His Holiness Pope John Paul, at Methodius' tomb in Czechoslovakia on April 22 1990, declared that these two isapostolic monks of Thessaloniki in Macedonia had blazed the trail for the Greek and Byzantine tradition in Europe ant it was to them that the Slavs owed their Christianity. In an encyclical in 1980, John Paul had already pronounced "the Greek brothers" Cyril and Methodius "divine patrons of Europe" (see Document No 19).

Skopjan historians and politicians have had the audacity ever since 1944 - and more recently in the FYROM' school textbooks printed for 1992-93 - to claim that the ancient Macedonians, Alexander the Great, the Prolemies, and Cyril and Methodius were not Greeks, indirectly claiming for themselves links with the great deeds of the Macedonian personalities as cited above. (see Document No 5)

Such allegations which undermine the very foundations of contemporary civilization, are offensive not only to the Greek people, but to anyone with the most rudimentary knowledge of history, to any honest person cherishing truth.

Macedonia is the home of the unique monastic community of Mount Athos, which was founded in AD 863. This ark of Hellenism and the Orthodox Christian faith is represented by twenty principal monasteries, 121 Skites (lesser monastic establishments), 1,700 buildings, 100,000 m2 of frescoed surfaces, 15,000 icons and 15,000 manuscripts both illustrated (Martis The falsification of Macedonian History)

To recognize the people of FYROM as "Macedonians", given their claim that the ancient Macedonians, Alexander, the Ptolemies, the Seleucids, and even Cyril and Methodius were not Greeks, would lead to such absurdities as, for instance:

1. Should we consider not Greek but Slav the Macedonian Former President of the Hellenic Republic, Mr. Constantine Karamanlis, and some three million Greek Macedonians throughout the world, who are proud to bear, as Greeks, the Macedonian name?
2. Should we give a new name to the Hellenistic Period (336-30 BC) and, thencefore, call it the FYROMian Period?
3. Should we "slavicise" in our history books the Macedonian Ptolemy I (who built the Library of Alexandria and preserved the works of the ancient Greek philosophers for posterity), Ptolemy II (who translated the Bible into Greek), and Ptolemy V (whose vow on the Rosetta stone, now preserved in the British Museum, is in Greek, Egyptian and hieroglyphics)?
4. Should more credence be given to Skopje's distorters of history than to the Old and New Testament texts and the works of ancient Greek, Roman, and Jewish writers who identify the Macedonians as Greeks?
5. How should we identify the Macedonian masses who watched Greek comedies tragedies and- presented in the Greek language, of course, in Macedonia's ancient theaters at Dion, Vergina, Philippi, and Thassos. Were they FYROMians, i.e. new style "Macedonians"?
6. Was the "man of Macedonia" who appeared in AD 50 to St. Paul in a vision in Troy in Asia Minor and spoke to him in Greek (acts 16:9) not a Greek?
7. Are St. Paul and Silas - who, as we are told in Acts 17:4, 12, en- Intered Greek men and women in Thessaloniki and Beroea - to be contradicted?
8. Is more credence to be given to Skopje than to three Popes who categorically stated that St. Cyril and Methodius were Greeks, i.e. 1. (ACTA) PIUS p.p.xi, 13.2.1927, 2. (ACTA) IOANNIS p.p.xxiii, 11.05.1963 and 3. Pope John Paul, who, since 1980, has repeatedly confirmed, it despite Skopje's claim of ethnic ownership of these two famous Greek Byzantine personalities? Is Mr. Gligorov to be condoned for his unseemly conduct in attempting to mislead world opinion from the United Nations rostrum with his statement that "Christianity was the Macedonian people's gift to the Slavs"? (see Document No 20).

   I have already cited that in both the Epistola Enciclica and in 1990 the Pope himself declared in Moravia that if the Slavs became Christians they owed it to the two Greek monks from Thessaloniki.

9. When the Romans minted coins bearing the name "Macedonia", with Greek lettering and Macedonian emblems, were they influenced in doing this by the non-Greek ancestors of FYROM?
10. The very fact that the ancient Greek gods were perceived by ancient Greeks to have their home on the Macedonian Mount Olympus laughs to scorn the claim of FYROM' politicians and authors that the ethnic boundaries of their pseudo-Macedonian nation extend to the top of Mount Olympus. Should we deduce that the identity of the Greek "12 Gods" run the risk of being appropriated by the authorities of the new "Macedonian Republic of Skopje"?
11. The Macedonian language: Skopje's claim that the ancient Macedonians' language was not Greek is preposterous. The National Research Center in Athens has collected and published 5,000 Greek inscriptions from Macedonia. We challenge Mr. Gligorov and all those who thoughtlessly accept Tito's fabrication of a "Macedonian language" to produce just one inscription in this supposed ancient "Macedonian, non-Greek" tongue- and we will give them the name of Macedonia.