A few days ago was the anniversary of the fall of Constantinople (29 May, 1453), the capital of the Christian Eastern Roman Empire, or if you like the Byzantine Empire as it was coined by a French news reporter many decades ago.

As always this is a day of remembrance and reflection and many modern day historians write articles on this topic. One such articles was written in the leading Greek newspaper of Australia Neos Kosmos of the English edition by one of these guest historian writers. Normally I would hesitate to criticise an article in our newspapers, but when I see an article blatantly commit historical censorship by omission and sugar coating some very important aspects of history concerning our Hellenic people and ancestors, I cannot but feel a certain anger and disappointment.

Therefore I ask the editor of the English edition to allow me the right of reply with this letter to the editor.

Here I feel obligated to point out what was not stated or reported in this article.

Sometime about 315 AD to 325 AD the Roman Emperor and his government made the decision to accept the ancient Hellenic religion and the Christian religion to co-exist legally. However at the insistence of Christian agitation and violence towards the pagan Hellenic world of the empire after 325 AD, precedence was given to Christianity and not long afterwards the Hellenic religion was outlawed and banned.

READ MORE: How to talk to your kids about Byzantium

As time marched on more and more harsh and inhuman decrees and edicts were put into place against the Hellenic religion and its followers, resulting in the Holocaust of about 19 million Hellenes and Hellenized people who refused to convert to Christianity. First they had their properties confiscated and they lost all their privileges and political rights, then if they did not conform they were horribly tortured. If they still refused to convert to Christianity, they were executed.

To bring about the total Christianisation of the Hellenic people, this Byzantine empire banned the (Ancient Greek) Hellenic religion, it demolished temples and built church buildings on top of them, (using the materials from these destroyed temples), and it also destroyed ancient Greek statues.

Furthermore this Byzantine empire set about demolishing the Hellenic libraries and burning books, they banned and demolished all the Hellenic philosophical schools, they banned the theatre, singing and dancing and they also banned the Olympic Games.

Eventually a decree was issued forbidding people to say they were Hellenes (this law remained in place until the fall of Constantinople in 1453 A.D.), if anyone was caught defying this law, the punishment was the death penalty. This is how everyone eventually over time was brainwashed into declaring that they were Romans or Rommie (Romioi).

READ MORE: “Greeks. Romioi. Greek Australians”; Who are we now?

From the time Greece came under Roman occupation in 146 BC, both the Latin language and Greek language were widely used and recognised. However, later on in the Christian Eastern Roman Empire, where the Greek language was known and used by the great majority of the population, the Greek language in 600 AD became the official language of the Christian Eastern Roman Empire.

In summary, this is what the Christians of the Christian Eastern Roman Empire from the 4th century AD onward did to the Hellenic people.

The first step to exterminating a nation:

Is to delete its memory,
to destroy its books,
its culture, religion and history.
Then put somebody to write new books,
to build a new culture, to devise a new religion,
to devise a new history.
It will not take long for
this nation to begin
to forget who it is and what it was.
The rest of the world around it,
will forget it even faster.