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No matter how much you want to beat around the bush, the fact remains that you were dealing with a Greek Empire defined by its culture, different from Roman, a language which was very clearly and definitely not Latin, and a religion..GREEK Orthodox which was differentiated from the Western traditions of its Latin descendants.
Armenia was not part of Byzantium but a buffer state between Byzantium and the Muslims, with its own language, religion (the Armenian monophysitic was considered heretic in Byzantium), and its own army.
The Byzantine Empire did not discriminate race or extraction. Much like America did not discriminate when it elected a half African (Obama) as its president. I am sure you wouldn't argue that the character of USA is Kenyan because Obama's father is.
In England there are people from India, Pakistan etc. The mayor of London is of Pakistani extraction. Does anybody questions the fact that he doesn't live in England? or that the character of the state is not English?
Leo III from a Byzantine province, or Syria if you like, or was Hellenized completely in the Byzantine tradition or else wouldn't have gotten on the throne in Constantinople. or in the case of John I Tsimiskis being of Armenian background, these emperors were completely Hellenized and their religion was that of Greek Orthodox and not of Armenian Orthodox of the monophysite doctrine, which was considered heretic in the Byzantine empire. They were so Armenian that did not even follow the religion and customs of other Armenians.
Some of the Roman emperors were not also actual Romans either, (Iberians, Syrians, Illyrians etc.) but the empire was still Roman. Therefore one could not make the assumption because 3-4 emperors were of different ancestry the Byzantine empire was not Greek, or that the Roman empire was not Roman because some of its emperors were not actual Romans but just Romanized ones f.ex of Iberian background.
One of the Kings of England in modern times (I think his name was George) was brought from Germany and didn't even speak English, yet the empire was still Brittish. In the middle ages some of the kings in England from the Platagenetes spoke only French, yet they were kings of England.
When the Empire was very large it included Emperors from various regions, but after the loss of these regions you begin to see that the majority of the Emperors after the 6-7th century are of Greek extraction.
And all emperors had a Greek cultural conscious, no matter the descent, they defend greek culture civilization in which the single citizen is very important, to their economy, army, society. As you can see your arguments to describe the Byzantine Empire as not Greek, don't really hold water.
The Byzantine Empire justifiable is considered the Greek empire of the Middle Ages. Greeks still used the word Romios/Romioi for prestigious reasons, which strictly translated means Roman-like in Greek, instead of the word Romaios which means outrght Roman. This thing confuses a lot of people thinking that the Byzantine empire was actally Roman when in reality it was not.
The word Romios (singular) and Romioi (plural) was used extensively even by the modern Hellenes (Greeks) to describe themselves or addressing each other, meaning in reality Greek/Hellene. It came down from the Byzantine period. By the 3rd–7th century AD the Greeks referred to themselves as Romaioi (Romans) or Romioi since virtually all Greeks were Roman citizens.
The word Romiosini is still beng used today in Greece to describe the Greek ethnicity and identity and is not in any way implying the actual Roman ethnicity or identity. The Armenians or Slavs never referred to themselves as Romaioi, only Greeks did.
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