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87-553: Filiki Eteria ( Greek : Φιλικὴ Ἑταιρεία , romanized :  Filikī́ Etaireía ) or Society of Friends (Greek: Ἑταιρεία τῶν Φιλικῶν , romanized:  Etaireía tôn Filikôn ) was a secret political and revolutionary organization founded in 1814 in Odessa , whose purpose was to overthrow Ottoman rule in Greece and establish an independent Greek State . Society members were mainly young Phanariot Greeks from Constantinople and

174-609: A Freemasonic Lodge at Lefkada ("Society of Free Builders of Saint Mavra"), while Tsakalov was a founding member of the Hellenoglosso Xenodocheio (Greek: Ελληνόγλωσσο Ξενοδοχείο, meaning Greek-speaking Hotel ) an earlier relative society for the liberation of Greece which had been founded in Paris and made a progress to the Greek nationalistic ideas. At the start, between 1814 and 1816, there were roughly twenty members. During 1817,

261-513: A Linear B clay tablet found in Messenia that dates to between 1450 and 1350 BC, making Greek the world's oldest recorded living language . Among the Indo-European languages, its date of earliest written attestation is matched only by the now-extinct Anatolian languages . The Greek language is conventionally divided into the following periods: In the modern era, the Greek language entered

348-570: A basis for coinages: anthropology , photography , telephony , isomer , biomechanics , cinematography , etc. Together with Latin words , they form the foundation of international scientific and technical vocabulary ; for example, all words ending in -logy ('discourse'). There are many English words of Greek origin . Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European language family. The ancient language most closely related to it may be ancient Macedonian , which, by most accounts,

435-408: A bullet in the chest, Ibrahim ordered that his body be cleaned of blood and dirt and tied to a tree. After a few minutes of looking at his foe, Ibrahim walked up to the corpse and kissed it on the cheek as a sign of extreme respect. In speaking of Papaflessas after his death, it is said that Ibrahim told his officers: "If Greece had ten heroes like him, it would not have been possible for me to undertake

522-508: A faster, more convenient cursive writing style with the use of ink and quill . The Greek alphabet consists of 24 letters, each with an uppercase ( majuscule ) and lowercase ( minuscule ) form. The letter sigma has an additional lowercase form (ς) used in the final position of a word: In addition to the letters, the Greek alphabet features a number of diacritical signs : three different accent marks ( acute , grave , and circumflex ), originally denoting different shapes of pitch accent on

609-522: A feint at the same time. The society especially wanted to also take advantage of the involvement of significant Ottoman forces, including the pasha of the Moreas, against Ali Pasha of Ioannina . Greek language Greek ( Modern Greek : Ελληνικά , romanized :  Elliniká , [eliniˈka] ; Ancient Greek : Ἑλληνική , romanized :  Hellēnikḗ ) is an Indo-European language, constituting an independent Hellenic branch within

696-588: A great change to the church of the free kingdom. The clergy had taken a leading part in the revolution. In 1823, Papaflessas was named the Minister of Internal Affairs and the Chief of Police by the government of Prince Alexander Mavrokordato under the name Gregorios Dikaios, the name he had when he was in Filiki Etairia . He instituted many reforms, established the mail system and built schools in various towns. He created

783-573: A lesser extent, in the Western Mediterranean in and around colonies such as Massalia , Monoikos , and Mainake . It was also used as the official language of government and religion in the Christian Nubian kingdoms , for most of their history. Greek, in its modern form, is the official language of Greece, where it is spoken by almost the entire population. It is also the official language of Cyprus (nominally alongside Turkish ) and

870-400: A limited but productive system of compounding and a rich inflectional system. Although its morphological categories have been fairly stable over time, morphological changes are present throughout, particularly in the nominal and verbal systems. The major change in the nominal morphology since the classical stage was the disuse of the dative case (its functions being largely taken over by

957-453: A mixed syllable structure, permitting complex syllabic onsets but very restricted codas. It has only oral vowels and a fairly stable set of consonantal contrasts . The main phonological changes occurred during the Hellenistic and Roman period (see Koine Greek phonology for details): In all its stages, the morphology of Greek shows an extensive set of productive derivational affixes ,

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1044-644: A rank next to bishop, by Patriarch Gregorios V of Constantinople and he was given the ecclesiastical " officio of Dikaios" (the Ecumenical Patriarch 's representative), in order to be able to move freely in the Moldovlachia area and not to be bothered by the Turks. Papaflessas was sent to the northern part of the Ottoman Empire to inspire and spread hope among his countrymen for the nation's independence from

1131-656: A revolt and with the setting up of a military unit for the purpose that he named the Sacred Band . Various proposals were made for the location regarding the break out of the revolution. One of them was to be in Constantinople , the heart of the empire, that was the long-term target of the revolutionaries. Finally the decision that was taken was to start from the Peloponnese (Morea), and the Danubian Principalities for

1218-542: A revolution against the Ottoman Empire . At the Saint George monastery he called a meeting of Greek authorities and high priests to discuss if the time was right to start the a revolution. After heated arguments the meeting was postponed for a later time in the monastery of Agia Lavra . In January 1821 meetings took place with Papaflessas recounting his supplies and assurances of support coming from Russia. Concerns about

1305-595: A serious loss. The remaining founders attempted to find a major personality to take over the reins, one who would add prestige and fresh impetus to the society. In early 1818, they had a meeting with Ioannis Kapodistrias , who not only refused, but later wrote that he considered Filiki Eteria guilty for the havoc that was foreboded in Greece. Alexandros Ypsilantis was contacted and asked to assume leadership of Filiki Eteria, which he did in April 1820. He began active preparations for

1392-456: A state of diglossia : the coexistence of vernacular and archaizing written forms of the language. What came to be known as the Greek language question was a polarization between two competing varieties of Modern Greek: Dimotiki , the vernacular form of Modern Greek proper, and Katharevousa , meaning 'purified', a compromise between Dimotiki and Ancient Greek developed in the early 19th century that

1479-527: Is just, the avenger of transgression, the chastizer of evil, by the laws of the Eteria Filiki, and by the authority with which its powerful priests have intrusted me, I receive you, as I was myself received, into the bosom of the Eteria. Afterwards the initiated were considered neophyte members of the society, with all the rights and obligations of this rank. The Priest immediately had the obligation to reveal all

1566-448: Is meant to connote allies who work towards the same goal, not necessarily those who socialize together. In the context of ardent desire for independence from Turkish occupation, and with the explicit influence of similar secret societies elsewhere in Europe, three Greeks came together in 1814 in Odessa to decide the constitution for a secret organization in freemasonic fashion. Its purpose

1653-821: Is sometimes called aljamiado , as when Romance languages are written in the Arabic alphabet. Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Greek: Transcription of the example text into Latin alphabet : Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in English: Proto-Greek Mycenaean Ancient Koine Medieval Modern Papaflessas Georgios Dimitrios Dikaios-Flessas

1740-758: Is still used internationally for the writing of Ancient Greek . In Greek, the question mark is written as the English semicolon, while the functions of the colon and semicolon are performed by a raised point (•), known as the ano teleia ( άνω τελεία ). In Greek the comma also functions as a silent letter in a handful of Greek words, principally distinguishing ό,τι ( ó,ti , 'whatever') from ότι ( óti , 'that'). Ancient Greek texts often used scriptio continua ('continuous writing'), which means that ancient authors and scribes would write word after word with no spaces or punctuation between words to differentiate or mark boundaries. Boustrophedon , or bi-directional text,

1827-562: Is to modern spoken English ". Greek is spoken today by at least 13 million people, principally in Greece and Cyprus along with a sizable Greek-speaking minority in Albania near the Greek-Albanian border. A significant percentage of Albania's population has knowledge of the Greek language due in part to the Albanian wave of immigration to Greece in the 1980s and '90s and the Greek community in

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1914-544: The British Overseas Territory of Akrotiri and Dhekelia (alongside English ). Because of the membership of Greece and Cyprus in the European Union, Greek is one of the organization's 24 official languages . Greek is recognized as a minority language in Albania, and used co-officially in some of its municipalities, in the districts of Gjirokastër and Sarandë . It is also an official minority language in

2001-637: The European canon . Greek is also the language in which many of the foundational texts in science and philosophy were originally composed. The New Testament of the Christian Bible was also originally written in Greek. Together with the Latin texts and traditions of the Roman world , the Greek texts and Greek societies of antiquity constitute the objects of study of the discipline of Classics . During antiquity , Greek

2088-510: The Indo-Iranian languages (see Graeco-Aryan ), but little definitive evidence has been found. In addition, Albanian has also been considered somewhat related to Greek and Armenian, and it has been proposed that they all form a higher-order subgroup along with other extinct languages of the ancient Balkans; this higher-order subgroup is usually termed Palaeo-Balkan , and Greek has a central position in it. Linear B , attested as early as

2175-539: The Kalamata area and jailed them. Papaflessas arranged his men to cover various strategic positions in the area. When a Turkish sympathizer tried to leave the city he was killed, starting the war of Independence on March 21, 1821. In Mani a gathering of the captains of the rebels had decided to start the revolution on March 25, 1821, but received news on the 22nd that the fighting had already begun. The Greek War of Independence officially started on March 25, 1821, and brought

2262-515: The Russian Empire , local political and military leaders from the Greek mainland and islands, as well as several Orthodox Christian leaders from other nations that were under Hellenic influence, such as Karađorđe from Serbia , and Tudor Vladimirescu from Romania . One of its leaders was the prominent Phanariote Prince Alexander Ypsilantis . The Society initiated the Greek War of Independence in

2349-747: The United Kingdom , and throughout the European Union , especially in Germany . Historically, significant Greek-speaking communities and regions were found throughout the Eastern Mediterranean , in what are today Southern Italy , Turkey , Cyprus , Syria , Lebanon , Israel , Palestine , Egypt , and Libya ; in the area of the Black Sea , in what are today Turkey, Bulgaria , Romania , Ukraine , Russia , Georgia , Armenia , and Azerbaijan ; and, to

2436-468: The genitive ). The verbal system has lost the infinitive , the synthetically -formed future, and perfect tenses and the optative mood . Many have been replaced by periphrastic ( analytical ) forms. Pronouns show distinctions in person (1st, 2nd, and 3rd), number (singular, dual , and plural in the ancient language; singular and plural alone in later stages), and gender (masculine, feminine, and neuter), and decline for case (from six cases in

2523-467: The klepht Georgios Dimitriou Flessas ( Γεώργιος Δημητρίου Φλέσσας ), and his mother, the second wife of Dimitrios, was Konstantina Andronaiou ( Κωνσταντίνα Ἀνδροναίου ) from Dimitsana . He was the 28th child of the Dimitrios family. In 1809, he attended school at the renowned school of Dimitsana , from whence many Greek national heroes graduated. While in school, he published a satire and pinned it on

2610-417: The syntax of Greek have remained constant: verbs agree with their subject only, the use of the surviving cases is largely intact (nominative for subjects and predicates, accusative for objects of most verbs and many prepositions, genitive for possessors), articles precede nouns, adpositions are largely prepositional, relative clauses follow the noun they modify and relative pronouns are clause-initial. However,

2697-566: The 20th century on), especially from French and English, are typically not inflected; other modern borrowings are derived from Albanian , South Slavic ( Macedonian / Bulgarian ) and Eastern Romance languages ( Aromanian and Megleno-Romanian ). Greek words have been widely borrowed into other languages, including English. Example words include: mathematics , physics , astronomy , democracy , philosophy , athletics , theatre, rhetoric , baptism , evangelist , etc. Moreover, Greek words and word elements continue to be productive as

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2784-465: The Egyptians with a small force of 800-1000 men loyal to him and his cause. Papaflessas knew that in choosing to face Ibrahim he would die on the battlefield. Papaflessas's defenses were ultimately broken by the heavy bombardment of Ibrahim's artillery and the repeated attacks of his infantry and cavalry. Fierce hand-to-hand fighting ended with the death of the last defender. After Papaflessa's death from

2871-538: The Greek alphabet since approximately the 9th century BC. It was created by modifying the Phoenician alphabet , with the innovation of adopting certain letters to represent the vowels. The variant of the alphabet in use today is essentially the late Ionic variant, introduced for writing classical Attic in 403 BC. In classical Greek, as in classical Latin, only upper-case letters existed. The lower-case Greek letters were developed much later by medieval scribes to permit

2958-540: The Greek language was the Cypriot syllabary (also a descendant of Linear A via the intermediate Cypro-Minoan syllabary ), which is closely related to Linear B but uses somewhat different syllabic conventions to represent phoneme sequences. The Cypriot syllabary is attested in Cyprus from the 11th century BC until its gradual abandonment in the late Classical period, in favor of the standard Greek alphabet. Greek has been written in

3045-583: The Indo-European language family. It is native to Greece , Cyprus , Italy (in Calabria and Salento ), southern Albania , and other regions of the Balkans , Caucasus , the Black Sea coast, Asia Minor , and the Eastern Mediterranean . It has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning at least 3,400 years of written records. Its writing system is the Greek alphabet , which has been used for approximately 2,800 years; previously, Greek

3132-593: The Interior. He was the most unprincipled man of the party of the Moreot chiefs. The universal indignation now expressed at his conducts convinced him that it would be dangerous for him to remain in Nauplia, where his licentious life and gross peculation pointed him out as the first object of popular vengeance, and the scapegoat for the sins of his colleagues. The archimandrite was destitute of private virtue and political honesty, but he

3219-460: The Periklis harangue, he also started meeting prominent "patriots". Because he was under death sentence by the Turks, and due to his reputation from Peloponnisos , he used the name Dikaios. He soon joined the secret organization Filiki Eteria with the code name Armodios (A. M.), Ἁρμόδιος , and the number five (5). In 1819, Gregorios was ordained to the highest priesthood position, archimandrite ,

3306-599: The Turks. Returning to Constantinople from his successful mission, Papaflessas again came to the attention of the Turkish authorities and had to flee. At the end of 1820, he sailed to Aivali of Asia Minor and catechised all scholars of the Big School (as it was called there) while awaiting the arrival of war supplies from Smyrna . From Smyrna he received military supplies and the assurance of additional ammunition if needed. Papaflessas traveled to several areas seeking support for

3393-404: The acute during the late 20th century, and it has only been retained in typography . After the writing reform of 1982, most diacritics are no longer used. Since then, Greek has been written mostly in the simplified monotonic orthography (or monotonic system), which employs only the acute accent and the diaeresis. The traditional system, now called the polytonic orthography (or polytonic system),

3480-450: The area's harbourmaster, the famous Mavromichalis, who was in the pay of the Turks' security force. The harbourmaster demanded a large bribe to cover up what the Greeks were unloading. Papaflessas sent 45,000 grosia to Mavromichalis who accepted it but still did not sign the proper papers. He wanted half of the supplies in the boat to have them as reserves to fight the Greeks when they started

3567-474: The arrival of Proto-Greeks, some documented in Mycenaean texts ; they include a large number of Greek toponyms . The form and meaning of many words have changed. Loanwords (words of foreign origin) have entered the language, mainly from Latin, Venetian , and Turkish . During the older periods of Greek, loanwords into Greek acquired Greek inflections, thus leaving only a foreign root word. Modern borrowings (from

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3654-444: The best spot to face Ibrahim's army coming out of the city of Pylos . He selected the hills of Maniaki in order for him to have a better view of the enemy's movements and there Papaflessas established three lines of defence. On June 1, 1825, Ibrahim's forces led by well-trained French officers attacked Papaflessas' defence lines. Most of the Greek troops lost their nerve, abandoned their positions, and fled. Papaflessas continued to fight

3741-458: The city of Kalamata , Messinia . Grigorios was argumentative and defiant by nature and frequently at odds with his ecclesiastical superiors. Further, he was angry toward the Ottoman Turks because they had killed his family members. He also blessed a marriage of Mr. Zervas to his niece who was engaged to another man. He was asked to leave the monastery of Velanidia. In April 1816, he moved to

3828-451: The civil war, he was initially on Theodoros Kolokotronis ' side, but later switched sides due to his personal ambitions. The fight against Ibrahim When Ibrahim Pasha invaded the Peloponnese in 1825 (with an army consisting mostly of Egyptians), Papaflessas was still Minister of Internal Affairs. Realizing the great danger the nation was facing with the Ibrahim's invasion, he demanded

3915-533: The commands of an "Invisible Authority" ( Αόρατος Αρχή ), who was thought to be one or more strong persons, so that from the start it was shrouded in mystery, secrecy and glamour. It was generally believed that a lot of important personalities were members, not only eminent Greeks, but also notable foreigners such as the Tsar of Russia Alexander I . The reality was that initially, the Invisible Authority comprised only

4002-765: The country. Prior to the Greco-Turkish War and the resulting population exchange in 1923 a very large population of Greek-speakers also existed in Turkey , though very few remain today. A small Greek-speaking community is also found in Bulgaria near the Greek-Bulgarian border. Greek is also spoken worldwide by the sizable Greek diaspora which has notable communities in the United States , Australia , Canada , South Africa , Chile , Brazil , Argentina , Russia , Ukraine ,

4089-441: The dative led to a rise of prepositional indirect objects (and the use of the genitive to directly mark these as well). Ancient Greek tended to be verb-final, but neutral word order in the modern language is VSO or SVO. Modern Greek inherits most of its vocabulary from Ancient Greek, which in turn is an Indo-European language, but also includes a number of borrowings from the languages of the populations that inhabited Greece before

4176-400: The door of Dimitsana Pasha (the Turkish local governor at the time) signing it "Grigorios Phos Kalamios" ( Φῶς Καλάμιος τό νομα Γρηγόριος ). Realizing he was in danger from his action he was sent in 1815 to become a priest or monk, taking the ecclesiastical name of Gregorios Flessas or Papaflessas. For a short time, he served in this capacity in the monastery of Velanidia , situated outside of

4263-508: The duty of initiation. I swear in the name of truth and justice, before the Supreme Being, to guard, by sacrificing my own life, and suffering the hardest toils, the mystery, which shall be explained to me and that I shall respond with the truth whatever I am asked. When the Priest approached a new member, it was first to make sure of his patriotism and catechize him in the aims of the society;

4350-528: The earliest forms attested to four in the modern language). Nouns, articles, and adjectives show all the distinctions except for a person. Both attributive and predicative adjectives agree with the noun. The inflectional categories of the Greek verb have likewise remained largely the same over the course of the language's history but with significant changes in the number of distinctions within each category and their morphological expression. Greek verbs have synthetic inflectional forms for: Many aspects of

4437-412: The extent that one can speak of a new language emerging. Greek speakers today still tend to regard literary works of ancient Greek as part of their own rather than a foreign language. It is also often stated that the historical changes have been relatively slight compared with some other languages. According to one estimation, " Homeric Greek is probably closer to Demotic than 12-century Middle English

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4524-423: The future liberty of my countrymen, that I consecrate myself wholly to thee; that hence forward thou shall be the cause and object of my thoughts, thy name the guide of my actions, and thy happiness the recompense of my labours. When the above was administered the Priest then uttered the words of acceptance of the novice as a new member: Before the face of the invisible and omnipresent true God, who in his essence

4611-410: The government grant amnesty to Kolokotronis and other political prisoners. This demand was refused and he appeared before the executive branch and parliament to tell them he would go to Messinia alone to organize a resistance against Ibrahim, determined to return victorious or die in the battlefield. George Finlay writes in his book, “The archimandrite Daikaios (Pappa Phlessas) was still Minister of

4698-449: The language show both conservative and innovative tendencies across the entire attestation of the language from the ancient to the modern period. The division into conventional periods is, as with all such periodizations, relatively arbitrary, especially because, in all periods, Ancient Greek has enjoyed high prestige, and the literate borrowed heavily from it. Across its history, the syllabic structure of Greek has varied little: Greek shows

4785-490: The last stage was to put him under the lengthy principal oath, called the Great Oath ( Μέγας Όρκος ). Much of the essence of it was contained in its conclusion: Last of all, I swear by Thee, my sacred and suffering Country,— I swear by thy long-endured tortures,— I swear by the bitter tears which for so many centuries have been shed by thy unhappy children, by my own tears which I am pouring forth at this very moment,— I swear by

4872-463: The late 15th century BC, was the first script used to write Greek. It is basically a syllabary , which was finally deciphered by Michael Ventris and John Chadwick in the 1950s (its precursor, Linear A , has not been deciphered and most likely encodes a non-Greek language). The language of the Linear B texts, Mycenaean Greek , is the earliest known form of Greek. Another similar system used to write

4959-613: The leader of the Serbian Revolution , father of the modern Serbia and founder of the Karadjordjevic dynasty Karageorge Petrovic . Members included primary instigators of the Greek revolution, notably Theodoros Kolokotronis , Odysseas Androutsos , Dimitris Plapoutas , Papaflessas and the metropolitan bishop Germanos of Patras . Filiki Eteria was strongly influenced by Carbonarism and Freemasonry . The team of leaders made and spread its decisions, saying that they transmitted

5046-448: The many other countries of the Greek diaspora . Greek roots have been widely used for centuries and continue to be widely used to coin new words in other languages; Greek and Latin are the predominant sources of international scientific vocabulary . Greek has been spoken in the Balkan peninsula since around the 3rd millennium BC, or possibly earlier. The earliest written evidence is

5133-482: The marks of recognition between the Vlamides or Brothers . Vlamides and Recommended were unaware of the revolutionary aims of the organisation. They only knew that there existed a society that tried hard for the general good of the nation, which included in its ranks important personalities. This myth was propagated deliberately in order to stimulate the morale of members and also to make proselytism easier. Members in

5220-523: The meeting he went to Kalavryta and met with Nikolaos Souliotis and Asimakis Skaltsas in order for them to write a letter in the first ten days of March 1821 to Oikonomos Eliopoulos . Then he retreated to Kalyvia Kalamata waiting for news from Souliotis and Skaltsas and the arrival in Almyros , a small port near Kalamata , of the boat with the war supplies. From Kalyvia he went secretly to Gardikion (now Amfeia) near his hometown Poliani and learned that

5307-505: The monastery of Rekitsa ( Ρεκίτσα ), located between Leontari and Mystras . He soon argued with his superiors and the monastery's administration. He also came into conflict with a local Turkish authority over the boundaries of the monastery property and even used armed men to protect his claims. This eventually was settled by court in Tripolitsa with the court finding in Papaflessas' and

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5394-399: The monastery's favour. This angered the Turkish official who told the authorities that Papaflessas was a revolutionary and was arming the ragiades ('slaves', as the Turks used to call Greeks) against the Turks. The Tripolitsa authorities sentenced Papaflessas to death and sent soldiers to the monastery to arrest and execute him. Armed Poliani fighters delayed the soldiers and Papaflessas

5481-465: The morphological changes also have their counterparts in the syntax, and there are also significant differences between the syntax of the ancient and that of the modern form of the language . Ancient Greek made great use of participial constructions and of constructions involving the infinitive, and the modern variety lacks the infinitive entirely (employing a raft of new periphrastic constructions instead) and uses participles more restrictively. The loss of

5568-422: The practicalities of war and the uncertainty of the promises of military support led the other participants to propose to secretly jail Flessas in the monastery of Agia Lavra in order to avoid problems for the nation. But Papaflessas had armed supporters and no one dared arrest him. The synod decided to get further information and the opinion of neighbouring countries before starting a revolution. Flessas' problem

5655-622: The regions of Apulia and Calabria in Italy. In the framework of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages , Greek is protected and promoted officially as a regional and minority language in Armenia, Hungary , Romania, and Ukraine. It is recognized as a minority language and protected in Turkey by the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne . The phonology , morphology , syntax , and vocabulary of

5742-421: The revolution against the Turks. This was agreed to and the supplies were transported to the monastery of Velanidia, where Papaflessas served as a monk, summoning prominent kleftes , chieftains from the area. By purpose or accident some of the gunpowder was dropped at a local well and the next day the stablemen of the local pasha found and reported it. The pasha summoned all the prominent Greeks and clergy from

5829-588: The right to ask who created the organisation. Commands were carried out unquestioningly and members did not have the right to make decisions. Members of the society came together in what was called a "Temple" with four levels of initiation : a) Brothers ( Αδελφοποίητοι ) or Vlamides ( Βλάμηδες ), b) the Recommended ( Συστημένοι ), c) the Priests ( Ιερείς ) and d) the Shepherds ( Ποιμένες ). The Priests were charged with

5916-458: The secret society divided to three parts: a) Etairoi (society members), who had important duties, b) Apostles (advocates), who also had important duties, and c) all other members. The following is a list of members of the Filiki Eteria in order of most initiations which they conducted: In 1818, the seat of Filiki Eteria had migrated from Odessa to Constantinople , and Skoufas' death had been

6003-467: The small boat of Mexis Poriotis arrived in Almyros . Papaflessas immediately called his brothers and Nikitas Flessa, the oldest brother, received the ammunitions. In March 1821, he received news the ship with military supplies had arrived. He gathered about 400 men with mules and donkeys from the Poliani area and went to Almyros Kalamata . In order to unload the boat they had to have the authorization of

6090-581: The society initiated members from the diaspora Greeks of Russia and the Danubian Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia . The Prince of Moldavia Michael Soutzos himself, became a member. Massive initiations began only in 1818 and by early 1821, when the Society had expanded to almost all regions of Greece and throughout Greek communities abroad, the membership numbered in thousands. Among its members were tradesmen, clergy, Russian consuls, Ottoman officials from Phanar and revolutionary Serbs , most notably,

6177-447: The spring of 1821. The direct translation of the word "Φιλική" is "Friendly" and the direct translation of "Ἑταιρεία" is "Society", "Company" or "Association"). The common transliteration "Filiki Eteria" reflects the pronunciation of the name in modern Greek. Other possible transliterations are "Filike Etaireia", which reflects Greek orthography , and "Philike Hetaireia", which reflects the ancient Greek etymology. The word "friendly" here

6264-437: The stressed vowel; the so-called breathing marks ( rough and smooth breathing ), originally used to signal presence or absence of word-initial /h/; and the diaeresis , used to mark the full syllabic value of a vowel that would otherwise be read as part of a diphthong. These marks were introduced during the course of the Hellenistic period. Actual usage of the grave in handwriting saw a rapid decline in favor of uniform usage of

6351-473: The three founders. From 1815 until 1818, five more were added to the Invisible Authority, and after the death of Skoufas three more. In 1818, the Invisible Authority was renamed to the "Authority of the Twelve Apostles" and each Apostle shouldered the responsibility of a separate region. The organisational structure was pyramid-like, with the "Invisible Authority" coordinating from the top. No one knew or had

6438-509: The title of Inspector General for schools and he was the first to establish a political conviction certificate to be given to the friends of the government. He took part in many battles against the Turks and he sided with the government when the civil war started in 1824. He took part in the campaign in Messinia and the rest of the Peloponnese to suppress the rebels against the Government. During

6525-568: Was a distinct dialect of Greek itself. Aside from the Macedonian question, current consensus regards Phrygian as the closest relative of Greek, since they share a number of phonological, morphological and lexical isoglosses , with some being exclusive between them. Scholars have proposed a Graeco-Phrygian subgroup out of which Greek and Phrygian originated. Among living languages, some Indo-Europeanists suggest that Greek may be most closely related to Armenian (see Graeco-Armenian ) or

6612-403: Was a man of activity and courage. Perhaps too, at this decisive moment a sense of shame urged him to cancel his previous misdeeds by an act of patriotism. He asked permission of the government to march against the Egyptians, boasting that he would vanquish Ibrahim or perish in the combat”. Papaflessas gathered 3,000 poorly armed men and went to the province of Pylia , Messinia , searching for

6699-534: Was able to leave his homeland, saying as he did so that he would return either a bishop or a pasha and deal with them. Papaflessas went to the island of Zakynthos , a haven for Greeks from the mainland who were under death sentence by the Turks. There he met fellow Greek future revolutionist Theodoros Kolokotronis . He obtained a reference letter from the Archbishop of Christianoupolis ( Arcadia Kyparissia ). While traveling by sea to Constantinople , Papaflessas

6786-546: Was also used in Ancient Greek. Greek has occasionally been written in the Latin script , especially in areas under Venetian rule or by Greek Catholics . The term Frankolevantinika / Φραγκολεβαντίνικα applies when the Latin script is used to write Greek in the cultural ambit of Catholicism (because Frankos / Φράγκος is an older Greek term for West-European dating to when most of (Roman Catholic Christian) West Europe

6873-541: Was by far the most widely spoken lingua franca in the Mediterranean world . It eventually became the official language of the Byzantine Empire and developed into Medieval Greek . In its modern form , Greek is the official language of Greece and Cyprus and one of the 24 official languages of the European Union . It is spoken by at least 13.5 million people today in Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Albania, Turkey , and

6960-410: Was his birth name. His monastic name was Grigorios Flessas ( Γρηγόριος Φλέσσας , Grigórios Flessas) or Papaflessas, while the pseudonym he used later in his life was Grigorios Papaflessas ( Γρηγόριος Παπαφλέσσας ). Grigorios Papaflessas was born Georgios Flessas or Flesias ( Φλέσιας ) in 1788 in the village of Poliani in Messinia . His father was Demetrios G. Flessas ( Δημήτριος Φλέσσας ), son of

7047-480: Was recorded in writing systems such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary . The alphabet arose from the Phoenician script and was in turn the basis of the Latin , Cyrillic , Coptic , Gothic , and many other writing systems. The Greek language holds a very important place in the history of the Western world. Beginning with the epics of Homer , ancient Greek literature includes many works of lasting importance in

7134-409: Was shipwrecked on Mount Athos during which the seal on his letter of recommendation broke. Reading the letter he was surprised to find that it called him dishonest, immoral and untrustworthy, causing him to discard the letter. He arrived in Constantinople with the goal of studying Ancient Greek and theology and to become an archbishop in the patriarchy of Agia Sofia . While studying Greek and

7221-462: Was to unite all Greeks in an armed organization to overthrow Turkish rule. The three founders were Nikolaos Skoufas from the Arta province, Emmanuil Xanthos from Patmos and Athanasios Tsakalov from Ioannina . Soon after they initiated a fourth member, Panagiotis Anagnostopoulos from Andritsaina . Skoufas met with Konstantinos Rados, who was initiated into Carbonarism . Xanthos was initiated into

7308-566: Was under the control of the Frankish Empire ). Frankochiotika / Φραγκοχιώτικα (meaning 'Catholic Chiot') alludes to the significant presence of Catholic missionaries based on the island of Chios . Additionally, the term Greeklish is often used when the Greek language is written in a Latin script in online communications. The Latin script is nowadays used by the Greek-speaking communities of Southern Italy . The Yevanic dialect

7395-637: Was used for literary and official purposes in the newly formed Greek state. In 1976, Dimotiki was declared the official language of Greece, after having incorporated features of Katharevousa and thus giving birth to Standard Modern Greek , used today for all official purposes and in education . The historical unity and continuing identity between the various stages of the Greek language are often emphasized. Although Greek has undergone morphological and phonological changes comparable to those seen in other languages, never since classical antiquity has its cultural, literary, and orthographic tradition been interrupted to

7482-399: Was with the upper class (landowners) in the villages and municipalities, including the top echelon of the clergy, who did not trust Papaflessas, and his mission was received with a great deal of scepticism and fear. He felt safer to first approach farmers and peasants, and the poor class of people who were easily magnetized by his speeches looked upon him as the messiah of their freedom. After

7569-653: Was written by Romaniote and Constantinopolitan Karaite Jews using the Hebrew Alphabet . In a tradition, that in modern time, has come to be known as Greek Aljamiado , some Greek Muslims from Crete wrote their Cretan Greek in the Arabic alphabet . The same happened among Epirote Muslims in Ioannina . This also happened among Arabic-speaking Byzantine rite Christians in the Levant ( Lebanon , Palestine, and Syria ). This usage

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