by Saqet Vejseli
The Byzantine emperors came from Armenia, Syria, and Thrace, and their subjects proudly called themselves ‘Romans.’ However, modern Greeks claim this diverse empire as their unbroken heritage. This connection is not built on the ethnic origin of the emperors, but on the overwhelming cultural and linguistic force that assimilated those rulers: with Hellenism.
By the 7th century, under Emperor Heraclius, Greek officially replaced Latin as the language of the Byzantine state and army.
Anyone seeking power or influence in Constantinople had to adopt Greek language, culture, and education. An emperor of Armenian or Syrian descent patronized a court where Homer and Plato were studied alongside Orthodox Christian theology.
This educational continuity meant that Byzantine scholars acted as the final custodians of ancient supposedly Greek texts, ensuring an unbroken literary legacy that modern Greece inherits directly from “Ancient Greece”.
The strongest connection, however, was religion.
The Greek Orthodox Church served as the spiritual and institutional backbone of the empire. After the fall of Constantinople in 1453, the Ottoman Empire organized its subjects according to religion, grouping all Orthodox Christians into the “Milenium of Rum” (the Roman Nation). Under Ottoman rule, the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Constantinople became the political and religious leader of this group. Since the Church operated in Greek and maintained Byzantine administrative structures, Greek identity, Orthodoxy, and the memory of the Byzantine state became inextricably linked during centuries of foreign rule.
This unification shaped the way Greeks saw themselves until modern times.
While the Greek Enlightenment of the 19th century revived the ancient term “Hellenes”, Greeks commonly referred to themselves as Romioi (Romans), an identity deeply connected to their Byzantine past. Even in the 20th century, the cultural concept of Romiosini (Romanness) remained a source of pride, signifying the resilience of the Greek people and their Orthodox faith. Today, a Greek attending an Orthodox service is participating in a liturgy shaped entirely by the Byzantine tradition, hearing the exact dialect of Koine Greek spoken in the empire at the time.
But I disagree, because the Orthodox Church did not identify itself as Greek until the mid-19th century.
