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83-504: Autocephaly recognized by some autocephalous Churches de jure : Autocephaly and canonicity recognized by Constantinople and 3 other autocephalous Churches: Spiritual independence recognized by Georgian Orthodox Church: Semi-Autonomous: Autocephaly ( / ɔː t ə ˈ s ɛ f əl i / ; from Greek : αὐτοκεφαλία , meaning "property of being self-headed") is the status of a hierarchical Christian church whose head bishop does not report to any higher-ranking bishop. The term

166-577: A Linear B clay tablet found in Messenia that dates to between 1450 and 1350 BC, making Greek the world's oldest recorded living language . Among the Indo-European languages, its date of earliest written attestation is matched only by the now-extinct Anatolian languages . The Greek language is conventionally divided into the following periods: In the modern era, the Greek language entered

249-405: A diocesan bishop was exempt from jurisdiction of his metropolitan, and also transferred to the direct jurisdiction of the patriarchal throne, such bishop would be styled as an "autocephalous archbishop" (self-headed, just in terms of not having a metropolitan ). Such honorary uses of the adjective autocephalous were recorded in various Notitiae Episcopatuum and other sources, mainly from

332-891: A Catholic, against the authority of the Greek Patriarchate of Constantinople in the 1850s and 1860s. In 1872, the Patriarchate was forced to declare that the Exarchate introduced ethno-national characteristics in the religious organization of the Orthodox Church, and the secession from the Patriarchate was officially condemned by the Council in Constantinople in September 1872 as schismatic . Nevertheless, Bulgarian religious leaders continued to extend

415-577: A basis for coinages: anthropology , photography , telephony , isomer , biomechanics , cinematography , etc. Together with Latin words , they form the foundation of international scientific and technical vocabulary ; for example, all words ending in -logy ('discourse'). There are many English words of Greek origin . Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European language family. The ancient language most closely related to it may be ancient Macedonian , which, by most accounts,

498-508: A continuous ancient custom for the bishop of Antioch to hold ordinations in Cyprus, - the prelates of Cyprus shall enjoy, free from molestation and violence, their right to perform by themselves the ordination of bishops [for their island]". After the Council of Ephesus, the Church of Antioch never again claimed that Cyprus was under its jurisdiction. The Church of Cyprus has since been governed by

581-508: A faster, more convenient cursive writing style with the use of ink and quill . The Greek alphabet consists of 24 letters, each with an uppercase ( majuscule ) and lowercase ( minuscule ) form. The letter sigma has an additional lowercase form (ς) used in the final position of a word: In addition to the letters, the Greek alphabet features a number of diacritical signs : three different accent marks ( acute , grave , and circumflex ), originally denoting different shapes of pitch accent on

664-590: A lesser extent, in the Western Mediterranean in and around colonies such as Massalia , Monoikos , and Mainake . It was also used as the official language of government and religion in the Christian Nubian kingdoms , for most of their history. Greek, in its modern form, is the official language of Greece, where it is spoken by almost the entire population. It is also the official language of Cyprus (nominally alongside Turkish ) and

747-400: A limited but productive system of compounding and a rich inflectional system. Although its morphological categories have been fairly stable over time, morphological changes are present throughout, particularly in the nominal and verbal systems. The major change in the nominal morphology since the classical stage was the disuse of the dative case (its functions being largely taken over by

830-573: A liturgy, whereafter he declared autocephaly of the Bulgarian Church. The Patriarchal Synod reacted by defrocking Antim I and excommunicating others, including Ilarion Stoyanov. The decision on the unilateral declaration of autocephaly by the Bulgarian Church was not accepted by the Patriarchate of Constantinople . The subsequent Council in Constantinople, chaired by Ecumenical Patriarch Anthimus VI , in September 1872, wherein

913-544: A long period of non-recognition and schism with the mother church . Following the establishment of an independent Greece in 1832, the Greek government in 1833 unilaterally proclaimed the Orthodox church in the kingdom (until then within the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate) to be autocephalous; but it was not until June 1850 that the mother church (i.e. the Ecumenical Patriarchate), under

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996-459: A mixed syllable structure, permitting complex syllabic onsets but very restricted codas. It has only oral vowels and a fairly stable set of consonantal contrasts . The main phonological changes occurred during the Hellenistic and Roman period (see Koine Greek phonology for details): In all its stages, the morphology of Greek shows an extensive set of productive derivational affixes ,

1079-1039: A new Statute which paved the way for the restoration of the Patriarchate and in 1953, it elected the Metropolitan of Plovdiv, Cyril, Bulgarian Patriarch. Until the Balkan Wars 1912/1913, the Bulgarian Exarchate disposed of a total of 23 bishoprics in Bulgaria, most of the Torlak -populated area (in 1878 partly ceded by the Ottoman Empire to Serbia ) and the region of Macedonia : Vidin , Vratsa , Nish (till 1878), Lovech , Veliko Tarnovo , Rousse , Silistra , Varna , Preslav , Sliven , Stara Zagora , Pirot (till 1878), Plovdiv , Sofia , Samokov , Kyustendil , Skopje , Debar , Bitola , Ohrid , Veles , Strumitsa and Nevrokop ; also it

1162-460: A state of diglossia : the coexistence of vernacular and archaizing written forms of the language. What came to be known as the Greek language question was a polarization between two competing varieties of Modern Greek: Dimotiki , the vernacular form of Modern Greek proper, and Katharevousa , meaning 'purified', a compromise between Dimotiki and Ancient Greek developed in the early 19th century that

1245-615: Is primarily used in Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox Churches. The status has been compared with that of the churches ( provinces ) within the Anglican Communion . In the first centuries of the history of the Christian church , the autocephalous status of a local church was promulgated by canons of the ecumenical councils . There developed the pentarchy , i.e., a model of ecclesiastical organization where

1328-887: Is sometimes called aljamiado , as when Romance languages are written in the Arabic alphabet. Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Greek: Transcription of the example text into Latin alphabet : Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in English: Proto-Greek Mycenaean Ancient Koine Medieval Modern Bulgarian Exarchate The Exarchate (a de facto autocephaly )

1411-763: Is still used internationally for the writing of Ancient Greek . In Greek, the question mark is written as the English semicolon, while the functions of the colon and semicolon are performed by a raised point (•), known as the ano teleia ( άνω τελεία ). In Greek the comma also functions as a silent letter in a handful of Greek words, principally distinguishing ό,τι ( ó,ti , 'whatever') from ότι ( óti , 'that'). Ancient Greek texts often used scriptio continua ('continuous writing'), which means that ancient authors and scribes would write word after word with no spaces or punctuation between words to differentiate or mark boundaries. Boustrophedon , or bi-directional text,

1494-632: Is to modern spoken English ". Greek is spoken today by at least 13 million people, principally in Greece and Cyprus along with a sizable Greek-speaking minority in Albania near the Greek-Albanian border. A significant percentage of Albania's population has knowledge of the Greek language due in part to the Albanian wave of immigration to Greece in the 1980s and '90s and the Greek community in

1577-841: The Adrianople Vilayet . In 1879, the Tarnovo Constitution formally established the Bulgarian Orthodox Church as the national religion of the nation. On the eve of the Balkan Wars in 1912, in the Ottoman Macedonian vilayets and the Adrianople Vilayet alone, the Bulgarian Exarchate had seven dioceses with prelates and eight more with acting chairmen in charge and 38 vicariates, 1,218 parishes and 1,310 parish priests, 1331 churches, 73 monasteries and 234 chapels, as well as 1,373 schools with 2,266 teachers and 78,854 pupils. Almost all of

1660-683: The Archbishop of Cyprus , who is not subject to any higher ecclesiastical authority. In Eastern Orthodoxy , the right to grant autocephaly is nowadays a contested issue, the main opponents in the dispute being the Ecumenical Patriarchate , which claims this right as its prerogative, and the Russian Orthodox Church (the Moscow Patriarchate), which insists that one autocephalous jurisdiction has

1743-562: The British Overseas Territory of Akrotiri and Dhekelia (alongside English ). Because of the membership of Greece and Cyprus in the European Union, Greek is one of the organization's 24 official languages . Greek is recognized as a minority language in Albania, and used co-officially in some of its municipalities, in the districts of Gjirokastër and Sarandë . It is also an official minority language in

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1826-777: The Church of Albania at the Great Congress in Berat . The church was recognized by the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople in 1937. The independent Kyiv Patriarchate was proclaimed in 1992, shortly after the proclamation of independence of Ukraine and the dissolution of the USSR in 1991. The Moscow Patriarchate has condemned it as schismatic, as it claims jurisdiction over Ukraine . Some Orthodox churches have not yet recognized Ukraine as autocephalous. In 2018,

1909-657: The European canon . Greek is also the language in which many of the foundational texts in science and philosophy were originally composed. The New Testament of the Christian Bible was also originally written in Greek. Together with the Latin texts and traditions of the Roman world , the Greek texts and Greek societies of antiquity constitute the objects of study of the discipline of Classics . During antiquity , Greek

1992-516: The Indo-Iranian languages (see Graeco-Aryan ), but little definitive evidence has been found. In addition, Albanian has also been considered somewhat related to Greek and Armenian, and it has been proposed that they all form a higher-order subgroup along with other extinct languages of the ancient Balkans; this higher-order subgroup is usually termed Palaeo-Balkan , and Greek has a central position in it. Linear B , attested as early as

2075-757: The Serbian Vojvodina ( Serbian Duchy ) within the Austrian Empire in May 1848, the autocephalous Patriarchate of Karlovci was instituted by the Austrian government. It was abolished in 1920, shortly after the dissolution of Austria-Hungary in 1918 following the Great War . Vojvodina was then incorporated into the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes . The Patriarchate of Karlovci was merged into

2158-780: The United Kingdom , and throughout the European Union , especially in Germany . Historically, significant Greek-speaking communities and regions were found throughout the Eastern Mediterranean , in what are today Southern Italy , Turkey , Cyprus , Syria , Lebanon , Israel , Palestine , Egypt , and Libya ; in the area of the Black Sea , in what are today Turkey, Bulgaria , Romania , Ukraine , Russia , Georgia , Armenia , and Azerbaijan ; and, to

2241-717: The Young Turks ' army. In 1913, Exarch Joseph I transferred his offices from Istanbul to Sofia ; he died in 1915, a few months before Bulgaria fatefully opted to participate in World War I alongside the Central Powers . As a consequence of the Treaty of Neuilly-sur-Seine in 1919, the Bulgarian Exarchate was deprived of its dioceses in Macedonia and Aegean Thrace . During the three decades after Joseph's death,

2324-1049: The abdication of the Russian tsar Nicholas II earlier that month and the establishment of the Special Transcaucasian Committee , the bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church in Georgia, then within the Russian Empire , unilaterally proclaimed independence of the Georgian Orthodox Church . This was not recognized by the Moscow Patriarchate until 1943, nor by the Ecumenical Patriarchate until 1990. In September 1922, Albanian Orthodox clergy and laymen proclaimed autocephaly of

2407-468: The genitive ). The verbal system has lost the infinitive , the synthetically -formed future, and perfect tenses and the optative mood . Many have been replaced by periphrastic ( analytical ) forms. Pronouns show distinctions in person (1st, 2nd, and 3rd), number (singular, dual , and plural in the ancient language; singular and plural alone in later stages), and gender (masculine, feminine, and neuter), and decline for case (from six cases in

2490-417: The syntax of Greek have remained constant: verbs agree with their subject only, the use of the surviving cases is largely intact (nominative for subjects and predicates, accusative for objects of most verbs and many prepositions, genitive for possessors), articles precede nouns, adpositions are largely prepositional, relative clauses follow the noun they modify and relative pronouns are clause-initial. However,

2573-566: The 20th century on), especially from French and English, are typically not inflected; other modern borrowings are derived from Albanian , South Slavic ( Macedonian / Bulgarian ) and Eastern Romance languages ( Aromanian and Megleno-Romanian ). Greek words have been widely borrowed into other languages, including English. Example words include: mathematics , physics , astronomy , democracy , philosophy , athletics , theatre, rhetoric , baptism , evangelist , etc. Moreover, Greek words and word elements continue to be productive as

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2656-542: The Bulgarian Exarchate became in control of the whole of Macedonia ( Vardar and Pirin Macedonia ). The Exarchate was also represented in the whole of Greek Macedonia and the Vilayet of Adrianople by vicars. Thus, the borders of the Exarchate included all Bulgarian districts in the Ottoman Empire . The process of constituting the Exarchate as legal institution was important part of nation-building process. A meeting of

2739-660: The Bulgarian Orthodox Church did not elect a regular head because of opposition from the Bulgarian government. Conditions for the restoration of the Bulgarian Patriarchate and the election of head of the Bulgarian Church were created after World War II . In 1945 the schism was lifted and the Patriarch of Constantinople recognised the autocephaly of the Bulgarian Church. In 1950, the Holy Synod adopted

2822-660: The Bulgarian interests. Exarch Antim I was discharged by the Ottoman government immediately after the outbreak of the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878) on April 24, 1877, and was sent into exile in Ankara . Under the guidance of his successor, Joseph I , the Exarchate managed to develop and considerably extend its church and school network in the Bulgarian Principality, Eastern Rumelia , Macedonia and

2905-545: The Bulgarian leaders in Constantinople chaired by Gavril Krastevich is convened on March 13, 1870 to elect ten civil members of the Temporary church council. The council includes also the six Bulgarian bishops which constitute the Exarchate's Synod. The role of newly found council have been to create draft for the Exarchate's Statute, which prescribes the inner administrative order of the Bulgarian autocephalous church. Over

2988-526: The Bulgarians, led by Neofit Bozveli and Ilarion Stoyanov , and the Phanariotes intensified throughout the 1860s. As the Greek clerics were ousted from most Bulgarian bishoprics at the end of the decade, the whole of northern Bulgaria, as well as the northern parts of Thrace and Macedonia had, to all intents and purposes, seceded from the Patriarchate. In seeking to calm down the disturbances,

3071-696: The Exarch figure. Representatives of ″conservative″ camp were P.V. Odjakov and Ilarion Makariopolski. This political discussion continued ideological opposition between ″young″ and ″old″ patriotic groups, which were in the foundation of differentiation between the Conservative and Liberal political fractions in the Constituent Assembly in 1879 in Veliko Tarnovo. The first (after Hilarion of Lovech had to resign before being confirmed by

3154-486: The Greek alphabet since approximately the 9th century BC. It was created by modifying the Phoenician alphabet , with the innovation of adopting certain letters to represent the vowels. The variant of the alphabet in use today is essentially the late Ionic variant, introduced for writing classical Attic in 403 BC. In classical Greek, as in classical Latin, only upper-case letters existed. The lower-case Greek letters were developed much later by medieval scribes to permit

3237-442: The Greek language was the Cypriot syllabary (also a descendant of Linear A via the intermediate Cypro-Minoan syllabary ), which is closely related to Linear B but uses somewhat different syllabic conventions to represent phoneme sequences. The Cypriot syllabary is attested in Cyprus from the 11th century BC until its gradual abandonment in the late Classical period, in favor of the standard Greek alphabet. Greek has been written in

3320-484: The Indo-European language family. It is native to Greece , Cyprus , Italy (in Calabria and Salento ), southern Albania , and other regions of the Balkans , Caucasus , the Black Sea coast, Asia Minor , and the Eastern Mediterranean . It has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning at least 3,400 years of written records. Its writing system is the Greek alphabet , which has been used for approximately 2,800 years; previously, Greek

3403-420: The Ottoman government of the Sultan Abdülaziz granted the right to establish an autonomous Bulgarian Exarchate for the dioceses of Bulgaria as well as those, wherein at least two-thirds of Orthodox Christians were willing to join it, by issuing the Sultan's firman promulgated on March 12 [ O.S. February 28] 1870. The firman envisaged a broad autonomy of the Exarchate but would leave it under

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3486-439: The Patriarch Anthimus IV , recognized this status . In May 1872, the Bulgarian Exarchate , set up by the Ottoman government two years prior, broke away from the Ecumenical Patriarchate, following the start of the people's struggle for national self-determination. The Bulgarian Church was recognized in 1945 as an autocephalous patriarchate, following the end of World War II and after decades of schism. By that time, Bulgaria

3569-447: The Patriarch and under the influence of Count Nikolay Pavlovich Ignatyev , then an influential Russian Ambassador in Constantinople, the Ottoman government sent into exile in İzmir , Anatolia three Bulgarian clerks Hilarion of Makariopolis , Panaret of Plovdiv and Hilarion of Lovech . The energetic protests of the Bulgarian community in Istanbul, reverts the decision short after. The Russian Most Holy Synod claimed neutrality, but

3652-470: The Patriarchs of Alexandria , Antioch and Jerusalem (the latter declined to sign the Council's decisions) also participated, declared on September 18 (September 30 ) the Bulgarian Exarchate schismatic and declared its adherents excommunicated . The latter were accused of having "surrendered Orthodoxy to ethnic nationalism", which had been qualified as a heresy - " ethnophyletism " ( Greek : εθνοφυλετισμός ). Furthermore on January 21, 1872, on request of

3735-413: The Russian government, represented by Count Nikolai Ignatiev , actively mediated in the Greek-Bulgarian dispute. The unity of the Orthodox Church was instrumental for Russian's political interests in the Orthodox world. The attempts though to satisfy the Greek Patriarchate by reducing the territories of the Bulgarian Exarchate (noticeably Vardar , Pirin and Greek Macedonia ), proved fruitless and against

3818-479: The Slav-Bulgarians"), a short historical work which was also the first ardent call for a national awakening. In History of Slav-Bulgarians, Paisius urged his compatriots to throw off subjugation to the Greek language and culture. The example of Paisius was followed by others, including Saint Sophroniy of Vratsa (1739–1813), Abbot Spiridon Gabrovski (died 1824), Abbot Yoakim Karchovski (died 1820), and Abbot Kiril Peychinovich (died 1845). Source: The result of

3901-404: The acute during the late 20th century, and it has only been retained in typography . After the writing reform of 1982, most diacritics are no longer used. Since then, Greek has been written mostly in the simplified monotonic orthography (or monotonic system), which employs only the acute accent and the diaeresis. The traditional system, now called the polytonic orthography (or polytonic system),

3984-423: The arrival of Proto-Greeks, some documented in Mycenaean texts ; they include a large number of Greek toponyms . The form and meaning of many words have changed. Loanwords (words of foreign origin) have entered the language, mainly from Latin, Venetian , and Turkish . During the older periods of Greek, loanwords into Greek acquired Greek inflections, thus leaving only a foreign root word. Modern borrowings (from

4067-421: The borders of the Exarchate in the Ottoman Empire by conducting plebiscites in areas contested by both Churches. In this way, in the struggle for recognition of a separate Church, the modern Bulgarian nation was created under the name Bulgarian Millet . In 1762, Saint Paisius of Hilendar (1722–1773), a monk from the south-western Bulgarian town of Bansko , wrote Istoriya Slavyanobolgarskaya ("History of

4150-495: The country. Prior to the Greco-Turkish War and the resulting population exchange in 1923 a very large population of Greek-speakers also existed in Turkey , though very few remain today. A small Greek-speaking community is also found in Bulgaria near the Greek-Bulgarian border. Greek is also spoken worldwide by the sizable Greek diaspora which has notable communities in the United States , Australia , Canada , South Africa , Chile , Brazil , Argentina , Russia , Ukraine ,

4233-441: The dative led to a rise of prepositional indirect objects (and the use of the genitive to directly mark these as well). Ancient Greek tended to be verb-final, but neutral word order in the modern language is VSO or SVO. Modern Greek inherits most of its vocabulary from Ancient Greek, which in turn is an Indo-European language, but also includes a number of borrowings from the languages of the populations that inhabited Greece before

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4316-402: The devastated Aegean Macedonia, where the Greeks burned Kukush , the center of Bulgarian politics and culture. Bulgarian language (including the Macedonian dialects) was prohibited, and its surreptitious use, whenever detected, was ridiculed or punished. The Ottomans managed to keep the Adrianople region, where the whole Thracian Bulgarian population was put to total ethnic cleansing by

4399-528: The earliest forms attested to four in the modern language). Nouns, articles, and adjectives show all the distinctions except for a person. Both attributive and predicative adjectives agree with the noun. The inflectional categories of the Greek verb have likewise remained largely the same over the course of the language's history but with significant changes in the number of distinctions within each category and their morphological expression. Greek verbs have synthetic inflectional forms for: Many aspects of

4482-450: The early medieval period. For example, until the end of the 8th century, bishop of Amorium was under the jurisdiction of metropolitan of Pessinus , but was later exempt and placed under direct patriarchal jurisdiction. On that occasion, he was given an honorary title of an autocephalous archbishop , but with no jurisdiction over other bishops, and thus no real autocephaly. Sometime later ( c.  814 ), metropolitan province of Amorium

4565-412: The extent that one can speak of a new language emerging. Greek speakers today still tend to regard literary works of ancient Greek as part of their own rather than a foreign language. It is also often stated that the historical changes have been relatively slight compared with some other languages. According to one estimation, " Homeric Greek is probably closer to Demotic than 12-century Middle English

4648-435: The government) Bulgarian Exarch was Antim I who was elected by the Holy Synod of the Exarchate on February 28 [ O.S. February 16] 1872. On May 23 [ O.S. May 11] 1872, in the Bulgarian St. Stephen Church in Constantinople, which had been closed by the Ecumenical Patriarch's order, Antim I, along with other Bulgarian hierarchs who were then restricted from all priestly ministries, celebrated

4731-449: The language show both conservative and innovative tendencies across the entire attestation of the language from the ancient to the modern period. The division into conventional periods is, as with all such periodizations, relatively arbitrary, especially because, in all periods, Ancient Greek has enjoyed high prestige, and the literate borrowed heavily from it. Across its history, the syllabic structure of Greek has varied little: Greek shows

4814-414: The late 15th century BC, was the first script used to write Greek. It is basically a syllabary , which was finally deciphered by Michael Ventris and John Chadwick in the 1950s (its precursor, Linear A , has not been deciphered and most likely encodes a non-Greek language). The language of the Linear B texts, Mycenaean Greek , is the earliest known form of Greek. Another similar system used to write

4897-417: The majority of ethnic Bulgarians were Orthodox Christians, they were automatically included in the Rūm millet , a community ruled immediately by the Ecumenical Patriarch in his capacity of millet-bashi and dominated by Phanar Greeks ( Phanariots ). Thus, if the Bulgarians wanted to have Bulgarian schools and liturgy in Bulgarian , they needed an autonomous ecclesiastical organisation. The struggle between

4980-400: The many other countries of the Greek diaspora . Greek roots have been widely used for centuries and continue to be widely used to coin new words in other languages; Greek and Latin are the predominant sources of international scientific vocabulary . Greek has been spoken in the Balkan peninsula since around the 3rd millennium BC, or possibly earlier. The earliest written evidence is

5063-465: The morphological changes also have their counterparts in the syntax, and there are also significant differences between the syntax of the ancient and that of the modern form of the language . Ancient Greek made great use of participial constructions and of constructions involving the infinitive, and the modern variety lacks the infinitive entirely (employing a raft of new periphrastic constructions instead) and uses participles more restrictively. The loss of

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5146-518: The newly united Serbian Orthodox Church under Patriarch Dimitrije residing in Belgrade , the capital of the new country that comprised all the Serb-populated lands. The autocephalous status of the Romanian Church , legally mandated by the local authorities in 1865, was recognized by the Ecumenical Patriarchate in 1885, following the international recognition of the independence of the United Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia (later Kingdom of Romania ) in 1878. In late March 1917, following

5229-676: The next ten months, the council have discussed ideas about Exarchate's Statue. During the discussions two political camps emerged. The ″liberal-democratic″ camp included Petko Slaveykov, Todor Ikonomov and Stoyan Chomakov which argued about priority of democratic and representative functions of the Exarchate. From their point of view, civil members of the Exarchate's institutions should lead conduction of administrative functions, outside of strictly religious practices. The ″conservative″ camp argued about keeping strict church hierarchy in Exarchate's activities, pleaded for strict following of Orthodox traditions and insisted on more institutional powers based on

5312-481: The problem of autocephaly in Ukraine became a fiercely contested issue and a part of the overall geopolitical confrontation between Russia and Ukraine, as well as between the Moscow Patriarchate and the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. Historically, within the Patriarchate of Constantinople , adjective autocephalous was sometimes also used as an honorary designation, without connotations to real autocephaly. Such uses occurred in very specific situations. If

5395-417: The regions of Apulia and Calabria in Italy. In the framework of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages , Greek is protected and promoted officially as a regional and minority language in Armenia, Hungary , Romania, and Ukraine. It is recognized as a minority language and protected in Turkey by the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne . The phonology , morphology , syntax , and vocabulary of

5478-423: The right to grant independence to one of its components. Thus, the Orthodox Church in America was granted autocephaly in 1970 by the Moscow Patriarchate, but this new status was not recognized by most patriarchates. In the modern era , the issue of autocephaly has been closely linked to the issue of self-determination and political independence of a nation; self-proclamation of autocephaly was normally followed by

5561-480: The schoolmasters had been born in Macedonia and Adrianople Thrace. The immediate effect of the partition of the Ottoman Empire during the Balkan Wars was the anti-Bulgarian campaign in areas under Serbian and Greek rule. The Serbians expelled Exarchist churchmen and teachers and closed Bulgarian schools and churches (affecting the standing of as many as 641 schools and 761 churches). Thousands of Bulgarian refugees left for Bulgaria, joining an even larger stream from

5644-437: The stressed vowel; the so-called breathing marks ( rough and smooth breathing ), originally used to signal presence or absence of word-initial /h/; and the diaeresis , used to mark the full syllabic value of a vowel that would otherwise be read as part of a diphthong. These marks were introduced during the course of the Hellenistic period. Actual usage of the grave in handwriting saw a rapid decline in favor of uniform usage of

5727-405: The supreme canonical authority of the Ecumenical See, i.e. not full autocephaly. The Exarchate's borders went on to extend over present-day northern Bulgaria ( Moesia ), most of Thrace , as well as over north-eastern Macedonia . After the Christian population of the bishoprics of Skopje and Ohrid voted in 1874 overwhelmingly in favour of joining the Exarchate (Skopje by 91%, Ohrid by 97%)

5810-450: The universal Church was governed by the primates ( patriarchs ) of the five major episcopal sees of the Roman Empire : Rome , Constantinople , Alexandria , Antioch , and Jerusalem . The independent (autocephalous) position of the Church of Cyprus by ancient custom was recognized against the claims of the Patriarch of Antioch , at the Council of Ephesus (431); it is unclear whether the Church of Cyprus had always been independent, or

5893-405: The use of Bulgarian in liturgy and fixed salaries for bishops. By that time, most Bulgarian religious leaders had realised that any further struggle for the rights of the Bulgarians in the Ottoman Empire could not succeed unless they managed to obtain at least some degree of autonomy from the Patriarchate of Constantinople. As the Ottomans identified nationality (ethnicity) with confession and

5976-416: The work of Paisius and his followers began before long to give fruit. Discontent with the supremacy of the Greek clergy started to flare up in several Bulgarian dioceses as early as the 1820s. It was not, however, until the 1850 that the Bulgarians initiated a purposeful struggle against the Greek clerics in a number of bishoprics demanding their replacement with Bulgarian ones as well as other changes such as

6059-574: Was a distinct dialect of Greek itself. Aside from the Macedonian question, current consensus regards Phrygian as the closest relative of Greek, since they share a number of phonological, morphological and lexical isoglosses , with some being exclusive between them. Scholars have proposed a Graeco-Phrygian subgroup out of which Greek and Phrygian originated. Among living languages, some Indo-Europeanists suggest that Greek may be most closely related to Armenian (see Graeco-Armenian ) or

6142-557: Was also used in Ancient Greek. Greek has occasionally been written in the Latin script , especially in areas under Venetian rule or by Greek Catholics . The term Frankolevantinika / Φραγκολεβαντίνικα applies when the Latin script is used to write Greek in the cultural ambit of Catholicism (because Frankos / Φράγκος is an older Greek term for West-European dating to when most of (Roman Catholic Christian) West Europe

6225-556: Was by far the most widely spoken lingua franca in the Mediterranean world . It eventually became the official language of the Byzantine Empire and developed into Medieval Greek . In its modern form , Greek is the official language of Greece and Cyprus and one of the 24 official languages of the European Union . It is spoken by at least 13.5 million people today in Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Albania, Turkey , and

6308-475: Was created, and local archbishop gained regional jurisdiction as a metropolitan, still having no autocephaly since his province was under supreme jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Constantinople. Greek language Greek ( Modern Greek : Ελληνικά , romanized :  Elliniká , [eliniˈka] ; Ancient Greek : Ἑλληνική , romanized :  Hellēnikḗ ) is an Indo-European language, constituting an independent Hellenic branch within

6391-472: Was once part of the Church of Antioch . When the Patriarch of Antioch claimed the Church of Cyprus was under its jurisdiction, the Cypriot clergy denounced this before the Council of Ephesus. The Council ratified the autocephaly of the Church of Cyprus by a resolution which conditionally states: "If, as it is asserted in memorials and orally by the religious men who have come before the Council - it has not been

6474-597: Was recorded in writing systems such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary . The alphabet arose from the Phoenician script and was in turn the basis of the Latin , Cyrillic , Coptic , Gothic , and many other writing systems. The Greek language holds a very important place in the history of the Western world. Beginning with the epics of Homer , ancient Greek literature includes many works of lasting importance in

6557-650: Was ruled by the Communist party and was behind the " Iron Curtain " of the Soviet Union . Following the Congress of Berlin (1878), which established Serbia 's political independence, full ecclesiastical independence for the Metropolitanate of Belgrade was negotiated and recognized by the Ecumenical Patriarchate in 1879. Additionally, in the course of the 1848 revolution , following the proclamation of

6640-580: Was under the control of the Frankish Empire ). Frankochiotika / Φραγκοχιώτικα (meaning 'Catholic Chiot') alludes to the significant presence of Catholic missionaries based on the island of Chios . Additionally, the term Greeklish is often used when the Greek language is written in a Latin script in online communications. The Latin script is nowadays used by the Greek-speaking communities of Southern Italy . The Yevanic dialect

6723-648: Was unilaterally (without the blessing of the Ecumenical Patriarch ) decreed by the Ottoman Empire on May 23 [ O.S. May 11] 1872, in the Bulgarian church in Constantinople in pursuance of the March 12 [ O.S. February 28] 1870 firman of Sultan Abdulaziz . The foundation of the Exarchate was the direct result of the actions of the most extreme Bulgarian nationalists under leadership of Dragan Tsankov , himself

6806-637: Was used for literary and official purposes in the newly formed Greek state. In 1976, Dimotiki was declared the official language of Greece, after having incorporated features of Katharevousa and thus giving birth to Standard Modern Greek , used today for all official purposes and in education . The historical unity and continuing identity between the various stages of the Greek language are often emphasized. Although Greek has undergone morphological and phonological changes comparable to those seen in other languages, never since classical antiquity has its cultural, literary, and orthographic tradition been interrupted to

6889-673: Was written by Romaniote and Constantinopolitan Karaite Jews using the Hebrew Alphabet . In a tradition, that in modern time, has come to be known as Greek Aljamiado , some Greek Muslims from Crete wrote their Cretan Greek in the Arabic alphabet . The same happened among Epirote Muslims in Ioannina . This also happened among Arabic-speaking Byzantine rite Christians in the Levant ( Lebanon , Palestine, and Syria ). This usage

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