In this study, the author sought documents, archives, evidence, and literature from various sources in order to delve into the historical reality of Asia Minor, starting with events that occurred almost a millennium ago concerning the transformation of the local Christians into "Turks" and "Muslims" (highlighted by recent revelations about the origins of many prominent officials and politicians in Turkey, such as Erdoğan, Kemal himself, and even Mehmed II the Conqueror).

All of these elements, as well as the living conditions of minorities in Turkey, lead us to the conclusion that all the old and alienated inhabitants of Asia Minor are waiting for and seeking the light in Phanar and Orthodoxy to reestablish their own NEW BYZANTIUM, alongside the now-conscious Ottomans. These peoples, who are the peoples of Asia Minor and are by no means Turks, have the right to self-identify, nationally and religiously, as they wish.

It was a winter day in November 1991 when, as a young lieutenant colonel, I arrived in Ankara in my capacity as the Military Attaché of the Greek Embassy. My father, Stergios, born in 1914 in Charioupoli of Eastern Thrace, to a Sfakian father and an Eastern Thracian mother, used to describe to me in his fairy tales a beloved and blessed place; however, outside the world of childhood dreams, questions lingered about whether I should continue to love it.

I wanted to ascertain for myself whether, after the uprooting caused by the Asia Minor Catastrophe, there were still remnants of the Greeks and the peoples of Asia Minor, or if only shattered marbles had remained. I stayed for three years, and in the summer of 1998, I returned to Ankara as the Defense Attaché, now carrying not my childhood fairy tales in my luggage but knowledge of modern Turkey and the certainty that around me there were and are all the peoples who have inhabited this place for many thousands of years.

Thus, the idea was born to approach the subject in more detail, starting from the Battle of Manzikert (1071) up to the present day, in the year of our Lord 2012, and to strengthen my love for the inhabitant of today's Turkey, but with questions about the rising neo-Ottomanism that grips those who continue to challenge friendships, values, and closeness.