Greece is an ancient land, at the crossroads between Africa, Asia and Europe, protruding from Europe, hanging southward from the Balkan Peninsula towards the Mediterranean Sea, made up of dramatic peninsulas and many large and small islands. It is a land that has steadfastly maintained an idolatrous false religion and hedonistic culture, in spite of gospel light brought by the apostles during and immediately following the days Christ walked on this earth. Academicians claim there is evidence of burials, huts, seafaring activity, and food producing economy from the dawn of mankind (which was about 6000 years ago, never mind the lies about the human race existing before then).
Ancient Greece
Various peoples populated what we know as Greece, including the Minoan, Cycladic and Helladic people. The Mycenaeans outlasted both the Cyclades and Minoans, and by the end of the 10th century BC they had expanded their influence over the Greek mainland, the islands of the Aegean and Ionian seas, Crete, and the cost of Asia Minor. However, after 1100 BC, the Mycenaean civilization ceased through internal strife and outside invasion (including the Dorian invasions). One of the worst disasters is recorded in Greece in 1627 BC, which was the eruption of the Thera volcano (see more details under God’s Wrath Revealed).
After the Trojan Wars in the 1200’s BC, Greece is said to have gone into a period of Dark Ages from about 1100-700 B.C. During the Dark Ages major settlements were abandoned, except Athens, and the population dropped dramatically. The people of Greece lived in small groups that moved constantly, living a pastoral lifestyle. They left no written record, suggesting they were illiterate. Between 950 and 750 BC, Greeks relearned how to write, but instead of using the script of the Mycenaeans, they adopted the Phoenician alphabet. The Greek’s version of this alphabet eventually formed the base of the alphabet used for English today. The deconstruction of the old Mycenaean economic and social structures with strict class hierarchy and hereditary rules were replaced with new socio-political institutions that led to the rise of democracy in fifth century BC Athens. In this period the first Olympics were held in 776 BC, and the Iliad and the Odyssey were penned.
Then Greece entered a period historians call the Archaic Period, from 700-480 BC. In this period Sparta invaded Messenia, Cyrene was founded, and Solon replaced the Draconian law in Athens, laying the foundation for democracy. While Athens was being run by a series of tyrants, the pervert dyke Sappho was born in Lesbos (see more details under Poster Children for Sin). Greece was organized into city-states, made up of citizens, foreign residents and slaves. An advanced legal structure was developed that helped these groups peacefully co-exist. Several city-states began emerging as dominant cultural centers, including Athens, Sparta, Corinth, Thebes, Syracuse, Miletus and Halicarnassus.
The last periods of Ancient Greece are commonly called the Classical and Hellenistic periods. During the Classical period (480-323 BC), Athens and Sparta dominated with cultural and military prowess. Through a period of alliances, reforms and victories against the invading Persians armies, they rose to dominance. Sparta was a closed society governed by kings, while Athens was an open society with a democracy. These two city-states had a longstanding rivalry that ended with both their demises, and the emergence of Macedonia as the dominant power of Greece.
Philip II emerged as the only major military authority of Greece, and through diplomacy and might he became king in 359 BC. After his assassination in 336 BC, his son, Alexander the Great, became king and carried out his plan to avenge Greece on the Persian Empire. After a period of successive wins against the Persians, and forcing King Darius to flee for his life, Alexander conquered Tyre and Egypt, giving the Greeks control of the entire eastern shore of the Mediterranean. He was proclaimed the son of a god in Egypt, and proclaimed himself King of Asia after his victories, which sealed the fate of the Persian Empire. (See more details about Alexander the Great Fag under Poster Children for Sin. Also, remember that the Persians had a major role in the Scriptures in defeating the Babylonians, after they gave themselves the glory when God used them as his servants to punish the children of Israel. Also after 70 years in Babylonian captivity, when the righteous Jews, under Ezra, Nehemiah, Joshua and Zerubbabel, set about to rebuild Jerusalem and the temple, the kings of Persia had a major role, in particular Darius. That’s the most important thing to know about the Persian Empire.) Alexander the Great died in 323 BC at a very young age, closing this period.
The Hellenistic period or age, from 323-146 BC, marked a period of what is called cultural exuberance, which is a fancy way of saying they got real busy with worshiping then creature instead of the Creator. Greek thinking, mores, and manner of life dominated the entire eastern Mediterranean and Southwest Asia. Art and literature became all the rage, and the philosophers prospered. After Alexander died, the kingdom was divided into four, with Ptolemy ruling Egypt and parts of the Middle East; Seleucus controlling Syria and the remnants of the Persian Empire; Antigonus ruling Asia Minor, and Cassander ruling Macedonia. Alexandria of Egypt emerged as a major center of commerce and culture, the Macedonian Wars occurred, and Rome invaded Greece.
Daniel the prophet tells of these events in great detail in Daniel 11, and from his record as well as historical accounts, we know that Antiochus Epiphanes rose up as a vile leader. He was an immoral, lascivious, perverse, drunk, who violently persecuted the people of God. He gained the kingdom by flatteries, pretending he was securing it for his nephew Demetrius, the son of his brother Seleucus, but when he had possession he used his popularity with the people to gain control. He took an army to Jerusalem where he killed thousands of Jews, and turned his torturous cruel attention in particular to the most righteous and devout of the people. He sacked the temple and took the silver and gold precious vessels, and returned to Egypt bragging about his massacre. He allowed the temple to be taken over by riotous heathen, with sexual filth practiced daily, and contemptuously established a practice of offering swine’s blood on the altar. He forbad the daily sacrifice and burnt offerings, and set up idols of beasts and creeping things. These deeds of Antiochus Epiphanes were a foreshadowing, and he stands as an archetype of the Antichrist to come in these last days (now sitting in the White House, Bloody Beast Obama, in the flesh). He left in his wake the whore Cleopatra, whose death in 30 BC ended this era, and ushered in the end of Ancient Greece. After the naval battle of Actium, where Octavian (later Augustus) defeated the rulers of Egypt, Anthony and Cleopatra, the entire Hellenic world became subject to Rome. Over the next two thousand years, Greece would undergo a series of conquests that made its people subjects of numerous powers, until 1829 when Greece achieved independence from the Ottoman Empire.
Modern Greece
Modern Greece is a nation slightly smaller than the state of Alabama, bordering the Aegean Sea, Ionian Sea, and the Mediterranean Sea, between Albania and Turkey. After gaining independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1829, Greece gradually added neighboring islands and territories, most with Greek-speaking populations, during the second half of the 19th century and first half of the 20th century. In World War II, Greece was first invaded b Italy in 1940, and later occupied by Germany from 1941-44, and fighting endured in a long civil war between supporters of the king and Communist rebels. The Communist rebels were defeated in 1949, and Greece joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1952. A military dictatorship lasted seven years, and in 1967 suspended many political liberties and forced the king to flee the country. Elections in 1974 created a parliamentary republic and abolished the monarchy. In 1981, Greece joined the European Union, and in 2001 became the 12the member of the European Economic and Monetary Union.
In the early years of modern Greece, while they were under Roman rule (but allowed to maintain and sustain their culture and way of life), the most important event to speak of is that described in Acts 17.
Acts 17:16 ¶ Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was stirred in him, when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry.
17 Therefore disputed he in the synagogue with the Jews, and with the devout persons, and in the market daily with them that met with him.
18 Then certain philosophers of the Epicureans, and of the Stoicks, encountered him. And some said, What will this babbler say? other some, He seemeth to be a setter forth of strange gods: because he preached unto them Jesus, and the resurrection.
19 And they took him, and brought him unto Areopagus, saying, May we know what this new doctrine, whereof thou speakest, is?
20 For thou bringest certain strange things to our ears: we would know therefore what these things mean.
2 (For all the Athenians and strangers which were there spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell, or to hear some new thing.)
22 ¶ Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars’ hill, and said, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious.
23 For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you.
24 God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands;
25 Neither is worshipped with men’s hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things;
26 And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation;
27 That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us:
28 For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.
29 Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s device.
30 And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent:
31 Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.
32¶ And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked: and others said, We will hear thee again of this matter.
33 So Paul departed from among them.
34 Howbeit certain men clave unto him, and believed: among the which was Dionysius the Areopagite, and a woman named Damaris, and others with them.
To understand who Dionysius was, you must realize that Areopagus was an ancient court where the most important cases were brought to be heard. Dionysius was the equivalent of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. From the day Paul spoke on Mars Hill, and told the people of Athens that their idolatry was wrong, and that God would wink at it no longer, the people of Athens should have repented, put away their idols, and obeyed; and they should have taught all future generations to do the same. Paul preached to the Greek, and Titus was a Greek and Timothy’s father was Greek (married to a Jewess). This nation had gospel bright light in its very midst, and simply has no excuse.
During the Byzantine era, Constantine the Great and Justinian dominated, especially from 324-610, and are said to have Christianized Greece. What they means is they paved the way for the modern day Greek Orthodox church, which is nothing but a cousin to the Roman Catholic whore house, with the same false doctrine and same raping priests (see more details under False Religious Systems). The Byzantine period continued through the 14th century, when the Greek Byzantine Empire ended at the hands of the Ottomans. From the tenth to the fourteenth century the period called Byzantine today was referred to as the Romeo-Greek period, and laws and notions of democracy were developed which have influenced Western civilization to this day.
Ottomans ruled Greece until the early 19th century. On March 25, 1821, the Greeks rebelled and declared their independence, but did not achieve it until 1829. Many non-Greeks fought for this cause, including Lord Byron. The Ottomans seemed on the point of suppressing the Greek revolution, but military intervention by France, Britain and Russia helped them prevail.
The Russian minister for foreign affairs, Ioannis Kapodistrias, himself a Greek, returned home as President of the new Republic. Then European powers helped turn Greece into a monarchy. As a result of the Balkan Wars of 1912-13, Epirus, southern Macedonia, Crete and the Aegean Islands were annexed into Greece. Greece reached its present configuration in 1947. Greece made a decisive contribution to the Allied efforts in World War II, though Germany’s invasion left thousands dead and the economy of Greece devastated. The Greek Civil War from 1944-1949, between the UK and USA-backed governmental forces and the Democratic Army of Greece, was eventually won by the government forces, leading to rapid development and recovery in the 1950s and 1960s, with the help of the U.S. Marshall Plans’ grants and loans. In 1967, the Greek military seized power and overthrew Penagiotis Kanellopoulos’ government. The CIA was involved, and President Clinton later apologized for this fact. In 1975 a democratic republic constitution came into force, and Greece has been considered a stable democracy since that time. Tension continues to exist between Greece and Turkey over Cyprus, but those relations thawed after earthquakes struck in Turkey and Greece.
Today there are about 10.7 million people living in Greece, formally named the Hellenic Republic. The capital is Athens, with a population of 3.7 million; and their legal system is based on codified Roman law. The chief of state is President Karolos Papoulias since March 12, 2005, and the head of government is Prime Minister Konstandinos (Kostas) Karamanlis since March 7, 2004. They have a unicameral parliament with 300 seats, members elected for four years by popular vote. Their Supreme Judicial Court is made up of judges who are appointed for life by the president after consultation with a judicial council.
