TÜRKLER? HANGİ TÜRKLER? TÜRKLER KİMDİR??? *** TURKS? WHAT TURKS? WHO ARE THE TURKS???

(book in English)TURKS AND GREEKS. BRIEF PARALLEL HISTORY

--- OSMAN AND PETROS

A framed history of the gradual violent Islamization and Turkification of Hellenism of Asia Minor and Thrace.

For more and complete information, see the book, Amazon editions.

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A TRIBUTE TO THE 100 YEARS OF THE GENOCIDE OF HELLENISM OF ANATOLIA AND THRACE BY THE NEO-TURKS (1922-2022).

The largest Greek cities in Asia Minor during the Byzantine (medieval) and modern periods, until 1923.

Greeks are indigenous to the major regions of Asia Minor, with a continuous presence spanning 4,000 years, from 2000 B.C. to 1922. Subsequently, they suffered genocide at the hands of the Neo-Turks, a tragedy also inflicted upon Armenians and Assyrians

In addition to the main cities mentioned on this map, there were many thousands (over 20,000) of Christian cities, smaller towns, and villages.

Greek cities in ANATOLIA (Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantine) in 5th century A.D.

Blue collor the Greeks. Brown (only three regions) the Turks! Turkic Genetic Research 2025

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CONTENTS

OSMAN (OTTOMAN) AND PETROS

The Cradle of the First Turkic Tribes
How the Bandits of the Steppe Became a People
The Turkmen (Turkomans)
The Turks Extinguish the Lights of Civilization Upon Their Arrival in Asia Minor.
Petros (The Person in Our History)
Year 1313: Asia Minor
Prusa (Bursa), First Ottoman Capital City (1317-1326)
Byzantine Civil War
The beginning of "Paidomazoma" (Devshirme System)
The "Dead" Child
Petros, Osman, and the Petroglou!
The Siege of Constantinople by Mehmet II
The Fall of Trebizond
The Theory of "Greek-Turkism"
The Sipahis
The Palaiologoi
Suleiman the Magnificent
Pax Ottomana
Violent Islamizations of the 17th and 18th Centuries
Secretaries of the Sublime Porte
During the Greek Revolution of 1821
And All This Was Going On, during the whole period of the cruel and barbaric Ottoman Empire
Then (in 1910), the Ethnic Makeup of the Population of Asia Minor Was:
The Genocide of Hellenism
After the Lausanne Treaty (1923)
Today
Osman Meets Petros
The Memory of DNA?
But DNA Really Has Memory!
Annex

Magnesia, Ionia (Manisa, Aydin)

1. THE CRADLE OF THE FIRST TURKISH TRIBES

The Oghuz Turks (Arabic: Ghuzz; Turkish: Oghuz) are considered the common ancestors of the Turkic peoples of the Middle Ages. They formed a great confederation of Turkic-speaking tribes in the Central Asian regions of the Altay Mountains. They emerged as nomads of the Central Asian steppe between the 6th and 8th centuries AD. Their best-known group, the "Nine Oghuz" (Dokuz Oghuz), gradually united all the Oghuz tribes from China to the Caspian Sea from the 6th century onwards, eventually settling (late 9th to early 10th century) in the fertile valleys east of the Aral Sea (ancient Oxian), between the great Syr Darya River (ancient Jaxartes) and Amu Darya River (ancient Oxus). These areas belonged to the former Soviet Union and are known as Transoxiana (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan). Tajikistan, however, is inhabited by Persians, who belong to the Iranian language group. These regions are still inhabited by Turkic-speaking nomads, descendants of the old tribes.

Almost all Turkic-speaking tribes trace their origins to the Oghuz Turks, who began migrating from the plains of the Orkhon in the early post-classical centuries,

Oghuz Turks mercenaries in 10th century

and Selenga rivers, south of Lake Baikal, in present-day Mongolia. The most numerous among them, the Oghuz Turks, established an extensive state from the 6th to the 8th century A.D. Regarding the Oghuz, as well as the other Turkic tribes of Central-East Asia, our information is very limited, vague, and controversial. Another ancient Turkic tribe was the Ephthalites (White Huns).

The historian Menander the Protector, in his work, "On the Embassies of Nations to the Romans" (the Romans here referring to the Greek Byzantines), describes the embassy of the Turkish ruler Dizabul (or Sizabul) in 558 A.D. during the reign of the Byzantine (East Roman) Emperor Justinian I and the negotiations between the Byzantines and the Turks to sign a 20-year treaty. This treaty aimed to secure the transport of silk through the northern route to avoid the heavy tariffs imposed by the Persians on their territory.

In 576, however, the new Turkish ruler, Turxanthos, annulled the trade agreement, accusing the Byzantine Empire of having signed a treaty with the Avars, who were enemies of the Oghuz. (The Avars were also a Turkic tribe, linguistically and partially racially, ancestors of today's Hungarians.)

Oghuz Expansion and Conversion to Islam

In the 10th century, the center of the Oghuz was the city of Jand, on the lower course of the Syr Darya River. Between 956 and 1000 A.D., the two main leaders of the Oghuz, Seljuk (the eponymous ancestor of the Seljuks) and Yabghu, converted to Islam. In 1040, the Seljuks defeated the Persian Ghaznavids and entered for the first time the area of present-day Turkestan and then Persia. They inevitably clashed with Byzantium as they tried to invade northern Syria and eastern Asia Minor.

Young Turk fromTurkestan . How the Turks look like anthropologicaly

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1.2. SELjUKS

The Seljuks were a group of Persian-speaking Turkic soldiers/mercenaries who gradually conquered some Persian lands in the 11th century and then expanded into eastern Byzantine territories, mainly Armenia and Kurdistan. They adopted and spoke the Persian language (Farsi). They were dramatically few in number, as Persian and Arab sources indicate. They were only a small group of nomadic bandits, and in Persia (Iran), the prevailing sentiment was encapsulated in the saying: "Here live the Persians, under Seljuk rule."

They were culturally closer to Persians than to other Turkic tribes. Persian was their official language and was used in administration and literature. Many of them also had Persian names and surnames.

The Seljuks did not call themselves Turks; they called themselves Iranians or Persians. The term "Turk" only began to appear in Anatolian history with the arrival of the Ottoman Turks in Asia Minor

Seljuk (turk). Togrul Bay (turk), Alp Arslan (turk), Malik Shah (Pers), Ghiyath ad-Din Kaykhursas I (Pers) , Izz ad-din Kaykaus I ( Pers), Kayqubad I (Pers), Ahmad Sanjar ( Pers).... ,

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1.3 The ancestors of modern Turks of Asia Minor were the “Kagi” or “Kayi” tribe of the Oghuz.

As we will see, this was a very small tribe of Turkmen from what is now Turkestan-Kazakhstan, who were Islamized. This conversion, according to tradition, was organized by Greek Byzantines! The mythical progenitor of the Kayi was Kutlumus or Kaya Alp. He was reportedly a Greek, the son of the Islamized lord and patron of the Kayi, Tzelepes Komnenos, and a Greek woman named Kampero. The Kayi elected him as their leader. (Sources for this include the Byzantine historian Georgios Sphrantzes and, more recently, the book "Byzantium: The Decline and Fall" by the English historian John Julius Norwich, published in London in 1996.) Kutlumus, who is also reportedly the founder of the Monastery of Koutloumousiou on Mount Athos, had a son, Suleiman Shah, who was the father of Ertugrul and grandfather of Osman (or Othman), the founder of the Ottoman dynasty. Osman's mausoleum lies today in Syria near the border with Turkey, on a small island in the Euphrates River.

During Ertugrul's reign, the Kayi used to live on the lands of the Sultanate of Rum, near Aleppo (Halep, Syria). According to the tax lists of the Seljuks, the Kayi paid taxes for a total of 2,000 tents (Yurts)! (In the T.V. series "Diriliş: Ertuğrul" [Ertuğrul: The Resurrection], shown on NETFLIX and filmed by the Turkish government itself, it is clearly stated that there were 2,000 tents for the total population of all the Ottomans who came from Central Asia!)

Upon arriving in Asia Minor, the Ottoman Turks were met with defeat and persecution by the inhabitants of the places they passed through. They also encountered a rich empire that was, at the time, very vulnerable.

The collapse of the empire’s security had begun with the invasion of the papal crusaders in 1204 and the subsequent mistakes of the Greek emperors, who ceded control of the seas (which, until then and since the beginning of historical times, had been dominated by the Greeks as the greatest seafarers) as an exclusive privilege to the Venetian and Genoese merchants. This decision fractured the foundations of the empire, which thereafter struggled, badly wounded, to maintain itself.

The Oghuz Kayi therefore saw an easy prey and immediately began raiding and pillaging the cities and the countryside. They entered the unguarded villages and small towns of far eastern Anatolia and plundered them without resistance. They were snatching women (as the Turks were primarily male warriors) and young men to sell as slaves in the bazaars of the East. Whenever they plundered the cities and the richest dwellings, they returned to the plateaus of Southeast Asia Minor to stay in their tents, next to their horses, which were an integral part of their society and literally the most precious member of their family. (At that time, they lived near the present Turkish-Syrian border, on the Euphrates River.) In this initial phase, they avoided the fortified Byzantine cities and preferred to plunder the countryside.

They gradually strengthened demographically. So, after 20-30 or 50 years, they assembled a slightly larger...

The Turks (in the modern Turkic states like Kazakhstan, Turkestan, Uzbekistan... above) and the Turks in Asia Minor (modern Turkey), below. No anthropological connection between them . The second are geneticaly Greeks!!!

army than the first 3,000 Turkic-Mongol nomads of the 2,000 tents of the original settlement and began attacking castles and cities, which were also exhausted by the general decline in production and population.

Tired and cut off from the Byzantine army, the Greek inhabitants of the villages and towns of Anatolia, having no support from Constantinople, showed little zeal in defending their cities. They preferred to settle with the invader to save their lives. This was the beginning of their desertion and the creation of a Turkic people, with Greek genetic origin! The testimonies of the arrival of the Ottomans are numerous. We have the writings not only from Byzantines and Persians, but also from Syrian writers, who wrote in Arabic.

After their first successes, they realized that Christian Asia Minor was the promised land, the easiest place for them for a stable and long-term residence. But they faced a major problem in organizing their dominion: the fact that in terms of population they were the absolute minority in Asia Minor. They were dramatically few. Asia Minor was Christian and spoke Greek. Immediately, they began the violent Islamization that continued in the centuries to come when it culminated in the most barbaric, brutal, and gruesome mechanism:

The mass child levy of Greek children, known as Paidomazoma in Greek. This horrific method was used to convert children to Islam and to become Ottoman soldiers, the famous Janissaries. This was the endless source of recruits for the most terrible army of the Ottoman Turks.

Genetic ( DNA) analyses of Asia Minor in 1994, as presented in Cavalli-Sforza, Luigi Luca, Menozzi Paolo, Piazza Alberto, (1994). The History and Geography of Human Genes (p. 295), suggested a prominent and lasting genetic influence attributed to populations with Greek origins on the genetic makeup of the Anatolian peninsula. The half of modern Turks are geenticaly Greeks!

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2. HOW THE BANDITS OF THE ASIAN STEPPE BECAME A PEOPLE

The Ottomans increased their numbers with the criminal method of child levying among the Christian peoples of Asia Minor and the Balkan peninsula (Serbs, Bulgarians, Romanians, Albanians and Greeks). The literature is endless on this, but I have chosen to quote later in this chapter a passage written by a Nobel prize winner that is characterized by its realism and drama, which developed into a continuous tragedy of unbelievable bloodshed.

In general, all the officials of the Ottoman Empire were Christians. Initially, the Turks relied exclusively on the Greeks. But as they expanded into non-Greek territories, the Serbs played a key role in the administration. They were massively Turkified, especially in Bosnia and southern Serbia. They produced over fifteen great Viziers (prime ministers). Then followed the Islamization of the Albanians. They too played a catalytic role in the expansion of the Ottoman Empire, its prosperity and the Islamization of many Christian populations. Many Bulgarians, Caucasians and Georgians also rose to the highest offices.

The Serb-Bosnian Ivo Andric gives a vivid description of the child levying in the tragic land of Bosnia in the year 1516. His book “Most na Drinu- The Bridge of the Drina”, won the Nobel Prize for literature. The Serbs know this child levying terror, very well, because they paid a heavy price. More than 2,500,000 Bosnian Serbs are now Muslims and fanatical Pro-Turkish. Over one million Serbs in southern Serbia as well, in the Novi Pazar region. Just as many more left between 1913-25 as immigrants (population exchange) for permanent settlement in their “homeland”, modern Turkey! The same happened with the one million Pomaks of Thrace, Bulgarian and Greek Thrace. All the peoples of the Ottoman Empire have experienced similar horrors!

The following eloquent description can be heard from old and young alike throughout Bosnia.

“It was already six years since the last time this blood-tax had been collected, so now the children’s picking was easy and very effective. Without difficulty, the number needed was sorted out among the most intelligent and stoutest male children, ten to fifteen years old, despite all the efforts of their parents, who hid them in the nearby forests, taught them to pretend to be stupid or crippled, dressed them in rags and left them dirty to escape the Agha's picking. Some actually crippled their children by cutting off a finger of their hand.

The chosen children would set off on their long journey in an endless procession, settled on their small Bosnian horses. On each horse were two baskets, one on each side, like those loaded with fruit and in each of them was placed a child with his little bundle and a piece of pie, the last pie from his father's house. From the baskets, which were shaking and creaking rhythmically, emerged the cool and frightened faces of the poor children. Some of them were gazing calmly, over the horses' rump, far, far away, at the place of their birth; others were eating, tearfully wetting their food, and others were sleeping with their heads resting on the saddle. At some distance from the last horses of this strange caravan crept, scattered and panting, many of the parents and relatives of the children who were being taken away forever to foreign lands, where they would be forcibly Turkified, changed their allegiance, forget their country and their race and live in the barracks of the janissaries or rise to high offices of the empire.

Of those who followed, most were women, most of them mothers, grandmothers and sisters of the abducted children. When they got up and came too close, the horsemen of the Turkish Agha, shouting wildly, fell upon them with their horses and drove them away with their whips. And they again scattered for a while into the neighbouring woods and turned back again to follow the caravan, trying through their tears to make out, once more, the little head of their child that was emerging above the reeds as they took it into the unknown.

The mothers were more stubborn and did not hold back easily. They ran fast, not paying attention to where they were stepping, dishevelled and oblivious to their surroundings, mourning and grieving as if they, the children were dead and some, out of their minds, screaming as if their wombs were torn in two by the pains of childbirth, while blinded by weeping, they fell down on the Turkish horsemen's whips and answered to each whipping with a crazy question: “Where are you taking him? Where are you taking him?”

Some tried to call out their child's name clearly and give him something more of their soul, whatever could fit into a few words, some last order, some advice for the road.

- Dragan son, don't forget your mother.

- Giorgie... Giorgie... Giorgie... Giorgie... cried another and sought with her desperate eyes to meet the familiar little dear face, while she said the same thing over and over again, as if she wanted to plant in the child's head that name which in a few days would be taken from him forever.”

Child levying produced almost all the great viziers of the Ottoman Empire. Like Mehmet Pasha Sokolovic. A child of Serbian Orthodox Christians from Bosnia. He became a jannisary, rose to become a high-ranking officer, the sultan's son-in-law and eventually the leader of the entire army that expanded the borders of the Ottoman Empire like few others and secured it from external and internal enemies. He initially succeeded the Greek admiral Hayreddin Barbarossa as commander of the fleet...

No Turk (anthropologically Turk, i.e. a mongoloid with slit eyes) was fit to be in the administrative positions. Even those referred to as Turks, a generation or two ago were Christians. Only the Dynasty had Turkish blood, and it was infinitesimal (question if it had any), since the mothers of most of the sultans were Greek and Christian slaves. The only indications of Turkism were the Islamic religion and the Turkish language. These constituted this aggressive ideology, which left the enslaved Christians with little choice.

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3. THE TURKMEN (Turkomani)

There are many opinions about the origin of the name and the populations that were called Turkoman. Since the first component of the word is “Turk”, many researchers have effortlessly and unquestioningly adopted the view that it is probably the name of some Turks from what is now Turkmenistan.

The word is clearly a compound word, consisting of the Turkish word “Turk” and the Greek word “Mania”, “Turkomani”, as opposed to the term “Grecomani”, which is mentioned in Slavic (Bulgarian and Serbian) historiography. That is, Slavs who had the mania to behave as Greeks and speak the Greek language. To imitate the Greeks, “Grecomaniacs”!

The word could also be seen as a corruption of “Turkemenos” – “Turkified”. After all, that is literally what it means. With this word are called all the tribes that were not part of the dynastic mythological tradition of the Turkish tribes (for example, the Karluks, the Kalahoi and a number of other tribes). Meaning, “something like Turks” or “tribes that imitated; behaved like Turks”, or “looked like Turks”.

It is clear from the anthropological characteristics of the Turkomans that they are not a mongoloid race from Turkestan of central Asia. They are most likely local Asia Minor populations or a mixture with Semitic (Arab) peoples who accepted Islam and copied the customs and life of the Turks. That is, they were Turkophones (turk speaking population among the Arab speaking). For this reason, the Byzantines and Arabs gave them the names: “Turkoman” or “Turkophones” or “Turkmens” or “Turkmen”!

Aphrodisias. Asia Minor

4. THE TURKS TURN OFF THE LIGHTS OF CIVILIZATION, WHEN THEY ARRIVE IN ASIA MINOR

The undeniable great historical fact is that the Turks, by their domination, destroyed both Byzantine and Arab civilization at the same time. More specifically, it's as if they flipped the switch on the Greek territories they conquered at the very moment Europe was experiencing the Renaissance that led to discoveries in science and the Enlightenment.

On the opposite side, a region full of history and culture from the Balkans to Asia Minor, where human civilization, science and man's greatest achievement, Rationalism, were born, the Middle East and North Africa were plunged into darkness for many centuries, never again to know the civilization they had and the glorious cities that marked their history. Renaissance, as we know, means the rebirth of the Greek spirit, science and the rationalism of the ancient Greeks. And it is marked by the fall of Byzantium and the flight of Greek scholars to the West, primarily to Italy.

The Turks prevented all research and all science. Their scientific doctrine was the Quran. Their educational motto: “What is the need for other books when the Quran says it all?” (Repeating the saying of Caliph Omar Al-Khatab, the second Caliph in Alexandria after its capture by the Arabs in 642 AD. 1.000 years of Greek domination ended when he burned the remains of the Alexandrian Library to heat his bath)!

Kappadokia: Twentyseven (27) Greek churches on the rocks and many dozens of small Monasteries (Hermeteries) from 500 a.C., until 1922-23, the year of genocide of Greeks. The city of GOREME (in tourkish), is the ancient Greek city KORAMA and the Greek Byzantine city MATIANA.

The Greek churches in Anatolia are numbered in thousands. Most of these byzantine- the odler ones, have been converted into mosques. The remains and newest ones, in animal stables and ruins. And very few have become museums and thus were saved.

5. PETROS (The hero of our story)

Petros was born and raised in a mountain village in Pindos, in the decades of the great exodus and desertion of the villages after the great war of 1940-49. Poverty. Struggle for a piece of bread. But also a struggle for education. The only way to escape poverty, as the old people used to say and advise the children in the village. He finished elementary school, walking as a schoolboy 5 kilometers each way from the next village, that had a school, in the snow and rain. And in the afternoons, after a short study, tending the goats on the surrounding ridges with a couple of friends and playing “hide and seek” and “war.” The German occupation was still recent and there were still German helmets scattered in the fields. Almost all the villagers had a German watering helmet in their chicken coops.

But it wasn't just the memories of the Germans in the “war” and “hide-and-seek” games he played with his friends. It was also the older ones. The days of the slavery to the Ottomans. He read about the 400 years of slavery from school books, (500 years for his own village, in Pindos), he heard about the exploits of the heroes, Karaiskakis and Markos Botsaris and felt proud. "Kolokotronis shouted and the whole world was frightened. He shouts “Nikitaras” and scares all the Turks..."!

The years in the village passed quickly. Petros finished primary school, went to the nearest town for high school, then he joined the army and when he finished his military service, he packed his boots and on a cold February night, he left for Germany. To get a job with some acquaintances of his, who had been there for a while already, even setting up their own business. Studious as he was, he quickly enrolled in a university. And it was there that his study of the history of his village and his relationship with Osman began to unfold.

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The year 1520. Western Macedonia, a province of the Ottoman Empire. In a small and inaccessible village on the Pindos mountains, the bells ring mournfully . It has been - not 40 days, since the Ottoman soldiers came and took their male children between 5 and 12 years old. They call the people to the memorial, because the Macedonians, like their Epirotes neighbours, have for generations now considered their children dead, even though they know that they are not biologically dead.

Black-faced women crawl mournfully in front of the church towards the cemetery and the dirges even make nature fall silent. Sadness and mourning everywhere. Even the nightingales in the ravine have stopped singing in the face of this pain. This silent suffering!

The Yenitsars entered the village 40 days ago and at dawn they seized the Greek children by force, exactly in the same way that some other Yenitsars had seized the children 4-5 years ago, ever since the Osmanlis had implemented the institution of child-kidnapping. They called the villagers with their children to the square. And they began to choose them. Forcibly snatching them from their mothers, who cried heartbreakingly, who crawled at the feet of the Yenitsars and begged to kill them first. And then they set the houses on fire. To find the hidden Kids.

The Sultan's message was clear: They were all to give up their children with joy and pride and even honor to become soldiers-Yenitsars of the Ottoman army. Anyone who did not give his child willingly would be punished by death and hanged at the main door of his house as an example.

Father Konstantinos, terrified, hid his son Petros inside the church. In the morning, as was his custom to rise for the Orthros, he saw the hordes of Yenitsars and quickly ran into the house.

-Petros, get up. Quickly! He quickly dressed his 10-year-old son and ran to the church, where he pushed him into the altar.

But Father Konstantinos' hopes proved to be in vain. The first place the Yenitsars looked, was the church. And the first one they hanged was Father Konstantinos! They took the gallows to the beautiful gate, stripped and mocked the priest and then tightened the noose. A lesson - an example to all others!

Petros tied to the horse by the Yenitsars started his long journey to the Sultan's barracks. Other younger children were kept in the baskets to the left and right of the saddle. Others were put in wooden wagons, stacked in a pile. Others were walking, tied to the horse's saddle. They were taken outside Constantinople on the Asian side of the Bosporus, where the camps were located, which as laboratories of the soul and mind, turned the Greek children and by extension the Christian children of all the Balkans and Asia Minor, into Ottoman Yenitsars. And as the laws of nature dictate, anyone who embraced Islam as religion was not far from being denationalized in the next generation. And all the Yenitsars, when they became veterans, started a family and raised their children as Turkish children.

The whole village stood silent in front of the cemetery for the memorial service. There is no priest. No replacement for Father Konstantinos has been found yet, because in these times it is very difficult to find a priest. Few know enough letters to read the Gospel and even fewer were willing to be ordained, for fear of the Osmanlis. Eleven patriarchs and 11,000 Greek priests and an unknown number of other Christian priests, Bulgarians, Serbs, Romanians, Albanians, Armenians, Chaldeans, Assyrians, Syrians, Egyptians... slaughtered by the Turks during these difficult years of slavery. Not everyone had the guts to become community leader and end up as “Martyr”!

An elder reads the names of the “convert” children. Another chants and the silent tears turn to heartbreak.

- Petros, Giorgos, Kostas, Apostolos, Xenophon.... Their memory eternal!

As of today Petros was Osman, Giorgos was Ahmet, Hassan, Sinan....

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Twenty days riding lasted the journey to Constantinople. There they stopped at a large barracks outside the walls.

- Where are we, what will they do to us? They asked each other.

- I am from a village in Pontus, I am from Cyprus, I am from Smyrna, I am from Macedonia. And next door, another bunch, children like them, who spoke a different language, but made their cross the same way as they did. Orthodox, with three fingers.

Christians, from somewhere far away, Petros thought. And above them the Ottoman officials!

- You will forget your cross and your Christ. You'll forget your village and your priests. You will learn to speak the new language we will teach you. Turkish! You will learn about the true God, Allah and his prophet Mohammed. You will learn the art of war and become Yenitsar. The best of you will become officers and more. And stop crying. We've been through the same thing. The same as you, Christian children we were once, but now we proudly serve our Sultan with his highness and we don't even care about Christ, the village and the relatives we left behind.

Militos /Miletos, IONIA

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From the 12th century, when the Turkish hordes appeared in the Greek-Byzantine lands of Anatolia, coming from the steppes of Siberia, the “red apple tree” of Turkestan and Mongolia, until the end of the 18th century, when the Paidomazoma was finally abolished, 1,500,000 Christian children, the majority of them Greek children from Asia Minor and another 1,500,000 children from the Balkans, Greek children, Serbian, Bulgarian and Albanian children, became Yenitsars. Millions more Greek and Balkan Christians were murdered, executed, exterminated by plagues and starvation, because as Ottoman subjects of a lower class, “giaour” (infidels), their lives had no value at all.

When the Yenitsars retired, they received land and privileges from the Sultan and started a family. They would marry a Christian, or a former Christian, because Turkish women and children did not come from Central Asia. Just a few Turkish warriors who lived, ate and slept on their horses. And as the travelers of the time wrote, they were on horseback all day. They fought with the horses, slept on the horses, ate on the horses. And what did they eat? Raw meat! They cut strips of meat from the animals they slaughtered and put it in strips, raw, under the horse's saddle to soften it from friction and to keep it warm. And in order not to linger over the vast distances of the steppes, they would cut a piece of the raw, almost rotten, meat from the saddle and eat it while on horseback!

Tartars, was the name that the Greeks called the Turks. For “Tartara” were called the gates of the underworld. World of dead. They were so cruel that their every appearance opened the gates of the underworld! Their brutality was later passed on to the meat dish “Tartar”, i.e. the raw burger and the raw steak! A great Turkish cultural contribution to the rest of the world!

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We previously mentioned that the Turks “Kayi” later Ottomans, were not more than 3,000 men when they first entered the Greek territory in Anatolia. All of them soldiers, skilled horsemen, hardy inhabitants of the steppe. And yet they managed to establish a vast and long-lasting empire, as history departments at universities around the world emphasize. Through proselytism to Islam and the institution of Paidomazoma (the Yenitsars), the Turks “Turkified” the local populations, who, according to science by the deciphering of the DNA helix, are shown to have exactly the same DNA as the Greeks of Greece and Italians from southern Italy and Sicily. (And further north, the Bosnian Muslims have the same DNA as the Serbs, the Bulgarian Muslims as the Bulgarians, the Turkoalbanians as the other Albanians... and so on).

Christians were producers and taxpayers. They lived in both, villages and cities. But the Turks did not live in the villages. And so the lives of the Christians had value only for that reason. For food production and for taxes, mainly the “HARACHI”, the capital tax. That is, the right to live. So many Christians, in order to rise in social status, to get rid of the tortures that the local authorities subjected them to, to escape from taxes, mainly the “head tax” and to keep their heads on their shoulders, to even save their children from the Yenitsar's predation... converted massively to Islam. In the second generation they accepted Turkish as a spoken language. And in the third generation they were fully Turkified. Turks, who looked nothing like the real Turks of the steppe, in Turkestan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Mongolia and… China!

And this continued until the first and greatest genocide that took place on the European continent, that of 1910 with the predominance of Kemal Atatürk and the “Young Turks” and lasted until 1922 and the Asia Minor catastrophe, which cost the lives of 4.5 million Christians (Greeks, Armenians and Assyrians), half of the population of Asia Minor in essence, because at that time Asia Minor, in its present boundaries, had a population of 9,000,000. So the Ottoman empire which was transformed into Turkey in 1922, was rid of the indigenous Christians and Greeks once and for all?!

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In the barracks in Constantinople, Petros and the other children from Pindos began to get acquainted with the other Greek children from other corners of Hellenism. Everyday Ottoman officials and Ottoman doctors came, checked their mouths, teeth, measured their chests, held wrestling matches and wrote something constantly on their books. And time went by.

Until one day there appeared in the barracks a group of officials and Pashas in gold overcoats whose tails were dragging in the dirt. They called to the boys:

- Giorgos, Kostas, Nikos, Dragan, Milos, Arnaud... Tomorrow you will be taken away with horses and carts and go to serve the Bey of Adrianople.

- Petros Vangelis, Jovan... You to Hasanaga in Iconium.

- You in Cappadocia to Hyredin Pasha.

- You in Antalya.

- You in Theodosiopolis (Erzerum).

- And you will stay here in Istanbul to serve directly the court of our long-standing Sultan.

Terror and muteness in the camp. The boys didn't even understand what was happening to them. They didn't even know where is Smyrna, Iconium, Erzerum, Seleucia... And why do we have to go there? And what is there? And what will we find there? And what suffering awaits us there? They wondered. And the worry kept them awake all night. Tears soaked the old clothes that covered their bodies in the stinking barracks where they had been stowed.

SMYRNA. CAPITAL OF IONIA. The city was built in 3000 b.C.. Homer was born here and wrote here the Iliad and the Odyssey. The present fortification dates from 361 b.C. It was built by the Macedonian King Lysimachos.

***

Petros was one of those who had to go to Prusa (Bursa). In the morning they took them and loaded them on horses in the same way they had been taken from their village. And after 6 days on the road, they arrived in Prusa. Huge castles, two or three minarets that tore the sky but also churches. Many churches. And that made an impression on Peter. They took them to a barracks again, gave them some rags to cover themselves and some boards to make their beds.

And the next day, the visitors began again. There came the Beylerbey of Prusa, Hassan, the one to whom they now belonged as slaves. But they were not really slaves, as Hassan told them. They were prospective generals. The flower of the long-standing Sultan's army. The best soldiers in the world. Those for whom Allah had wide open heaven with seventy virgins and honey and milk flowing in waterfalls. And they should be proud of it.

And the next day the training began. School. War, the struggle to strengthen their bodies. Turkish to integrate them into the Dovlet and the command.

And one day a large coterie of gold-wearing Ottoman officials came to the camp again:

-Today, my children, is a great day for you, said to them someone called Hodja, who was something like a Muslim priest. And that's because today we are going to circumcise you. And you will become children of Allah and the Prophet Muhammad, faithful Muslims, soldiers of Allah.

The children took turns getting into a tall barrel so they could not see out, which had a hole the height of their genitals, and two Turks circumcised their genitals while Hodja read and chanted various incomprehensible things from the Quran. When the children came out of the barrel, Hodja would welcome them in a loud voice and at the same time give them their new names.

-Welcome Osman to your new religion, he said to Petros. And from then, the name Petros was cut with the knife, just as the skin of the circumcision was cut a moment before. The name Petros remained in his soul always, but he never mentioned it again, nor heard it again, for the punishment from the Ottoman officers was cruel to children who insisted on listening to their old, Christian and Greek name. But he always kept a secret amulet, with a sewn cross on it and always made sure that the Ottomans did not find it. A little encolpion, as his mother called it, to guard him in his life from all mischief. His mother made it for him when the Turks had come to take him away.

- Keep it to guard you, she told him. Never lose it. So you never forget who you are!

This encolpion Petros never parted with it, though he tore off with his nails the cross that was sewn on it, lest they should see it and take it away from him. And who was Osman, he wondered? What kind of name was that? What did it mean... he thought, but he didn't torture himself either. In his childhood soul, Petros was still engraved. His mommy in the village. What is she doing now? Is she alive? His sister? His friends, his companion children? The plains where the goats grazed, where they played, the waterholes in the river where they swam... Ah, how he missed them. How hard it was, what he was living... But at the same time he understood that things were not to be trifled with. He saw other children who had difficulty forgetting their old name, their old language, Christ and making their cross even unconsciously... being punished violently and brutally by the older Yenitsars who were their trainers. They hung them upside down and beat them with brushes. They phalanxed them on the legs, beat them on the soles of the feet. They left them naked and starving, and those that they thought were not fit to be Yenitsars were taken to the slave markets and scattered all over the Mediterranean to the depths of the East, beyond Persia.

Prusa (Bursa in Turkish). The Greek-Byzantine Castle and ancient heater today. Prusa was an ancient Greek city, built from 600 b.C.

6. YEAR 1313. ASIA MINOR

The horde of the Ottoman chieftain Osman, son of the chieftain Ertorul, vassal of Sultan Mahsud of the Sultanate of the Rum of Iconium (Seljuks), leaves the Syrian frontier, where he had his tents and sets out to plunder to the north. He reaches plundering as far as Bithynia. There he besieges the castle of the small coastal town of Kermenghia (Harmankaya today), neighbouring Nicomedia. It was the first city in Asia Minor to be besieged by the horde of Osman's nomads.

The Greek commander who defended the city was Michael Kotsyfas. He was called Spanos because he had no beard, or Kyoshe/kiose, or Köse Mihal. He expects reinforcements from the Basileus. The people inside the city walls are starving and fear the worst. What will happen if the castle falls? They were patient, but for how long? So Kotsyfas decides to have a meeting with Osman, to talk with him the terms for the surrender of the city and for their salvation. Osman accepts the surrender of the city and the terms proposed by its Greek commander, Michael Kotsyfas.

Osman is immediately dazzled by Kotsyfas' education and experience. He wants him close to him and immediately makes him his right-hand man. He entrusts him with the command and organization of the region he has conquered. He gave him the title of Emir and also made him commander of the Akijis (Akitzis). The Akijis were a corps of irregulars. Robbers, slavers, criminals, vagabonds, who were always sent by the Turks as vanguard for the attrition of the opponents, with the promise of a large share of the spoils of the booty.

For his part, Michael Kotsyfas gave Osman his daughter Olophyra as wife. But the first thing that Kotsyfas had to do, was to become Muslim. And the entire population of the city as well. No one could exempt himself. It was, after all, one of the terms of the agreement he made with Osman, that he would hand over the city to him without sin and he would not slaughter anyone.

He changed his name. He was now called Kyoses or Kesses (Spanos in Greek) and became known in historiography as Köse Mihal, the organizer of the first Turkish state, founded by Osman or Othman.

After Kermenghia, Kotsyfas conquered a second city, Angelokomi (Inegol today) and expanded the territory on behalf of Osman. Thus, the Turks settled permanently in Asia Minor for the first time and began the violent denationalization of the Greeks of Bithynia. In every city they conquered, the necessary condition to respect the lives of the citizens was that they should convert to Islam. It was a clever policy of the Ottoman dynasty, to gain a population on which to support economically and militarily the state that Köse Mihal began to build.

Köse Mihal is described by the sources as a brilliant but brutal and ruthless man. As the man who “inspired” Machiavelli from the moment he was at Osman's side. Then he showed this hideous face to prove to Osman that he was completely loyal to him.

- If you want to remain in power and that power to be passed on to your children and your children's children, you will apply the following rules, Köse Mihal constantly taught Osman and then his successor Orhan.

1) First, you will be cruel and ruthless to those weaker than you, so that they will not raise their heads.

2) You will show that you are submissive and obedient to those stronger than you, until you find their weak point and then strike them relentlessly.

3) Don't feel that you owe gratitude to anyone, even to those who have benefited you.

4) Don't keep the agreements you make with enemies (but pretend to keep them).

5) Always appear calm, charitable, meek, kind, wise... so as to give the image of a good leader. Then you will have acquired the element of deception and surprise...

And the Turkish leaders applied his advice to the letter. To this day in the 21st century, Turkish politicians adhere to these rules religiously.

Mihal was the mastermind, the founder of the Turkish state, something that the Turks themselves, still living in tents, had not imagined. They did not know what a state and administration was. They only knew of raids, looting and life in tents (Turkey has made a historical TV series, called “Ertogul”. It is shown on NETFLIX. It shows how the Ottomans of Ertorul, father of Osman-Ottoman, lived and how many they were, when they came to Asia Minor). Such was the influence and impact of Kotsyfas on Osman, that soon after Osman, he became the right hand man of his successor, Orhan.

Osman, or Ottoman, was the founder of the first Turkish state! He proclaimed himself Sultan in 1299 and gave his state the name “OTTOMANIA!” A significant name for Petros.

An international ethnolinguistic map ( The turcic map-next page- is not so different. The Turks recognises the Greek supremacy in Asia Minor)

7. PRUSA, FIRST OTTOMAN CAPITAL 1317-1326

With the help and the Machiavellian guidance of Köse Mihal, Osman attacks and defeats his patron, Sultan of Iconium Alaedin III. Free then from the eastern front, he turns westward, aiming for a Kingdom. He first reaches Prusa, which was a major city at the time. He begins its siege, but dies shortly before its fall, in 1326, a siege that his son Orhan was to complete. The next Sultan Orhan also relied on Köse Mihal.

The Turks camped outside its walls and began to tighten the siege. Prusa was a large city, with a large population and strong walls. It was besieged for 9 long years, from 1317 to 1326. Food and water began to dwindle in the city. The people resented it. They were tired. Kotsyfas sent a message to the Greek governor Ornos. (He was descended from the illustrious Byzantine family of Uranos. Descendants of the famous general Nikiforos Uranos, during the reign of Basil Bourgaroctonos (Bulgarian Killer), who had defeated the Bulgarian Tsar Samuel at Sperchios river in 997 AD).

MAP OF THE TURKISH ACADEMY OF SCIENCE, SHOWING THE ETHNOLOGICAL COMPOSITION OF ASIA MINOR IN 1071, AFTER THE BATTLE OF MAJIKERT AND THE SELJUK INVASION ON IT. The Greeks are painted in blue color. (For propaganda reasons, the Turks call them RόMANS on the map, and to nullification the presence of Greeks, on the Aegean coasts they paint with deeper blue color, a people called Hellenes! But everybody knows that the Greeks in the Byzantine era, call themselves RόMANS-ROMέΙ and the Byzantine State ROMΑΝίA (no connection with modern country Romania), RUMCALAR= GREEKS in Turkish. So the antic Hellenes and the medieval RUM- ROMέI- RUMCALAR are about the same Greek nation). ---- also, they have exterminated (in the map) the native Kurds and call them Iranians

******

- I was Greek up to a few years ago. And as a Greek I tell you that we must look ahead and make the right choices. The world is changing. Don't you see it? A new order is coming. In the end, all that matters is to save our own head and fill our own pouch! Says Köse Mihal to Ornos.

-And what do you suggest I should do? And on what terms should I surrender? And the Christians of Prusa, how will I secure them? Ornos asks.

-Christ died in our land, Ornos. Only the crescent rises, replies Mihal. You will not save the world. Just watch how you are going to save your own head.

Ornos is in despair. But an unlikely turn of events has freed his hands. A message has arrived from Constantinople and the Emperor Andronikos Palaiologos (1282-1328) that he has no help to send to Prusa. And to the opposing Turkish camp also a message that, Andronikos Palaiologos, in order to appease and calm the expansionist moods of Köse Mihal and Orhan, donates them the city without fight, on condition that, they do not harm the Christians and do not manifest further expansionist plans. That is to say, to be content with these three cities of Bithynia. Orhan accepted. And his word is a contract as usual (Turkish contract of course)!

Ornos listened to him. He weighed the facts and decided. Thirty thousand gold coins, he offered to Orhan and asked not to harm the Christians of the city. It was all there was in the treasury. And Orhan accepted. He took the city and the money and agreed to reward Ornos with an office!

In 1326, Prusa had over 30,000 Greek population within its walls. After its capture by Orhan, around 1,000 Greeks managed to flee to Constantinople. The rest stayed because of Orhan's assurances of the safety of the inhabitants and the agreement he made with Ornos and Andronikos Palaiologos. By 1327, a year later, sources reports that 75% of the Christian population of Prusa had converted to Islam. In ONLY ONE YEAR they had accepted Islam!!!! (The same thing that had happened in Karmengia (Harmankaya) and Angelocomi (Inegol)).

Aeolia and Troy 2.000-1100 b.C. (Troy, Ilion, or Iliou Dardanon, Famous from the Trojan war). The civil war between the Mycaenean tribes of Danai and Achaians from Peloponnese, against Dardanian Trojans, for the control of Hellespontos stratte. (The word "Greek", or "Hellenes", was not in common use by the Greek tribes then, as national name. In the Illiad, the name Greeks is not mentioned even once. Exists only the Greek Mycaenean tribes Danai & Achaeans- her protector was Goddess Athina and the Greek Dardanian Tojans, with their protector God Apollon. Both belonging to the Mycenaean civilization, and spoke the same language).

The (Greek) Mycaenean World. 2000-1100 b.C.

'Alexander' is a name steeped in Greek tradition, with its roots tracing back to the language's ancient form. It is derived from the Greek 'Alexandros,' literally translating to 'defending men' or 'protector of men,' a compound of 'alexein' (to defend) and 'andros' (of men).

Willusa is also the greek name Ilion (Troy) in other anatolian languages, corrupted as Willusa. Alexandru is the first and official name of Paris (prince who stole the beautifull Helen) , son of Priamos,or Podarkis, king of Troy. In this tablet we have a peace treaty betwin Hittite ruller Muwatalli (1295-1273 BCE- late bronze age) and a king of Troy with greek name Alexnadu!

*****

Islamization was rapid, due to the conditions of intolerable oppression of the Christian population, who were considered lower class, “Raya” without rights, like animals who worked only to contribute to the profits and welfare of their Ottoman masters. The lives of Christians had no value in this new regime. The children of the Muslim Greeks, that is, the next generation of the people of Prusa, were not only Muslim. They were Turkified. They had forgotten the Greek language and became 100% Turkish Ottomans. However, there were always Christian populations in the city because they were engaged in trades and professions and were useful to the Ottomans. Without Christians there were no taxes and without taxes the state treasury remained empty. So, the Ottomans showed a small level of tolerance for those Christians, like cows for milking taxes.

The Greeks who remained Christian and still spoke Greek in the city, throughout the years of slavery, always numbered between 1,000 and 7,000, until shortly before the Asia Minor catastrophe of 1922. Then due to economic development and partial liberalization of trade, because they had become the transporters/mediators of Anglo-French interests, they had taken over the trade of imported goods (from the Anglo-French) and exported goods (to the Anglo-French) their numbers began to increase rapidly. Thus, just before 1922, their numbers reached 397,000 people in the prefecture of Prusa. A number bigger than the 304,000 Muslim population. But within the city itself, which in 1922 numbered 100,000 inhabitants, 80,000 were Muslims, 10,000 Armenians and only 7,000 Greeks.

Ornos/Uranos converted to Islam and his name became Evrenos, which is also a corruption of “Uranos”, (Turkish pronunciation). Orhan awarded him the title of Emir. While Ornos' son Gazi Evrenos became Orhan's general.

Prusa became the capital of the first Ottoman state in Asia Minor, thanks to Orhan and his two Greek advisors who converted. So great was his esteem and love for them that he wrote in his will that no one should ever harm the descendants of the families of Köse Mihal and Evrenos Bey.

After Prusa, Orhan's Greek generals violated the agreement with Andronicos Palaiologos and in 1331 captured Nicaea, the city of the Ecumenical Councils. And in 1333-37 Nicomedia. A necessary condition for the inhabitants not to be massacred was to convert here too. To become Muslims! This is how they created a population and state structures in Bithynia.

All the sources of this time report that very few inhabitants of these two Byzantine cities managed to flee to Constantinople, when their cities were captured. The majority stayed there. And a year later, over 80% had converted. They had become Muslims! The Ottomans only allowed craftsmen and professionals to remain Christians because they needed them.

On the 27th of August 1920, a large band of Islamists under the command of a certain Djemal (spelt Cemal) surrounded the Greek precinct of İznik, seized the entire Greek population numbering about 6.000 and massacred them.

Nikaia- Iznik. The Greek Byzantine fortification

8. BYZANTINE CIVIL WAR

At the same time, in 1341, the Byzantine emperor Andronikos III Palaiologos died and his successors became involved in a bloody civil war for the succession. Katakouzenos vs. John V Palaiologos. John Katakouzenos hired Orhan's soldiers as mercenaries to seize power. And with them he entered Thessaloniki. Thus, the Ottoman mercenaries, about 20,000 of them, all of them former Greeks and Islamized Christians from Asia Minor, set foot in Europe for the first time. They showed their “civilization” and their disposition for what was to follow, by completely razing the lands of Thrace and Macedonia.

Along with Orhan, his children Suleiman and Murat I (his successor) fought alongside him. For his part, John Palaiologos, in order to cajole Orhan, (since earlier his father Andronikos had failed to win him over by bribery, as Köse Mihal, who knew the internal situation of Byzantium, had advised Orhan that the bribe money would be infinitesimal, compared to the spoils of conquest), gave him as his second wife his daughter princess Theodora, who was only 16 years old, while Orhan was in his 60s!

Theodora did not want to become a slave of an old barbarian Emir. She refused. But her crying and her mother's pleads were no match for the “high-minded” politics of the senile kings of Byzantium.

- You're going, whether you like it or not! You will sacrifice yourself to save the empire, Emperor John told her angrily.

But what empire? His throne and his treasury he was trying to save. And he was prepared to sacrifice everything to continue sitting on the semi-dead throne of Constantinople. The girl felt just like the children of the Paidomazoma. An unwilling creature sent to the altar of Allah, so that her father might gain the favour of Orhan.

But this policy towards the Turks was disastrous. As it was then, so it is now. For as Laonikis Chalcocondylis wrote that the Greeks of the time: “Cut their veins and gave to the wolf their blood, hoping to make him a friend”. But the wolf of the steppe, the Turk, became more and more aggressive as he drank blood. More and more conquering. More and more bloodthirsty and greedy!

Orhan's court was all Greek. His chief of staff, Mavrozomis, was a Greek convert, an Emir and chief general in the Ottoman campaigns against the province of Cilicia. His personal physician was Vasilios Taronitis who even operated on Orhan's larynx and saved his life. All his chancellors and dragomans were Greeks. And as Greeks, they were very useful to him to create an image (because he was uncouth and uneducated, like all the few genuine Turks and with the Greeks by his side he gave the image of an educated and cultured leader).

After the death of Orhan and his succession by Murat I, the command of the Ottoman army was taken over by the already Islamized Greek, son of the former commander of Prusa, Ornos, Gazi Evrenos. He became the most famous Turkish general in the entire Ottoman history. He conquered all the coasts of Ionia and the rest of Asia Minor. He conquered most of Thrace, Macedonia, Attica (from where he drove out the Anjou Franks), fought the Bulgarians and entered Sofia victorious. He also defeated the Serbs and reached Albania. In return for these services he was given Thessaly as a “Providence” (fief). To prove his loyalty to the ever-suspicious Murat, he slaughtered with his own hand 2,000 Macedonians, as local tradition says, in the regions of Pella.

Evrenos Bey's army continued to exist in Thessaly and mainly in Macedonia. They were called “Yurouki”. Many researchers believe that the Yurouki were a tribe from Asia, which became the main army of Ahmed Gazi Evrenos, but because the Yurouki had no Mongol, i.e. Turkish characteristics, most researchers conclude that they were Caucasians, including Pontian Greeks, former Christians, who changed their religion and converted to Islam. The settlement centre of the Yurouki became Yanitsa in central Macedonia, where the tomb-memorial of Gazi Evrenos Bey is located till today.

Apollon SMYNTIAS temple

9. THE BEGINNING OF PAIDOMAZOMA. Devsirme system .

Christian child kidnapping, was the heaviest blood tax that the Christian nation was called upon to pay during the Turkish occupation. This is because its aim was not only to weaken the defeated, but to strengthen the victor. Only morbid minds could have conceived the Paidomazoma as nothing like it, to this extent, has ever happened in human history. Opinions are divided as to when the Paidomazoma began. Sources place its beginning in 1362 under Sultan Murat I. The Greek historian Konstantinos Paparrigopoulos links it to the formation of the Yenitsar corps and places its beginning under Sultan Orhan, specifically around 1326 AD. It seems that Paidomazoma did indeed begin under Orhan, but became systematic under Murat I. The recruited children were Christian children aged 8-20 years old.

Armenians and Jews were excluded from recruitment. Although, as more recent sources indicate, not systematically. For they were both exclusively urban populations in Asia Minor (but not in geographical Armenia in the far east, where they were also peasants). And in the cities, the professional merchants, silversmiths, moneylenders and craftsmen, the Turks never harmed. Under Muhammad II, the Paidomazoma was held every 5 years. Later, however, it was held every 4 years or even more frequent, depending on the needs of each Sultan. In some provinces, a privilege of exemption was granted, but could be withdrawn at any time.

In theory, orphans, married children and monks were also exempt. For this reason, parents often married their children at a very young age. But the exceptions were usually there to be abused, and the Turkish officials responsible for collecting the children rarely respected them, as, besides for the Yenitsar recruitment, the children were also sold as slaves and the officials reaped the profits. In this regard, Paparigopoulos writes:

“Any attempt by parents to prevent their child from being taken was punishable by death. The Turkish official in charge would go from village to village and ask the priest for the lists of the birth and Baptism of Christians. He would listen to the names, number and age of the children and decide arbitrarily.

Historian prof. Apostolos Vakalopoulos mentions in his “History of the New Hellenism”: “In the area... where the children's kidnapping was to take place, they sent an officer of the Yenitsars who had the relevant recruiting firman, a scribe and some accompanying Yenitsars. This officer had absolute authority and no one had the right to interfere with his duties... his arrival was notified by announcers to the villages... In each place he first consulted with the cadi (judge) and the prefect or priest and then he checked... the church birth books and inspected the candidates himself... He chose the most robust, handsome and intelligent young men who seemed suitable...”. The children were first taken to Constantinople, where they were circumcised and began their conversion to Islam.

KAYABAG, Greek church of TAXIARCHES or ARCHANGELS (approximately 16 Km. N.E. of KAYSERI (KAISAREIA)

Eyewitness testimonies

Berati-Albania- by Metropolitan Leontius of Larissa, published in 1604

Sultan Murat I, after the defeat of the Christian army of Skenderbey, in the deep darkness brought on by the invasion of Epirus by the Turks, the Islamization of the Christians began. The memory of the Despotate of Epirus and the Angelo-Komnenos dynasty, was fading with the passage of time. The great landowners and patrician chieftains were the first who accepted Islam, in order to preserve their fiefs. They were joined by the poor clerks under psychological compulsion.

But the converts, knew nothing of the Quran and continued to worship St. George and St. Nicholas. They retained their Christian names, regularly celebrated the days of the calendar, which they knew by heart and wore crosses. If the mullah (Muslim priest) ignored the blessing for the healing of a child they called the Christian priest and he read it in Greek. The Islamicized peasant did not know the seriati (Islamic sacred law) and found it very natural to follow the tradition of his fathers.

Many times bishops also contributed to Islamization, when with unjustifiable decisions excommunicated the inhabitants of poor areas, because they did not observe all the required fasts, as in the region of Kurvelesi, where the only products were a little barley, milk, cheese, suckling pigs and leftocara. Besides the excommunications there was also the pressure for the collection of ecclesiastical rights and provincial incomes that pushed others to Islamization. Years of work of diligent Bishops to keep the faithful in the faith of the Nation, could be destroyed in a short time by an unworthy successor.

Kokkini ekklisia. Red Church . Kappadokia, Grave of Sain John Chrysostomos, from 4rth century. Unesco' s world cultural heritage .

More examples:

In the well-known “Orismon” of Sinan Pasha, which was a document of concessions of Sultan Murat II to the inhabitants of the city of Janina in 1430, it refers to privileges granted by the “High Gate” to the inhabitants, especially to the church... But the political will of the central administration i.e., the central government of the High Gate, had a different policy from that of its local organs in the remote provinces of the empire, the Spahids and the Zaimids (Timarians)... Thus we had rapid Islamizations in Epirus since 1612. Then the bells stopped ringing and the privileges (shiurutia) were also removed. (See description of the city of Ioannina p. 45 Epirus.)

Sp. Aravantinos writes that “the torrent of Islamism is threatening to overwhelm the whole of Epirus” (cf. Sp. Aravantinos. History of Ali Pasha Tepelenli - Athens 1895, p. 29-30.)

“The tragic thing”, writes Fan. Michalopoulos, “is that most of the Islamizations were of the will of the inhabitants. Tired of being “rayads”, from the depressing taxation, from the abandonment and disgust of the upper clergy... they were converting, hoping for the betterment of their fate. (F. Michalopoulou – Saint Kosmas the Aetolian (1774-1779) N. Kratos issue 9 p. 611).

“The unfortunate Christians, because of the various oppressions and the great sin to which they were bound, began to waver in their faith and to embrace the religion promising them many earthly goods and pleasures”. (Continental Diary, 1914, p. 218).

“In the Dukate of the Avlona (Vlora) section of the Velegrad (Berat) Province, more than 300 Christian families converted to Islam except 25-30 needy families. Marriages between Ottomans and Christians were common. Of two brothers, one was a follower of Muhammad, the other a follower of Christ.

“In the 34 villages of Upper and Lower Spathia (Epirus-Albania), the young people changed their names out of fear of registering in the military and census rolls after the issue of the Tanzimatium. (See above pp. 70-71).

The most important personality of modern Hellenism, Monk Father Kosmas the Aetolian, put an end to this rapid Islamization, (see in this regard : “Patrokosmas, Never on Sunday”, Πατροκοσμάς, ποτέ την Κυριακή. Εκδόσεις Αρμός, 2007, Αθήνα. Publications Psifides-Armos, Athens 2007).

The data of this chapter was extracted by Ioanna Loubonia, Historian, with information drawn from the book “HPEIROS Folklore - Ethnography – Ethnography” by Alex. Χ. Mammopoulos, Athens 1961, Volume A, pp 5-8.

If these Turkifications were taking place in the poor, strategically slightly indifferent and remote from Constantinople’s High Gate, Epirus, think what was happening with the Greeks in the fertile, geopolitical important and rich Macedonia, Thrace, Asia Minor?!

But it was NOT only ISLAM that was looking for desperate souls to buy! It was not only the struggle between Christianity and Islam. Black hoods of Franciscan monks from the 14th century, equipped with Mohammed II's torches starting from Bosnia, ran through Albania, Macedonia, Epirus, etc. all over the Balkans with a lot of money.

The drain to Islam continued in groups, sometimes by force of the conqueror and sometimes voluntarily until 1860. Hundreds of inhabitants of Arapitsa, Margariti of Tsamouria in Thesprotia in Epirus were called Easters and Bayramites until a few years ago because they were Islamized on Easter and Bayram. (They are the Chami people we know today in Albania). All the Turks of Albania and Epirus are Christian converts and they were called “Grecoturning” (Romiogyrismata).

The conquering Turk needed a substrate of his own population throughout the empire and at first he favoured in many ways the Islamization. But when the Turkification became too much and the “rayas” dwindled (because who would work and who would pay taxes then?) then the central Ottoman administration, usually through the bishops, tried to stem it.

Number of children snatched by the Turks. Their education.

No one knows the number of Christian children snatched. Turkish source of 1500 AD. mentions 200,000 children till then. An 18th century Austrian historian mentions 500,000 children, while K. Paparigopoulos mentions 1,000,000 children. The French historian La Valle speaks about 5,000,000 children from both, Ottoman Asia Minor and Europe.

Here is how the envoy of the German emperor, the Czech nobleman Vaclav Bratislav Von Mitrovich, described the Paidomazoma in 1591:

“The Yenitsars are for the most part, persons who have been snatched as children of living Christians... Hundreds of parents are gathered every third year with their male children aged 8, 9 or 10 years. On the spot there are physicians judging the spiritual capacity of each child... Those who promise more are sent to the service of the Turkish Sultan, others to the service of other officials and the rest are sold to the East or Asia...”

“And they were kept there until they became 18 or 20 years old and brought up with privation, hunger... they are treated little better than dogs... Around the age of 20 they are taken to Constantinople and the most active ones are registered as Yenitsars and placed together with other, older Yenitsars to learn to fight from them... In case of battle they march in the vanguard... From them come the bravest and fiercest warriors of the Turks”.

But not all the children ended up as Yenitsars. The most suitable ones were destined for the direct service of the Sultan. And many of them reached very high offices. Others ended up in the slave trade in Asia and Africa!

Ephesos. Then and Now

10. THE “DEAD” CHILD

The first historical record of child snatching “Paidomazoma” comes from the Metropolitan Isidoros of Thessaloniki and dates back to 1395. The term Paidomazoma was first used in 1675. Previously it was called «Yenitsari». As always, there were also the opportunists, or simply those who wanted their child to have a better future than the «raya» parents themselves. These were the ones who willingly gave their children away. But they were the very few. For the many, child snatching was tantamount to death. That is why after the rapture, a funeral service was held for the living child, all but lost to the nation, the parents and Christ.

Such was the terror of the parents, as is preserved in letters from Greeks of Karia (Province in southwestern Asia Minor opposite the Dodecanese), who asked the Catholic Knights of St. John in Rhodes to take them to their lands, in order to save their children. An uprising against the Paidomazoma by the Christian people is recorded in 1705 in Naousa, Macedonia. This revolt of the inhabitants prevented the Paidomazoma. This was the beginning of the declining course of this institution. One of the main reasons for its abolition was the hostility of the old Turks, who saw newly converted Christians ascending to the highest offices.

In time the Yenitsars gained more and more power. They became the regulators of political developments, like the Roman legions, who sometimes went so far as to proclaim emperors. In 1789

when Selim III recognized the superiority of the Christians in the areas of administration and wanted to make reforms and build an army on European standards, the Yenitsars revolted because their establishment was threatened and killed the Sultan.

Kara Khalil Chandarli, was a Greek exile from the city of Kimi Aeolis, Asia Minor. In Turkish the village was renamed “Chandir”, which was adjacent to the town of Doryleon (Eski Shehir). Kara Khalil became a great vizier from 1364 until his death in 1387, under Sultan Murat I. He created the largest dynasty of viziers in the empire, as 4 more of his successors, became great viziers by 1499. Khalil, Ali, Ibrahim and Ibrahim the Younger.

Educated and intelligent as he was, he also became general of the Ottoman army. But the population of Muslims was still small, because the era of the great Islamizations had not yet begun. And then he conceived the idea of making an army of Christian children. But the Quran forbade the forcible conscription of children from the three biblical religions.

Khalil, out of a passion to prove to the Sultan that he was completely loyal to him, then paraphrased the Quran and recommended it to Sultan Orhan:

- O my beloved Sultan, every man from his birth is a believer and invited by Allah to become his devotee. But because until the age of 15 a person is not able to choose and judge which religion to follow, it should be done by the state that has the knowledge but also wants the good of Islam."

The Sultan did not take long to agree.

- If it is Allah's will...? Go ahead then and Allah be with you! He said to Kara Khalil.

Orhan then also visited the founder the sect of Bektasism, Haji Bektash (Persian in ethnicity) and asked for his blessing for the child snatching. The name "Yenitsari" is due to Haji Bektash. (Yeni = young man + Tseri = soldier). The first Paidomazoma in Asia Minor began then. And then it expanded to the European provinces.

As we said, only the children of Armenians and Jews were not taken. As far as the Armenians are concerned, this view which has prevailed in history, has been refuted in recent years. That is, they took Armenian children to the Paidomazoma, but on a case-by-case basis, not at regular intervals and not in large numbers like other Christian children. That’s why we don’t have many Muslims officials with Armenian origin in the Dovlet. As for the Jews, because they were exclusively an urban population, like most Armenians, that is, they lived in the cities and held professions and were honoured with many privileges, like all children of the cities in general, they were exempted from the Yenitsar and generally they were saved from the kidnapping.

The name “Yenitsari” was given to them by Haji Bektash, a religious dervish, of the Bektasism sect, during the reign of Orhan's successor, Murat I, in 1362. The mausoleum of this Bektasi Saint was built by the Greek architect Sadiq, who was inspired by the following fact. One day slipped and fell off the top of a building he was building. Then he prayed to Haji Bektas, who was then also considered a saint by the Greeks. He got well and attributed his salvation to Haji Bektas. He became a Muslim, taking the name Sadiq and built the Bektash Mausoleum.

Hierapolis (Pamukkale in Tourkish) today

11. PETROS, OSMAN and the PETROGLOU!

So, it was Kara Khalil Chandarli, a Greek convert from Doryleon, who was responsible for the suffering of Petros and millions of children like him. And Prusa was the seat of this terrible iniquity. This is where Petros-Osman grew up. He turned 19 and became very successful. He took part in wars and campaigns. He conquered many territories in the name of the Sultan, gained with his merit honours and wealth. At the age of 40 he married, had children, to whom he gave Muslim names and provided them with knowledge necessary to become indispensable in the Dovlet. Mehmet and Orhan Petroglu. And as the years went on, his children created the Petroglu dynasty, progressed and were a very successful dynasty. They were always the indispensable and irreplaceable ones both backstage and in the frontstage.

They arrived in Constantinople, where, as educated men they became useful to the government and to every Sultan. They were noble, educated, multilingual and with these qualities they were always valuable for the High Gate. And they made history for almost 500 years in the service of the High Gate and the Sultans. Close to almost every Sultan or every great Vizier, a descendant of Osman Petroglu served. They always took care of their education, because only then they could have a place in the Dovlet.

The first-born always carried as an heirloom and blessing the encolpion of Petros-Osman the first, which they believed brought them luck and prosperity. This lasted for centuries. The sign of the cross that was sewn on it, was torn off by Petros himself. After all, we are talking about centuries of religious darkness and superstition and it was not difficult for the descendants of Petroglu to save this encolpion very carefully, to protect them from the “evil eye”.

And so the dynasty of Petros - Osman, lived through the entire historical development of the Ottoman state, a history of tens of generations, a history of darkness, blood, inventive torture, which the human mind could not imagine, with massacres and the dehumanization/ denationalization of non-Muslims, until 1922 and the Big Genocide of Hellenism, in which a descendant of Petros played a role as an official of the Dovlet and the Young Turks movement.

12. THE SIEGE OF CONSTANTINOPLE BY MEHMET II

Muhammed/Mehmet was the son of Murat II and the Serbian princess Mara Brankovic, daughter of George Brankovic and Irene Kantakouzeni, aunt also of George Castriotis-“Skenderbey”.

In Muhammad's army, almost all his generals were Greeks. On the side of Galata and Keratius, the city was besieged by Zanganos Pasha, who had served the Dovlet since the time of Murat II. At the Gate of St. Romanos, which was defended by the Emperor Constantine Palaiologos, Muhammad himself was in charge. On the left and right, the land units besieging the city were commanded by: John Karatzia Pasha, a Christian/Greek Pasha from Epirus, descendant of a large Byzantine family (patriarch John Karatzas, later rulers of Wallachia Nicholas and John Karatzas), Khalil Pasha the Great Vizier and Mahmut Pasha Angelos.

Zanganos Pasha was very ambitious and capable. He therefore flattered and urged Sultan Muhammad to continue the siege of Constantinople, when Muhammad at one point seemed to reconsider, after pressure from Khalil Pasha to retreat.

-A Sultan with the drive, vigour and intelligence of Alexander the Great does not back down. Zanganos was flattering Mohammed. And with his flatteries he flattered both his own position and Muhammad's morale. Who eventually came to believe himself to be the embodiment of the Great Alexander.

-Your star, Muhammad, surpasses Islam. Do you not see how many Christians are your loyal subjects? How many serve in your army and how much they want to enter the City of Cities and offer it to you?

Next to the Greek leaders of his army Zanganos, Karatzias, Khalil, Mahmut Angelos, etc., there was the admiral of the fleet, Suleiman Baltoglou, a Bulgarian Christian who was Islamized and first appointed governor of Gallipoli and then became admiral of the Ottoman fleet besieging Constantinople.

Indeed the vast majority of Muhammad's army were Greeks, Serbs, Bulgarians and other Christians and if we count those who had been Turkified 2, 3 and 4 generations ago, then absolutely all of Muhammad's soldiers were Greeks, or of Greek and Christian origin in general. And in the vanguard of these were the so-called “Basibuzouks” and “Akitzis” (irregular corps that preceded the regular army with the promise of plunder) who were mainly German and Hungarian adventurers. They took the City.

Zanganos and his units would be the first to enter it. In return, the Sultan, as soon as he settled in Constantinople, anointed him Grand Vizier (Prime Minister) and governor of Roumeli (i.e. Balkan Greece, not Central Greece as we say today. Rumeli means: country of the Romei. Romei was the name the medieval Greeks used for themselves). And the previous Vizier, Khalil Pasha, was immediately and publicly executed, because Mehmet considered him an agent of the Greeks.

And while Thomas and Demetrius Palaiologos were fighting for power, Zanganos attacked the Peloponnese and central Hellas, from where he expelled the Anjou (French feudal lords, left over from the Crusades) and conquered this corner of Greece as well.

The successor of Zanganos Pasha as the Great Vizier was the descendant of the imperial family of Angelos, the Serbo-Greek Angelos Angelovic. A man of great education, poet, general, a great vizier (1456-1468), head of the army that conquered Bosnia and Herzegovina, who went down in history as Mahmut Pasha. He was married to the daughter of Muhammad the Fatih.

Mahmut Angelovic started from Serbia, where his branch of the family was then living. In 1394, the byzantine aristocratic family of Angelos, Proniarhs of Thessaly, fled to Serbia to escape from the Ottomans. Angelos and his brother Michael were born there. From there, the Turks snatched him away in his childhood and made him a Muslim by the name of Mahmut.

In 1458, the Serbian Despot Lazar Brankovic died and the power of the Serbian Despotate was exercised by Michael Angelos. Soon, however, other Serbian feudal lords deposed him. Then, in support of Michael, his brother Mahmut rushed to Smedterevo and captured it. He then descended to Skopje, which he also captured. In Skopje he joined Muhammad's army in 1461, to whom he surrendered all the castles he had conquered. In 1461, united with Muhammad's army, as we have said, he moved towards Trapezounta and captured it. We note that Mahmut's cousin was also the Trabzonian John Amiroutzis, a fanatical Proturk, who gave/surrendered the city of Trapezounta to the Ottomans.

Previously, in 1456 Mahmud entered the Peloponnese (for the second time). He took on board former Venetian collaborators, such as Matthew Asanis, brother-in-law of Demetrius Palaiologos. He also defeated the Venetians at the Isthmus of Corinth and on the Dalmatian coast.

In 1463 Mahmud Angelos at the head of the Ottoman army arrived in Bosnia. The Bosnian Serb Christian despot Stefan Tomasevic was defeated. Then Mahmut also conquered Albania in 1467, defeating Skenderbey.

Mahmud's end, however, was inglorious. A year later, in 1468, he was removed from the position of Grand Vizier due to the machinations of Rum Mehmet Pasha (Romios Mehmet Pasha - Greek as well), who succeeded him.

Trapezounta, the capital of Pontos province: Hagia Sophia. Church from 1291. Mosque after the turkish occupation 1589. Museum from 1923. Today converted again to mosque !

13. THE FALL OF TRAPEZOUNTA

As early as the Seljuk era, many Greek aristocrats were already converting to Islam. A great example is the Pontian Tzelepis Komnenos, a scion of the imperial family of Komnenos, who was banished and became the right hand of the Seljuk Sultan Messoud I. Tzelepis married a Christian woman named Kabero and they had a son, the “Kutlumoush or Alp Kayi”, the first leader of the Kayi tribe, i.e. the Ottomans. He was the PATRIARCH / progenitor of the Ottoman dynasty. Tzelepis Komnenos> Kutlthe umuous> Suleiman Shah> Ertorul>Ottoman or Osman.

George Amiroutzis, cousin of Mahmut Angelos, educated, mathematician and astronomer from the capital city of Pontus,Trapezounta, Grand Censor of the Empire of Trebizond (Trapezounta) under the Komnenos dynasty, was particularly fond of the Turks, because he saw them as mercenaries and potential supporters in intra-governmental disputes. He even wrote, before the Turkish conquest was completed that: “In Asia Minor I found a large number of our fellow Greeks who had been Islamized. The terrible taxes, daily oppressions, humiliations, the difficult life of a Christian, the proselytism... led our people into the arms of Islam. Many went to Islam because they felt that their own God, Christ and Mary, had abandoned them to untold suffering and they lacked the power of Muhammad and Allah."

The people felt abandoned. Then they saw the behaviour of the nobles, the upper class of the Byzantine state to change (which they, the upper class of the Byzantines that is, were changing religion to keep their privileges, their land and their wealth...) and were motivated by them. For example, Martha, who was the commander of the castle of the city of Ardasa and the other nine Lords of the city, who joined the Ottomans to keep their power and estates. They even saw the higher clergy of the church doing the same... They also saw those who remained faithful to Christ and the cruel fate that their perseverance had in store for them. And so they converted.

The same descriptions had been made two centuries earlier by Anna Komneni, in her book “Alexiada” which referred to the wars and deeds of her father, Emperor Alexios Komnenos. She vividly describes how entire villages were converted en masse to Islam in eastern Asia Minor, in order to escape the cruel fate reserved for Greek Christians by this new religion. Amiroutzis therefore surrendered Trapezounta to the Turks, at the head of whom was his cousin Mahmut Pasha Angelos or Angelovich.

The aforementioned Pontius Georgios Amiroutzis, the cousin of Mahmud Angelos, believed that the union of Christians and Muslims would revitalise the state, which was suffering from low fertility, reduced production and lack of resources. He therefore persuaded the Emperor of Trebizond to surrender the city in 1461. The treaty stipulated that the Ottomans should not harm the city, but they did not respect it. They looted it for three days. From its inhabitants they took 1,500 boys up to 12 years old, to make them Yenitsars and slaves. Among them was Amiroutzis' son. Father Amiroutzis then regretted it. He begged for money to buy his son back, but he failed. So his son Basil Amiroutzis became Mehmet. In the end, George Amiroutzis himself became a Muslim, rose in the Ottoman hierarchy and played suspicious backstage games for his own personal enrichment.

Panagia Soumela Monastery. Pontos province (near Trapezounta). Museum today

14. THE THEORY OF “GRECO-TURKISM”

Another Pontian Greek had risen in Ottoman administration at this time. This was George Trapezountios, with ideas similar to those of Amiroutzis. He was born in Venetian-occupied Crete in 1395. He was educated in Venice, an Aristotelian philosopher, secretary to two popes, Eugene IV and Nicholas V. In July 1453 he sent two letters to Muhammad proposing the creation of a Greek-Turkish state. And in his study "On the Truth of the Christian Faith" he concludes that Islam and Christianity do not really have much difference in faith (!) (he is considered the official father of Greco-Turkism).

After the fall of Constantinople, he was sent as the Pope's ambassador to Constantinople, but he schemed there with Mohammed, suggesting that he must attack Italy. This led to his arrest when he returned to Italy by the Pope in 1471. He stayed in prison and wrote letters of praise for Muhammad. He considered him “superior to Caesar and Alexander the Great... The greatest throne of Constantine the Great, which was given to you, shows that, the Almighty chose your majesty for it!”

Michael Pyllis from Ephesos, secretary to Murat II, remained an orthodox Christian for as long as he was secretary. But he was slandered and faced the danger of being killed. He was forced to convert to save his life. He became Abdullah (servant of Allah). The name Abdullah was the common name given to converts to Islam who renounced the Christian religion.

We see once again that, embracing Islam was the only way to live in this state. Otherwise, you would have to pay a head tax and your life would have been uncertain day by day.

Manuel Palaiologos, at the funeral of his brother Theodore Palaiologos, delivered the following Epitaph: “Those who think that (by converting) they will obtain great positions, among the unbelievers (i.e. Muslims - Ottomans), swell quickly like shining bubbles and then burst even faster and empty thoughts come to nothing. Makes sense! Because if they are slow to carry out the wishes of the Turks, they become suspect and quickly are despised and pushed aside...”

In the Byzantine-era, the Greeks (and Serbs, Bulgarians, Armenians, etc.) landowners (Feudal lords were called in the West, Proniarchs in the East), former governors of regions cities, castles, of Asia Minor and the Balkans, were now surrendering themselves unknowingly to the Muslims to secure their property and privileges. It was an absolute condition that they should continue to cooperate with the Turks and assist the Sultan militarily and financially. Soon, however, other Muslim feudal lords, who were envious of Christians who held high office, prevailed upon them and often complained to the Sultan that important property was in the hands of Christians. So under the fear and pressure of losing their property and power, they and their children also began to convert. In the first and second generations they simply became Muslims, in the third and fourth generation they forgot their Greek language and were completely Turkified.

Envy and slander always existed among the aristocrats, over who would gain more favour with the emperor. But here we are dealing with religion as power. That to prove their loyalty to the emperor, they not only had to offer money, gifts and soldiers, as was done in all states up to now. They also had to embrace the emperor's religion, which was different from their own.

Ephesos: Kelsos Library

15. THE SPAHIDES

The Spahides were roughly the equivalent of the knights of the West. Managers (rather than owners) of property who could maintain a horse and participate in warfare alongside the Sultan. But they were not feudal lords. For their property belonged to the Sultan. It was state land.

With 12,000 Spahides Christians from Epirus, the Ottomans fought in the war against Persia. When the battle turned against the Ottomans, the Epirotes raised the flag of St. George and chanting the Christian hymn “Ti Hypermacho”, poured into battle and defeated the Persians.

This event pleased the Sultan, but it angered the Ottoman ruling class. They asked the Sultan to punish these Spahides for insulting Islam. And the Sultan issued a firman by which he took away the property and horses of these Spahides unless they converted. So, many knights from Epirus converted to Islam in short order. Most remained crypto-Christians. They did not manifest their faith because they were facing harsh punishment. But their children and grandchildren, who were baptized Mehmet and Abdullah, had lost contact with their Greek origin, language and Christian religion and were being Turkified!

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In 1491, Ianos Laskaris reports that: among the Yenitsars there were many who kept the memory of their roots and helped the Christians whenever they could. They even joined more than a few times with the Christians, Greeks and Latins, against the Turks (e.g., in the revolt of Rhodes). They even fled to the West and became Christians again, such as the Aga of the Yenitsars of Arta, Muhamet Papadatos, who left for Tubingen Germany, where he was rebaptized as Christian.

Ephesos

16. THE PALAIOLOGUES

After the fall of Constantinople, two Palaiologues served Muhammad faithfully. The first was the 23-year-old Murat Palaiologos, governor of Eastern Rumelia based in Adrianople. He led the cavalry in the Battle of the Euphrates against the Turkoman “White Sheep” tribe, where he died.

The other Palaiologos was Andreas, son of Manuel. He was born in 1455, grew up and studied in Italy, but asked and presented himself to Muhammad asking to serve him. He quickly became a fleet commander and even sooner changed his name from Andreas to Messih Palaiologos. He was in charge of the two sieges of Rhodes, then held by the Templar Knights. Being the Palaiologos that he was, he tried to convince the Greek patrons of the island to stand on the side of the Turks and against the Roman Catholic Templars. The Rhodian Christians, however, stood firmly on the side of the Latin Christians. So it was not easy for him to take Rhodes. His order to the Turkish troops, not to plunder the island when they took it also reduced the motivation of the Yenitsars. And so the Templars finally repelled the attack. This failure incited the Sultan's resentment against him. But he spared his life. He gave him a small estate in Gallipoli and retired there.

Soon, however, he was given another chance. He was invited by Sultan Bayezid II to participate in the negotiations with the Western Christians at Adrianople in 1500, where he showed his diplomatic prowess in defending Ottoman interests. In 1503 he was sent again as admiral to Rhodes, but again failed to take the island.

So we see that from Ottoman (Osman) to Muhammad/Mehmet the Fatih, Greek and Christian converts in general, played the main role in the expansion and consolidation of the Turkish state. The Turkish state would never have been created, if not for the Islamized Greeks, who were educated, prestigious, knowledgeable and skilled. Qualities that the few and uneducated Turkish Mongols of the Asian steppe did not possess. Muhammad the conqueror (Fatih) alone, had 5 Greek Grand Viziers (Prime Ministers. Six including Khalil Chandarli, who was before the conquest of Constantinople). Zanganos Pasha, Mahmud Angelos, Rum Mehmet Pasha, Mesih Paleologos and Hoxha Mustafa Pasha. His secretaries were Thomas Kantakouzenos and Demetrius Apokafkos. While Muhammad himself was Greek educated. He had a teacher and personal friend Kyriakos Agonitis who (along with Zanganos) inspired his vision of becoming a new Alexandrer. And Muhammad's mother, after all, was a Slavic Christian and Serbo-Greek, named Mara Brankovic. A legend exists that he baptized Christian in the last years of his life, but this information is not correct. He was an admirer of Alexander the Great and of ancient Greek culture, which is why he personally visited Athens and worshipped at the Parthenon, which he turned into a mosque.

Manuel Palaiologos was not satisfied with his life and what had been granted to him at the papal court in Rome and returned to Constantinople and presented himself to Muhammad. He welcomed him and gave him a salary of 100 asps a day and two cities to rule them. He had two sons. John, who died early, and Andrew, who became a Muslim and was renamed Mesih Palaiologos, making a career in the Ottoman administration.

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Lefteris Gallianos and Iakovos, who converted and renamed Yakub, rented (contracted) the customs taxes of the ports of almost all of Asia Minor and Constantinople in the time of Muhammad.

The Capadocians Kaisarioglou and Petraveris, rented out for 100,000 whites the taxes of the grain imported into Constantinople. The great merchants Karamanlides, Greek inhabitants of Karamania, a region of central Asia Minor, colonized Constantinople en masse. Almost all of them were Islamized and Turkified. Muhammad's father, Murat II, also colonized Thessaly with 5,000 Karamanlides to boost production, which was suffering from shortages.

Land ownerships, however, entailed Islamization. For the “raya” had no right to own property. The raya was a serf. A serf, had to pay “head tax” (harach) and many other onerous taxes. The raya's children were taken away from him for the Yenitsars or for slaves. But not the children of Muslims. So it was not difficult for the raya to change his faith to save himself from suffering. To keep his property. It was a situation that human history had experienced for the first time. It was the most abominable moment in human evolution and civilization. It was the time of the Ottoman dynasty!

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At the same time in Asia Minor, Yannis Katsambas, known as Turgutlu, who lived in Katsamba and was the most powerful landowner of the Ottoman state, was Islamised. Another exile from the same region, was Mahmut Pasha, a great vizier in 1462, who conquered Lesbos. He also conquered Chalkis in Euboea in 1470. Thomas, commander of the artillery in defence of Chalkis, also betrayed the city to the Ottomans. He was rewarded with titles for this and became a Muslim.

In 1475 another Greek Muslim, Suleiman Pasha, besieged and conquered the island of Lemnos. (Under Venetian rule then).

Ikonion, Lykaonia province(Konya- Goyurt-koyu), 6th century Greek church.

17. SULEIMAN THE MAGNIFICENT

Of Suleiman’s ten ministers, under whom the empire reached its zenith, 8 were Greeks. He was born in Trapezounta in 1494. His mother (a Muslim but descended from a Greek family of exiles) was Ayse Hafsa Sultan and the nanny who raised him was a Serbian. One of his wives, the most beloved, was Roxanne, Hiourem in Turkish, mother of prince Selim II. She was Ruthenian Cristian (Ukrainian slavic tribe), daughter of an Orthodox priest. Prime Minister and his right-hand man, man with whom they grew up together, slept together, read together... was Ibrahim. He was married to Suleiman’s sister. He became a great vizier, conquered Buddha in Hungary, besieged Vienna, conquered territories in Persia, Tauride (Crimea)... Ibrahim Pasha was a Christian child of the Paidomazoma, from Parga in Epirus, known as Pargalis. Giannis Migekas was his real name. He was slandered by the treasurer of the throne, Iskender Tselebis, also Greek, for allegedly asking his subordinates to call him by the title of Sultan and for plotting against Suleiman. Suleiman executed Ibrahim, but he regretted having executed him and fell into a heavy depression. Then he began to write poems dedicated to him. Suleiman and Ibrahim had grown up together as young children. They had homosexual relations. And apart from the slander by Tselebi (the slander was probably only a pretext and it is doubtful whether Suleiman believed it), the real reason for his execution was jealousy, i.e. Suleiman heard a rumor that Ibrahim was cheating on him with the Venetian ambassador in Istanbul!!!

MANAZAN. Greek Byzantine city  in central Anatolia.

Over 40 thousand caves are statues identified in Türkiye, some of these

 are valid alternatives to the homes we are used to today.

The city of Manazan dates back to the Byzantine Empire where entire rock walls were carved to create a vertical village of tiny rooms that has survived centuries of wars and regime changes in central Anatolia.

Manazan spans five stories and 3km of cliffs and was a fully functioning city centuries ago. The intricate series of caves and tunnels housed  Orthodox churches, Hermetaries,  warehouses, family homes and even cemeteries, all arranged on different levels.

Today the city is no longer inhabited, but residents of neighboring towns like Taskale still use the temperate caves to store grain, cheese and other grains.

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Hayredin Barbarosa

His proper name in Turkish was Hizir Bin Yakub from the Arabic Hindr ibn Yakub (Hizir, son of Jacob). Catalina was his mother's name. From Mytilene, daughter of a priest. Jacob/Iakovos his father who was Islamized, became Yakub and an officer of the Sultan. He had 4 children, Ishak, Uruj, Elisha and Hizir-Hrazdin, all pirates, who along with other Greek exiles would gradually become the pillars of the Ottoman fleet.

Hayredin Barbarossa approached the Sultan depositing untold treasures at his feet. Camels loaded with gold, young Greek women for the harem, works of art, riches of Africa... When Suleiman was threatened by the Genovese Andrea Doria, he summoned Barbarosa to defend the empire at sea. He was forgiven of the crime of piracy and legitimized. He was proclaimed chief admiral in 1533, with the right to sit on the imperial council.

Barbarosa then besieged Corfu in 1537 and seized 20,000 slaves, including the lady Kali Kartanou (later wife of Sultan Selim II and mother of Sultan Murat III). He besieged Parga, the islands of Paxos, Kefalonia and took 13,000 slaves from there as well. He conquered Kythera and took from there 7,000 slaves, Aegina with another 4,078 slaves. He besieged the island of Tzia where he took another 1,200 slaves, Paros... He reached Crete and plundered all the unfortified villages. He defeated the Genoese Andrea Doria (a coalition Christian fleet) and rescued 70,000 Moroccan Muslims from Spain, whom he crossed to Africa. He destroyed Reggio and Calabria, captured the islands in the Bay of Naples, Capri... He suppressed a rebellion in Tunis and much more. He was the terror of the seas.

His ships were built by Greek shipwrights in Chios and Lesvos. The Greek shipbuilders built 100 large galleys and 92 small ones. His crews consisted of 30,000 Greek sailors, as the Venetian Doge, Marco Minio writes.

The two great Greeks (Admiral and Grand Vizier) of Suleiman, Barbarossa and Ibrahim Pargalis, were buried with great honours in Diplokionion (Besiktas).

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Ayaz Pasha, was a Yenitsar from Epirus. He conquered the unconquered Greek corner of Himara.

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The admiral Turgut Reis was also Greek from the Saravalos area, opposite Rhodes (ancient Halicarnasos, birthplace of Herodotos), Cape “Turgut Reis” today.

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In 1518, Lias Pasha, another Epirot/Himariot who was Islamized, became the governor of Epirus and protected his fellow Himariotes in every way. He gave them privileges that were ratified by Sultan Selim I, privileges that his son Suleiman immediately wanted to cancel.

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Selim I had conceived the plan of forced Islamization of all Christians. So en masse and under the threat of the yatagani (sword), the Greeks and other Christians changed their faith to save their lives. Soon, however, Selim's successor, Suleiman the Magnificent, discovered that the state's coffers are beginning to empty. For Muslims were forbidden by their religion to pay onerous taxes such as the head tax, the “harach”. So Suleiman, after following his father's idea at first, later reversed his decision and allowed the Christian religion to continue to exist, while showing some slight tolerance, to allow some non-Muslim people who would do the certain jobs “hagaria” and pay taxes to the Sultan's treasury. If he had continued to support the decision of Selim I, Christianity and Hellenism would have been extinguished forever.

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16,000 TONGUES OF PEOPLE WHO SPOKE GREEK WERE CUT OUT IN OTTOMAN ALEXANDRIA in EGYPT AT THAT TIME AND SENT TO CONSTANTINOPLE, GIFT TO THE SULTAN. (Testimony of the contemporary Patriarch, Meletios Pigas, reprinted in 1800 in the book “After the Fall” by Athanasios Komnenos-Ypsilandis. Today's reprint, published by Notis Karavias edition, Athens).

Hierapolis ( Pamukale) Cleopatras Pool!

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Some historians in Greece say that there was no “hidden” Greek school (κρυφό σχολειό. Schools that operated in secret in monasteries, churches etc). That Greek studies were allowed to be taught freely. Yes. In certain regions, at certain times and under the administration of certain Turks. Not as a principle, nor permanently.

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Ulutz Ali was a kapudan pasha (fleet commander). Born in Calabria, Italy, as Giovanni Dionysius, Greek by birth, Catholic in faith. Selim II made Ulutz chief admiral and named him with the honorific “Kilitz”. He prepared a fleet of 250 ships and set out to destroy Don Juan's Christian fleet and the islands of Naxos and Paros. He met Don Juan's fleet at Kythera, but the Westerners retreated without a battle. Kilitz thus ascended to Epirus, plundered the coast and then headed for southern Italy (his own homeland), where he continued his ravages.

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Uruts Reis (Uruts Master). A pirate and Barbarossa's older brother, Uruts Reis, and his other brother Elis, who was also a pirate, became, along with the Cretan Hassan Vafo, the fear of the Mediterranean. Hassan Vafo was killed in the siege of Corfu. and Uruts distinguished himself at the Battle of Nafpaktos, where he managed to rescue what little of the defeated Turkish fleet was left.

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Michael Katakouzenos. He did not become a Muslim but a Protestant. He was a central tax collector, a greedy and wicked man, He lived in Anchialos, on the coast of present-day Bulgaria, north of Constantinople. He used the two-headed eagle as his seal. He married the daughter of the Romanian ruler Mircea and also exercised control over the Wallachian ruler. He succeeded in placing his brothers Peter and Alexander in the principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia as Hegemons.

He became the most economically powerful ruler of the Ottoman Empire and thus incited envy among his political opponents, especially Muslims, because he had not converted to Islam. The Sultan did not want to upset his court and his Muslim officials. So, he confiscated the property of the Katakouzenos. And in the end he was executed as well. His children, John (Giannakis) was a Kehagias, i.e., a representative in Constantinople of the ruler of Wallachia Michael Voda, until he became Muslim too.

At some point the Ottomans arrested Yannakis. He had the opportunity to change religion, in order to save his life. So he did it. The Turks made Katakouzenos’ other son Konstantinos representative-ambassador to the ruler of Wallachia Gregory. His other son, Serban Katakouzenos, also succeeded and later became the ruler of Wallachia. But nothing saved him. Michael K. Katakouzenos flourished under Suleiman, throughout the period of Selim II and was killed in the early years of Murat III. He was hanged at Anchialos (present-day Pomorie in Bulgaria).

***

Chernotabeyis, from Peloponnesos, who became a secret adviser to Selim I, never forgot his origins. He always helped the Christians. He saved the Monastery of St. Catherine at Sinai Mountain and the Sinaitic monks from massacre and in the end he even managed to secure privileges for them when the monks showed him the original text of the Prophet Muhammad, covenant in their library.

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Hassan Pasha, another Greek, was the head of a Greek Christian military division of the Sultan, who attack Cyprus and conquered it. Then he received privileges, changed his name and became Hassan.

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In 1606 the Grand Duke of Tuscany wanted to restore Christian hegemony over Cyprus. He besieged the island with the Knights of Malta. At the head of the Turkish fleet, Kapudan Pasha, was again a Greek, Mustafa Pasha.

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The successor of Selim II was Murat III. Son of a woman from Corfu, Kali Kartanos (we saw above that she had been captured by Barbarossa). Murat III liked the Greeks and gave privileges to the islanders.

Ankara kalesi. THE GREEK CASTLE OF AGYRA (CAPITAL OF MODERN TURKEY) BUILT IN 8th CENTURY

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Hellenism and Orthodoxy in general were tolerated and even supported in some cases by the Kioprulides, who reached very high offices in the City. They took their name from the city of Kiouprou in Asia Minor, which means bridge. The English historian Kinrose, writes that the Kioproulides were Albanian-born, from Macedonia, Christian Orthodox converts. But other historians argue that they were Greeks from Macedonia, not Albanians. It is not clear, because at that time there was no Albanian national consciousness. And many Christians who spoke Albanian, called themselves Romanians (Greeks)!

They started in 1656 with Mehmet Kioproulis being the first of the dynasty. From a waiter at the palace, he went on to become Grand Vizier. He ruled for 5 years and slaughtered 30,000 evil and corrupt civil servants. He moderated the taxation of Christians and divided taxpayers into 4 categories according to their wealth. He promoted Christians to higher offices because they were educated. He also stopped the Paidomazoma for a long period of time. Mehmet, built many churches and repaired the dilapidated ones. He replaced those that had become mosques.

Ahmet Kioproulis. He became a Vizier at 23. His right-hand man was Panagiotis Nikousios of Fanari. Ahmed ruled the empire and three Sultans for 50 years. He attacked Crete with Nikousios in charge. Half of the Christians in the castles of Crete fled with the Venetians and the other half stayed in Crete with the Turks, after being guaranteed by Nikousios, and eventually most of them were Turkified. The Turkish Cretans! Over 100,000 Greeks and Venetians were killed. Ahmet Kiouproulis and Nikousios paid traitors 700,000 gold florins to take the island!

The leader of the Turk engineers was Andreas Baritsis. The lords of Rethymno, Andreas Miliotis and Fragias Miliotis were dealing with the Turks. They became their collaborators in exchange to keep their property. Andreas became Dragoman of Ahmet Kioproulis for all of Crete. And he took two villages in Rethymno as his property.

Nikousios also protected the Holy Land from the attempt of the Roman Catholics to appropriate the shrines and from the appropriation of the same shrines by the Armenians.

***

Lyberakis Gerakaris. He was a tough Maniat pirate. He got along with the Turks and became the leader of a corps of 5,000 Turks and Christians from Laconia and Messinia and poured into the seas. He fought battles at Megara and entered Corinth victorious. He participated with his army in the siege of Nafpaktos by the Turks, as their ally. The Sultan rewarded him and made him commander of Western Sterea, with headquarters at Karpenisi. He then went down to Mani and tried to divide the Maniates with money. He forced the Stephanopoulos family to leave for Corsica, and he, himself, took as gift from the Sultan the “Baylik” of Mani. Epirus' fables describe Gerakaris as the same “Charon, who reaped lives”.

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Topal Osman. Born in Larissa, Thessalia region in 1670 of Greek parents. He played a major role during this period and even went on to become a Grand Vizier. He was very hard on his clan. In 1694 he was sent by the Sultan to Egypt (he became a Beylebeyi). There he seemed to approach Christianity again, after many hardships in Egypt and the help of his French friends. But he soon became a Muslim again. In 1715, during the Turkish-Venetian War, he captured Corinth, Nafplio, Methoni... Although the Peloponnesian leaders declared allegiance, he slaughtered them and took their children as slaves. He was lame, which is why he was nicknamed “Topal”, i.e. lame. In 1723 the Sultan made him governor of the Peloponnese, then of Central Greece, then of Trapezounta, then of Erzurum (Theodosiopolis) and finally of Georgia, based in Tbilisi.

18. PAX OTTOMANA

The public works that the Ottomans did during the period of PAX OTTOMANA, like roads, aqueducts, ports, warehouses, public buildings, baths, bridges, medreses and mosques, mausoleums.... all were built by Greek architects and engineers.

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Christodoulos Byzantinos (Atik Sinan) built the first mosque in Constantinople in 1471, the “FATIH”, on the site of the Church of the Holy Apostles, which was demolished. Atik Sinan (Sinan the Old) was the architect of Muhammad II. He was the Islamised Christodoulos Byzantinos. His tomb is located behind the present-day mosque of “Fatih”. The tombstone of the year 1471 states that he was imprisoned and put to death by the Sultan when he found that the architect did not meet his expectations, as he wanted the building that would bear his name to surpass the grandeur of the model of Hagia Sophia.

Fatih Mosque, Constantinopolis (Istanbul)

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Mirmar Sinan (Joseph Doganoglou of St. Anargyros in Cappadocia). He was born in 1491 and died in an accident in 1588, aged 97. He built the Ahmed Mosque (blue mosque) in Istanbul. The 334 works attributed to him include 81 public mosques for Friday prayers, 50 smaller mosques, 55 schools, 34 palaces, 33 public baths, 19 mausoleums, 16 workhouses, 7 seminaries, 12 inns, hospitals, bridges, fountains, fountains, aqueducts, hydraulic systems, and others. He was a Christian until he was 21 years old. He was the only convert from his family. He was from Caesarea but his family was forcibly relocated to Cyprus in 1573 by two sultanic orders of Selim II.

He took part in Suleiman's campaigns. He built fortifications, bridges, aqueducts... He became a royal architect at the age of 42. He also built the famous “Suleymaniye”, the mausoleum of Suleiman, and the mosque of Andrianople, built in 1571.

He created masterpieces so wondrous that the Ottoman poet and philosopher Jaqlal al-Din wrote that: “it is better to have Greek builders than Turks”.

Blue Mosque, or Sultan Ahmet Mosque.

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The architect Sadiq was struck by the following fact. One day he was on top of a building he was building, slipped and fell. Then he prayed to Haji Bektas, who was also considered a saint by the Greeks. He got well and attributed his salvation to Haji Bechtas. He became a Muslim, taking the name Sadiq and built the Bektas Mausoleum.

It was Balim Sultan who gave the definitive form to Bektassism. He died in 1516 and is revered by the Bektassis as their second Saint (pir-isani). He was the son of a Christian woman who was captured by Sultan Mehmet II and given as a wife to the Bektasi Priest of the Roussa Tekke (now in the prefecture of Evros), Sersem Ali Baba.

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During the reign of Osman II in 1754, the architect of the "Nur Osmanier" mosque was the famous Simeon.

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Kalogiannis Al Qunevli, who was from Ikonio, built many masterpieces, including the peripatetic Medreshe (religious school-complex), “Giok” in Sebasteia.

Giok Medrese, Sevasteia (Sivas in tourkish).

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Great architects at the court of Orhan were Thyrianos and Nicomedianos (they died as Greeks without being converted). Thyrianos was from Dondriciyoi of Philomelos. He built, among many others, the famous mosque “Akshehir”.

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The Armenian family of BALIAN, famous architects, built the famous Dolma Bakhtse palace, and other masterpieces, such as Beylerbey, Siragan, Feriye etc

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Piri Reis (Piri Reis 1470-1554).

He was a great Ottoman admiral, known in history as a famous cartographer. Of Greek origin from Amari, Rethymnon, Crete. His grandfather was Greek, while his father and uncle, also pirates, had converted to Islam. He was born in Gallipolis Propodis, Thrace.

In 1495 he sailed with his uncle, the famous pirate Kemal Reis. Later Kemal accepted the Sultan's offer to fight for him against the Western fleets and thus was absolved from the crime of piracy. In 1502, when Kemal Reyes died, Piri turned to the study and mapping of the Mediterranean and other seas.

In 1513, he made his famous PORTOLAN, which is the greatest mystery in history to this day. Specifically, it shows maps of South America, Brazil and other areas that had not yet been discovered, as well as a map of Antarctica as it was before it froze, 12,000 years ago (and as it appears from satellites today). When asked, he replied that he found some Greek maps from the time of Alexander the Great and simply copied them and that Columbus also had the same maps. Piri Reis' map was made by Toscanelli, based on ancient Greek maps, for Christopher Columbus. And it was copied from there by Piri Reis, whose copy is the only one that has survived in a museum to this day.

The famus PORTOLAN. With south America and Antarctica. Konstantinopolis Museum.

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History also records Andreas Kornaros’s conversion to Islam. He was a Cretan who was taken to Constantinople by the vizier Mustafa Kioproulis, when he saw that he was a good mathematician. Kornaros fortified Ottoman Belgrade and Timisoara. He changed the course of the Timis River so that its waters could pass through Timisoara, which suffered from thirst in the summers. He became a Muslim halfway through his life.

Philadelfia. (Alasehir in Turkish). Αncient, medieval and new Greek (until 1923) city of Philadelphia. This is what left from neoturk mania, of the huge church of Saint John the Baptist (It was built in 600 a.C).

19. VIOLENT ISLAMIZATIONS OF THE 17th AND 18th CENTURY

These are the two centuries of mass expulsions of the ordinary population, which could not stand the pressure and massacres by the Ottomans. Not just individuals, not just families, not just whole villages. But whole provinces with dozens of villages and towns, massively changing their religion, nationality, language and becoming Ottoman Muslims. Turks in present days!

In 1760, in one year, 36 villages east of Premeti in Northern Epirus were Turkified. Not even the priests remained Christians!

-Brothers and sisters, it seems that Muhammad is more powerful than Christ. We pray, repent, fast, but nothing. Muhammad always imposes his power on our heads. What do you think we should do? The community leaders of the 36 villages say in their meeting.

-We can no longer bear the suffering we are going through. No food, no home, no peace, no quiet, not even an hour's rest, not even our children. Whatever they don’t take for the Yenitsars, they take from us for the slave markets, because we don't have the taxes to pay... This is not life. Either they will continue to slaughter us like lambs, or we will go to Muhammad and see a sunny day too!

And the Christians first fasted for 40 days. They stayed up all night in churches begging Christ to deliver them from their unbearable slavery and tyranny. And then they converted to Muslims massively. All together. In one day! And to prove to the Turkish administration that they were not pretending and that their decision to convert was a conscious one, they turned with fury against their Christian neighbours, slaughtering them and looting the neighbouring Christian villages!

The same thing happened in western Macedonia in the 56 villages of the Baalades. The same in Crete, which created the famous Turkocretans, who speak Greek to the present day and live in the region of Aivali-Kydonia, Asia Minor in modern Turkey.

Entire provinces, such as Monofatsiou, Amari (home of the famous admiral and cartographer Piri Reis), etc., had enough! And this was happening all over the Ottoman Empire. In Bosnia, Serbia, Albania, Bulgaria, Asia Minor, Syria, Palestine, Egypt, the Caucasus...

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The Muselims (forgiven)

This is what the first Turkified Greek families in Constantinople were called. In 1773 there were 40 old, former Greek Families, according to the French Consul of Constantinople. Families who in 1453 betrayed Constantine Palaiologos and Christ and joined the Turks, helping them to take the city. They had the privilege of wearing yellow shoes and Turkish braces. They did not pay taxes and had many other privileges... Muselimides existed in every Greek city and place and are mentioned in the sources with this term.

20. SECRETARIES OF THE HIGH GATE

From the 15th century, when the conquest of the Greek and Balkan territories was completed, all the Scribes and Dragomans were Greeks and Christians. They had education, intelligence, knowledge, knew foreign languages. Then they began to become ambassadors and governors of provinces. They changed religion to maintain their wealth, privilege and power and to provide a future for their children. Besides, there was strong opposition from other Muslims who were constantly denouncing if a Christian held any office. They lived like little Sultans, in the midst of opulence...

After Panagiotis Nikousios of the Kioproulides, we can see Alexander Mavrokordatos 1673-1709.

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Scarlatos Beglitzis was the official supplier of the Turkish army. Mythical riches. He was known by his Turkish name, Iskerlet Zaden. He was killed by the Yenitsars for reasons unrelated to nationality and religion.

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Pantelis Mavrokordatos came from Chios island. He fell in love with the widow of Scarlatos Beglitzi. He had two sons with her. Alexander and Ioannis. Alexander was anointed by the Vizier Fazil Ahmet Kioprouli as Dragoman in place of Nikousios when he died.

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The Grand Vizier Suleiman, a Serbian by birth, concluded the Treaty of Karlovac with the Austrians in 1699. He was accompanied by Alexander Mavrokordatos.

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Nikolaos Mavrokordatos, Alexander's son, 1719-1730, became the first ruler of Wallachia.

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The Ypsilantis. They were from the village of Ypsilanda, two days' walk from the Monastery of Soumelas in Pontus. Benefactors of the monastery along with the Great Komnenoi. Alexander Ypsilantis gave 2,160 gold coins every year for the maintenance of the monastery.

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Alexander Murouzis, was at the top of Dovlet for many years and helped the Greek nation from his position.

21. DURING THE GREEK REVOLUTION OF 1821

The Greek Revolution of 1821 was the second national revolution in the world. The first was the Serbian one in 1804 with Karageorgi Petrovich and then in 1815 with Milos Obrenovich. The revolutions of these two peoples led to the creation of the world's first two nation states. The independent Greek and the autonomous Serbian in 1830. In this struggle, on the side of the Ottomans against the Christians, the burden was borne by Turkified Greeks, Serbs, Albanians, Georgians, etc.

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The leading Ottomans in the war of Greek and Serbian independence were the following:

Omer Vryonis, the besieger of Messolonghi. He was, according to one source, a Tosk Albanian, born in the village of Vryoni in Berati, Albania. (There is also Vryoni in Phoenici of Agioi Saranda, which is exclusively Greek. And Vryoni in Arta). The name Vryoni is of course Greek. It is derived from Vrya (a type of plant) and is spelled with “Ypsilon-y-graecum” and with “Oh-omega”. And the Tosks were overwhelmingly Christian at the time. However, other sources says that Vryonis' family was Greek, originating from Cappadocia, who moved to Berati. The English historian Thomas Gordon, in his book “History of the Greek Revolution”, volume 1, book A, page 13, writes that he descended from the prominent Byzantine family of Vryenios, who converted to Islam. It is an undeniable fact, however, that he kept his Greek surname.

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Kutahi Pasha, or Mehmet Resit Pasha, was a Georgian. He was born in Georgia in 1780 and his father was an Orthodox priest. He was captured by the Ottomans as a young boy and taken to the Sarai of Sultan Mahmud II. In 1809, he became the governor of the district of Kutahya and took this nickname. In 1820 he fought Ali Pasha of Ioannina and after the victorious battle of Peta he was appointed commander of the troops of Rumeli (Central Greece). He also besieged Messolonghi, without success. However, he cooperated with Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt and managed to take the city in 1826. He was rewarded for his many services, victories and massacres against the Christians and was anointed Great Vizier.

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Ibrahim son of Mohammed Ali (Mehmet Ali Pasha), of Egypt. Mehmet Ali’s ancestry was from the Kurdish region of eastern Asia Minor, Ilitch. Ibrahim was his son. He was born in the village of Nikiforos in Kavala, Macedonia. According to fully reliable sources, Ibrahim was a Greek, the son of the widow of Turmaji, adopted by Mehmet Ali Pasha, viceroy of Egypt afterwards.

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Dramalis, Mahmud Pasha, was an Albanian, born in the Macedonian city of Drama.

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Hursit Pasha was from the Caucasus. Circassian. He was converted to Islam in his youth. He was the one who suppressed the first revolt of the Serbs in 1809 and received in return the position of Grand Vizier. He went down in history as the most bloodthirsty Ottoman official, with the famous skull tower in Nis, Serbia (Cele Kula-Cele Kula). In particular: The Serbian chieftain Stefan Sigelic, in an act of heroism and self-sacrifice, blew himself up in the powder magazine of the defending Christians, taking hundreds of Serbs and Turks to death with him. Hursit then arrested the surviving Serbs, cut off their heads, skinned them, stuffed them with cotton and sent a total of 10,000 skulls to the Sultan. With what was left over he built a tower in the city of Nis.

In 1820 Hursit was sent to the Peloponnese and in 1822 he exterminated Ali Pasha in Ioannina.

CELE KULA (tower of skulls) in the Serbian city of Nish. A Turkish contribution to civilization!!!

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Ali Pasha of Ioannina was an Albanian. Liapis from Tepeleni.

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Kiose Mehmet was a Greek, a Pontian from Trapezounta. Hursit Pasha appointed him valesi (governor) of the Peloponnese. Due to the successes of the Greek army and the defeats of Dramali and Hursit Pasha, Kiose Mehmet was removed from the Greek territory and in the future we find him fighting Serbs and Russians in the Danubian regions.

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Chief Admiral Mehmet Khyusref Pasha, was a Christian Orthodox from the Caucasus. Circassian, compatriot of Khurshid Pasha. His story is the same as that of Hurshid and Kutahi. As a young Christian boy he was captured by the Ottomans and taken as a slave to Constantinople and from there to the Sarai of Sultan Mahmud II. He reached the position of Grand Vizier in 1839-41.

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Mustafa Resit Pasha Busatli, or Iskordali. Grand Vizier in 1812. He succeeded his uncle Ibrahim Pasha as vizier in Scodra, Albania. He was an Albanian. His father was also a Muslim. He had great sympathy for Serb and Montenegrin Christians. Scodra was a medieval Byzantine city with the Greek name Skutari, like Skutari in Constantinople. “Scodra” is a corruption of the word in Turkish. Its population was majority Christian, with a Greek, Serbian and Albanian Christian population until the end of the 19th century. Mustafa, is known as Mustai Pasha of Scodra, who was stopped by Markos Botsaris at the Battle of Kefalovryson in 1823.

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Kara Ali. The Kapudan Pasha who slaughtered the people of Chios. He carried out the greatest massacre during the Greek revolution, which moved and motivated the whole of Europe to stand in support of the Greek struggle. Chios and Messolonghi tipped the sympathies and the political scales of Europe in favour of the Greek struggle. Chios had 120,000 inhabitants. Not one of them stayed after it was recaptured by the Turks. About 20,000 who were not slaughtered were given to the Jewish slave traders who bartered them to the slave markets of the East and Africa. Kara Ali was a Muslim. There is no other information about his family tree. But in the portrait painted by Adam Friedel, a sophisticated European appearance and not Mongul, is clearly visible.

22. AND ALL THIS WAS GOING ON THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRE PERIOD OF THE BRUTAL AND BARBARIC OTTOMAN EMPIRE

Millions of Christians, Greeks, Serbs, Bulgarians, Albanians, Syrians... converted to Islam every day and were Turkified. This is how the empire arrived at the regime/revolution of the Young Turks in 1910, the First World War and the Asia Minor catastrophe, which brought the genocides against the indigenous peoples of Asia Minor.

The areas of Asia Minor where the genocide of Hellenism took place (up to) 1922-23.

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23. THEN (IN 1910) THE ETHNIC COMPOSITION OF THE POPULATION OF ASIA MINOR WAS:

(source: Peoples and Tribes of Asia Minor, by Georgios Kleanthous Skalieris, 1922, Athens, with reference to the Ottoman census records. Recent publication “Pelasgos”).

Asia Minor Population in 1890-1910:

ADMINISTRATIVE DISTRIBUTIONS (Excluding European Turkey, i.e. Constantinople and Eastern Thrace).

REGION POPULATION

1) ASIA MINOR CONSTANTINOPLE 335,107

2) NICOMEDIA 316,624

3) NICEA 171,698

4) PRΟUSA 629,800

5) SMYRNA 1,400,500

6) ICONIUM 1,101,549

7) AGYRA 874,532

8) CASTAMONI 960,700

9) TRAPEZOUNTA 1,209,054

10) SEVASTIA 1,057,500

11) ADANA 422,810

12) CILICIA 316,971

TOTAL ASIA MINOR 9,796,854

Greeks in Smyrna 1922 !`

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NATIONALITIES:

1) GREEKS (speaking Greek)

ORTHODOX 2,568,351

CATHOLICS 18,000

PROTESTANTS 5,500

UNITES (MELCHITES) 14,461

GREEK CITIZENS 54,004

TOTAL GREEKS 2,660,316

Smyrna. The birthplace of HOMER, no longer exists after 4.000 years of History. The Neoturks burned the total city and killed all the Christian population, 200.000 Greeks and Armenians.

2) OTHER CHRISTIANS

1) COPTS 2,479

2) CATHOLICS (Latin Rayasi) 7,540

3) ARMENIANS

GREGORIAN 617,157

CATHOLICS 11,653

DISTRESSED 8,456

4) GYPSIES 78,221

5) JUDAEANS 56,970

6) TURKS

TURKISH OTTOMANS 1,802,697

7) OTHER MUSLIMS OF GREEK ORIGIN

1) GREKO-PHRYGIAN-PELASGIAN 55,926

2) ERYTHRINI (KIZIL BASS) 384,834

3) YURUKS (CAUCASIANS + PONTIANS) 1,291,861

4) DERVISHES 173,825

5) LYCIANS 95,000

6) PISIDIANS 85,000

7) LYCAONES 70,000

8) PAMPHYLIANS 90,004

9) GALATES (GALLOGRECS) 95,000

10) TROKMENS (TURKOMANI) 95,000

11) BITHYNIANS-TURKOPHANES 200,000

TOTAL 2,895,290

Ikonion (KONYA) province. Ruins of a Greek church . This is what left after the genocide of Greeks 1923

8) VARIOUS NON-TURKISH MUSLIMS

1) MESO CHALDEANS 80,000

2) LAZIS 125,100

3) SANNI 303,955

4) KOLHI (MINGRELIANS) 210,510

5) IBERIANS (GEORGIANS) 55,000

6) ANSARITES 64,000

7) ZEIMBEKS (Thracians of Ionia) 39,880

8) ALBANIANS 5,300

9) POMAKS 85,823

10) CIRCASSIANS (CERKEZ) 433,582

11) KURDS 119,834

Archagel Michael, city of Sylle, Ikonion ( KONYA) .

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9) SLAVIC MUSLIMS

1) BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA-SERBIA 64,462

10) SYRIAN AND ARAB CHRISTIANS

1) ARABS 27,513

2) MARONITES 8,314

3) JACOBS 15,848

4) SYRO-CHALDEANS 16,434

Aghios Efstathios Ikonion ( Konya). Converted to Mosque since the turkish conquest, and then, after 1923 - until today, Museum.

10) WESTERN EUROPEAN CHRISTIANS

1) PROTESTANTS 14.913

2) CATHOLICS 11.514

3) OTHERS 3.945

11) OTHER MUSLIMS

1) CRIMEAN TATARS 68,487

2) PERSIANS 10,051

TOTAL ASIA MINOR (excluding Constantinople and Thrace) 9.868.700

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SPARTA in Pisidia: The extermination of Hellenism 1919-23

*****

CONCLUSION. The Turks - including the Turkophones: 1,802,697. Armenians and Assyrians & other nationalities, etc. were 3,851,000 in Asia Minor par excellence, but mainly further east.

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IN ARMENIA AND KURDISTAN

The Census of 1890 gives 660,269 Armenians. But Johanes Leipsing, president of the “German Eastern Mission” in a secret report to the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1915, published in Paris in 1919, states that the Armenians number 860,000.

1) ARMENIANS 495,262

2) KURDS 264,950

3) ERYTHRYNI (KIZIL BAS) 18,558

4) GREEKS (CHRISTIANS) 14,025

5) MUSLIMS VARIOUS 1,133,321

6) TURKOMANS (TURKMANI) 200,000

7) CIRCASSIANS (CERKEZ) 1,000

8) SYRIAN ARABS 8,000

9) NESTORIAN CHRISTIANS 92,000

10) GEZIDI (GEZIDI-KURDISH) 12,263

11) GYPSIES 3,500

12) CHALDEANS 25,020

13) SYRIAN ORTHODOX 4,490

14) YAKOVITES (CHRISTIANS) 28,774

15) ISRAELIS 6,275

16) COPTIC (CHRISTIAN) 388

17) CATHOLICS 18

18) VARIOUS FOREIGN NATIONALS 4,986

19) VARIOUS FOREIGNERS 1,220

TOTAL 2,541,103

No. Those were not Jews in some Nazi labor camp. Those were Greeks from Eastern Thrace, in a Turkish concentration camp. They were expelled to Greece in 1914 by the "Young Turks- Neotourks", without any reason. Here in the train station of Hadrianopolis (Edirne in Turkish).

24. THE EXPELL/ ETHNIC CLEANSING OF HELLENISM

The massacres of the Greeks were constant throughout the history of the Ottoman Empire. A continuous genocide. The great ethnic cleansing of the Greek populations, however, began immediately after the Balkan wars of 1912-13, when the Ottoman Empire was defeated by the allied Balkan peoples and almost driven out of Europe.

They were forcibly expelled to Greece between 1913-1918, before the forced population exchange of 1922-23, where another 1,250,000 Greeks were expelled.

From Thrace: 218,762

Asia Minor: 298,449

Pontus: 257,019

Total: 774,232 People of Greek origin

(Source: Hellenic Statistical Authority of Greece)

The persecution and the ethnic cleansing of the Greeks of Eastern Thrace. Here the deportation of the city of SARANDA EKKLISIES (Kirklareli in Turkish) in the year 1914. The attack from Turkic military and paramilitary started in the day of Holy Easter Celebration!

The Greeks began to leave Asia Minor during and after World War I. Frightened, massacred persecuted, tortured, long before the official population exchange agreement. They ran with every way possible to the coasts of Ionia, Aeolis, Caria, Ionia etc., to cross to the Greek islands. They left behind property, churches, centuries of history, graves and culture. They moved by night, hid by day. They even killed their babies, for fear that their crying would betray them.

All the ancient Greek cities, dating back 4,000 years, were emptied of Greeks and Christians beginning from 1910 and the Neoturk revolution. The massacres they experienced were unprecedented and barbaric. They were not only slaughtered by the regular army of the Turks, which was organised and equipped in Pontus by the Russian communists, in the rest of Asia Minor by the Germans and General Liman von Sanders. Every last Turkish peasant attacked every Greek, individually or in an organised manner, either to rob him or to take his life, motivated by an inexplicable hatred instilled in him by the leadership of the Young Turks under Kemal Atatürk.

The attempt of the Greeks from Ionia to reach the Greek islands was somewhat easier. But to get a Greek family from Cappadocia, Taurus or Cilicia to Smyrna or Halicarnassus, from where they could cross to the Greek islands or the Italian Dodecanese, took months of walking. Through hostile territory, without food and the fear of a fanatical Muslim mob. It was an unbelievable martyrdom.

Deportation and death in the deserts of Anatolia

***

The causes of Genocide:

The Hellenism of the Ottoman Empire was its bourgeoisie. They held the education and the capital of the state. They controlled trade, banking, industry throughout the state, from Alexandria to Belgrade. But it was closely tied to Anglo-French capital. They were their transporters and agents. They imported the products of the West into the Ottoman Empire and exported the products of the Ottoman Empire to the West.

The Germans, on the other side, were not a naval power. They didn't have many colonies. They could not easily reach the Middle East and the southern Caucasus by sea, where the first oil had been discovered at that time, which would be the energy for the giant German industry. The only way for the Germans to get to the oil fields and energy was by land. Through the Vienna-Istanbul-Istanbul-Mosul railroad line.

But although Turkish politicians were in favour of the Germans, there was a problem in Turkey. And the problem was that the bourgeoisie and the capital was Greek and Armenian. That is, anti-German, because it served Anglo-French interests. So, the Germans drew up a plan to replace the Greek bourgeoisie. But there were no Turkish bourgeois and capitalists.

So, the Second Reich, based exclusively on German-Jewish capital, which the Reich itself had brought out and strengthened within Germany through the enormous privileges it had granted them, proceeded to replace the Greeks with Turkish Jews.

The property of the Greeks began to be confiscated by the Turkish state. The agencies and shops were removed and given to the Turkish Jews. Banks were removed, shops were closed for no reason, looted by a directed mob... and genocide began from this economic attack...

But it was not enough for the Germans to establish their influence in Turkey. The doctrine of the Germans was expressed in the slogan given by General Liman von Sanders: As long as these (monuments of Greek civilization) remain here, you will be slaves of the Greeks, even if you slaughter all the Greeks. And then began the physical genocide of the Greeks along with the cultural genocide. The razing of everything, from monuments to cemeteries.

On the other side, the Russian communists also considered the struggle for national independence of the Asia Minor Greeks, as an “imperialist attack of the Anglo-French” on Turkey. They opened their warehouses and banks, gave weapons and gold to Kemal, sent generals to the Turkish army and massacred the Pontians together with the Turks. The Turks honoured them. At the Turkish Independence Monument in Taksim Square in Constantinople, next to Kemal, two Russians are standing. Clement Vorosilov and Mikhail Frunze, (the latter carried the first financial aid of 1,400,000 gold rubbles, to Kemal).

SMYRNA , THE BIRTHPLACE OF HOMER. 1922, The massacre of 200.000 innocent Greek population.

***

In Prusa, some branch of the Petroglou family was leading the pogrom at this time. The young second lieutenant Suleiman Petroglou, riding his white horse, made a daily and continuous attack on the Christian neighbourhoods. He slaughtered, burned, took prisoners and then hanged them in public, to the amusement and fanaticism of the ignorant mob of Turks.

- No infidel to be left!

- No Muslim to show mercy!

- No Turk should think of hiding or helping infidels!

- The only infidel who will be saved will be the one who embraces Allah!

But Suleiman's greatest fury was the churches with their cemeteries and ancient monuments. The inscriptions and the statues.

-As long as these monuments are standing, the infidels will own this place. All this must disappear, be razed to the ground.

Suleiman shouted again and again and the mob tore down everything Greek and Christian with fury and hatred. Female Greeks are digging in the cemetery in Prusa, to take out and take with them the most precious thing. The bones of their ancestors. Others were trying to save the relics and holy icons from the churches. But such was the fury of the Turks that the cemeteries became the first targets.

- These first. Shouted Suleiman Petroglu. These are the roots. We must eradicate their roots. Break them, dig up the skeletons, scatter the bones... slaughter anyone who tries to light a candle.

And he went on:

- This homeland is ours, not theirs. There will only be Turkish cemeteries here. Because if there are Roman ones, there will always be a question of who owns this place. As our ancestor Ertorul Shah said, we must have cemeteries to prove that this land belongs to us!

Suleiman's hatred of the Greeks was unprecedented. His zeal in exterminating them did not go unnoticed by the leadership of the Young Turks, who rewarded him. He was given ranks and was promoted to become one of Kemal Atatürk's most trusted advisors. And from this position he continued his work!

Smyrna 1922. Massacred Greeks

***

In 1923, the genocide was completed. Last act the ethnic cleansing, which was given a legitimate cloak, that of “population exchange”. The Greeks who survived the genocide, officially 1.3 million, left their ancestral homeland and came as refugees to the other half of their homeland, to the modern Greek state, which managed to gain some independence. On the other side, about 500,000 Muslims left the Greek state and went to the Turkish state. A completely heterogeneous exchange, decided in the Treaty of Lausanne.

The ancient Greek (in middle ages are different administrative names) provinces (except Armenia, Kurdistan and Assyria) in Asia Minor.

25. AFTER THE LAUSANNE TREATY (1923)

The Treaty of Lausanne of 1923 provided for the preservation of the Greek minority of Constantinople, the nine Principal Islands of the Sea of Marmara and the islands of Imbros and Tenedos in the Aegean Sea, which were inhabited exclusively by Greeks, but were given to Turkey for security reasons, because they were located right at the entrance to the Hellespont and the Bosporus straits. These islands in the treaty were also provided with relative autonomy, which was never implemented by the Turks and the Greeks of Imvros and Tenedos were decimated!

The treaty also provided for the residence of 80,000 heterogeneous Muslims in Greek Thrace (Turkish consciousness in Rhodope, Pomaks who are a native Thracian tribe in Xanthi and Gypsies) and 17,000 Muslims in Thesprotia Epirus (the well-known “Chamides”, who were exchangeable with Turkey, but by decision of Prime Minister El. Venizelos and because they were in a place far from Turkey, they were considered harmless at the time and were allowed to remain in Greece).

The fact that the Treaty of Lausanne excluded the Greeks of Constantinople and the above islands (population of about 100,000) from the population exchange and at the same time protected their rights, did not mean that the Turks had much respect for this treaty.

AGYRA, ( ANKARA). The Metropolitan Church of Saint Climent 1923 ! Today nothing left !

The first persecutions after Lausanne

Just five years after the signing of the treaty, a group of fanatical Turks (instigated by the Turkish state services) burned most of the districts of Constantinople inhabited by Greeks in order to settle Muslims there.

Later, the Turkish government itself tried through legislation to economically exterminate the Greek minority. In particular, in 1942 a decree was issued under the name “Varlik Vergisi”, which imposed a huge property tax on the minorities. The justification for this financial over taxation of minorities alone was that Turkish citizens with low incomes should be financially supported. In the period from 1942 to 1955, 15% of Turkey's state taxation came from the Greeks.

September 1955

The situation of the Greeks in Constantinople began to become even more difficult in 1954, due to the Cyprus Issue. During the struggle of the Greeks of Cyprus for independence from the British Empire, Turkish nationalism in Cyprus was also intensified. However, as a result, the Greek minority in Turkey was also targeted by Turkish nationalism.

In September 1955, one of the worst Turkish attacks on the Greeks of Istanbul took place. A provocation orchestrated by the Turkish secret services provided the excuse. A Muslim of Greek nationality, Fuad Oktay, planted a bomb in a house, what was believed to be Kemal Atatürk's house in Thessaloniki. This event stirred up the Turkish mob, which erupted in revenge for the insult to Kemal. Of course it was not a spontaneous reaction and was, like the bombing of Kemal's house, planned and directed by the Turkish services.

On the night of September 6-7, the Turkish mob burned more than 3,000 houses and more than 4,000 shops of the Greeks. They also destroyed and looted 82 Orthodox churches, destroyed and desecrated Greek cemeteries and destroyed 26 Greek-speaking minority schools. The destructive fury of the Turks that night resulted in 200 rapes and 16 Greeks who lost their lives. The Greeks of Constantinople lost their property within a few hours. Life for them was now uncertain. Of the 100,000 Greeks in Constantinople, many then chose to emigrate to America and Canada. The fortunes they left in Turkey exceeded one billion US dollars at the prices of the time.

After the “September riots”, the Menderes government attempted to conceal its involvement in the events by incriminating the left-wing Turkish movement. They arrested a number of communists to blame them, including Aziz Nesin, a writer and intellectual from the Crimean Tatars, whose real name was Mehmet Nusret Nesin.

While the subsequent Turkish governments promised the Greeks compensation, in order to naturally mitigate the international outcry, in reality they not only failed to compensate the destroyed properties, but hardened their attitude towards the Greek minority even more. A few days later, on 16 September 1955, they arrested the editor of the Greek newspaper “Eleftheri Foni”, Andreas Lampikis, who remained in the military prison of Harpiye for several years without any official charge or warrant. In addition, 57 leading members of the Greek minority were arrested and deported from Turkey in 1957-59. Among them was the journalist Dimitrios Kalumeinos, who had recorded the Turkish aberrations with his camera.

The persecution of 1964

But the suffering of Hellenism did not end with the “September riots” of 1955. Again, due to events in Cyprus in 1963-64, 12,000 Greek citizens of Constantinople were deported. The Turkish government decided to deport the Greek nationals who were living in Turkey and had the right to stay without a visa (these were Greek natives of Constantinople who had obtained Greek citizenship). But with them, another 60,000 Greeks with Turkish citizenship were forced to flee.

The mass emigration of the Greek population that took place at that time was considered to be the largest exodus of people from a country in peacetime on the territory of the Balkan Peninsula since World War II. During this period, 100 businesses of Greek nationality with funds worth $500 million were also closed down. They were simply abandoned!

The holy tree of Turks is the Aple. The «Red Apple», «Kokkini Milia» in Byzantine legents . Here, Turks from Kazakstan, in front of Mythological «RED APLE » tree and teritory. (мірза тимур татарський- By Mirza Timur Tatarian).

No, they are not Chinese. They are authentic Turks from Turkestan !

26. TODAY

The Greeks who still live there are the last descendants of the Byzantine Empire and ancient Hellenism. They number about 2,000 people.

They have lived there for four millennia as indigenous people and in Constantinople since the time of its founder, Byzas from Megara. They are threatened with total extinction after a century of persecution, violence and mass deportations. Their churches are constantly vandalized by the Turkish mob and the nationalistic and paramilitary organization “Grey Wolves”. In Constantinople, the Ecumenical Patriarchate survives. It is the leading church of Orthodox Christianity, based on the decisions of the Ecumenical Councils. It was recognized as an Ecumenical Church even during the centuries of Ottoman rule by the Sultans, but is being challenged and degraded by the present Turkish governments. Ankara downgrades it and considers it simply a parish of the Greeks of Constantinople. As does its ally Russian President Vladimir Putin, in an official public statement. Greek institutions, schools, hospitals, cemeteries live daily with the Turkish sabre hanging over their heads. The “Hagia Sophia” the oldest surviving Christian church in the world, was converted back into a mosque by a decision of President Erdogan in 2020. The same with the “Monastery of Chora”, also a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Soumela Monastery is again under a ban to operate every 15 August, the feast of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary...

At hundreds of archaeological sites, they have changed the signs informing tourists. They present the monuments as “ancient” without any explanation that they are “Ancient Greek”. Even the inscriptions written in Greek are called “Roman”. They present Troy and Homer's Iliad as their own epic! Homer=OMAR!!!!! They are trying in every way to eliminate the 4,000 years of Greek historical presence from Asia Minor! As they did with the Armenians and other indigenous peoples.

***

Modern Constantinople cannot be imagined without the Greek presence there, as Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew states:

“We have been here since the arrival of the Apostle Andrew and after the erection of Hagia Sophia by Justinian. We have witnessed historical events such as the Fourth Crusade, the Latin occupation of the city, the fall of the Byzantine Empire and then the Ottoman Empire that succeeded it. Also, witnessed the establishment of the Republic of Turkey. We have always been here, sometimes more, sometimes less, but always here. This is where our ancestors were born, lived and died. This city is like our home. We are citizens of this country and we were born here and we want to die here”

Of course, Patriarch Bartholomew is referring to the Christian Church and not to Hellenism. Hellenism in Thrace (and Asia Minor) is indigenous and in Constantinople it goes back 1,000 years before Christianity. It begins 1,000 years before Christ, from the building of the city of Byzantium by the Megarians and their leader Byzas. And not from the arrival of the Apostle Andrew, which the Patriarch mentions.

Livissi. Greek city in Caria, S.west Asia Minor. The Turks passed through here in 1914 and 1922. Ancient Greek Karmylissos, Byzantine Levissos. In 1914, the Turks rounded up all the men from 15 to 70 years old and exterminated them in the depths of Anatolia. In 1922, they expelled the last 500 women and children to Hamidiyeh, Syria.

***

27. OSMAN MEETS PETROS

Suleiman Petroglou had a long career in the army. He reached the rank of General and his son Osman also entered the military academy, continuing the famous tradition of the Petroglu of Prusa.

The other Petros of the story, the one who left his mountain village in Pindos and fled to Germany, he studied there and excelled. He married a girl, a refugee originally from Prusa.

And after Greece and Turkey had a brief respite of peace again, a few years after the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974 and the new ethnic cleansing of Hellenism on the island of Aphrodite, they decided to visit the ancestral lands of her family. As thousands of other Asia Minor Greek citizens began to do. To see the history, to see what is preserved. The memories of parents and grandparents from Prusa were omnipresent.

Autumn 1977. The train whistled at the station in Prusa. Petros and his wife Calliope got out and went to the hotel, which they had already booked from Germany. There was heavy fog and a cold atmosphere. People hurried indifferent to them on the beautiful, cobbled streets. The old town immediately transported you to another century. Perhaps to the one when the Greeks lit up these cobbled streets with their presence before they were forced to leave.

In her suitcase, Calliope had notes and makeshift maps from her parents' accounts of where their home in Prusa was located. Where the churches were located, the cemetery, where even as dust the bones of her ancestors still rested. As did those of hundreds of thousands of Greeks in the 4,000 years of Hellenism there.

The next morning, they took a Turkish guide/interpreter and started searching. They immediately found the ruins of Agios Georgios, which used to function as a mosque, but was abandoned because another larger mosque was built (Aziz Georgios Rum Ortadoks Kilisesi or Özlüce kilisesi, which collapsed on its own due to abandonment on the night between September 1 and 2, 2020, around midnight). They saw many ruins, relics of ancient Greek temples, mansions, public buildings, still preserved from the Byzantine era or from the last century, abandoned and dilapidated. The cemetery was nowhere to be found. The roots. Those had to disappear first. Who knows where it was and what had been built on it!

The cathedral of the Holy Apostles in the district of Kayabasi was the only parish church until 1642. At that time, the Orthodox of Prusa had obtained permission to build another church, which caused unforeseen opposition among the Muslims. The governor of the city (a Greek who also converted to Islam) not only prevented the construction of a new church, but also encouraged the Muslim mob to destroy the existing church of the Holy Apostles. Eventually, however, the great vizier of Greek origin, Kara Mustafa (1638-43), punished the local Cadi and renewed the permission for the construction of the new church. Ten years later, in 1652, the patriarch of Antioch, Makarios, found three parish churches in Prusa: The Virgin Mary at Kaya-basi, St. John the Theologian at Baluk-pazar and another (probably of the Taxiarches) at Demir-kapi. The first two were “renovated”. We can therefore assume that both or all three of them already existed as churches, which after 1642 were rebuilt and became parish churches. Surprisingly, the former metropolitan church of the Holy Apostles is not mentioned by Makarios, probably because it had not yet been repaired. In 1668/1670, however, the priest of the English embassy in Constantinople, Thomas Smith, who visited Prusa, refers to the Church of the Holy Apostles as a “former metropolitan”. The new metropolitan church was then the church of St. John the Theologian in Baluk-Pazar, a neighbourhood with the densest Greek population.

The city of Susurluk is very close to Prusa and is a separate municipality. It was a new town from the 17th century and had a mixed population. Greek and Muslim. The former church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary had survived, but was converted into a mosque. Inside there were many hagiographies which were covered and destroyed.

There was another old church in the Turkish neighbourhood of Susurluk, dedicated to St. George, which was open every Saturday and on the feast day of the saint. In the upper part of its entrance, there was a fine relief of the Saint, which showed that it was very old. Unfortunately, however, it was completely destroyed.

In the neighbouring Greek village of Kalasani, the magnificent church dedicated to the Taxiarches was still preserved. During the First World War it was burnt down, but the Greeks rebuilt it, using beautiful stones that made it special. Today it has been converted into a mosque.

In Demirtesi, one of the main villages in the area, there was still the village's stone church which was dedicated to the Assumption of the Virgin Mary and inside it had two rows of columns. Like the other churches in Asia Minor, it had been converted into a mosque.

Leaving Prusa and descending into the Cyanos Gulf, they arrived at the beautiful village of Eligma, where the old Byzantine church of Agios Averkios stands proudly on the beach. It was in poor condition, despite efforts to restore it. Many people believed that in the place where the church was located there used to be the monastery “SUN ALTRS” “Eliou Vomoi” or “Eliobomites” or “Eleobomon”, from which the village took its name. Inside the holy temple, there was the tomb of Andronikos Kontostefanos, who was a member of the imperial family of Komnenos and served in the monastery as a monk named Antonios. The inscription on his tomb stated:

"There lies a man of purple branch.

A wise man, a man of all virtues,

Kontostephanos Andronikos of Gennada,

and finally, Antonios ……”

Prusa. The metropolitan Curch Saint John Theologos, from 1701. Nothing left today .

The Andronikos of the inscription must be, according to the great Byzantinologist Gregoire, the son of the Grand Duke Andronikos Komnenos, who, in the year 1182, was blinded, together with his four children, by the Emperor Andronikos Komnenos (1182-1185), because they had taken part in a conspiracy against the Emperor.

This is the reason why Andronicos was exiled to the monastery of St. Averkios and died on 23 February of the 12th Indictorium, in the year 6717, probably the same year as 1209. Tradition also says that in Byzantine times the “Sun Altars” were used as a place of exile for members of the imperial families.

The church of Taxiarches, which was located in the upper village and used as a warehouse, was in the same bad condition.

Following the coastal road they reached Moudania where they met the cathedral of Agios Georgios. In the past it was adorned with a beautiful iconostasis made by the sculptor Theodoros Lyritis, from the island of Tinos. But also, with beautiful hagiographies painted by the great hagiographer Th. Kessanlis. Today it functions as a cultural centre.

In the next coastal village, Sigi, they saw the jewel of the region, the Byzantine church of Taxiarches. The church of Taxiarches was undoubtedly the catholic of a monastery, one of the many that had been built in Bithynia after the 8th century and belonged to various aristocratic families of Constantinople. It is said to have been built by the Emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitos, restored by Constantine Palaiologos in 1448 and rebuilt in 1818 by Sultan Mahmut II, under the rule of Bishop Panaretos of Prusa. The monastery was one of the richest in the region with many valuables, sacred vessels, golden vestments, jewels, great archaeological objects and a magnificent “Beautiful Gate” adorned with gold, silver and precious stones. It had representations of the birth and baptism of Christ, donated by the wife of Ali Pasha of Ioannina, Mrs. Vasiliki Kontaxis, whom the Sultan exiled to Prusa, after the death of Ali Pasha. (This historic church, through the actions of Metropolitan Elpidophoros of Prusa and now Archbishop of America, was purchased in 2020 by the Patriarchate of Constantinople and its renovation is imminent).

The next day they began to search for the house of her ancestors. They took the streets asking left and right and after finding some Turks who directed them they arrived in a well-preserved house, on the east side of the city within its old walls. They knocked on the door and an old woman emerged in the window-sill. With the interpreter they explained to her who they were and she immediately opened the door for them cheerfully. She was the wife of the now deceased General Suleiman Petroglu, who committed the great massacres in the city. He confiscated the house of Kalliopi's parents and grandparents and used it for his own residence when they came to Prusa from Ankara, where he was serving at the military headquarters.

Suleiman was deceased, Ayse lived alone and was visited very often by her son Osman, also a military man, who was also serving at the headquarters in Ankara. Ayse welcomed them. She even seemed to be moved. It was as if Calliope and Peter were living out everything they had heard from her ancestors. In every corner of the house they imagined her grandfather as a small child with his toys, her great-grandfather worried about the situation and where and when the hatred would erupt from the politics of the Young Turks, her great-grandmother in the kitchen, or knitting...

They stayed for some time, reminiscing through stories they had heard and lived through, and when the time was up they got up to leave. Ayse told them that her son Osman would be coming from Ankara for the weekend any minute and that if they wanted to, they could stay and meet him.

And so they did.

Petros and Calliope met Osman, who was an officer in the Turkish army. He received them with kindness and much curiosity. He wondered what these Greeks wanted and why they were picking at things that were dead. They talked about the old city of Prusa and the peaceful coexistence of Christians and Muslims, about the “forgotten things of the past” and “what happened has happened, as long as it never happens again”, was the main topic of conversation.

They talked about the Christians, the Christian churches that all the villages of the province have at least one, some in good and some in bad condition, they talked about the customs of Christians and Muslims, they talked about the ancient Greek monuments, about Troy that was nearby... Calliope talked about her family, how many years, how many hundreds of years it goes back to Prusa. And Osman spoke proudly of his ancestor, the creator of the dynasty, Osman Petroglu from the 16th century.

Then he got up, went to the fireplace, opened a crypt and took out a small object. Here, this amulet has been passed down from father to son for five centuries. “It's from our ancestor and creator of our dynasty, Osman Petroglu. Amulet so that Allah will watch over us and protect us from the evil eye.”

When Calliope and Petros saw it, they immediately recognized a Christian amulet. An “engolpion”. An agitation seized them. Their heartbeats suddenly got faster and their words got caught in their throats. But the Muslims had the same little talismans. The superstitions and religious beliefs were similar in both religions. Both believed in the “evil eye”!

- Have you ever opened it? do you know what's inside? Calliope asked.

- No, I haven’t. Personally, I didn't think about it, I don’t give much attention to amulets. They are now superstitions in my opinion, replied Osman. For me it has only historical and sentimental value. I keep it only as an heirloom, as the beginning of our family's history.

-But now is the time to open it.

He took a pair of scissors and began to carefully cut the amulet's stitches. He carefully opened it on one side and took out a small piece of cloth, with two small incense sticks and a tiny cross wrapped in it. And on the cloth were written some letters. Osman was in shock.

-I can't believe it, it can't be... he started to shout nervously.

The house was buzzing with electricity from side to side. Everyone was hanging on Osman's every word to hear the rest. What was it that made him lose his temper?

- I don't believe it, I don't believe it. He kept shouting. This is probably not Osman Petroglu's talisman. Maybe it got lost somewhere, maybe it got mixed up with something else, so many centuries have passed, it's probably something like that, he continued to mutter.

- Here, here's what's inside. It has a cross and incense. It can't be..., he whispered and showed it to Petros and Calliope.

Petros took the amulet in his hands and looked at it intently. On the linen cloth where the cross and the incense were wrapped, there were some letters. He gave it back to Osman. He looked at them, but he didn't understand anything. It's not Arabic, (since the Turks wrote in Arabic alphabet until 1922). Latin? Again, they don't look much like Latin, or maybe they do and I don't understand. Are they?

- Maybe you should look too, see if you can understand what he writes, he addressed Petros.

Petros and Calliope spread the cloth. And no matter how worn the letters were, they immediately read them. “Our son Petros. May God protect you wherever they take you. Your parents, Papa Kostas and Evanthia, from Elati in Pindos.”

Everything was shattered at that moment in Osman's house. Both for Petros and Calliope and for Osman Petroglou. His reaction was nervous and abrupt. He asked his two guests to leave the house immediately. Then he locked himself inside and burst into tears of rage. He pounded the wall with his fists, banged his head, screamed, refused to believe what he had seen and read. And on the other hand, so did Petros. Petros from his village 4-5 centuries ago in Prusa? What a coincidence. What divine intervention, what tragic coincidence of fate led him to Germany, where he met his wife, a refugee from Prusa, to Prusa itself, in her ancestral home, which was now the home of Osman Petroglu, only to discover that they were villagers, namesakes, perhaps even relatives and yet enemies at the most crucial moments of history... What tragic story could be behind the story of the Petroglu family?

Prusa: Saint George church. Nothing left after 1922-23

28. THE MEMORY OF DNA?

The very same story exists behind most of the population of Asia Minor. They were all Greeks and other indigenous Christian peoples, who converted the same way as the Petroglu. Who then slaughtered and overthrew their own kind over the centuries. Just as the history professor at the university he studied had told him. As he read it in German history books and recently in a study of the ethnic groups that created the modern Turkish state at Tybigen University. After this uncomfortable encounter in Prusa, Petros and Kalliopi returned to Germany. There he passionately began to dive into the sources and historiography to understand what and how this happened to his namesake and villager Petros five centuries ago.

How could such a heinous and continuous crime, the greatest crime in history, completed with the genocides of 1900-1922, be committed by the Young Turks, on the basis of the older theory of most Sultans that? Those who refuse to accept Islam and to be Turkified should be slaughtered. One nation, one state, one religion. The eternal and immortal Turan. How can such a crime not be known to the people of Prusa, Sparta, Philadelphia, Ankara, Iconion, Caesarea...?

What happened in Prusa tormented him day and night. He became gloomy, he completely lost his vitality, he became depressed. Osman Petroglu was constantly on his mind. How could it be, how could it happen that a Greek had been slaughtering his own kind for centuries? Science says that our genes, our DNA itself, also has a memory. How did the Greeks turn into butchers of their own kind, to serve an alien elite, whose only contribution to humanity was their ingenious methods of torture and genocide?! Who have contributed nothing positive to human evolution and history. Even the famous Turkish pastries and cuisine, from the Persians and Arabs originated. How can someone who is descended from the Greeks, those who in these sacred lands of Ionia and Aeolida, created RATIONALISM, the highest level of the human mind, hate his own kind so much and feel proud because he thinks or believes, that they were descendants from these people of the steppe of Asia, who turned off the switch of civilization when they stepped on these sacred lands?

He wondered what this “Turk” and every “Turk” who walks every day between the columns of Ephesus, Troy, Smyrna, Halicarnassus, Colophon, the countless rock chapels of Cappadocia, think? Is he wondering? Do they awaken something in his subconscious? Or does he stick to the theory that these are simply “ancient”, of unknown creators, which is the official “scientific” opinion in Turkey, or even further, that they were even made by pre-Turks or aliens who had come from outer space! Does our DNA and our cells really have a memory?

And life went on, flowing along its prescribed path, but not carefree. It was eating away at the insides and memory of both families. Petros lived with his wife in Germany and spent summers in his village for rest and relaxation. Osman Petroglu in Ankara and in Prusa, dedicated to his military career. No contact between them. Everything seemed like a distant and tormenting memory, which they wanted but could not forget.

29. BUT DNA REALLY HAS MEMORY!

It wasn't many years after Petros and Calliope's visit to Prusa. Fifteenth of August, in his village in Elati, Pindos. Retired and elderly people now spent more time in their village and only in the winters lived in Germany. In the stone square of the village, where they were preparing for the 15 August festival, a car with foreign plates stopped in the early morning hours and a well-built old and white-haired gentleman got out of the car and headed for the cafes. He addressed the patrons in broken Greek and asked about Petros and Calliope. The patrons showed him the table where Petros was sitting, drinking his coffee. He headed that way.

Yes. DNA really has memory. Tens of thousands of modern Tourks, besiege Saint Georgios Koudounas at Principonissos (Buyukada in Turkish). One of the last Greek Churches in Propontis. Few Protestants also celebrate the Saint. (Look at this short, Turk production, video).

https://youtube.com/watch?v=rrrvI5sR0IU&feature=shares

*******

- Hello, do you remember me? Petros turned his eyes to him and immediately recognized him

-Osman! Are you here? Sit, sit, Petros beamed with joy and surprise.

They sat down and began to unfold the pages of history. At that table they spent endless hours. Now retired from the Turkish army, he began to spend his time reading. And searching, never able to get over what happened in his home in Prusa, he travelled all over Turkey. He saw all the ancient Greek monuments. The ancient temples, the libraries, the theatres, the inscriptions that all spoke Greek. He saw the early Christian, Byzantine, modern Greek churches and architectural monuments. He read and researched beyond the official books, which are allowed to circulate in Turkey. His soul had begun to flare up as he realized what he was, where he came from and where he was walking after this tragic game that fate had played on him, five centuries later.

- We are all the same, Petros. We are brothers. We have the same blood. I am moved to come to my great-grandfather's village today. Petros, who became Osman. I came to see where he was born, where he took his first steps, where the tragic events happened... to relive the history I never lived.

At noon, when they went to the house where they hosted him, Osman took a small wooden icon of the Virgin Mary out of his bag and offered it to Petros.

- In return for the hospitality you offer me. In return for the great service you have given me and shed light in the darkness of my knowledge. For teaching me where I come from, who I am and where I am going. For atonement for all the evils my family did to its own blood for centuries and especially my father in the destruction of Hellenism in 1922. This image was taken from some Greek church by my father and as if pushed by an invisible divine power, he did not destroy it. He kept it and stored it deep in his chest.

In my country it was once forbidden for a Muslim to become a Christian. By the unwritten law the Sharia punished that by death. Of course in Turkey there is no Sharia now, but it is a condition if you want to make a career somewhere. As a Christian I could not become a soldier, neither I nor my children could have a career somewhere. Islam is still necessary for one's survival in this country. If you are not a Muslim, you have no chance, no chance for success anywhere. But I have sealed in my heart the spirit of Greece! Even if it is too late.

Every summer I went to the coast of Ionia, to Caria, Lycia, Aeolis, Lydia... to ancient Troy, where two rival Greek peoples, many centuries before the term “Greek” was used, the Achaeans-Danaans on one side and the Trojans-Dardanians on the other, created world history, as Homer tells it.

I was sitting and gazing at the Aegean Sea and travelling mentally in Odysseus' ship, listening to the sirens of Hellenism calling me and enchanting me. I studied in the school of Heraclitos, Anaximander. I watched tragedy in the theatre of Colophon and Aphrodisias. I worshipped in the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus and in the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus... In the rock chapels of Cappadocia, in the Myra of Agios Nikolaos...

But what is this colophon of glory? Everything spoke to me in Greek! All the stones! And I began to learn their language to converse with them. To converse with these insurmountable ruins, monuments of the greatest human civilization! And more and more I ran into the past. I was living it as a protagonist. Sometimes as Achilles, sometimes as Paris, sometimes as Alexander the Great....

There was no end to Osman's narrative. He stayed in the village for days, he wanted to leave, mainly because of tact, but Petros wouldn't let him. In their walks and conversations, they went through the whole of Greek and Mediterranean history.

Petros understood Osman's deep mental chasm. It is difficult to be a man with two hearts. He had experienced it in practice in Germany, where he found thousands of Sicilian and south (magnoGreco) Italian immigrants who told him they were Greek. They were Christians, but they were Roman Catholics and found it difficult to contrast their social surroundings and the mores of their closed society with openly accepting Orthodoxy as a characteristic component of the Greek. This was happening with Osman too. Ancient Greece was more familiar to him, somewhat more painless in the circles of Turkish, Muslim society.

-What Muhammad the Conqueror himself worshipped, Osman would reply when a fanatical Turk asked from him for explanations. It was the reason why a man could be proud of belonging to the greatest civilization in the world. That's what the Sicilians used to say to Petros. Sicily was creating world history as long as it was Greek and spoke Greek. But today? It doesn't create history, it just exists! The same happens with Ionia, the home of rationalism and science. With ancient Hellenism you have a great reason to be proud against all!

Osman left for Turkey again. To his home in Prusa. His children were grown, educated in Ankara, first generation not to make a career in the army. He had grandchildren too. His purpose in life became to expel from his children and grandchildren the hatred for the Greeks, with which they had been nurtured in Turkish schools and universities. He would take his grandchildren and wander the coasts of Ionia and Aeolis, reaching as far as Cappadocia and Pontus. And he spoke to them with love about the Greeks, who built this unique civilization. He taught them Greek!

-Classical. What does classical mean? Unique and Unsurpassed! Unlike any other! The culmination of the human spirit!

He told them about the genocide they suffered together with the other Christians of Asia Minor, by the doctrine of the Young Turks “One state, one nation, one religion”. He was telling them about the tragic collusion of fate, glorifying the story of Petros of Elati. The creator of the family line. The “dynasty”. And his children also went to Elati. And his grandchildren did the same and they went again even after Osman's death. Always discreetly, so that their lives and careers would not be endangered by the regime and the Turkish fanatical paramilitary.

Liberalizing Turkey and respecting human rights will mean a complete overthrow of everything in that country. DNA does have a memory. And the first DNA tests of Turkish immigrants in Germany and other European countries have shown that it is Greek. The same conclusion for the tests of all foreign universities for most of the Turkish population, especially on the northern, western and southern coasts of Asia Minor. They show Greek DNA. Turkish universities have also started to participate in this research. And drawing the same conclusions, regardless of the fact that they are not allowed to make them widely known.

This is what the Turkish government is afraid of. The teaching of real history. To change the inscription on ancient monuments, in the infinite archaeological sites of Turkey. It wants to continue to write plain “ancient temple”, or even “Roman” but not “Greek” (Roman refers to buildings made during the Roman era, when Asia Minor was also a province of the Roman Empire) so as to hide the fact from tourists... They were not built by Roman Architects, as the population in Asia Minor was only Greek and not Latin.

If the word “GREEK” was written on the thousands of archaeological sites in Turkey, it would mean the collapse of the Turkish view of history. The pseudo-history they teach. It would even destroy the doctrine: “One nation, one state, one religion”. Freedom of knowledge would allow young people to reach the books and sources that say that the Turks were only a group of 3,000 warriors from Mongolia. It would allow them to look in the mirror and, after seeing themselves, to look at the Turk from Turkestan, Kazakhstan or from Chinese Turkestan, how he looks like anthropologically and find out that they are not Turks. That they are the Greeks, that the cruel attitude of Turkish Islam forced them to forget their origin and culture. They should feel proud too, coming from the most brilliant civilization our planet has ever known!

Of course Christianity is difficult to reintroduce on a large scale. There are consequences for those who become Christians again in this cruel anti-Christian and anti-Hellenic state.

We see in modern Turkey small Protestant churches being established all the time. But not Orthodox ones. Orthodoxy is the opposition on which the position of Turkism was based. Strengthening Orthodoxy means weakening Turkism. The Turkish elite knows this and does not allow it. Protestantism is an “Americanism” (something like Disneyland), which is even beneficial for Turkey's “liberal” profile in the Western world. It is a painless doctrine, because it is not connected to memories, to the history of Asia Minor and to the origins of its inhabitants. But ancient Greece would be the driving force for the awakening. Re-Hellenism. The flourishing of the Greek language.

History does not avenge itself, but it corrects the injustices it has suffered. And Asia Minor, the womb of human civilization, science and reason, must be restored to this role. It must become a world pilgrimage to Hellenism!

TURISTIC MAP OF TURKEY. ITS ALL GREEK , EXCEPT ONE ARMENIAN IN FAR EAST

30. ANNEX

1. ERDOGAN IN THRACE- BIRTHS

Erdogan visited Thrace on 8 December 2017. The media in Athens reacted because Erdogan broke protocol and took the microphone from Deputy Minister Amanatidis and made a public speech to a crowd of Muslims in Komotini. The headline in all the Athens media was “Erdogan's disrespect for what was agreed and violation of protocol”. But no one in “progressive and ethno-nihilist” Athens was interested in what Erdogan said! And what did he say to the Muslims? “Make children. You have to grow. Become a majority and control the territory! MAKE MORE THAN THREE CHILDREN!”. A leader with a vision missing from the dead-eyed dummies who pretend to rule from Athens.

2. NATIONALITIES AND NATIONAL LANGUAGES IN TURKEY TODAY (2020).

In this world, a man cannot talk about politics, economics, society, environmental pollution, football and even religion, without having some knowledge on DEMOGRAPHY. For that is the absolute and undeniable measure of all things in our world. Everything is regulated and dependent on it. It is the natural law! In Greek-Turkish relations, which are troubling Hellenism, it is necessary, in order to make a correct diagnosis and proceed with the correct treatment, to know some facts about this natural law.

Turkey has a population of 82,000,000 based on 2019 estimates. Of these, about 75% are Turks and the rest are minorities. The dominant minority is the Kurds, whose number ranges from 15 to 24 million. And I say ranges, because the Turkish Statistical Service is unreliable (just like the Greek Statistical Service, which gives births of 1.65 children per woman, but does not distinguish how many of these are births of immigrants, gypsies, or illegal aliens.)

In the CIA's word factbook we see the Kurds are 20% of the population, again with estimates (i.e., 16,000,000 people). But the C.I.A., besides estimates, also expresses interests. That is, in 2017 when it made this estimate, it was completely aligned with Turkey's national interests and considered the Kurds to be “Marxist PKK terrorists”!

The matter becomes more interesting when Ankara's Hacettep University estimated in 2015 that, ethnic Turks have an average fertility rate of 2 children per woman throughout her reproductive years. While in Istanbul and on the western coast (Izmir, for example), fertility drops to 1.5 children per woman (with a natural population renewal threshold of 2.1 children per woman). In the Kurdish regions, the birth rate is at 4 children per woman, with the result that, as the university estimates, the Kurdish population will equal the Turkish population after 30 years.

In conclusion and in a simplified and approximate way, because the figures given by the Turks are not accurate: Every year 1,2000,000 children are born in Turkey (and every year the birth rate is decreasing). We have 500,000 deaths, so we are adding a net of 500,000 to 600,000 people per year to the population. Of these, based on estimates by Turkish demographers, 6 out of 10 children are Turkish children and 4 are Kurdish children (plus some other small minorities). With this ratio changing year by year. That is, in 3-4 years, if nothing changes, 5 out of 10 newborn children will be Kurdish children. And in the decade after that, 6 out of 10 will be Kurdish...

However, the Turkish leadership, since it cannot increase the birth rate of Turks, attempts to reduce the birth rate of others. Such as the Kurds, with the damage caused with its military operations. It is a very successful tactic. In southern Iraq, now at peace, the birth rate among the Arab population has risen again to 4 children per family, while in Iraqi Kurdistan, suffering from Turkish and ISIS raids, it is only 3.1 children. (The same happened in Kosovo, which had an Indian birth rate before the 1999 war).

On the other hand, the Kurds are an ancient people, but without any particular cultural, ethnic, social cohesion until recently. Partly irreligious, although Muslims of all denominations and Zoroastrians (Kurds are of white-European race, they are Iranian {Aryans} cousins of the Persians, i.e., Medes, Persians, Kurds) they had no cohesive link to lead them to national awakening and rebellion to create a national state. They have always been at the mercy and servants of the neighboring states. It was the Marxist movement of Ocalan that gave them an ideology and motivation. That was in the beginning. Then it evolved into a national awakening and national driving force, so that their struggle has taken a different form and even the 4-5 million Kurds who live in Istanbul are awakening as a semi-determined mass!

Statue heads at Mount Nemrut (in Greek "Tavros"). Heads of Heracles-Artagenes-Ares, Zeus-Oromasdes, and Apollo-Mithras-Helios, Hermes.... Built on the mountain by Antiochos I Theos, King of Hellenistic state of Commagene.

3. Professor Mehmet Caman (Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada): Why is it so “bad” for Turks to have Greek, Armenian or Kurdish ancestors?

Dr. Mehmet Efe Caman.

Memorial University of Newfoundland

, Canada.

Egypt was invaded in 639 AD, converted to Islam and adopted the Arab language and culture from an Arab army of 4,000 troops. Egyptian historiography accepts the ancient Egyptian roots of contemporary Egypt. Anatolian indigenous people were religiously and linguistically assimilated much later. Only a fairly marginal amount of people from Central Asia (mainly ethnic Turkic “Oghuz” jihadist warriors who became the ruling elites after the invasion) moved to Anatolia.

Turkish historiography talks about a “mass migration” and replacement of population in Anatolia. This manipulative and ideological historiography is the main source of Turkish racism and ethnic nationalism, as well as xenophobia towards Armenians, Greeks and Kurds (indigenous Anatolian peoples). Today, for many Turks, it is an insult to be called a Greek or Armenian. It is a defense mechanism in Turkey to deny Armenian, Greek and Kurdish roots. But contemporary Turks predominantly have Anatolian-indigenous ancestors. Both modern DNA studies and morphological characteristics of Turkey's population indicate this fact which is so disturbing for Turks that they completely deny it.

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TRIBUTE TO THE DEAD TURKISH PEOPLE (KURDISH AND ARAB TO) IN MEGA EARTHQUAKE IN GAZIADEP, ANTIOCHIA and ALEXANDRETA 06/02/2023

RUMKALE. The Ancient Greek and byzantine castle of Gaziantep at Euphrates river, last restauration by the Emperor Ioustinianos .

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The 9 Mouses, mosaic from Greek city of ZEVGMA at Euphrates river, ancient SELEFKIA, in the Museum of Gaziantep.

The Greeks lived here until 1922-23. Today exists few Armenians and Arab speaking Orthodox Greeks. Also in Hatai (Alexandreta) Province.

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THE TURKISH PROPAGANDA WHITH THE ROMAN ANTIQUITIES

Whoever visits archaeological sites in Turkey, will read on almost all monuments the informative inscriptions to the Tourists, that the monument they see is ROMAN. Nowhere will he read that it is GREEK. It is a deliberate falsification of history by Turks, with the aim of nullifying Greek history and its presence in this ancient (before 2.000 ΒC) Greek homeland . This map shows the points where the Romans built cities outside Italian peninsula. Ephesus, Pergamos, Miletos, Afrodisias, Aspendos, Perge, Side, Antioch, Attalia.... and 1200 more big cities were ONLY GREEK.

Greek cities in ANATOLIA (Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantine) in 5th century A.D.

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MAPS OF GENOCIDE OF ARMENIANS, ASSYRIANS AND GREEKS

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1) The Armenian Genocide

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2) The Assyrian Genocide

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3) The Greek genocide

The Ottoman Empire in 1915-2023 numbered 9 million people. 4.5 were Christians and 4.5 were Muslims. The dominant ethnicity was the Greek (Christians only, not included the Muslim Greekphone) with 2.8 million. The Muslims who declared themselves Turks were 1.8 million. The genocide of the Christians of Asia Minor by Kemal Atatürk and the movement of the «Neo Turks» (one people, one religion, one state) was the first genocide and the largest of the 20th century. Because 3.5 million genocidal Christians in 1915-23 are proportionally many more than the Jews that Hitler genocidalized in 1942-44!

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 Ernest Miller Hemingway

«If you want to kill me, call me Turco and I will die of shame»!.  
Wrote  Ernest Miller Hemingway, (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961).
 Hemingway was one of the most important American writers. 
He won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1954.
He wrote about the Asia Minor disaster of Hellenism from Andianoupolis (Edirne), 
from where he sent responses to «The Toronto Star Weekly» newspaper as a journalist. 
The Most descriptions of the genocide of Hellenism are  in his books
 (which were  filmed by Hollywood),  "In our time" and in the novella "The Snows of 
Kilimanjaro".
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GEORGE HORTON

George Horton was the American consul in Smyrna in 1922  at the height of the

 Hellenic  genocide. In his books and especially in "Blight of Asia", he describes

 the Genocide in an absolute way, as an eyewitness and with consular documents!

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Cappadokia. San Andreas Church, 9th century. City of Dila (Til Koyu today)
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AFRODISIAS

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Sinasos Cappadokia, Sain Constantine & Helen church

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Kaunos  (KAVNOS Cretan city) . Greek Tombs in KARIA,   Asia Minor.

Six rock tombs on the Dalyan river ( from 4th - to 2nd century BC).

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Sagalassos (Greek: Σαγαλασσός), also known as Selgessos is an archaeological site in southwestern Turkey, about 100 km north of Antalya (ancient Attaleia), and 30 km from Burdur and Sparta.

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 Niγδη (Niğde) Kappadokia

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Rock-cut monastery of St. Nicholas at Kıyıköy (historic Medea/Midye) in Eastern Thrace (modern Kırklareli Province)

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Η πόλη της Άσσου (berhmkale) ιδρυθηκε  στην περίοδο 1000-900 π.Χ. από Αιολείς αποίκους από την Μήθυμνα της Λέσβου. Οι έποικοι έχτισαν ένα δωρικό ναό της Αθηνάς στην κορυφή του βράχου το 530 π.Χ. Από αυτόν τον ναό ο Ερμίας από τον Αταρνέα, μαθητής του Πλάτωνα, κυβέρνησε την Άσσο, την Τρωάδα και τη Λέσβο για ένα χρονικό διάστημα, στο οποίο η πόλη γνώρισε την μεγάλη ευημερία της...

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The Cappadocian Greek football team of the "Argaios" school, in Caesarea (1907)

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Temple of Zeus -Dias, at AEZANI -Frygia, centrowest Anatolia 
Αϊζανούς (Çavdarhisar).

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 The tomb of Amyntas is an ancient Greek rock-hewn tomb at ancient Telmessos in Lycia. Built in 350 BC. It was named after the Greek inscription on the side of it which reads «Amyntas son of Hermagios»
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Greek girl For Sale. José Jiménez Aranda, 1897.
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GERGAS Temple, Κaria. Modern Aydin region

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         DiDYMA. Temple of APOLLON

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  «Hierothesion». Ιt was built by Hellenic  King Antiochos I of Commagene.
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Acropolis -Pergamos city.



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SARDEIS,Ionic  Temple of ARTEMIS. King MIDAS Capital in Lydia.

                                                     
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Anatolia College, Merzifon was a high school, theological seminary, orphanage and hospital founded in 1864 in the town of Merzifon in the Amasya, until 1922

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An ancient Greek mosaic in Hatay, Turkish -Syrian Border

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Aphrodisias, the Stadion

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The best preserved 1,800-year-old Ancient Greek Theater in Anatolia: Aspendos. Its architect is Zenon, son of Theodoros of Aspendos masterpece. Serik, Antalya. Aspendos 
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Alikarnassos. Birthplace of HERODOTUS. The Greek Theater and the MAUSOLEUM 


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Fulacik (Gr: Φουλατζίκ) is located about 20km NW of Nicaea (İznik) in western Turkey in the historic region of Bithynia (Gr: Βιθυνία). Prior to the genocide, the village had a population of 1,600, all Greeks.
The massacre of Greeks at Fulacik began on June 23, 1920 when a band of Kemalists raided the village and demanded money from the residents. All males over the age of 14 were made to assemble inside the church of Saint George where the commander of the Kemalist band, Kemal of Karamürsel tied a rope around the mouth of Father Phillipos Kalokidis and began riding him like a horse. Father Phillipos fainted and fell to the ground so Kemal cut one of his eyes out. The church was then doused with petrol and set alight with the men still inside. Meanwhile the Kemalists poured petrol inside homes in the village, setting them alight while residents were still inside....


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kYBYRA,  Stadium and theater with Medusas haead. ( (near  modern city of Bordur)



ARTEMIS temple in Sardeis. ( capital of Lykia)

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APOLLON from SMYRNA. The older
football team in Othoman Empire, est. in 1891. The first picture is from  1919-22 (year of Smyrna’s Massacre). In the second photo, a map
of Greek city in 1922, next to map of Turkish city today 2020. The place where  the  football
terrain was, is in the right corner, next to Saint Tryphon. Saved until today.