Part ofa series on
Greeks
Etymology Greek names
By country Native communities Greece Cyprus Albania Italy Russia and Ukraine Turkey Greek diaspora Australia Melbourne Canada Toronto Germany United Kingdom United States
Groups by region Modern Greece: Macedonians Sarakatsani Maniots Tsakonians Constantinople and Asia Minor: Cappadocians Constantinopolitan Greeks Phanariots Karamanlides Pontic Caucasus Crimea Africa: Egyptiots Ethiopian Greeks Sudanese Greeks Other regions: Cypriots Griko Urums Other groups: Aromanians Arvanites Megleno-Romanians Slavophones Souliotes
Greek culture Art Cinema Cuisine Dance Dress Education Flag Language Literature Music Politics Religion Sport Television Theatre
Religion Greek Orthodox Church Greek Roman Catholicism Greek Byzantine Catholicism Greek Evangelicalism Judaism Islam Hellenism
Languages and dialects Greek: Australian Calabrian Cappadocian Constantinopolitan Cretan Cypriot Griko Hellenoromani Himariote Maniot Mariupol Pontic Tsakonian Yevanic Greeklish Other languages Aromanian Arvanitika Greek Sign Language Karamanli Turkish Megleno-Romanian Slavic Urum
History of Greece (Ancient ·Byzantine ·Ottoman)
v t e

TheGreeks in Syria arrived in the 7th century BC and became more prominent during theHellenistic period and when theSeleucid Empire was centered there. Today, there is a Greek community of about 4,500 inSyria, most of whom have Syrian nationality and who live mainly inAleppo (the country's main trading and financial centre),Baniyas,Tartous, andDamascus, the capital.^[1] There are also about 8,000Greek-speaking Muslims ofCretan origin inAl-Hamidiyah.

Greek presence is attested from early on, and in fact, thename of Syria itself is from a Greek word forAssyria.^[2]

The AncientLevant had been initially dominated by a number of indigenousSemitic speaking peoples; theCanaanites, theAmorites andAssyrians, in addition to Indo-European powers; theLuwians,Mitanni and theHittites. However, during the collapse of the Late Bronze Age, the coastal regions came under attack from a collection of nine seafaring tribes known as theSea Peoples. The transitional period is believed by historians to have been a violent, sudden and culturally disruptive time. During this period, the Eastern Mediterranean saw the fall of theMycenaean Kingdoms, the Hittite Empire in Anatolia and Syria,^[3] and theNew Kingdom of Egypt in Syria and Canaan.^[4]

Among the Sea Peoples were the first ethnic Greeks to migrate to the Levant. At least three of the nine tribes of the Sea Peoples are believed to have been ethnic Greeks; theDenyen,Ekwesh, and the Peleset, although some also include theTjeker. According to scholars, the Peleset were allowed to settle the coastal strip from Gaza to Joppa becoming thePhilistines. While the Denyen settled from Joppa to Acre, and the Tjeker in Acre. The political vacuum, which resulted from the collapse of the Hittite and Egyptian Empire's saw the rise of theSyro-Hittite states, the Philistine, andPhoenician Civilizations, and eventually theNeo-Assyrian Empire.

Al-Mina was aGreek trading colony.

The history of Greeks in Syria traditionally begins withAlexander the Great's conquest of thePersian Empire. In the aftermath of Alexander's death, his empire was divided into several successor states, and thus ushering in the beginning of the Hellenistic Age. For the Levant and Mesopotamia, it meant coming under the control ofSeleucus I Nicator and theSeleucid Empire. The Hellenistic period was characterized by a new wave of Greek colonization.^[5] Ethnic Greek colonists came from all parts of the Greek world, not, as before, from a specific "mother city".^[6] The main centers of this new cultural expansion of Hellenism in the Levant were cities like Antioch, and the other cities of theTetrapolis Seleukis. The mixture of Greek-speakers gave birth to a common Attic-based dialect, known asKoine Greek, which became the lingua franca throughout the Hellenistic world.

The Seleucid Empire was a major empire of Hellenistic culture that maintained the pre-eminence of Greek customs in which a Greek political elite dominated, in newly founded urban areas.^{[7][8][9][10]} The Greek population of the cities who formed the dominant elite were reinforced by emigration from Greece.^[7][8] The creation of new Greek cities were aided by the fact that the Greek mainland was overpopulated and therefore made the vast Seleucid Empire ripe for colonization. Apart from these cities, there were also a large number of Seleucid garrisons (choria), military colonies (katoikias) and Greek villages (komai) which the Seleucids planted throughout the empire to cement their rule.

Levantine Hellenism flourished under Roman rule in several regions, such as theDecapolis. Antiochians in the Northern Levant found themselves under Roman rule when Seleukeia was eventually annexed by the Roman Republic in 64 BC, by Pompey in the Third Mithridatic War.^[11] While those in the Southern Levant were absorbed gradually into the Roman State. Eventually, in 135 AD, after the Bar Kokhba revolt the North and South were merged into the Roman province ofSyria Palaestina, which existed until about 390.^[12] During its existence, the population of Syria Palaestina in the north consisted of a mixed Polytheistic population ofPhoenicians,Arameans andJews which formed the majority, as well as what remained of Greek colonists,Arab societies ofItureans, and later also theGhassanids. In the East, Arameans andAssyrians made up the majority. In the South,Samaritans,Nabateans andGreco-Romans made up the majority near the end of the 2nd century.

Throughout the Middle Ages,Byzantine Greeks self-identified as Romaioi or Romioi (Greek: Ῥωμαῖοι, Ρωμιοί, meaning "Romans") and Graikoi (Γραικοῖ, meaning "Greeks"). Linguistically, they spoke Byzantine or Medieval Greek, known as "Romaic"^[13] which is situated between the Hellenistic (Koine), and modern phases of the language.^[14] Byzantines, perceived themselves as the descendants of classical Greece,^[15][16][17] the political heirs of imperial Rome,^[18][19] and followers of the Apostles.^[15] Thus, their sense of "Romanity" was different from that of their contemporaries in the West. "Romaic" was the name of the vulgar Greek language, as opposed to "Hellenic" which was its literary or doctrinal form.^[20]

The Byzantine dominion in the Levant known as theDiocese of the East, was one of the major commercial, agricultural, religious, and intellectual areas of the Empire, and its strategic location facing the Sassanid Empire and the unruly desert tribes gave it exceptional military importance.^[21] The entire area of the former diocese came under Sassanid occupation between 609 and 628, but it was retaken by the Emperor Heraclius until its irreversible lost to the Arabs after theBattle of Yarmouk and the fall of Antioch.

The Arab conquest of Syria (Arabic: الفتح الإسلامي لبلاد الشام) occurred in the first half of the 7th century,^[22] and refers to the conquest of the Levant, which later became known as the Islamic Province ofBilad al-Sham. On the eve of the Arab Muslim conquests the Byzantines were still in the process of rebuilding their authority in the Levant, which had been lost to them for almost twenty years.^[23] At the time of the Arab conquest, Bilad al-Sham was inhabited mainly by local Aramaic-speaking Christians, Ghassanid and Nabatean Arabs, as well as Greeks, and by non-Christian minorities of Jews, Samaritans, and Itureans. The population of the region did not become predominantly Muslim and Arab in identity until nearly a millennium after the conquest.

In the Southern Levant, the Muslim Arab army approached Jerusalem in late 636 following the Byzantine defeat at Yarmouk. The city was besieged for several months. According to early Christian and Muslim sources, the Patriarch Sophronius agreed to surrender Jerusalem only to Caliph Umar, who traveled from Medina and received the capitulation in 637 or 638.^[24][25] The agreement connected to this event, commonly referred to as the Covenant of Umar in later texts, outlined the position of the Christian population, guaranteeing protection and continued religious practice in return for payment of the jizya tax.^[26]

At the time of the Arab conquest, Jerusalem’s population was mainly Christian, including Greek and local Christian communities.^[27] In the wider region of Palestine, scholarly research shows that the population in the 6th and 7th centuries was predominantly Christian, with Jewish and Samaritan minorities. While some modern claims state that Jews formed a majority of the population of Palestine at the time of the Arab conquest, or that they numbered between 300,000 and 400,000, historians note that there is no evidence supporting this. Modern scholarship consistently indicates that the population of Palestine in the 6th and 7th centuries was predominantly Christian, with Jewish and Samaritan minorities.^[28][29][30]

Following the conquest, the region experienced a gradual process of Arabization and Islamization. Cultural change in Palestine unfolded slowly rather than through abrupt replacement. Arab military settlers and tribal groups established garrisons and administrative centers, which introduced Arabic language and customs into local society. Under the Umayyads, Arabic became the official administrative language, replacing Greek and Syriac in government use. These changes helped spread Arabic among the local population. Conversion to Islam remained gradual, influenced by administrative opportunities, intermarriage, and social integration rather than coercion. Christian and Jewish communities continued to exist throughout the early Islamic period, and the region’s demographic and cultural transformation took shape over several generations.^[31]

Damascus has been home to an organized Greek community since 1913, but there are also significant numbers ofGreek Muslims originally from Ottoman Crete who have been living in several coastal towns and villages of Syria and Lebanon since the late Ottoman era. They were resettled there by SultanAbdul Hamid II following theGreco-Turkish War in 1897–98, in which the Ottoman Empire lost Crete to the Kingdom of Greece. The most notable but still understudiedCretan Muslim village in Syria isal-Hamidiyah, many of whose inhabitants continue to speak Greek as their first language. There, of course, is also a significant Greco-Syrian population inAleppo as well as smaller communities inLatakia,Tartus andHoms.^[1]

There are about 8,000 Greek-speaking Muslims of Cretan origin inAl-Hamidiyah,Syria.^[32] Greek Muslims constitute a majority ofAl-Hamidiyah's population.^[32] By 1988, many Greek Muslims from bothLebanon andSyria had reported being subject to discrimination by the Greek embassy because of their religious affiliation. The community members would be regarded with indifference and even hostility and would be denied visas and opportunities to improve their Greek through trips to Greece.^[32]

Because of theSyrian Civil War, many Muslim Greeks sought refuge in nearbyCyprus and even some went to their original homeland of Crete, yet they are still considered as foreigners.^[33]

• Greece–Syria relations
• Greek diaspora
• Ethnic groups in Syria
• Syrians in Greece
• Antiochian Greek Christians
• Greeks in Armenia
• Greeks in Israel
• Greeks in Lebanon
• Greeks in Turkey

• Antiochian Greeks
• Ethnic groups in Syria
• Greek diaspora in the Middle East
• Greek diaspora by country
• Persecution of Christians in the Ottoman Empire
• Syrian people of Greek descent
• Greece–Syria relations

• Webarchive template wayback links
• Webarchive template other archives
• Articles with short description
• Short description matches Wikidata
• "Related ethnic groups" needing confirmation
• Articles using infobox ethnic group with image parameters
• Short description is different from Wikidata