The movement of people to and from Greece and its neighbors in the Mediterranean, especially in the Middle East and North Africa, has been widespread since antiquity. Due to the historical and cultural connections between countries in the region, there are Greek communities usually throughout the region, especially in Egypt.
There have been Greeks living in Egypt for thousands of years now, contributing to the country’s culture, history and society, but many have been forced to flee the country since the Egyptian Revolution of 1952.
Many prominent figures of the modern period, such as the poet Constantine Cavafy, and countless ancient scientists, rulers, and philosophers, such as Cleopatra, Hypatia, and Ptolemy, were Greeks living in Egypt.
At present, the once prosperous Greek community has shrunk to just 5,000, but some historians argue that this number does not represent the actual number of Greeks living in the country, as many have officially changed their nationality since the Revolution as reported by etsimagazin.com.
A large number of Greek-Egyptians left the country to return to Greece or to find other opportunities in Europe and America.
Syria is another historic home for the Greeks
Today, there are about 12,500 Greeks living in the country, 8,000 of whom come from Greek Muslims from the island of Crete when it was under Turkish rule. The vast majority of this Greek-speaking Muslim community lives in the village of Al-Hamidiyah on the border with Lebanon.
There are, however, a large number of Greek Orthodox Christians in Syria, who live with the relatively large Arab Christian community in Syria. There is also a Greek language school in Damascus, the capital of Syria. The actual number of Greeks living in Syria is unclear, however, due to the country’s violent civil war.
