who tells us: “…it is enough to add a small list of ancient Albanian, Greek and Hellenic words and from their direct comparison it is proven that Albanian is completely the same as Homeric Greek, which is not the case with Modern Greek. That is, a greater connection of Albanian with the Homeric dialect is proven than with that of Modern Greek, and, although this seems strange and incredible, it is true.” [5]

Is this perhaps the mystery of the creation of Modern Greek by the Orthodox Clergy? The fear of the Albanian language that was widespread and was spoken throughout the Byzantine Empire, as a direct successor to Pelasgian, from which Old Greek had also been born.

Was it not that with the creation of New Greek, the knowledge of antiquity was closed with a leaden lid and at the same time a powerful blow was given to paganism, which was alive at that time. But is it still spoken today among Albanian-speaking populations? After all, it was known that Old Greek was the language of paganism, the language of pagan gods, the language of polytheism, which had to be replaced by the language of monotheism.

For a long time, the ecclesiastical darkness was fighting the bright Pelasgian paganism, which represented a brilliant world, global culture. Do we have the right to ask the question, was this actually an undeclared war against Pelasgian civilization and civilization, one of the brightest civilizations of humanity?!!! Delving further into our doubts, with a little timidity, we can even ask: Was the creation of Ancient Greek, Latin and Sanskrit also a war against the divine Pelasgian language?!!!

Further still, was the creation of Christianity, and then its branch, Islamism, a programmed part of this war?!!! And, for those who do not believe in this assumption, we can bring the fact that the peoples who embraced Christianity and Islam lost civilization and fell into medieval darkness for hundreds of years. The European Renaissance itself is irrefutable proof of this fact, that the peoples, in order to re-enter the path of civilization, turned their eyes to the past, to the Greco-Roman civilization, which, in turn, was the tip of the iceberg of the shining Pelasgian civilization. So Christianity and its offshoot, Islam, not only interrupted the civilizing path of the peoples of the white race, but turned them back in time, plunging their civilization into a 1,000-year darkness. Who did this?!!

The first barbaric attack of Christianity was directed at the Greek and Roman civilizations, as direct descendants of the Pelasgian civilization. Initially, Christianity was consolidated in the East. The Jews were the first to root Christianity in the East, Asia Minor, Syria, Palestine, etc.[6]

Rome, which was a ruling empire, responded harshly to the “Christians,” but they, like hermit monks and ants, were brought under God. The first missionaries of Christianity were Jews converted to Christians. Aristidh Kolia tells us that the Old Testament tells the story of the Jews, the persecutions of Christians, were nothing more than persecutions of the Jews of the diaspora, whom Paul convinced of the new Zionist directive…

The first Christian leaders were Jews…The first Archbishop of Thebes, Rufus, was the son of Joseph of Arimathea, a pure-blooded Jew, registered as a “Roman citizen”, like all the Greeks of the Roman Empire. And registered as a “Greek”, like all the Christians of the later Byzantine Empire…Since the Roman Empire and later we have Jews in Greece and Europe, but we do not see them.[7]

After Rome punished and bowed its head before the barbarian attacks, the turn came to Greece. But they first legalized Christianity by luring, or forcing, Constantine, the Dardanian from Nisha, into the position of emperor. This happened in 313 AD with the Edict of Milan. Perhaps even the transfer of the center of the empire from Rome to Byzantium, which they called Constantine’s city, Constantinople, was due to the intervention or influence of Christian Jews, who were now in high positions of ecclesiastical leadership.

Initially, the Christian “crusade” against the Greeks was preceded by the sending of fanatical Christian missionaries, just as the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans was preceded by the sending of fanatical Muslim hermit dervishes. It is the same strategy. Aristidh Kolias recounts that such fanatical Christians and believers for generations (mostly Jews from Asia Minor and the diaspora), as well as Christianized barbarians, wanted to show the Greeks the “true light”…The Greeks were a tolerant and not at all fanatical people…this is even shown by the dedication of an altar in Athens, with the inscription “To an unknown god” and under this pretext the apostle Paul preached in Athens.[8]

After these peaceful “phalanxes”, just like today’s “Jehovah’s Witnesses”,… Christianity was imposed on the Greeks with fire and iron, by the first Christian Byzantine emperors… their magnificent temples were demolished, their statues were broken, their schools, stadiums and academies were closed and the Jews of the diaspora were placed in oracles to tell the last defender of Greece, Emperor Julian, that Ancient Greece was dead and that they had in their hands the act of the civil state that proves its death…

Then came the emperor Theodosius the Great (why do we also call this chief executioner of the Hellenic tribe and its civilization “great”) and the executions in groups of those who did not accept Christianity began. In the stadium of Kavalla, he killed 50,000 Greeks and Romans. He stopped the Olympic games. He demolished the most beautiful temples, masterpieces of the inimitable art of ancient Hellenism…

During a period of 1000 years (medieval and Christian darkness), they did not manage to carve a single marble or a single wood, except for a few heartless Jewish elders, murderers of goodness and beauty… They demolished the temples and on their ruins and with their stones, with a vengeful mania, they erected anti-artistic churches and monasteries, which resembled hydrocephalic dwarfs digging on the body of the giant Prometheus… But Greece had to become Christian at all costs.[9]

The successor of this great work of Christianization of the Roman Empire was Justinian the Great, during whose time great Byzantine churches, cathedrals, were built, and, the largest, the most magnificent of them, in the center of the empire: Saint Sophia. During Justinian’s time, the cathedral of Bylis, the paleo-Christian church and basilica in the territory of the Amants, the great basilica and baptistery in Buthrot, etc. were built.

But Justinian’s biggest mistake was the closure of the Platonic Academy of Athens, which included the cream of the greatest scholars and philosophers of the Mediterranean, and their expulsion outside the borders of the empire. Forced, they went to Persia, becoming the nucleus of a great intellectual enlightenment of the Persians, as well as the development of the entire Arab world in the fields of mathematics, medical sciences, philosophy and literature, where their peak was Persian philosophy and literature, while Byzantium fell into deep darkness and a lethargic intellectual sleep.

The first to suffer from Christianity was Dodona: “The abandonment and destruction of the Dodona sanctuary occurred at the end of the 4th century AD, with the proclamation of Christianity as the official religion and the prohibition of pagan celebrations by Emperor Theodosius I (379-395).

The sacred oak was cut down and a paleochristian basilica was built in the second half of the 5th century to the east of the site of the naisk (temple) of Zeus…Despite the luxury of the cathedral…, the Bylis of this time (5th-6th century AD) looked like a village compared to the rich and magnificent city of antiquity. A neighborhood of small dwellings and poor alleys stretched from the cathedral to the early basilica (late 4th century AD).”[10]

Nicholas G. Hammond in 1930 visited the area near Paramythia in Chameria, in the village of Lëkurës, which he describes in detail: “…I spent two days in the plain of Acheron. The river rose from a wide, impassable gorge, its banks were steep and full of trees, until it emerged into a fertile plain, wide and flat, and in places with marshes.

In 1930, the English company Boots took over the reclamation of this area. In fact, they were draining the waters of Lake Acherus, through which Charon was believed to transport the dead for a fee of one obol…Near Lëkurës is the abandoned monastery of St. George. The monastery stands within Hellenistic walls of large polygonal stones, clearly marking the boundaries of an ancient sacred place “temenos”.

The ruins of the sacred place consist of a series of similar walls reflecting three ancient periods. As I watched the Koqit River where it joined the Acheron River, just below the Monastery, I realized that I was standing on the site of the oracle of death, the Nekymanteion. This Oracle handed over the secrets of the underworld, the kingdom of the merciless god Hades or Adonai, who was still worshipped in the churches of the region in the name of Agios Donati (the region is Chameria and is called by the locals, the Chams, Paramithi or Ajdonat (Aj-Donat)).

The history of the shrine takes you far back, to the Bronze Age. Initially, the legends of Demeter and Persephone, of Theseus and Peirithou, of Heracles with the three-headed Cerberus, and of the judges of death were localized here. The Odyssey describes this place, as it is today with groves and willows…”[11]

Hamond speaks of the Monastery built on ancient ruins…. Near Lëkurës is the abandoned monastery of St. George. The monastery stands within Hellenistic walls of large polygonal stones, clearly marking the boundaries of an ancient sacred site “temenos”…But Hammond does not say that this Monastery was built on the ruins of the ancient temple of Persephone, as well as on the Altar of the goddess Themis; which is pointed out by Dhimitër Pilika:

“…According to Pausanias, near ancient Ephyra (Lekura, a word that is clear to Albanian speakers), at the mouth of Hades (Humnerës), also in Thesprot, was the Altar of Themis…In the village of Lëkura, ancient Ephyra, near the famous temple of Ephyra dedicated to the goddess Persephone (Persefasa), where the Oracle of Death was, where this goddess ruled together with the three-headed dog (her symbol) Cerberus, a statue of this Pelasgian goddess from the 3rd century BC has been found…”[12]

But also a good part of the cities that flourished in antiquity, and that survived the Roman occupation, in this period of antiquity In the late 19th century, coinciding with the development and strengthening of Christianity, they had almost turned into villages: Apollonia, Amantie, Olympe, Throni, Nikaja, Bylisi, etc. Apollonia, which in antiquity was one of the most prominent cities on the Adriatic coast, turned into a village, where the place of four pagan temples was taken by a Byzantine church, which was built on the ruins of a temple, and had even put into use its foundations, columns, and even stones.

On the ruins of the temple of Poseidon in Saranda, the Paleo-Christian church of Mesopotamia was built. In Bylis, instead of two or three ancient temples, seven basilicas were built, making this city the center of Christianity for all of New Epirus. Throughout the territory of the Amanties, like mushrooms after the rain, and in place of ancient temples and shrines, Paleo-Christian Byzantine churches were built.

Near the temple of Aphrodite in Amantia and with its materials, a paleochristian church was built. Within the surrounding walls of Kanina, on the ruins of an ancient temple, the Byzantine church of St. Mary was built. Byzantine churches were built in Armen, Qishbardhë, Peshkëpi, Risili and Sherishtë. In the city center of Vlora, on the ruins of a temple of Artemis, a paleochristian Byzantine church was built, which was converted into a mosque in the 16th century. In the village of Labova e Kryqit, in Gjirokastër, on the ruins of an ancient temple, a paleochristian Byzantine church was built.

But the Amantines, who did not have temples only in the cities of Olympe and Amantia, but also in the surrounding areas ruled by them. The ruins and traces of them were recently discovered by a group of archaeologists during their archaeological expedition in 2012 in the Vlora area: “…at “Maja e Lutroit” in the village of Kropisht (near the village of Peshkëpi, which was probably the episcopal center), called by the locals “Maja e Qishës”, there is a prehistoric settlement, a temple of the Hellenistic period, on its ruins a Byzantine church was built…

In Asomat (Velçë) at the place called by the locals “Maja e Qytetit” in the ruins of a Byzantine church, called by the locals “Qisha Mene”, the ruins of an ancient temple have been discovered… Numerous limestone blocks with which the temple was built were reused to build the walls of a church during the Middle Ages… In the walls of the church, in addition to the blocks, parts of frames, roof tiles of the stone temple were used limestone (slabs), bricks and small stones…the temple was built near a spring…” [13]

The fact that this temple was built near a spring clearly shows that, if it was not dedicated to the spring nymphs, it must undoubtedly have been dedicated to Poseidon, a god who was greatly worshipped at Kaoni. But in the village of Dushkarak (near Amantia), an inscription dedicated to the god Poseidon has been found.[14]

The attack on ancient civilization was expressed in the destruction, burning and disappearance of its spiritual traces, such as books, parchments and the libraries that preserved them, in the disappearance of the works of the great scientists, scholars, mathematicians, philosophers, poets and playwrights of antiquity. This is what Aristidh Kolia says:

“…since it had to be proven that the ancient Greeks and the ancient Hellenic civilization were a zero before their (Christian) civilization…They wanted to wipe Greece off the map, because, according to them, it constituted a mockery of the Byzantine civilization. The Greeks, according to Hebrew terminology, were called “Eloim” (in Hebrew it can be translated “barbarians”,”anti-gods”, “enemies of God and Israel”, etc., etc.)…What happened to the millions of books and the wisdom of the ancient Greeks? Who burned the Library of Alexandria, which had all the wealth of ancient wisdom and of all ancient peoples? And something important: how were all the books of Jewish history preserved, which were quite insignificant and very few… Where are the writings of Anaxagoras, Protagoras, Democritus, Heraclitus and all the sages of Ancient Greece and Rome? Where are the tragedies and comedies of the poets? Fragments remained, while the Bible of the Hebrews was preserved, and even in Greek translation?…”[15]

After all this fuss and war against ancient Mediterranean civilization, especially Greek, a question arises, how is it possible that the Christian Byzantine Empire returned to Greek? The answer to this question is again given by Aristidh Kolia:

“The peoples who formed the Byzantine Empire, and this constituted a rather large and insoluble problem for the Byzantine leadership, did not speak the Roman language… because the peoples, in all those countries that constituted the new Byzantine Empire, since Alexandrian times and before, in addition to their national languages, also spoke Greek, which had long since become an international language of the world, known until then… The time came, then, that the leaders of Byzantium, after all that they had done to the Greeks and their civilization, were forced to establish the Greek language as the official language of the state… Thus Greek was designated as the official language of Byzantium, after a three-century-long resentment of the Byzantine emperors and their courts against the Greeks…”[16]

After the victory of the “civilization” of Old Greek and its several centuries-long use as the official language of the Byzantine Empire, the existence and spread of New Greek, which in this multinational empire, had the same reason for use, as did Old Greek in the Alexandrian empire, where peoples who did not have a common language to communicate with each other, were forced to communicate in Greek, since this condition, as an international written and spoken language, was fulfilled only by Greek.

For illustration, are not immigrants today obliged in all EU countries to learn the language of the country where they work, despite coming from all continents. Or are all immigrants from all over the world who go to the USA obliged to learn English. So, the existence of Greek, old and new, was saved and preserved from extinction by its function as an international language, and in accordance with the globalist tendencies that all empires everywhere in the world and at all times display and exercise. So, the new Greek was increased and multiplied by the Byzantine Empire and the Ottoman Empire.

We return again to D’Anzhely, who claims:

“…The spread of (New) Greek in the Byzantine Empire had to do with the non-Albanian populations of the vast empire, who were often people who did not know Albanian, and who, embracing Orthodoxy, also preferred Greek…

…New Greek took a long period, about 1000 years, to become usable and to spread, initially in several major cities of the western coast of Asia Minor (interestingly the same as Old Greek) in Thessaloniki and Byzantium…

…New Greek began to spread after the fall of Constantinople in 1453 and mainly after the years 1821-1830…”[17]

Quite interesting is the last fact presented by D’Anzhely regarding the spread of New Greek after the fall of Constantinople, speaking in good of our thesis, that the Patriarchate, and those who stood behind it, planned a new empire, which would speak Greek.

After the consolidation of Modern Greek as the language of Byzantium and the Patriarchate of Istanbul, what happened to the other peoples of the Byzantine Empire, and then, the Ottoman Empire? Here is how Faveiriali describes the goals and consequences of the Schism among these peoples:

“The Greek Schism left the Albanians and Bulgarians without a homeland, without literature…the Greeks (Greek Byzantium) divided the churches in order to better establish their unstable power over the Vlachs, Albanians and Bulgarians…the Greeks (Byzantines) made the Bulgarians, Vlachs and Albanians believe that anyone who was not Greek (i.e. who did not speak Greek) was not even a Christian.”[18]

Platonic and Aristotelian dialectics do not allow us to be surprised by the fact that the history of Greece and the Greeks, after about 1500 years, is reversed, or rather returns to where it was, but to another stage, in new times, where new factors and interests, as well as new political and religious actors, are at work.

What happened to the ancient Greek civilization and what the Greeks suffered in the 4th-9th centuries AD, turned into its opposite; but this time it was the Greeks, or those who called themselves Greeks after being Greekized in language, who committed the same evil deeds against other Balkan peoples, their neighbors.

Aristidh Kolia shows that after the uprising of 1821, they equated Christianity with Greece, and this today (20th century) becomes automatically acceptable, while it is the greatest deception. Greece was the greatest opponent of Christianity! Greece, the Greeks and Greek civilization are the greatest victim-trophy of Christianity, which arose from the Jewish tribe and, like a black storm, flattened everything beautiful, good and powerful that humanity had produced until then…[19]

But now, in modern times, Christian Greece has turned into the cannibal state of its neighboring peoples, Christian or Muslim. The slogan: every Christian is necessarily Greek, and every Muslim has no place in the Greek state, was a real mockery of what the true Greeks had suffered from Christianity in the first centuries of our era. But this was no longer the Greece that had been.

It had been disfigured and transformed into a monster. From a country that in ancient times radiated culture and civilization, it no longer radiated civilization, on the contrary, it had become a monster that devoured its neighbors. But even the Greeks of the 19th and 20th centuries were no longer the ancient Greeks, and those who survived from them until the first centuries of the early Middle Ages, that is, the true Greeks. These only had the name Greeks, since they were not Greeks and had almost no connection with the ancient Greeks, except for the Arvanites.

These were the Greeks cloned in language and religion, that is, the self-proclaimed Greeks, who in reality, as is According to many authors, the majority of the population of Greece consisted of: Slavs, Jews, Vlachs, Egyptians, Aryans, Arabs, Arvanites, etc., who after being Greekized in language and Christianized in religion, took the name Greeks. So, modern Greece and its inhabitants have no connection with Greece and the ancient Greeks, except here always only the autochthonous Arvanites. This is the Greatest Deception created, we say, even by the Great Powers.

Continue reading Part two here.

References

Besnik Imeri (taken from the book “The Grecization of Epirus”)

[1] Jean Claude Faveirial, “History of Albania”, Plejad-2004, French translation Gent Ulqini, p,34-35

[2] Jean Claude Faveirial, “History of Albania”, Plejad-2004, French translation Gent Ulqini, p,158,163

[3] Robert D’Angely, Enigma, Albanian TOENA-1998, French translation Xhevat Lloshi, p, 279

[4] Aristidh Kola, Arvanitas and the Ancestry of the Greeks, Vol.”55”-2002, French translation A.Agora, p. 154

[5] Aristidh Kola, “Arvanitas and the Origin of the Greeks”,Edition.”55”-2002,Transl.Gr.A.Agora, p. 170

[6] Aristidh Kola,Arvanitas and the Origin of the Greeks,Edition.”55”-2002,Transl.Gr.A.Agora, p. 143

[7] Aristidh Kola,Arvanitas and the Origin of the Greeks,Edition.”55”-2002,Transl.Gr.A.Agora, p. 519

[8] A.Kola,Arvanitas and the Origin of the Greeks,Edition.”55”-2002,Transl.Gr.A.Agora, p. 139

[9] A. Kola, “Arvanitas and the Ancestry of the Greeks”, Edition.”55”-2002, Transl. Gr. A. Agora, p. 520, 140

[10] Neritan Ceka, “Illyrians to the Albanians”. Edition MIGJENI, Tirana-2014, p. 146, 428

[11] N.G.L.Hamond, Epirus, Bot.alqip, QSN-2004, Engl.transl.Leka Ndoja, p, 12,13,14

[12] Dhimitër Pilika, Pelloazgët Origjina Jonë e Mohuar, Bot.ENCIKLOPEDIKE-2005, p,209,275

[13] S.Xhyheri, S.Muça, E.Halilaj, L. Sheremetaj, “Archaeological Research in the Vlorë Area”, ILIRIA XXXVII-2013, p. 453-454, 455-456

[14] Neritan Ceka, “Mbishkrime byline”, ILIRIA No.2 – 1987, p. 69

[15] A. Kola, “Arvanitas and the Origin of the Greeks”, Vol.”55”-2002, Transl. Gr. A. Agora, p.520-521

[16] A. Kola, “Arvanitas and the Origin of the Greeks”, Vol.”55”-2002, Transl. Gr. A. Agora, p.143

[17] Robert D’Angely, Enigma, Bot. Shqip. TOENA-1998, Transl. Fr. Xhevat Lloshi , p. 280

[18] Jean Claude Faveirial, “History of Albania”, Bot. Plejad-2004, Transl. Fr. Gent Ulqini, p. 167

[19] A. Kola, “Arvanitas and the Origin of the Greeks”, Vol.”55”-2002, Transl. Gr.A.Agora, p.143