This is exactly the problem:
You are turning a Roman imperial identity into a modern Greek ethnic identity.
Modern Greece was created when one part of Orthodox/Rum world separated from the Ottoman imperial order and formed a new nation-state.
That new state had its own government, borders, army, law, diplomacy, and later its own autocephalous Church of Greece.
If “Roman” simply meant “Greek,” then why was the modern Greek state created as a new nation-state through rebellion against the Ottoman Empire, instead of being treated as the direct continuation of the Eastern Roman Empire?
Why did the Church of Greece declare autocephaly in 1833, separating itself from the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Ottoman Constantinople?
Why was modern Greece internationally recognized as a new sovereign state in 1830, instead of being treated as the continuation of the Eastern Roman Empire?
The issue is not whether Greek language and Orthodoxy were important in the Eastern Roman world.
They were.
The issue is that you are using them to erase the difference between:
Roman imperial identity,
Ottoman Rum Orthodox identity,
and the modern Greek nation-state.
These are not the same thing.
Reference List
Britannica Editors (2026) ‘War of Greek Independence’, Encyclopaedia Britannica. Available at: Britannica Academic.
Britannica Editors (n.d.) ‘Church of Greece’, Encyclopaedia Britannica. Available at: Britannica Academic.
Katsikas, S. (2009) ‘Millets in Nation-States: The Case of Greek and Bulgarian Muslims, 1912–1923’, Nationalities Papers, 37(2), pp. 177–201.
Roudometof, V. (1998) ‘From Rum Millet to Greek Nation: Enlightenment, Secularization, and National Identity in Ottoman Balkan Society, 1453–1821’, Journal of Modern Greek Studies, 16(1), pp. 11–48. doi:10.1353/mgs.1998.0024.