One of the less known aspects of the Macedonian question has been the needlessly Cruel methods and Crimes commited by the SlavoBulgarian Komitadjis against the Greek population of Macedonia. The Bulgarian bands had been notorious for their murders and outrages against non-combatants and especially the Greeks of Macedonia.  The list is certainly not complete and never will be, since noone could ever count ALL atrocities perpertuated by Komitadji Butchers.

The victims range in social position from the peasant to the landowner and the merchant. A number of priests are also among the murdered. Whole families have been exterminated in some cases while women and children have not escaped from the murdering enstict of Komitadjis. Some of the victims were accused of denouncing the perpetrators of the outrages, and others incureed the hatred of the insurrectionists by refusing either to join the Bulgarian bands or give monetary assistance, but most of those who have suffered death were the innocent victims of a campaign which is being waged neither in the interests of justice nor of liberty.

Members of one of the Bulgarian bands entered the house of the Saramantos family from Babiani. Without explanation or reason given, they murdered Costas Saramantos, his wifein the presence of their son Nicolas and also put to death a nephew of the old man and the nephew’s wife. Nicolas was spared only because the Bulgarian murderers required him to take a message to the brigands’s camp. This is a frequent true story reiterated over and over by SlavoBulgarian inhuman criminals against Greeks.

Below is cited a list of Macedonian names cruelly murdered by Komitadji savages. (Source ΑΠΘ)

Documents diplomatiques français (1871-1914). By France. Commission de publication des documents relatifs aux origines de la guerre de 1914

Translation: If Bulgaria, after many hesitations and not without regret, did the great sacrifice and give up Uskub, whose population is Bulgarian

Recently we witness a new flux of FYROM propaganda in the net by claiming a so-called “Macedonian” called Dragan, sailed together with Columbus’s crew back in 1492.

Unfortunately for the falsificators of history, their baseless claim is exposed in the book “Facts about American Immigration” of David M. Brownstone and Irene M. Franck where through the evidence presented by the authors about the Balkanians migrating to America, we also read the Sailor Dragan who sailed with Columbus was simply…Bulgarian!!!

Taken from the book “History Of Montenegro” by Francis Seymour Stevenson, 1914 

In page 24 we can find:

Stevenson makes it explicit that the Ethnicities suffering from the extension of Serbian state were Greeks, Magyars, Shkipetars and Bulgarians since unfortunately for the usual propagandists of fYROM, these were the only Ethnicities of the region. 

Its even interesting to witness the fact Stevenson mentions Skoplje when it became the new capital  on the Wardar but still there were found No “Macedonians” there but obviously Bulgarians!!!!

In page 96 we can find the issue related to the ethnicities using the Cyrilic alphabet which as the footnote states, it was being used only by Russians, Serbs, Roumanians and Bulgarians since again there is No “Macedonian ethnicity”!!

From Ioannis Chrysostomos about Daniel’s fragment in page 893.

“Θα καταλάβετε καλύτερα αν ακούσετε αυτό το όραμα που μας διηγήθηκε παραβολικά ο προφήτης αποκαλώντας κριό τον βασιλέα των Περσών Δαρείο, τράγο τον βασιλέα των Ελλήνων, εννοώ τον Αλέξανδρο τον Μακεδόνα, τέσσερα κέρατα τους διαδόχους του και τελευταίο κέρατο τον Αντίοχο. ”

Translation: “You will understand better if you hear this vision which was narrated parabolically by the Prophet, by calling ram the Persian king Darius, billy-goat the King of Greeks i mean Alexander the Macedonian, 4 horns his successors and last horn Antiochos“

Taken from the ‘Encomium of St Demetrios’ written by the well-known fourteenth-century theologian Nicholas Kabasilas Chamaetos.

Quote:

After the Byzantine reconquest of Thessalonike in 1246, the first outstanding intellec­tual in the city seems to have been a certain John Pothos Pediasimos, whose identity was recently reconsidered in a convincing manner from a puzzle of source material by Costas Constantinides. Pediasimos, born in Thessalonike in the 1340s, seems to have acquired only an elementary and perhaps a secondary education in his hometown. At any rate, for studies on a higher level he went to

 Between 1330 and 1350 two outstanding lawyers composed their law handbooks in Thessalonike, the monk Matthew (Matthaios) Blastares and Constantine Harmenopoulos. Gregory Palamas, the leader of a spiritual movement, hesychasm, and creator of a special theo­logical system, was born in

After this brief outline I will try to specify the contributions of the Thessalonian intel­lectuals in different fields of activity, beginning with some remarks on the exchange of let­ters. A contemporary of John Pothos Pediasimos and his colleague in the ecclesiastical service was John Staurakios, a hagiographer who appears in a document of 1284 as chartophylax of the metropolis of Thessalonike in that year. Thirteen letters addressed to him by his friend Patriarch Gregory of Cyprus have survived. He not only copied a manuscript of Plato for him, but also was author of an encomium of St. Demetrios. From the scholar Thomas Magistros we have only twelve letters.’ The report in the form of a letter which he addressed to Joseph the Philosopher is of special interest. Here he praises Joseph not only as his teacher, but also for his commitment toward the social problems of Thessa­lonike, at the time when Joseph had just left for Constantinople in the winter of 1307/8.

Rich evidence about intellectuals in Thessalonike is available in the correspondence opinion of his own ability as a philologist. This is documented by his remarks in his scho­lia to ancient authors, where he arrogandy calls earlier scholiasts, his predecessors, igno­ramuses (άγνοοΰντες) or uneducated people (αμαθείς) and introduces his own interpre­tation with εγώ δέ οϋτω(ς). In comparison with him, other contemporary scholiasts, for instance Manuel Moschopoulos, show a more modest attitude.

Two important works on law also seem to have been composed in Thessalonike. There is first the canonist Matthew (Matthaios) Blastares, monk and priest in the monastery of Kyr Isaac in Thessalonike. In 1335 he completed his principal work, called Σύνταγμα κατά στοιχεϊον (Alphabetical Treatise), an attempt at reconciling canon and civil law to a greater degree than in the preceding nomokanones. Since he used several legal sources for his work, he must have had a specialized library at his disposal. We know that his teacher was the edu­cated clergyman Iakobos, founder of the Isaac monastery and later metropolitan of Thes­salonike, who may have encouraged Blastares to compose his work. Ten years later, Constantine Harmenopoulos completed his Πρόχειρον νόμων (Handbook of Laws), a compilation of secular law for easier reference. In a document from Chilandar monastery of 1345 we find his signature, where he calls himself σεβαστός and κριτής της θεσσα­λονίκης. There seems to have been a tradition of legal studies in Thessalonike before Blastares and Harmenopoulos, since already in 1295 the dikaiophylax George Phobenos, a friend of John Pediasimos, composed two legal texts and a short dictionary of legal terms. The anonymous compiler of the Hexabiblos aucta (late 14th century) had perhaps an even more substantial library at his disposal, but unfortunately we have no evidence whether he worked in Thessalonike or in Constantinople.

Bibliography: “Intellectuals in late Byzantine Thessalonike” by Franz Tinnefeld

Taken from the ‘Encomium of St Demetrios’ written by the well-known fourteenth-century theologian Nicholas Kabasilas Chamaetos.

Παράθεση:

Eusthathios was was a native of Constantinople who became archbishop of Thessaloniki. When a Norman army from Sicily in 1185 besieged, captured and pillaged the city of Thessaloniki, Eustathios wasnt only an eye-witness but he played a courageous and noble part in sustaining the morale of the citizens and negotiating with count Alduin, the norman commander. Eustathios is probably the only classical scholar to have attained sainthood.

The account which he wrote of the Norman capture of Thessalonike survives in a single manuscript which had been translated twice into german and twice into italian. The english translation has been perfomed by Melville Jones.

According to Eusthathios account, one of the most remarkable passages describes how the latins “went round cutting off the long hair and beards of the Greeks, often with their swords, while some Greeks aped their shaven and crew-cut overlords by cutting their own hair and shaving their beards.”

At the same time Eustathios mentions that some latins entered into friendly discussion of religion with the Greek clergy, and how the well-intentioned but vacillating count Alduin gave Eustathios some books.

As anyone can notice from the numerous mentions of Eustathios’ account, Thessaloniki was inhabited by Greeks.

From greek newspaper ‘Kathimerini’. The mural dates from 1568 and anyone can see it in Moni Docheiareiou in Mt. Athos. The monastery of Docheiareiou appears to date back to the early years of the eleventh century.

From one side it says ‘Alexander King of the Hellenes’ and from the other ‘Augustus King of the Romans’