ROMSO Cyprus Knowledge Base

“The wolf was hired to protect the sheep.”

This modern Greek phrase with the meaning “to make the goat a gardener” goes back to the Aesopian fable Der Wolf als Schäfer, which was also edited by the French fable poet Jean de La Fontaine, in which the German translation reads:

A wolf whose business in sheep is a bit lazy
Then, I think, I think,
It would be good, in another form, like a fox clever,
And only to appear disguised.

“Baptize them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.”

With these words, Jesus instituted baptism as a sacrament. The Gospel of Matthew ends with the so-called baptism or missionary command:

Baptism is assumed in the New Testament as something known. The Essenes also knew similar rites. The ritual washing was carried out regularly. Taufriten were carried out without public confession. However, the first of these washings was probably considered the official reception of a novice.

The baptismal formula “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” does not appear in the baptism counts of the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles of Paul. Where the baptism itself is described in more detail, the baptism formula is simply: “in the name of Jesus Christ”.

“The Kingdom of the Romans”

The Byzantine Empire also introduced the unofficial name, which was often shortened to Byzantium. This empire in the eastern Mediterranean, which was also called the Eastern Roman Empire due to its historical origin, originated in late antiquity from the eastern half of the Roman Empire, existed throughout the Middle Ages and ended with the conquest of Constantinople by the Ottomans in 1453.

The Eastern Roman Empire with its capital Constantinople (now Istanbul) remained constitutionally until the 15th century. The Greeks still call themselves rhomoi ("Romans"). The Catholic West preferred the term “empire of the Greeks” because the Orthodox Christians of the East who had reneged from the papacy were by no means attributed the heritage of the Roman Empire, but rather claimed it for themselves (e.g.: Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation), expressed in the coronation of the emperor by the pope and in the theory of the (transfer of the emperor’s dignity to the Franks). Conversely, the deceased (Western) Roman Empire was also referred to by the Byzantines as “Altrom” to emphasize their own succession as the New Rome.

Byzantines themselves spoken of the Greeks ( ), were always meant the pre-Christian Greeks of antiquity, often as with the Greek Fathers in the sense of pagans. The name "rum" ("Roman Empire") was also common among the inhabitants of the Muslim empires when the Byzantine Empire was meant.

The Urum are a small Turkic-speaking minority in the Caucasus, south-western Ukraine