• Acta Via Serica
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.47-68
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• 2017

To the Greeks, the Ottoman era was a "Dark Age" one that comprised a threat to their Greek Orthodox identity. The identities of Orthodox and Hellene were integral parts in the construction of their national history. In fact, the Morea Uprising, which began in 1821, was symbolized by a priest blessing the Greek flag in Aya Lavra Church. One of the most common national myths is religious oppression of the Christian population during the Ottoman Era, namely Turkokratia. They identified Ottomans as Asian barbarians who did not let Greeks practice their religion freely, and who furthermore forced them to change their religion. These kinds of beliefs, which might be taken as religious propaganda, are today still highlighted both in Greek textbooks and in publications supported by the church and books and newspapers published in their affiliated institutes. The underlying truth behind all these propagandist statements is Islamophobia. The existence of Islamophobia in the Balkans, where religious nationalism is intense, has caused nations to hold to these kinds of mythical beliefs. Most of the time the stories and narratives have been used for history building. The objective of this paper is to demonstrate the effect of the anti-Islam propaganda of the church in Greece on the state and the people using Greek sources. The references are Greek religious textbooks and books and newspapers published by church-supporting publishing houses.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.26
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• pp.43-71
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• 2012

In this article, we recognize the cross-cultural communication between Greece and Spain through El Greco's pictures. The Greeks of Crete kept to their culture and continued to look to the declining Byzantine Empire for spiritual and political guidance. For two centuries after the conquest, the strength of the Byzantine tradition had become the moral and spiritual sustenance of the conquered in Crete. The basic contribution of Cretan intellectuals or artists such as El Greco of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was the forging of connecting links between the Hellenism of the old Byzantine East and the rising, youthful Hellenism of the Renaissance West. In this way, Crete served as an important halfway point between East and West. The saint Mary Magdalene was symbol of Christian penitence, which represents the penitential life personified and became widespread during the Counter Reformation, when new emphasis was put on the value of prayer and repentance in the forgiveness of sin. In Spain, the Penitent Magdalene was popular and El Greco painted many versions, which at the first time, were reflected by Tiziano, on the contrary, at the time of Toledo, were recreated by his own style. Although El Greco was converted to Catholic in Spain, his faith in Greek Orthodox Church influenced on his original painting world. El Greco had never painted a picture whose subject treat with the emphasis of identification between Mary Magdalene and Mary, younger sister of Martha.