The 29th of May is a very sad day for all Greeks
as it the anniversary of the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks.
The Byzantine Empire came to a dramatic end as the Turks
breached Constantinople’s ancient, formidable walls after besieging the City
for 55 days. The Ottomans surrounded the
City from land and sea while employing a constant cannon barrage of
Constantinople’s walls.
The fall of Constantinople removed what was once a powerful defense
of Christian Europe against the Muslim barbarians, allowing the uninterrupted Ottoman
occupation of south-eastern Europe.
By the mid-15th century the Turks with constant
battles against their European neighbours and the Roman Catholic threats had
diminished the Byzantine Imperial holdings to Constantinople and the area west
of it.
Constantinople having suffered through several devastating
sieges, the population had fallen 400.000 in the 12th century to
40.000 by the 1450s. Unfortunately the
Schism of 1054 that exhilarated the separation of the Eastern and Western Churches and the Latin occupation of Constantinople entrenched a mutual
hatred among Orthodox Byzantium and Catholic Europe.
In contrast to the Byzantines, the Ottoman Turks had extended
their control over virtually all the Balkans and most of Anatolia, having
conquered several Byzantine cities west of Constantinople in the latter half of
the 14th century.
Hungary was the permanently European threat to the Ottomans
and Venice and Genoa controlled much of the Aegean and Black seas.
This year Greece is celebrating 200 years of freedom from the
Ottoman Turks and almost the whole world
is celebrating with us.
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