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

THE PATRIARCHATE AND THE HIGH ORTHODOX CLERGY

We continue with the topic of Hellenization. Regarding the role of the Patriarchate in the fight against the Albanian language, in the territories outside the borders of the Greek state, Arben Llalla in his book “Greek Collaborators, Designers and Leaders of the Genocide in Chameria” tells us:

“…The Autocephalous Church of Greece and the Patriarchate of Istanbul have always fought for the assimilation and extinction of the Albanian language and the Albanian nation…

…The Metropolitan of Kostur, Fillaretis, who was originally from Asia Minor, was also against the Albanian language, who in 1892 distributed a brochure where he cursed the Albanian language…

…The Metropolitan of Korça, Fotis Kallidhis, originally from Asia Minor, propagated against the Albanian language and was killed by patriots on September 9, 1906, in revenge for the murder of two brothers, who were teachers of the Albanian language, Theodhos and Kristo-Harallamo Negovani, massacred by the Greeks on February 12, 1905…”[1]

Jean-Claude Faverial shows the actors active against the education of the Vlach and Albanian people in their own language, in the territories under Ottoman rule in Macedonia and Albania:

“Who opposes today (the year 1889) the education of the Vlach and Albanian people? Greek bishops, Greek consuls, Greek agents and Greek doctors” [2]

Hellenization, through the spread by force, or insidiously, of the Greek language, either within the swollen territory of the Greek state, or outside it; is treated scientifically by Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza:

“…The complete replacement of a language occurs under a strong political and organized pressure. Africans brought as slaves to America in the last three centuries have almost lost their languages ​​of origin and speak those of the countries where they live…” [3]

But we Albanians have been worse off than the blacks of America, who had no chance, after being displaced thousands of km from their homeland; while we Albanians, in our lands and in our homes, because of our black complexion, have been Greekized and Slavized worse than the blacks of Africa, who are not to blame for the loss of their language.

We continue with the Patriarchate of Constantinople, which has also been at the forefront of efforts to Hellenize the Balkans, the creation, expansion and enlargement of the Greek state, as a Byzantine mini-empire. This began with the uprising for the creation of the Greek state, strongly supported by two patriarchates, that of Constantinople and that of St. Petersburg.

Regarding the nature and content of the “Greek Uprising”, Aristidh Kolia says: “After the second national assembly of Astros in 1823, a clash of the two lines that have been created is foreseen. Of the so-called “oligarchs” with the “democrats” or of the “politicians” with the “military” as some prefer.

The Koxabas, the Phanariotes and the despots are closed and surrounded by the people. Andrutso tries to convince Kolokotron to purge them. But he rebukes him: “Oh, and you have a mind for them. Let them die out on their own”… The Greek uprising was a religious uprising, no matter how shocking such a thing may be…”[4]

The first slogan of this state, born from this uprising, with the platform of “one language, one religion” would be: Death to Muslims, even Greek-speaking ones; Death to the Albanian language and to the Albanians who spoke it in Epirus. After all, the magic formula required only: One language, one religion, one state. Whoever did not fit this formula and went outside it, even for one element, had to be eliminated and disappeared.

The essence of this was captured by the scholars of the Patriarchate of Istanbul, the Phanariots (Phanariot Skiljet), enlightened in knowledge and political, state and clerical leadership skills. The idea of ​​creating a nation cloned in language and religion through the seed of Hellenization was born in them… 150 years have passed since the Uprising and the criterion of Hellenism is still religion (Orthodox Christianity)… 21st century Greece is the continuation of Byzantium of Orthodox Byzantium…These things were said by the despots who came from Asia Minor and especially the Phanariotes, but the people had a different opinion…[5]

Therefore, the Patriarchate of Istanbul also took this seed of Hellenization (multinationality), sowed it in the 9th and 10th centuries, creating the new language of Eastern Christianity, New Greek. After this, when the conditions were created, when the plants sprouted from this seed had blossomed, around the middle of the 18th century, when the Ottoman Empire was being cut down, with the shoots that had grown for hundreds of years, the Patriarchate of Istanbul thought that the time had come to recreate the Byzantine Empire under a new name, of the future Greek state, which would possibly include all the Orthodox of the Balkans and beyond, where the inhabitants of this state could also speak Ariczica in the family hearth, but in school they would learn only Greek and in the public administration and in the state only Greek would be spoken.

The official language of this state would be Greek. The new Greek was a necessary evil for the creation of this mini-empire , which needed a widely spread language, which today can be called globalist. Drawing a parallel, regarding the need that the Byzantine Empire had for Old Greek, and, in the new conditions, the mini-Byzantine empire for New Greek, Aristidh Kolia says: “…Here is Greek as the only solution to the problem of polyglotty (many languages ​​that warred in the Byzantine Empire) and the multinationality of Byzantium.

Thus the Byzantine emperors and leaders licked where they had spat for so long and were forced to proclaim the Greek language as a single international and common language of the diversity of their peoples, despite the fact that Greece and the Greeks did not stop persecuting and enslaving them for 700 years (since Theodosius).” [6]

Precisely the Greek that was fabricated by the Orthodox clergy in the ‘cells’ of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, which was called ‘the language of God’, despite the fact that the status of ‘the language of God’ had previously been held by Pelasgian and after it, its only successor, Albanian.

There it was decided that the Albanian language would be sentenced to death as a direct successor to Pelasgian. This was a Second War of Eastern Christianity, after that of late antiquity against enlightened paganism. There in the offices of the Phanar this project was cooked up and brought to life, which he named “Megal-Idea”.

The slogan one state, one language, one religion was the mystical magical mixture mixed with “holy water”. But first the language was needed. Mathiey Aref, in an article about the Albanian language on the portal “pashtriku.org”, addresses the issue of the new Greek after the creation of the Greek state in 1831 from a different perspective:

“Under the Ottoman occupation (1453-1821) Byzantine Greek turned into “Demotic”, that is, into the language of the people: a language influenced by Latin, Albanian, Turkish and Slavic. But with the creation of the Greek state in 1820, the Greeks wanted to get rid of the Turkish influence and created Catharese, that is, a “purified” language. A scholarly, purist, archaic language became the official language. The people continued to speak Demotic, on their part, on a daily basis.

Except, it was noted, in some scattered regions of Greece or the Balkans, where some pockets of Pelasgian-Albanian culture resisted “Demotic” and various invasions. At the beginning of the 20th century, Katharine was opposed and for a long time criticized and flogged as a dead language. In 1975, Katharine failed. The Greek government adopted and finally restored Demotic (with some help from Katharine) in 1976, and in 1981 Greece began a fundamental reform of spelling.”

First, the language, the new Greek, was created, then through it and the Orthodox religion, the “Greek ethnicity” was created, and through this “Greek ethnicity” the territory for the formation of the Greek state would also be sought. Everything was programmed down to the smallest detail. The program until its realization was predicted to last several hundred years, perhaps even a millennium.

And so it happened, after about 1000 years of the creation of the new Greek, the new Greek state was also created, an Orthodox Christian state, emerging from the bloody womb of the Patriarchate of Istanbul with the blessing of Christian Europe, or more precisely the “Holy League”, which buried the tyrant Napoleon Bonaparte.

One of the seed sowers of the Greekism of the Patriarchate was Cosmas the Aetolian, to whom Epirus was given as a mission, where the Hellenic ethnicity would be created. Who was Cosmas? The Greek writer Spiro Mela speaks of him:

“…Cosmais was from the village of Apokoro in Aetolia, he had studied as much as a monk could study in “Agion Oros” (the Holy Mountain), filled with faith and enthusiasm, he had gone to the Patriarchate of Istanbul and had asked permission to go and preach the word of God, mainly to the populations of Albania…The Patriarch, Sophrony the Second, gave permission to Cosmais with the greatest joy to go and preach in those places: A great religious and national mission…”[7]

This seed was sown and every plant that emerged was a Greek school. The more Greek schools in non-Greek territories, the more Hellenes in these territories; and the more Hellenes in these territories, the more non-Greek territories are ready to become Greek and to join the mother state, Hellas. How simple things are. But many do not understand or pretend not to understand.

And Cosmas the Aetolian, the Patriarch, 150 years after his death, declared him a saint. After he worked with flesh and soul until he gave his life for Hellenism. About his death Spiro Mela says:

“…evil mouths say that Kurt Pasha (of Berat), in order to give permission to kill the holy preacher, had received twenty thousand grosz from the Jews, who demanded the disappearance of Cosmas, since in his sermons he scourged their race…”[8]

This War would be simultaneously Political and Religious. On one side of its flag would be Hellenism, the creation of a Greek state; and on the other side would be the church, the Orthodox Christian religion. The most crying mirror The result of this War was the so-called War of Independence of Greece, which was not the war of a people for liberation from Turkish captivity; but a Religious War disguised with political slogans. “Death to Muslims” was the slogan of this war.

After the Eastern Church did not forget, to fight with all its soul and in the most savage way, the state religion of that empire that ruined it, Islamism. Perhaps also out of jealousy of what the pagan Ottoman Turks did not choose as the religion of their empire, Christianity; but chose Islamism, the religion of the fallen Arab Empire. Aristidh Kolia, in this regard, is of the opinion that this was done at the suggestion of the Jews, whose trade and economic and financial interests were linked to the East…

the ideological principles of the Christian religion, which is also, like Islam, an outgrowth of Judaism…search the books of history and you will see, perhaps with great surprise, that the Jews transmitted the Muslim religion to the Turks, and that ultimately, on the one hand, they sabotaged the now Greek Byzantium, and, on the other hand, they aided and sponsored Muhammad the Conqueror.[9]

So this was the First Crusade of the Eastern Church, which surprisingly was strongly supported by the Western Church, the most powerful states of Europe, and those under a religious banner, which bore the name of the “Holy League” (Catholic).

The offspring of this war could not be other than a religious state. That is why even today, almost two centuries after its creation, the Greek state remains a theocratic state, even the most theocratic state in Europe, and the strangest part of the E.E., or the beloved of the E.E. After all, at its birth it had as its godfather the Europe of the “Holy League”.

Here is what Sami Frashëri tells us about the Renaissance-minded Hellenization:

“Therefore, the Greeks, on the one hand from Athens with schools, with teachers, with libras, with nurses with many other things and with excessive money, paid again by crazy Albanians and traitors to the Greeks; and on the other hand from Constantinople with the sides of the patriarchate, the despots, the priests and the church, using the aphorisms and the excommunicated from the church, as if Christ were Greek and as if, even to be an Orthodox Christian, everyone must invariably be Greek or Grecomanic; from these two sides, we say, the Greeks are trying day by day to turn the Albanians Orthodox and make them Greeks…”[10]

Mid’hat Abdyl Frashëri, who knew in detail the Greek devilry, which, just as 100 years ago and today, have remained the same, tells us: “There was a moment when all the Orthodox Christians of European Turkey were called Greeks. At first it was more of a religious zeal, but it was not long before national and political ideas also appeared, especially during these last 150 years (we are talking about 1915, so we are talking about the period 1750-1760)…

…Then the patriarchate became the center of Hellenism and Hellenic politics. Schools were increased, the propaganda of Greek letters and language took on a wide scope; of course, schools for girls were also born with the aim of interfering even more in the family up to the cradle of the child…

…This is exactly where the incorrigible madness of our beloved neighbors to the South lies! For them, anyone who is Orthodox is necessarily Greek; it is impossible for a Greek to distinguish between church, or religion and race on the other hand. In this way, Orthodox Albanians were taken for Greeks, just as Bulgarians, Vlachs or Serbs have been called such up to our days… And all Albanians, Bulgarians, Romanians and Vlachs were called Roume (Greeks) like all infidels.

The priest in the church, the teacher and the school teacher did everything possible to instill this false national feeling, to destroy and prejudice the true ethnic character of peoples and nationalities…

… Here are the reasons why the Greeks are in love with the official Turkish data on the population of Epirus and Macedonia. In the Salname (yearbooks) of the vilayets, all Muslims are named ISLAM, while the Orthodox ROUM, i.e. Greeks who attend the Greek church and depend on the religious jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Phanar. Only in 1872 were the adherents of the Bulgarian church officially called Bulgarians by the Ottoman authorities…

…The Albanian Orthodox, not having an autocephalous church, and being dependent on the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Phanar, have always appeared as Romans (Greeks) in the Turkish registers…”[11]

The Patriarchate acted through our enlightened church, which left aside the affairs of God, and became a blind tool of the blind politics of Megali-Idhe.

The Greek Orthodox Church had gone back 1000 years to the means and methods, which are reminiscent of the Inquisition of the Catholic Church.

Here is what the martyr of the Albanian language PETRO NINI LUARASI tells us:

“… The Patriarchal Priesthood made RELIGION the instrument of its purpose… and is shaking religion like a frightening stone against any Albanian who loves its letters; and to scare him even more and made him a slave of Greek thought and entangled him with the nets of aphorism and excommunication, leaving him only one way out; repentance, that is, denying his MOTHER ALBANIAN language and surrendering himself to HELLINISM.”

In this way, the Patriarchal Church, instead of Christians from all nations, recognizes only Greeks by language and Greeks in thought, without making a difference if the Greeks in thought are of other nationalities and languages; and this whole Church, instead of Orthodox with the dough of true born Christianity, wishes to have megalomaniac Greeks baptized with Greek dreams and pretensions, and everything, the earthly and the heavenly, it sees with its chauvinistic eyes, and everything non-Greek it kicks away…

Who does not feel pain when it sees that religion is made a toy and mocked by its representatives, who, by taking off the humble robe of Christ, put on the cloak of civilized life? Who does not feel sorry and does not support seeing the representatives of God and the preachers of the Gospel changed into agents of political interests and national (Greek nationalist) sermons?

Is it not a very shameful blasphemy against God and a great betrayal of Jesus Christ, when your representatives and shepherds of Christianity take care to make Christianity a subservient tool of the Great Thought (Megal-Idea) of the Greeks?… …The holy Orthodox lot of the patriarchate, with the usual religious influence over various foreign-speaking peoples, having changed the spirit of the gospel into a political tool to convert other nations to GREEKISM…

in order to convert Greeks into non-Greeks, it unwittingly made them its own fathers and planted in their hearts the love for their Eastern fatherland, and thus instead of friends it forgot and made irreconcilable and greedy enemies!… The Patriarchal Church turned the sharp points of its many-sided propaganda against the Orthodox Albanians, who remained the only victims foreigners in the Greek homeland…at a time when Albanians, more or less, having awakened from the sleep of ignorance, even more rabidly desire to infuse their souls and hearts with the knowledge of their written ALBANIAN language…”[12]

In 1871 there was an attempt by Albanian patriots to open Albanian schools in Albania (which undoubtedly included Epirus), says Aristidh Kola: They were K. Kristoforidhi, Pashko Vasa, H. Tahsini, Jani Vreto, I. Qemali and S. Frashëri. K. Zapa and K. Zografo, who would sponsor the movement, were also invited and participated, as were the Albanian officers of the Sublime Porte, Mustafa Pasha Gjiritliu, Sulejman Pasha Toptani, Rustem Pasha Leskovicjoti.

Hoxha Tahsini was the rector of Istanbul University… They asked the Sultan and the Patriarchate to open Albanian schools. But the meeting ended in complete failure and with the terrible opposition of the Sultan and the Patriarchate.[13] Why did this happen, while an initial permission had been obtained for this meeting?!! What work did the Sultan, but also the Patriarchate, disrupt the teaching of one of the peoples of the Ottoman Empire’s own language?!!! Nothing.

Then, whose work did it disrupt? Who was behind the Patriarchate and the Sultan, who prompted them to this incredible reaction?!!! This has an answer. Those whose mission was the extinction of the Albanian language.

Patriot Mid’hat Frashëri has painfully shown the criminal role of the Greek church in the Hellenization of Albanian lands:

“So, do you want to send your son to a school unwanted by the Greek clergy, on whom you are unfortunately dependent? You are immediately declared a heretic, exiled from the bosom of the church, the priest denies you the usual services, so dear to the souls of believers. The priest refuses to baptize the newborn child of the cursed family, to crown the young couples in marriage, and even refuses you a piece of land in the cemetery…”[14] But Arben Llalla in his book “Greek Collaborators, Designers and Leaders of the Genocide in Chameria” tells us that the Greek church was also against the Vlach language:

“…But, Kosma Etoliani, was not only against the Albanian language, in 1777 he stayed in the village of Baieasa or Vovousa, which was inhabited by Vlachs near Ioannina, and told the inhabitants: The Greek language is the language of God, while the Vlach language is the language of the Devil…”[15]

Continue reading Part Five here.

References

[1] Arben Llalla, Greek collaborators, designers and leaders of the genocide in Chameria, Bot.Tringa Desing, Tetovë-2016, p, 111,112

[2] Jean Claude Faveirial, History of Albania, Bot.Plejad-2004, Translated by Fr.Gent Ulqini, p,486

[3] Luigi Luca Kavalli-Sforza, “Genes, Peoples and Languages”, Bot.BESA-2012, Translated by A.Doksani, p,196

[4] Aristidh Kola, Arvanites and the origin of the Greeks, Bot.”55”-2002, Translated by Aldior Algora, pp. 503, 505

[5] Aristidh Kola, “The Arvanites and the Origin of the Greeks”, Vol.”55”-2002, Translated by Aldio r Agora, p. 516

[6] Aristidh Kola, Arvanites and the Origin of the Greeks, Bot.”55”-2002, Greek translation by Aldior Agora, p. 361

[7] Spiro Mela, “The Lion of Epirus”, Bot.TOENA-2013, Greek translation by Kristo Pulla-Photo Bixhili, p, 215-216

[8] Spiro Mela, “The Lion of Epirus”, Bot.TOENA-2013, Greek translation by Kristo Pulla-Photo Bixhili, p, 217

[9] Aristidh Kola, Arvanites and the Origin of the Greeks, Bot.”55”-2002, Greek translation by Aldior Algora, p. 282, 299, 542

[10] Sami Frashëri, “Shqipëria ç’ka benë, ç’est dhe “what will happen” in chapter VII of the article “The Dangers of Albania”, Constantinople -1899, “Falcon” Publishing House -Tirana, p, 53-54

[11] Mid’hat Frashëri “La Population de l’Epire”, 1915, Sofia

[12] Gazeta Shqiptare dated January 15, 2012

[13] Aristidh Kola, “Arvanitas and the Ancestry of the Greeks”, Publishing House “55”-2002, Greek translation Aldior Algora, p, 533-534

[14] Mid’hat Frashëri “La Population de l’Epire”, 1915, Sofia.

[15] Arben Llalla, Greek collaborators, designers and leaders of genocide in Chameria, Publishing House Tringa Desing, Tetovo-2016, p, 111