Renewed Persecution of Syria’s Greek Orthodox Christians by Islamists — Europe Must Intervene

 

Democratic Patriotic Popular Movement NIKI 

ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ: Για τους νέους διωγμούς των Ελληνορθοδόξων Ρωμηών της Συρίας από τους Ισλαμιστές!

Photo from here

In the first days of October 2026, a new wave of violence broke out against the Greek Orthodox Christians (Rum Orthodox; Romeoí) of Syria, centred on ancient Seleucia (Al-Suqaylabiyah), which was founded by the Greek king Seleucus I Nicator around 300 BC.

A Greek Orthodox Christian (Romeós) from the area, whose own life and the lives of his family are in danger every day, writes:

“Last night, in the Greek Orthodox town of Al-Suqaylabiyah in the Hama countryside, armed Muslim groups from the neighbouring village of Qalaat al-Madiq stormed Al-Suqaylabiyah. They smashed shops, roamed the streets, broke into homes, vandalised property, and opened fire randomly, injuring a woman in her hand. They were assisted by members of the Public Security. Some threats were received to shell the town, and when the men of Al-Suqaylabiyah tried to defend themselves, Public Security began arresting them. These recurring events in the town of Al-Suqaylabiyah are no longer just passing incidents, but rather a systematic plan to empty the town and displace its people.”

We recall that only last March (2026), a new attack had taken place against Romeoí, again centred on the same town. A personal appeal, accompanied by video footage, was published by a Romeós from Al-Suqaylabiyah, addressed to the Greek Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, asking him to take action for their protection.

In that appeal he wrote:

«Mr. Kyriakos Mitsotakis,

I write to you from the town of ancient Seleucia, known today as Suqaylabiyah.

Do not leave us alone in the face of these Turkish-backed armed groups. We, and the generations before us, have never abandoned our Antiochian Greek heritage. For this identity, we have paid dearly—thousands of lives over the years.

Today, in 2026, our streets are once again filled with the smell of blood—echoes of the suffering our grandparents endured. History is repeating itself before our eyes.

There was a time when the world did not see what was happening to us. But today, there is no excuse. You can see it with your own eyes.

We ask you: do not abandon us»

The Romeoí of Syria have lived there for two thousand years, since the earliest days of Christianity. For at least the past fifteen years, they have been tortured, murdered and uprooted from their homeland as a result of uncontrolled Islamist fanaticism.

In 2013, the Greek Orthodox Bishop Paul and the Syriac non-Chalcedonian Bishop Yohanna Ibrahim were abducted and, according to a video that later circulated, were tortured and killed. In the same year, more than 200 Romeoí—including many young children—were murdered by Islamist extremists.

From then until the present day, our brothers and sisters, the Romeoí of Syria, have continued to endure terror, violence and killings, culminating in the deadly bombing of the Greek Orthodox Church of the Prophet Elijah in Damascus on 22 June 2025.

We also recall that, on 11 May 2026, Syria’s Foreign Minister, Asaad Hassan al-Shaibani, declared that in Syria “there are no minorities”. This statement caused understandable alarm, as it was interpreted as an indication of an intention on the part of Syria’s new jihadist regime to eliminate the country’s minorities.

On 31 March, Greek Member of the European Parliament Nikos Anadiotis, of the NIKI party, submitted a motion for a resolution of the European Parliament calling upon the European Union to act for the protection of Syria’s Greek Orthodox Christians from massacre (see “Greek MEP Aims to Break EU Silence Regarding Christian Persecution in Syria”).

The Democratic Patriotic Popular Movement NIKI urgently calls upon the European Parliament and all institutions of the European Union to demand from the Syrian regime a firm commitment to the protection of the Romeoí and of all Christian communities.

It is inconceivable that the European Union should proceed with agreements supporting Syria’s political regime without first having secured the safety of Christians, particularly while fanatical Islamists continue to attack them.

When Europe accepts, without protest, hundreds of thousands of Muslims of unknown origin and intentions, it is inconceivable that it should leave unprotected hundreds of thousands of civilians who have lived in those lands for centuries before the arrival of the Arabs and the emergence of Islam, and who have kept Greek and Orthodox Christian civilisation alive for thousands of years.

When they have all been slaughtered or uprooted from their ancestral homes, will we not be ashamed before History, which will record in letters of blood that we abandoned them?

Democratic Patriotic Popular Movement NIKI
Greece

Please see more here:

When the Romeoi (Rum) are persecuted, does Greece merely “follow the situation”? 

New Massacre of Romeoi in Damascus

Greek Orthodox (Romeoi/Rum) continue to be murdered in Syria! NIKI denounces the killing of two Romeoi in the Valley of the Christians and demands justice and protection for the Romeoi.  

Will the European Parliament Help Persecuted Christians in Syria?

ECUMENICAL ROMANÍA — A book that explores questions of Romeosyne, identity, historical continuity, Church and State, Constantinople, ecumenicity, and the place of the Orthodox person in the contemporary world.

 

Romania is the true name of the state we have become accustomed —erroneously—to calling "Byzantium".

Αmazon.com

by Ioannis Con. Neonakis (Author)

What does Romanía mean today—not merely as a vanished state, but as a living historical, spiritual, and civilisational consciousness?

Ecumenical Romanía explores this question from within the Orthodox and Romeic tradition. For Ioannis Con. Neonakis, Romanía is more than the historical polity conventionally called the Byzantine Empire. It is a way of understanding the human person, community, history, political life, and the vocation of the People of God—a living continuity centred on Christ, the Church, and the ecumenical horizon of the Romeoí.

The book develops the idea of Ecumenical Romanía as a supranational, ecumenical, and soteriological proposal: a vision of freedom, unity, and historical continuity addressed to the postmodern world of the twenty-first century. Rather than proposing a return to the past, it asks whether the experience and civilisation of Romeosyne can offer principles for a renewed common life in the present and future.

The volume unfolds in three parts. The first clarifies the historical and theological terminology and establishes the framework of the argument. The second presents a Foundational Statement and a Conceptual Proposal concerning the formation of a movement and, ultimately, a polity inspired by the Romeic, ecumenical, Orthodox tradition. The third brings together essays on Romeosyne, identity, Church and State, nationalism, political authority, historical memory, Constantinople, economics, globalisation, and the challenges of modern collective life.

Written for both specialists and general readers, the English edition also includes a substantial Analytical Glossary, designed especially for the English-speaking reader. It explains key theological, patristic, ecclesial, historical, and civilisational terms—many of which have no exact English equivalent—and helps the reader enter more fully into the conceptual world of Romanía and Romeosyne.

257 pages.

From the author (here)

My book Ecumenical Romanía — now available in English on Amazon as of today, 2 October!

Dear friends, it is with great joy that I announce the completion of the English translation of my book, Ecumenical Romanía, and that as of today, 2 October, the English edition is available as an e-book on Amazon.

Ecumenical Romanía is an attempt to approach Romanía not simply as a state belonging to the past, but as a living historical, spiritual, and civilisational consciousness.

Drawing on the Orthodox and Romeic tradition, the book explores questions of Romeosyne, identity, historical continuity, Church and State, Constantinople, ecumenicity, and the place of the Orthodox person in the contemporary world.

The English edition also includes an extensive Analytical Glossary, designed to help the English-speaking reader approach key theological, ecclesiological, historical, and Romeic concepts, many of which have no exact equivalent in English.

I hope that this English edition will allow the book to travel beyond the boundaries of the Greek-speaking world and, even in a small way, contribute to a deeper acquaintance with Romeosyne and its ecumenical horizon.

With God’s blessing, may it have a good journey!

 

Ioannis Con. Neonakis

 

Read sample 

 

Some articles by the author

From Ancient Hellenic to Romeiko Civilization 

On the Islamization and Turkification of Our Genos

Our forgotten brothers: the Rum Orthodox Christians (Romeoi) of the Middle East

The Romeoi (Rum) of the Levant: Identity and a Concise Historical Overview

“Constantinople, the eternal capital and heart of the Romeoi”

Post-Liberalism: The West in Search of Romeosyne

New Romanía: The Great Vision and the Favorable Contemporary Geostrategic Framework.

TWO SEPTEMBERS: 1922 AND 1955

 

 

By Dimitri Kepreotes
Member of the Romeosyne Policy Department, Democratic Patriotic Popular Movement NIKI 

From here 

September 14, 1922, and September 6, 1955.

Two historic milestones in modern Greek history. Two instances of the tragic demise of Hellenism in Constantinople and Asia Minor.
Why should a people preserve its historical memory? It is so that their future generations may remain aware of the dangers that surround them, and so that they are prepared to confront these dangers with diligence and intelligence.
Τhe purpose of this brief commentary is not to focus on the events of 1922. So much has already been written about the Catastrophe of Smyrna. When a Greek recalls that tragedy and the massacres that accompanied it, one phrase and image comes to mind: ‘Smyrna is burning!’

The correspondent of The Guardian newspaper wrote on September 16, 1922:
“The fire was started with petroleum yesterday at midday by Turkish regular troops with the object of hiding the bodies of those massacred the night before.”

(source: www.theguardian.com/world/2022/nov/30/the-destruction-of-smyrna-archive-1922)

For a lengthy and illuminating account of the massacre of Greeks and Armenians in Smyrna in 1922, The Blight of Asia by George Horton cannot be recommended highly enough. Horton was the US Consul General in Smyrna during World War I. His book can be read online in English free of charge at www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/76324. And for further eyewitness accounts and testimonials regarding the uprooting of Hellenism in Asia Minor, one may study a wealth of material available on the excellent website greek-genocide.net
When compared with the unspeakable crimes of 1922, far less attention has been devoted to the massive and deadly riots that took place in Constantinople on September 6, 1955, perhaps because the scale of destruction was smaller. And yet, the devastation was by no means small. The Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs records the destruction of 1,004 houses, 5,000 businesses, 73 churches, 23 schools and two cemeteries.

We may reasonably regard this not merely as an attack on ethnic Greeks and their property, but also as an assault on the remnants of Christian civilisation in what had traditionally been its heartland and stronghold: Asia Minor. Following the exchange of Christian and Muslim populations with the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne, Constantinople was the principal exception to that exchange and remained the last major centre of Greek Orthodox faithful in modern Turkey.

By 1955, and then in 1964 for other reasons, this community was brought close to oblivion with astonishing speed, as illustrated by the following estimate of the Greek Orthodox population over the past century:

Period Approximate Greek population
1923 100,000–110,000
1955 before pogrom 67,500–100,000
1955 after pogrom 48,000–80,000
1964–65 30,000–48,000
1978 7,000
2006 2,500
2008 2,000
2014 2,200–2,500
2024–26 2,000–3,000

(sources: Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ecumenical Federation of Constantinopolitans demographic chart and Alexis Alexandris, The Greek Minority of Istanbul and Greek-Turkish Relations, 1918–1974)

Given that the rioters deliberately targeted churches, icons and other sacred objects, schools educating Christian children and cemeteries, the events can be understood as an assault not merely on the Greek community of Constantinople, but on Orthodoxy itself.
These swift seismic upheavals of 1922 and 1955, following the massive genocide against Greeks, Armenians and Assyrians earlier in the 20th century, resulted in the removal of Christianity from the historic geographical setting in which it had existed throughout Asia Minor since the time of the Apostles.

When seen through spiritual eyes, this was evil. Seen through political eyes, it was a methodically designed and well-executed campaign carried out ruthlessly by Turkish military and civilian leaders.
The churches, schools and cemeteries were not ‘collateral damage.’ Together they constituted the very fibre and structure of the Orthodox Christian presence in Constantinople, involving worship, education and remembrance of the dead.
The pretext for the riots was a bomb attack on the Turkish Consulate close to the supposed birthplace of Atatürk in Thessaloniki that took place only hours earlier. However, the evidence indicates that an organised anti-Greek mobilisation was already being prepared in Istanbul before the bombing in Thessaloniki. The evidence also indicates that the bombing was an inside job.

The Deputy Prime Minister at the time, Fuat Köprülü, said to the Turkish National Assembly on September 12, 1955, that the bombing and the subsequent events were the work of “the same hands, the same organisation, the same systematic centre.” The bombing served as the justification for the furious mobilisation of mobs in Constantinople. Within hours (how was this achieved so quickly?), propaganda and photographs of the explosion appeared in the front pages of newspapers such as Ιstanbul Express, further inflaming violence against the Greeks.

Speros Vryonis expressed the magnitude of what occurred with remarkable succinctness:
“This historic Greek community which had lived and created in the city on the Bosphoros from its first foundation in 668 B.C. up to 1955, for some 2,623 years (some 104 generations), suffered a complete and destructive catastrophe in only seven hours.”

(source: ‘September 6, 1955: Krystallnacht in Constantinople’, https://archons.org/greek-america-magazine-reports-on-september-6-1955-krystallnacht-in-constantinople)

Finally, it is worth quoting a Turkish eyewitness, Mehmet Ali Birand, writing in the Turkish Daily News on September 7, 2005:
“I am one of the living witnesses of what happened in Istanbul 50 years ago. I was 14 years old. I did not know what it was all about. However, the passage of time made me understand the seriousness of the incidents and I always carry the shame.
We were living on Ethem Efendi Street at the time. Our neighbours were mostly Greek. They were my best friends. All of a sudden, they shut themselves in their homes. They talked to no one. I can never forget Madam Eleni when she asked, ‘Can we seek refuge in your home if they attack us?’ The barbershop she managed with her husband was in ruins. They were in shock. My mother sent them food for a week. We let them live in one of our rooms.
I was too young to make sense of what had happened. Why should they attack Madam Eleni?
The Greek families in our neighbourhood started to move to other places or go to Greece. After 1963 none of them were left. They left Istanbul. They took with them an important culture and a different lifestyle. They left us alone in Istanbul to live our colourless lives. Later on we were full of regret, but by then it was too late.
Turkey admitted all culpability. Much later, we learned the September 6-7 incidents were the doing of the infamous deep state. It was planned with government approval in order to let diplomats say that the people were reacting during the U.N. discussions on Cyprus. However, it later got out of control and turned into a shameful plunder. It became a crime that the deep state could not handle, and it shamed the Turkish nation.”

(source: https://archons.org/greek-america-magazine-reports-on-september-6-1955-krystallnacht-in-constantinople)

Greece has so many historic battles and heroes to commemorate, it seems that each individual commemoration receives much less attention than it truly deserves. Yet even when Greeks suffer massacres and the uprooting from their ancestral homelands within living memory, they seem to display an almost scandalous degree of either forgiveness or forgetfulness.
So, at the risk of sounding provocative we may ask ourselves: Is forgiveness the only remaining virtue for today’s Orthodox Christian?
Similar, if not greater, threats exist at this very hour in the Aegean and in Cyprus. Along with forgiveness, what has become of the other great quality about which the Lord advised His disciples: to be “as wise as serpents” (Matt. 10:16)?
The snake is exceptionally aware of its surroundings and capable of detecting a trap before falling into it. Neither should we be naïve about our geopolitical environment. And when under attack, as St John Chrysostom notes, the snake coils up and protects its head. For us, the head symbolises the pinnacle of all we hold to be most sacred: our altars and our homes, and they must be defended above all else.

 

Post-Liberalism: The West in Search of Romeosyne

 

Democratic Patriotic Popular Movement NIKI 

In the contemporary West, an interesting and revealing phenomenon is unfolding.
After decades of radical liberalism, individualism, and the dismantling of every tradition, a new current of thought is beginning to emerge — one described as “post-liberalism.” Among its principal exponents are Patrick Deneen, John Milbank, and Alasdair MacIntyre.

Western thinkers themselves now openly acknowledge that a society without moral bonds, without community, without a sacred center, collapses. When man deifies the individual, he loses all meaning. Freedom cannot survive in a society that has dissolved every moral tie, every tradition, and every sacred cell — such as the family. Liberalism, in attempting to liberate man from his roots, has left him defenseless, stranded in a life devoid of substantive meaning.

What the West (Europe and the broader Euro-descended world) today baptizes as “post-liberalism” is not a new wisdom. It is the awkward admission of its failure. Having dismantled community, family, and faith, it now seeks — even unconsciously — the very Romeike roots it lost through the centuries, primarily under the weight first of Frankish domination and subsequently of Papalism. It seeks the roots that we have known for centuries as Romeosyne.

Romeosyne is neither an ideology nor a political current. It is the living mode of existence of our Genos (sic) — our historic peoplehood.

For Romeosyne, freedom is not license but virtue and purification of the heart. It is liberation from the passions. It is the fruit of ascetic life and divine Grace. It is not the removal of every limit, but the voluntary self-binding of man to the good. What Western thinkers today rediscover as the need for a “moral framework” and self-restraint, our tradition has lived for centuries as philotimo — the inner impulse to do what is right not out of fear of the law, but out of love for God, for one’s neighbor, and for the Genos.

Romeosyne has never known the isolated individual, the autonomous self of modernity. It knows only the Person — and the Person exists only in relationship: in the family, the parish, the ecclesial community, the Genos. There, man does not merely “connect” sociologically; he communes existentially. What the West now calls “the search for community” is simply a belated discovery of a truth we have lived for centuries. The freedom of the Romeos is a freedom of love, service, and sacrifice — not of selfish isolation.

The economy must serve the needs of the community, not the reverse. What some Western thinkers today formulate as a “new principle,” the Romeike tradition always regarded as self-evident. Production and wealth exist to sustain the family, the parish, and the Genos — not to subjugate them. A contemporary, realistic patriotism must translate this principle into action. Thus, for example, the complete tax exemption of large families and the stable support of households with many children are not mere social policy; they are elementary justice. The Romeike tradition understands the family as the foundation of society, and the economy must protect it, not crush it. The economy exists to safeguard the hearth, not to liquidate it.

Our homeland [and the whole world] today needs a true return to its roots. It needs a Romeike rebirth — a spiritual and ecclesial awakening that will first free us ourselves from the dead ends of modernity’s ideology and, at the same time, illuminate the path for the West, which increasingly finds itself searching.

Romeosyne does not propose theories. It generates a way of life. From this way of life, the necessary political orientations naturally emerge, structured around four main axes:

a) Economy as service to need, grounded in the Gospel and in the example of our Saints — men and women who lived love and communion in practice. Not accumulation, but sharing. Not treasures on earth, but treasure in heaven.
“He who has two coats, let him share with him who has none…” and “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth…”

b) Education with roots — not mere transmission of information, but initiation into truth, the cultivation of ethos, faith, and living historical memory.

c) Productive self-sufficiency — for a people is free only when it can feed itself, shelter itself, and create by its own labor, without dependence on foreign powers. The economy serves man and community, not the reverse.

d) Sovereignty and dignity — the protection of the homeland, of borders, and of strategic structures is not a technical administrative matter but a sacred trust and a duty toward both our ancestors and our children.

The West, exhausted by its spiritual and social decay, gropes awkwardly for a way out. Yet we have no new ideology to offer it. What we offer is the witness of our way of life — our Romeosyne: our faith, our philotimo, the love and the freedom born of communion with God, which unites the Genos.

This inheritance must once again become the ground upon which not only tomorrow’s Greece, but all those — personally or collectively — who seek truth already lived and embodied in practice, may stand.

Christodoulos Molyvas
Head of the Development and Investment Policy Department of NIKI
Ioannis Kon. Neonakis
Head of the Romeosyne Policy Department of NIKI

Articles on the tag Romeosyne 

Notes: (a) The term “Romeosyne” was preferred over “Romanitas”, as it better expresses the culture of the Roman Empire after the prevalence of Christianity.
(b) For reasons of more accurate phonological rendering and simplification, the term “Romeos” was preferred over “Rhomaios” and “Romeoi” over “Rhomaioi”
(c) romeike (adjective): of the Romeos/Romeoi