page_title: Timeline of Orthodoxy in Greece (1821–1924)
section_title: Autocephalous Era (from 1850)
hierarchical_section_title: Timeline of Orthodoxy in Greece (1821–1924) / Kingdom of Greece (1833–1924) / Autocephalous Era (from 1850)
caption_attribution_description: Chrysostomos Kalafatis (Chrysostomos of Smyrna)
context_page_description: This is a timeline of the presence of Orthodoxy in Greece. The history of Greece traditionally encompasses the study of the Greek people, the areas they ruled historically, as well as the territory now composing the modern state of Greece.
  Christianity was first brought to the geographical area corresponding to modern Greece by the Apostle Paul, although the church's apostolicity also rests upon St. Andrew who preached the gospel in Greece and suffered martyrdom in Patras, Titus, Paul's companion who preached the gospel in Crete where he became bishop, Philip who, according to the tradition, visited and preached in Athens, Luke the Evangelist who was martyred in Thebes, Lazarus of Bethany, Bishop of Kition in Cyprus, and John the Theologian who was exiled on the island of Patmos where he received the Revelation recorded in the last book of the New Testament. In addition, the Theotokos is regarded as having visited the Holy Mountain in 49 AD according to tradition. Thus Greece became the first European area to accept the gospel of Christ. Towards the end of the 2nd century the early apostolic bishoprics had developed into metropolitan sees in the most important cities.
context_section_description: 1850 After tortuous and protracted negotiations, the Permanent Synod in Constantinople presided over by Patr. Anthimos IV of Constantinople recognised the Autocephaly of the Church of Greece; due to certain conditions issued in the "Tomos" decree, the Greek National Church must maintain special links to the "Mother Church".
  1852 By Law 201 (Grk.: ΣΑ') of 1852, the Greek government, ignoring reference to the Patriarchal Tome of 1850, revised certain articles of the Pharmakidis-Maurer Church constitution (of 1833), however without changing the Church's subjection to the state; liberal Greek theologian Theoklitos Pharmakidis, a proponent of the ideas of Adamantios Korais and the Greek Enlightenment, published The Synodal Tomos or Concerning Truth, a strong attack on the conditions found in the Tomos of Autocephaly of 1850, arguing that there was nothing uncanonical about the establishment set up in 1833, and stating that: "the Eastern Church is everywhere joined to the state, never being separated from it, never divided from the sovereigns since Byzantine times, and always subordinate to them."
  1853 At the start of the Crimean War (1853-1856), fought ostensibly over which church would be recognized as the "sovereign authority" of the Christian faith in the Holy Land and Russia's claim of protection over the Greek Christians in the Turkish Empire, the French Roman Catholic Abp. of Paris Marie-Dominique-Auguste Sibour stated that this was a holy war against the Orthodox.
  1854-1859 Piraeus was occupied by the Anglo-French fleet to ensure Greek neutrality during the Crimean War (1853–56) and to forestall Greek expansionist intentions.
  1855 The Holy Cross School of Jerusalem (Theological School of the Patriarchal Throne of Jerusalem) is founded under Patriarch Cyril II of Jerusalem, located at the Monastery of the Holy Cross, functioning for about fifty years with some interruptions (1855-1909).
  1856 Death of Neophytos Vamvas, Greek cleric and educator who had translated the Bible into Modern Greek.
  1857 Death of Konstantinos Oikonomos, by common consensus the most important 19th-century Greek churchman and theologian, being the only person to criticize the Bavarian regime on an intellectual level, and an implacable opponent of Pharmakidis' theological ideals, symbolizing Greece's ecclesiastical consciousness at that time; in March 1857, when Konstantinos III was still enthroned as the Greek Metropolitan of Trebizond, 150 Crypto-Christian village leaders of Kromni, Santa, Koasi and other regions went to the Panagia Theoskepastos Monastery in Trebizond, and inside the church took an oath to reveal their Christianity and remain faithful in the face of exile or death, thus openly declaring their Orthodox Christian faith.
  1857–66 J.P. Migne produces the  Patrologia Graeca  in 162 volumes, including both the Eastern Fathers and those Western authors who wrote before Ecclesiastical Latin became predominant in the Western Church in the 3rd century.
  1860 The Ottoman Government tries to intervene in Athonite affairs with a constitution drawn up by Hushni Pasha, the Governor of Thessaloniki.
  1863 George I enthroned as King of Greece, whose long reign (1863–1913) was the formative period for the development of Greece as a modern European state.
  1864 Holy Trinity Church (New Orleans, LA) becomes the first Orthodox parish to be established on American soil, by Greeks; the Ionian Islands (Eptanisa) are united with Greece, and were transferred in 1866 to the jurisdiction of the Greek Church from Constantinople.
  1865-94 Renowned Russian Byzantologist Archimandrite Antonin (Kapustin) heads the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in the Holy Land, under whose tenure the Mission significantly expanded its presence in Palestine, acquiring multiple properties in an effort to preserve Orthodox Christian holy places and care for the needs of the many pilgrims flocking to the region.
  1866 Beginning of the Great Cretan Revolution (1866–1869), officially proclaimed on 21 August 1866; the holocaust of Arkadi Monastery in Crete; charismatic Greek Orthodox lay t
caption: Saint Chrysostomos metropolitan of Smyrna (1910–1922).
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