I have no doubt that Orthodox Christians have great Faith and have suffered much for that Faith. As for Orthodox Faith, I very much like reading Orthodox theologians. I have learned a great deal from them.
I am very glad you brought up the subject of suffering. What great martyr's blood was Hagia Sophia built upon? I know that St. Peter's basilica in Rome is built on the tomb of St. Peter who was crucified for the Faith. On that blood has resurrected the greatest edifice in Christendom. What great martyr suffered on the spot where Hagia Sophia was built?
I keep asking myself why Hagia Sophia is a former mosque and now a museum in a Muslim country. The only answer I can come up with is that it was built on the ego of a Roman Emperor rather than the blood and suffering of a great Martyr. There is no rock there for the foundation, only sand.
I don't understand what is more admirable about suffering under Islamic oppression than suffering under Roman Catholic oppression. But Orthodox Christians have a long history of preferring civil rule by Muslims rather than Catholics (if you can call that rule civil.)
Most of Eastern Europe would most likely still be Muslim territory without the armed forces of Catholic lands liberating it, and to a lesser extent the efforts of Protestants. The Orthodox in Greece would never have liberated themselves without military aid from non-Orthodox Christians.
I have no doubt that Orthodox Christians have suffered a great deal for the Faith. Perhaps they will have to suffer a great deal more before Hagia Sophia is Christian once again.
“What great martyr suffered on the spot where Hagia Sophia was built?”
One of my ancestresses who was raped and killed, along with countless other women, before the altar at Agia Sophia on that night in May 1453 when the Mohammedan Turks broke in during the final Divine Liturgy and raped and slaughtered their way through the nave, that’s who!
“Most of Eastern Europe would most likely still be Muslim territory without the armed forces of Catholic lands liberating it, and to a lesser extent the efforts of Protestants. The Orthodox in Greece would never have liberated themselves without military aid from non-Orthodox Christians.”
Really? Tell that canard to the Serbs, the Bulgarians and the Romanians. As for military aid to Greece, you mean at one sea battle or the few soldiers of fortune who came down to tell us how to fight and end up knifed for trying to sleep with one of our women? Frankly, s, your good Christian armed forces are far more noted in Greece for standing by while the Turks slaughtered 250,000 Orthodox Christians in Smyrna in 1922 than for any assistance they gave us in the War of Independence!