Greeks in Syria - Present Situation

Present Situation

Damascus has been home to an organized Greek community since 1913, although there are also significant numbers of Greek 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 Sultan Hamid II following the 1897-8 Greek-Turkish war, in which the Ottoman empire lost the island of Crete to the Kingdom of Greece. The most notable but still understudied Cretan Muslim village in Syria is al-Hamidiyah, many of whose inhabitants continue to speak Greek as their first language. There of course is also a significant Greco-Syrian population in Aleppo, as well as smaller communities in Latakia, Tartus and Homs. As with most other ethnic minorities in Syria, most Greco-Syrian Orthodox Christians speak Arabic only, along with a school-taught foreign language such as French or English; however, a working or rudimentary knowledge of Greek for liturgical purposes as well as among older, particularly first and second-generation, individuals, is relatively widespread. Damascus has a private Greek-language school as well for the community that is maintained by guest instructors from Greece.