ABSTRACT
The long history of Greece, from pre-classical antiquity to the present, makes the question of its identity in modem times a particularly complex and debated issue. Having produced, in ancient, classical and Hellenistic times, a great civilization of its own upon which a substantial part of modem European civilization rests, Greece has the rightful claim to be and feel quintessentially European. Yet, modem Greece is also heir to the Christian Byzantine civilization which, for the greater part of the middle ages and up to the present day has been in tension with western, Latin Christianity. Thus Hellenism and Orthodox Christianity combined and in synthesis or in conflict and in tension, according to the historical socio-economic and political circumstances, constitute the basis of modem Greek identity and have often divided it.
