Minorities in Greece: Aspects of a Plural Society

Greece has traditionally been one of the most ethnically and religiously homogeneous countries in the Balkans. In the census (1951) to record religious affiliation and mother tongue, 97 per cent of the population gave their religion as Orthodox Christian and 95 per cent their mother tongue as Greek. Yet there are small religious, linguistic and ethnic minorities in Greece, and the 1990s witnessed a large influx of foreigners, mostly from Eastern Europe, amounting to as much as 10 per cent of the native-born population. Little has been published in English hitherto on this subject. This book has chapters on, inter alia, the Old Calendarists, Catholocs, Evangelicals, Jews, Muslims, Armenians, Vlachs, Slavs and Sarakatsani.