Flying Greek Orthodox Church Flag

Description of the animation: The yellow with a black crowned double-headed eagle flag, was the symbol of the Paleologues, the last Greek-speaking "Roman" (i.e. Byzantine) dynasty to rule from Constantinople. Emperor Michael VIII Paliologos recaptured Constantinople from the Crusaders in 1261, from a state based in Asia Minor; the double-headed eagle symbolized the dynasty's interests in both Asia and Europe, and was kept despite the fact that virtually all of the Asian possessions were gobbled up by the Ottomans within a generation of the recapture of the City. Michael's descendants stayed on the Byzantine throne until the City and the Empire fell to the Ottomans in 1453.

       This flag had in the two centuries of Paleologan rule become identified not just with the dynasty but with the Empire itself and, more generally, with institutions and cultural ideas outside the Byzantine Empire that still remained centered on Constantinople. Read more . . .

• View more double-headed eagles belonging to the church of Greece

       Greek Orthodox Churches are united in communion with each other, as well as with the Russian Orthodox Church and other smaller Eastern Orthodox Churches. The Eastern Orthodox hold a common doctrine and a common form of worship, and they see themselves not as separate Churches but as administrative units of one single Church. They are notable for their extensive tradition of iconography (see also: Byzantine art), for their veneration of the Mother of God and the Saints, and for their use of the Divine Liturgy on Sundays, which is a standardized worship service dating back to the fourth century A.D. in its current form. The most commonly used Divine Liturgy of the Orthodox Church was written by Saint John Chrysostom (347–407 A.D.).

       The current territory of the Greek Orthodox Churches more or less covers the areas in the Balkans, Anatolia, and the Eastern Mediterranean that used to be a part of the Byzantine Empire. The majority of Greek Orthodox Christians live within Greece, the region of Northern Epirus in southern Albania, and elsewhere in the southern Balkans, but also in Cyprus, Anatolia, European Turkey, and the South Caucasus.

       There are also many Greek Orthodox Christians, with origins dating back to the Byzantine and Ottoman periods, who are of Arabic-speaking or mixed Greek and Arabic-speaking ancestry and live in southern Turkey, Israel, Palestine, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Egypt. They attend churches which conduct their services in Arabic, the common language of most Greek Orthodox believers in the Levant, while at the same time maintaining elements of the Byzantine Greek cultural tradition.

       Ethnic Greeks in Russia and Greeks in Ukraine, as well as Pontic Greeks and Caucasus Greeks from the former Russian Transcaucasus, often consider themselves both Greek Orthodox and Russian Orthodox, which is consistent with the Orthodox faith (since Orthodoxy is equal across ethnic boundaries). Thus, they may attend services held in Old Russian and Old Church Slavonic, without this in any way undermining their Orthodox faith or distinct Greek ethnic identity. Over the centuries, these Pontic Greek-speaking Greek Orthodox communities have mixed through intermarriage in varying degrees with ethnic Russians and other Orthodox Christians from mainly Southern Russia, where most of them settled between the Middle Ages and early 19th century. Read more . . . 

• The official website of the Church of Greece
• Anagnosis Books Greek Church Pages
• Map of Old & New Lands (Greek)
• Article on the Church of Greece by Ronald Roberson on the CNEWA website

      All flag animations are made by the staff at our blog and are created with graphics attributed to the public domain at both Wikipedia and by some visitors that have requested that flag animations be made for their own Denominations or church groups.
       To read about how we make the flags go the the index page. To request animated flags for your own church:

• Visit your churches denominational pages to request that they contact our gallery staff via email to make inquiries about including their own versions on our web pages. Many logos are copyrighted and are only free to use under special permissions. So if you do not see your Denomination's flag represented here, it may be because it has not been filed at Wikipedia under "fair use" or tagged as public domain.
• If your flag design is for a church youth group or a missions organization we will make the animation for you. However, if we make it, it will be included on this blog for others to download.
• There are no fees for the making of flag animations.
• You may contact Kathy Grimm at pickandprintgallery@yahoo.com and she will pass on the information.