CRETE

CRETE. The largest island and southernmost territory of modern Greece (q.v.), and also one of the latest to be added to that country’s sovereignty (1912). Site of an ancient church claiming apostolic foundation in the Pauline epistle to Titus, at present the Church of Crete is an autonomous jurisdiction, dependent on the Ecumenical Patriarch (q.v.) for recognition of its primate. Its eight dioceses otherwise function quite independently. The survival of this local church is remarkable in view of the long occupations by foreign powers-the Arabs from 824 to 961, Venice from 1204 to the 16th c., and the Ottoman Empire (q.v.) down to the 20th c.