Athens responded strongly to Ankara’s objections over the historical map given by General Dimitrios Choupis, Chief of the Hellenic National Defense General Staff, to Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew during his recent visit to Constantinople.
The Ministry of Defense stated via sources that the gift had a purely symbolic character, and described Turkey’s reaction as “ludicrous.”
According to military sources, the map presented by General Choupis to the Patriarch is the “Thraciae Veteris Typus” (1585) by Flemish cartographer and geographer Abraham Ortelius. The map depicts the broader geographical region of Thrace, including the Dardanelles Strait, the Sea of Marmara, the Bosporus, Constantinople, the Black Sea, and the islands of Imbros (Gökçeada), Tenedos (Bozcaada), Lemnos, Samothrace, and Thasos.
“The map was chosen as a symbolic gift for His All-Holiness because it depicts his homeland, Imbros,” the same sources noted, adding pointedly that Turkey’s displeasure over a 16th-century map is at the very least perplexing — especially coming from a country that continues to invoke the legally baseless “Blue Homeland” map in 2025.
Ministry Statement on Turkey’s Protest
“For Turkey’s Ministry of Defense to protest over a map from that historical period, while still promoting the so-called ‘Blue Homeland’ map in 2025, borders on absurdity,” sources from the Greek Defense Ministry emphasized.
Turkey’s Reaction
It is worth noting that General Choupis’ act of gifting the map during his visit to the Phanar, on the sidelines of the 18th Meeting of Chiefs of Defense of Balkan Countries, provoked a reaction from Turkey’s Ministry of Defense, according to Turkish media reports such as the newspaper Sözcü.
Unnamed Turkish defense officials accused the gesture of being an “instrumentalization of the past”, claiming that such actions are nothing more than “nostalgic consolations” and urged Greek officials to “understand and accept the facts.”
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