Note: The following is an Imperial Communiqé required by law to be published by The Imperial Tribune. For any matters pertaining to the belo...
Note: The following is an Imperial Communiqé required by law to be published by The Imperial Tribune. For any matters pertaining to the below, inquiries can be made at this link and the official X handle.
E M M A N U E L
In Christ the God faithful Basileus and Autokrator of the Romans, Afentoulis, Rex of Mouzilo, Tsar of Ashukovo, Duke of Pangration, Duke of Thessalia, Duke of Ovrestlia, Boiar of Codru & c.
I M P E R I A L
C O M M U N I Q U É
On Certain Misrepresentations Concerning the Continuity, Policy, and Dignity of the Basileia of the Romans
Promulgated by the Authority of His Orthodox Imperial & Royal Majesty Emmanuel I & II Basileus and Autokrator of the Romans
Nea Assukovia (Novo Ashukovo), the first day of September, being the New Year of the Romans, Anno Domini MMXXVI, Anno Mundi ͵ΖΦΛΕʹ
ON THIS DAY, the first of September, when the Roman year is renewed and the Indiction begins, the Basileia of the Romans greets the new year from Hagiopolis. As the calendar of the Empire turns, the Throne speaks not in festival rhetoric alone, but in the language of record: that the State stands, that its law is in force, and that the year now opening shall be met with the same composure with which the years behind it were governed.
LET IT BE KNOWN to all who concern themselves with the affairs of the Basileia of the Romans, whether within the sphere of micronational discourse or beyond it, that the Throne has observed, with composure and without haste, a campaign of misinformation directed against this State and its institutions.
This campaign has become more apparent over the course of the months since March of the present year. It has proceeded by implication rather than by open and honourable statement; by suggestion rather than by proof; and by the misreading of silence as if silence were surrender.
The Basileia does not name persons. It does not stoop to catalogue particular publications, nor does it dignify rumour with a point-by-point refutation. Those who have chosen to speak in riddles already know the meaning of their own words. Those who have chosen to listen to them are invited, instead, to hear the voice of the State itself. This State has stood since the year 2012. It has seen such manoeuvres before — insinuations, appropriations, the mistaking of quiet for death. It is more than experienced in them. It regards the present attempt, as it has regarded those that came before it, with the laughter proper to an old house that has outlived many seasons of noise.
It has not escaped the Throne that certain voices which now affect to mock the Roman and Byzantine inheritance of this State once declared that inheritance enviable, and this Basileia a beacon of it in the micronational world. The words remain on the record of those who wrote them. Consistency is not required of pamphleteers. It is required of a State.
It shall therefore be recorded, once and for all, that the apparent online inactivity of Rhōmanía over the past several years is not an accident of neglect, nor a confession of decline, nor a vacuum into which others may pour invention. It is a deliberate act, adopted and maintained since at least the years 2022 and 2023. The Basileia has long pursued an isolationist policy. That policy is a choice of sovereignty, not a symptom of absence. It is the right of an imperial State to withdraw from the noise of the marketplace of vanities, to labour without applause, and to speak only when speech is required.
Let none take that withdrawal for weakness. The Empire that does not advertise itself at every hour is not an Empire that has ceased to exist. Many developments have taken place in this period, both offline and online, in the quiet of administration and in the patience of construction. Among these, and by way of a single and sufficient example, stands the building and self-hosting of the next government website upon a purchased domain. That work was not undertaken for ornament. A third individual has attempted to gain access to, and to damage, the government websites and news websites of Rhōmanía. Self-hosting upon a domain purchased and held by the State is the answer to that attempt: that the archives, the gazette, and the public face of the Basileia shall not again depend upon the courtesy of strangers. That work, and others like it, has proceeded without petition for notice. The State builds. It does not perform.
Unlike the greater part of those entities styled micronations, Rhōmanía advances no outlandish, hilarious, or childish pretensions: no fabricated dominion over lands in which no control exists, and no court of fictional persons. The whole territory of the Basileia — land, buildings, and all else held under the Crown — is the entire and legal possession of House Afentoulis and of its branches. The House and the Throne reserve the right to place further such private property under Crown control. Those areas are, in practice and in fact, self-administered. The Empire is the collection of those self-administered territories, and nothing in its constitution requires it to claim what it does not hold.
It must further be recorded that the Throne has known, for no fewer than two years, that a particular individual — once counted among the allies of this State — has attempted, during the period of deliberate withdrawal, to hijack the project of Rhōmanía and to dispose of it as if it were vacant property. That attempt was observed. It was not authorised. It did not succeed. Silence was not consent, and absence from public channels was not abandonment of title. No former associate, however once honoured, possesses the right to assume the Basileia, to speak as its master, or to annex its name, its history, or its works unto himself.
Misinformation thrives where activity is measured only by public display. Those who confuse the visible with the real, the frequent with the living, and the loud with the legitimate, have mistaken the character of this Basileia. Rhōmanía is not a project of spectacle. It is the continuation, in miniature and in earnest, of a Roman imperial tradition that has never required the permission of its detractors in order to endure. Its dignity does not increase by argument with those who prefer to describe a State they have not governed, nor diminish because they have chosen to describe it.
The Throne therefore declares the following, with the force of official record:
First. That any narrative which presents the Basileia of the Romans as vanished, dormant through incapacity, or diminished in authority by reason of its reduced public presence, is false.
Second. That isolation, being a settled policy of this State, shall not be interpreted as invitation, as vacancy, or as licence for others to speak in its name, against its name, or as if its name were unoccupied.
Third. That the Basileia reserves to itself the sole right to interpret its own silence, its own works, and its own history. No external account, however artfully framed, shall be received as authoritative.
Fourth. That the Empire will continue, as it has continued, to conduct its affairs according to its own law, its own tempo, and its own measure of necessity. It will neither be hurried into display nor provoked into unseemly contest.
Fifth. That the attempt, known to this Seat for at least two years, by a particular former ally to seize or redirect the project of Rhōmanía during its offline season, is rejected in full. It confers no title, no succession, and no colour of right. Likewise rejected is the attempt by a third individual to gain access to, and to damage, the government and news websites of the Basileia. That design is among the causes of the State's removal of its digital house onto ground it owns and hosts itself.
Sixth. That, as a further and standing layer of policy, all titles, dignities, offices, and honours held within Rhōmanía by persons who are not Rhomaean are hereby terminated and extinguished. Titles borne by Rhomaean subjects remain in force and are untouched by this measure. Henceforth no dignity of the Realm shall be borne, invoked, or presumed by any non-Rhomaean individual.
Seventh. That the territory of the Basileia consists solely of those lands, buildings, and properties which are the legal possession of House Afentoulis and its branches, self-administered in fact as in law; and that the House and the Throne may, at their pleasure, place further such private property under Crown control.
Those who have laboured to construct a picture of Rhōmanía convenient to themselves — whether by recent misinformation or by the older design of appropriation — are answered not with invective but with fact: the State is present and has been present since 2012; the policy is intentional; the work is real; the titles of the Realm belong to the Realm; the land of the Realm is the land of the House. What has been done in quiet will, in due season, be visible to those who have eyes to see it. Until then, the Basileia requires neither explanation from others nor permission from them.
This Communiqué is issued as the official position of the Basileia of the Romans. It is complete in itself. No further commentary from this Seat upon the same matter is required, and none should be expected, unless the Throne itself should judge otherwise.
Given under Our hand at Nea Assoukovia (Novo Ashukovo), on this first day of September, the New Year of the Romans, Anno Domini MMXXVI, Anno Mundi ͵ΖΦΛΕʹ.
E M M A N U E L
In Christ the God faithful Basileus and Autokrator of the Romans, Afentoulis, Rex of Mouzilo, Tsar of Ashukovo, Duke of Pangration, Duke of Thessalia, Duke of Ovrestlia, Boiar of Codru & c.
Βασιλεὺς Βασιλέων Βασιλεύων Βασιλευόντων
King of Kings, ruling over rulers
