I was listening to a popular greek song called "Frangosyriani" which means "Franco-girl from Syros". Franco is another way for saying Catholic/western. The French and Italians came and conquered this island and apparently this greek island came to be known as the "Pope's Island". The island is now half orthodox, half catholic. Perhaps it is this island which makes up the majority of greece's 0.5% non-orthodox population (with muslims ans jews also included). Also, the music, language, and dances, of some historically greek islands near the coast of italy resemble more italian and western european forms than something the average greek would expect.
I was wondering if the Greek Orthodox church in Greece ever sought out to re-evangelise/ re-convert these orthodox people or have they given up on that? I've also heard that eventually the natives of these islands have hellenised their names from italian- which means that their names were originally latin-origin and thus catholic. UNLESS they were greeks who FIRST Latinised their names for aesthetic/political purposes and then re-hellenised their names again.
"With the foundation of the Greek State the Catholic population of the island were Hellenized and changed their Latin family names to Greek. The family name Vuccino to Voutsinos, Russo to Roussos, Vacondio to Vakondios..." (wikipedia)
"Because of the Venetian domination from the Middle Ages onwards, the islanders were once exclusively Roman Catholic. However, due to immigration from other islands, Catholics now constitute some 40% of the population.The great majority of the population are Greek Orthodox. They live side by side very peacefully. Intermarriage between denominations is very common in Syros."- from wikipedia (not that I believe it biblewise).
