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website=[http://www.ecclesia.gr/ Church of Greece]
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The '''Church of Greece''' , also called the '''Greek Orthodox Church''', is one of the most important of the fourteen [[autocephaly|autocephalous]] churches of the Orthodox Christian communion , whose territory consists of the whole of Greece except for those parts which belong to the [[Patriarchate of Constantinople]], such as the Dodecanese and [[Archdiocese of Crete|Crete]]. Though bishops of the "new lands" (those that were liberated from 1912 and afterwards) are members of the [[Holy Synod]] of the Church of Greece, they refer to the Patriarch of Constantinople in the divine services.
The current [[primate]] of the Church of Greece is His Beatitude 2008, [[Ieronymos II (Liapis) of Athens|Ieronymos II (Liapis)]], Archbishop of Athens and All Greece.
==History==
During the Byzantine Empire and the subsequent Turkish occupation of Greece, the Christian church in Greece was under the administration of the [[Ecumenical Patriarch|ecumenical]] [[Patriarch of Constantinople|patriarch]] of [[Patriarchate of Constantinople|Constantinople]]. After the [[w:Greek War of Independence]] (1821-32), the provisional president of Greece Ioannis Kapodistrias, began negotiations with the patriarch for the independence of the Greek church. The final decision was made when Otto I, the new king of Greece, feared the Turkish government might still be able to influence the politics of Greece through the patriarchate of Constantinople and as such the Greek church was declared autocephalous in 1833. The independence was formalised by Constantinople in 1850, with some limitations specified in the "Tomos".
===Timeline of Greek Church==
* ca.47-48 [[Apostle Paul]]'s mission to Cyprus.
* ca.49 Paul's mission to Philippi, Thessaloniki and Veria.
