Changes

The Church of Greece was formed after a portion of the present day nation won its independence from the [[Ottoman empire]] in the 1820s and received [[Autocephaly|autocephalous]] status from the [[Church of Constantinople]] in the mid 1800s. This area included the southern part of the peninsula of Greece consisting mainly of the Peloponnese peninsula and included Athens and Attica and some of the Greek islands. Following the Balkan Wars in the first decades of the twentieth century, Greece grew, adding to the nation of Greece the territories in Epirus, Macedonia, and Thrace, referred to as the New Lands, many of the islands in the Aegean Sea, and the island of Crete. However, ecclesiastical jurisdiction over most of these territories remained with the Church of Constantinople. Following World War II, the Dodecanese Islands in the southern part of the Aegean Sea also became part of the nation of Greece but ecclesiastically remained under the jurisdiction of the Church of Constantinople.

During the period following World War I, agreements were reached among the Ecumenical Patriarchate, the Church of Greece, and the Government of Greece concerning the News Lands in which the New Lands remained within the jurisdiction of the Church of Constantinople but de facto were made part of the Church of Greece for administration under an agreement between the churches of Athens and Constantinople and under which the Ecumenical Patriarch is commemorated. <ref>[http://www.ec-patr.org/docdisplay.php?lang=en&id=290&tla=en Commemoration of the Name of the Bishop during the Divine Liturgy]</ref>

Thus, the structure of the Orthodox Church within the nation of Greece is divided into three categories:

*that part fully under the jurisdiction of the Church of Greece as the '''Archdiocese of Athens''',